Konami what the hell were you thinking?

Well at E3 this year, 2008, Konami unveiled yet another music game involving a guitar, yes a guitar. It is going to be called rock revolution and I assume will be out for the consoles and play much like guitar hero and rock band. BUT WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING KONAMI. What makes you think anyone would go into Bestbuy and go, hey there is guitar hero, o there is rock band, never mind that hell I’m getting ROCK REVOLUTION. What makes Konami think consumers would rather just skip the entire selection they are already familiar with, and just get some new thing called Rock Revolution. I sure know I would because it has such a cool and original name! From the E3 showing the game play looks hard and confusing (the executive failed her own game, imagine if in call of duty showing, the player died in the first minute.) with vertical and hard to see “buttons” cascading on a virtual guitar. Besides the guitar isn’t even compatible with the guitar hero or rock band guitar. That’s like having the Xbox release a Wii controller, there is no need for it and that’s what the Wii is for. (O wait, I forgot.) It’s not that this game is horrible, but we already have this, we don’t need another. Konami just what on earth were you thinking?

A port to many

Tecmo coming to DS



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It seems that the avalanche of great games has stalled, and now only a trickle of AAA games are coming to the ds as Nintendo already burned through their franchises (unless we happen to see brawl on sometime soon on the DS), and about now the only AAA original games are by square enix (and 45 bucks for a regular game WTF!!) So what do Nintendo producers do, well why think of new games, HELL PORT 'em, and that’s what they did.

So we have already have and are getting lots of ports for the ds (hell it worked for the psp why not the ds) final fantasy, Mario 64, diddy Kong racing, Mario party, and it has also been announced that a pure chrono trigger port (by pure I mean little change/adjustment) is also coming and I can’t wait! But this is getting ridiculous, I mean how many games need remade? Of course ports are great choices for publishers, you don’t need story, characters, and if gamers loved it back then why not now? But there was one port that caught my attention, that is tecmo super bowl.

why the hell do you need a tecmo super bowl? I know, I know, it was sooo great and soooooo fun, and soooo simple, but that was in 1991, 16 hole fuc*ing years ago. I mean it was great back then but now? with only 16 total plays at a time, no NFl license (thank EA for that), and graphics that look like running blocks?! I mean come on! That’s like porting over top gun, nothing new, same everything, and how many people would shell out thirty bucks to buy a game that might as well come as unlockable or bonus content for a new game (contra 4 maybe). But with just the bare bones (well it’s not awful, just not good compared to today’s standards) and the only thing it has going for itself is the name TECMO, and simplicity.

My main compliant isn’t that tecmo kickoff is bad, just old and outdated. Especially when you compare it to say madden for the ds with amazing graphics (for a ds game of course), tons of customization, multiplayer, in depth everything, and it actually is real football, tecmo just seems so shallow in comparison. It may be a great 5 bucks for the virtual console, but a fully fledged ds game? I don’t think so.

C.O.R.E preview

C.O.R.E preview

Story

The new trailer for a game called C.O.R.E is apparently about the adventure of Jason Craig. A special forces soldier sent to investigate. The background story goes a little like this... mysterious meteorite that lands some where in the Mojave desert. The resulting radiation explosion and radiation cause some weird effects such as a jungle growing in the crash site. So of coarse the government has to send in a group of researchers and scientist that surprise they must go underground to research. Something goes awry... yadda yadda long story short kill everything that breathes.

HEY LOOK I FOUND A TRAILER!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTCasFeRNQY

O wait I guess doom doesn't count. Damn

Gameplay

Even though the story screams doom. It's still acceptable, considering unless you have final fantasy or phantom hourglass you never really play ds games for their story.
Game PlayThe game play doesn't look that bad in actuality (well except for the same death animations. I like to point out in the trailer were a guy gets blasted by a shotgun and falls forward! What a tough bastard.)The array of weapons sounds impressive, from the standard shotgun, rockets, and assault rifle to something called the plasma gun, with eight total and alternate fire, it sounds like one beefed up hand held arsenal.I assume the game will control a lot like metriod prime hunters, which isn't bad at all. The way that works is by using the d pad as WASD or arrow keys on the computer and using the stylus as the mouse.

The levels look crowded, underground, and dark (cough doom cough), but it seems to have a maze like but a nonlinear feel to it, just meaning more then one path to take, but still essentially from point A to point B it might get repetitive after 14 levels. The website also hints at simple touch puzzle,s and vehicle driving, and turret gunning, if performed right it might give a fresh change of pace, but if done wrong may feel like a chore. Another interesting thing, the website mentions is 20 enemies, which I assume that to be an inflated by many enemies being different versions of each other. Like a scientist zombie vs. a guard zombie. So the game play looks to be a ok if not good experience.

Presentation

My expectations is that this game will excel in some graphic areas and fall flat in others. The character and environment models I believe will do very poorly. As seen in the trailer all characters look essentially the same and from the trailer you can see that every character has the same death animation, falling on their knees then their face, original. The environment and textures also looks extremely bland with nothing but dark, don't get me wrong, depressing and murky has been great for some hand held games like advanced wars days of ruin, but a 3D hand held game with murky and bland textures don't mix.On a more positive note I think the special effects will be excellent, with great particle effects, dynamic lighting (yes even with bland textures dynamic lighting can work miracles), weather effects, ricochets, bullet holes hell you name it.

Multiplayer

This is where i think core will stand out. Probably not as robust as wifi compared to other games (the studio hasn't it announced as feature yet, but hopefully it will be there.) But what really standout is 3 players using one card, which is an amazing feat considering all the options and guns available. (each player when starting out the weapons they choose) Along with team deathmatch and king of the hill finally a capture the flag mode for a hand held game. The potential is there, its just how they use it. Also letter boards and stat tracking are being added.

Conclusion

Core might be taking elements that have worked for other game and combining them on a hand held but that's ok, with mediocre graphics, but good effects and a promising multiplayer, this game might turn out great, or crap but its all on how its the elements are treated.