By: Derek Matias on August 20th, 2009 pm31 8:18 pm
(Game Unicon Staff rush to get the Convention set-up.)
Tonight I got a chance to preview Game Unicon so I thought I’d give you a sneak peak. As I write this Game Unicon staff are working non-stop to get this event set-up. While one group of staffers are busy setting up “free play rooms” where attendees can go in and play games, others are setting up the tournament room where gamers will go to show off what they’ve got.
(One of many rows of TV’s where gamers will be playing games.)
Aside from free play rooms and tournaments, Game Unicon will offer a free play arcade, concerts, and vendors. There will be multiple vendors selling everything from old-school games to action figures.
(One of the many vendor sections being set-up at Game Unicon.)
The best part is that you can attend for 3 days straight all day, all night. Now seeing as this is the event’s first year you will have to go to find out what it is all about. For up to date information on Game Unicon vist their site at GameUnicon.com
And be sure to check out our coverage of the event over the weekend.
When DJ Hero launches later this year there will be a special “Renegade Edition” that is ‘approved’ by Jay-Z and Eminem. The turntable will feature a black finish with gold controls rather then a grey table with grey controls. In addition to the special color, you will get a case that turns into a stand for your controller. Lastly you will get a 2-disc CD of music by Jay-Z and Eminem including some unreleased tracks. See some more pics after the jump.
Armed with leaflets and picket signs, the Salvationists Against Virtual and Eternal Damnation or SAVED for short, protested outside of the LA Convention Center during E3 on Wednesday. They were their protesting EA’s adaptation of Dante Alighieri’s The Inferno, the first part of three in the epic poem The Divine Comedy. They held signs that read, “EA =Electronic ANTI-Chirst”, “Play Dante’s Inferno, Go to Hell”, “Hell is not a game”, “Trade in your Playstaion for a PRAYstation”, “My high score is in Heaven”, and my favorite “JUST SAY infer-NO!!!”.
The group even has their own website to protest the game. WeAreSavedGroup.org outlines the groups message as to why you should not play Dante’s Inferno. But the site is the quintessential ’horrible site’ with no document title, varying text colors and sizes and lots of animated GIFs. And of course the site and the cheesy posters made many wonder if these protesters were actually real.
Unfortunately according to the AP, the protest was staged. Which leads us to ask the question, If a protest is staged are the protesters lying? And if they are lying, will they go to Hell?
Developed by Black Rock Studio and published by Disney Interactive Studios, Split/ Second added a unique twist to racing games. Instead of giving players weapons to kill their enemies with, Split/ Second gives them the ability to set of traps. The games title comes into play when one of these traps is set. When a trap goes off, like an exploding car, you must react in a split second to avoid it. You also only have a split second to set the trap. You must wait until an opponent has an icon over their head, and then you can set the relative trap.
Another thing about the game is the placement of the information on what place you are in, what lap you are on, if you are drifting or drafting. Instead of placing this information at the top of the screen, it is following the cars bumper.
Considering that the demo I played at E3 was only pre-alpha, Black Rock Studios has a solid game in their line-up. Coming out in Spring 2010, you can get Split/ Second on Xbox 360, PS3, or PC.
In an interview with Shane Kim, Microsoft’s corporate VP of strategy and business development, Gamasutra was told that it would be simple to go back into a game and adapt it to work with Project Natal, Microsoft’s upcoming Motion Detecting Controller.
Hopefully publishers will look at it and decide they want to do that… Whether they’ll enhance existing games or use them in games going forward.
To show an example of how a game could be adapted to use Natal, Burnout Paradise was shown. With Project Natal you could simply hold your hands out like you were holding a steering wheel. Kim mentioned how they adapted the functionality into the game,
It’s a great example of just how simple it is to adapt a game… It’s not like we went into the source code (of Burnout Paradise). You can take an existing game, and make it work.
This would defiantly be a huge selling point if developers went back to their games and added Natal support. It would also help companies revitalize past games that may have lost their buzz.
The latest trailer for the latest game in theNeed for Speed franchise, Need for Speed SHIFT, was released this week at E3. The game being developed by Slightly Mad Studios, is a ’shift’ from the Need for Speed games that you know and love. EA marketing boss Keith Munro told Eurogamer,
The urban underground was a manifestation of style in some past Need for Speed games for sure, but Shift focuses less on these style cues and more on mirroring the driver experience, that athleticism of being in a wickedly-intense race, and what it really feels like to be behind the wheel
The goal of Need for Speed: SHIFT was to be much more like Gran Turismo, to move away from the exagerated driving and try to become as real as possible. One of the major features of the game according to the official description and a representative at E3 is the first-person cockpit view,
Players are thrust into the heart of the action with immersive and exciting features including a stunningly realistic first-person cockpit view camera and an all-new crash mechanic, providing an unrivaled sensation of the speed and feeling of racing a car on the extreme edge of control.
Slightly Mad Studios did not do a bad job with this game, it works well, but it just isn’t Need for Speed. And for my money I would rather buy a game like Project Gotham Racing, Forza, or Gran Turismo. There is a point where a game can become too real. In Need for Speed: SHIFT, when you crash, depending on the severity of the crash a few things will happen. If you are in a light crash your view will turn black and white, and if it is a larger crash your vision will become blurry. This is just annoying and makes it difficult to recover from a crash. Now this wont be a problem for players that are good, but for those casual gamers that just like to go as fast as they can and bump into other cars and walls this game will not be fun.
Again this is not a bad game, it just is not the game that is going to revamp the Need for Speed franchise.
Gametrailers.com has a set of there videos where Chris Lee of Freestyle Games shows off the upcoming DJ Hero with Jamie playing the table. The videos show a detailed view of the turntable controller as well as what it looks like to play through a song. The third video shows how you can use a guitar and the turntable at the same time.
The above video is a developer walkthrough of Tekken 6: Bloodline Rebellion. The walkthrough focuses on the Tekken Force mode in which you will use a hybrid control system of the normal fighting mode mixed with a free run style to help you get around. In this version of the Tekken Force mode items have been added that you can pick up when you defeat an enemy as well as an online cooperative mode. They have also added a mode that is so large it is almost a small game. In this mode you get to play as the robot Nancy-MI87J rather then against it. The robot Nancy-MI87J had been available in the Arcade versions as a bonus stage but you could only battle against it.
Tekken 6: Bloodline Rebellion will be out this fall on PS3, Xbox 360, and PSP, however the PSP will have its own special mode which has not been announced yet.
In Konami’s upcoming game Saw, you play as Detective David Tapp, where you wake up in an abandoned asylum in one of Jigsaw’s games. You will have to interact with other people that will either help you or try to kill you. You will be fighting for your life while trying to find a way out as well as find out the identity of Jigsaw.
The walkthrough shows us some of the traps and puzzles you will encounter. As you search through Jigsaw’s maze you will find clue about why you are there as well as ‘relics’ of past victims.
Yesterday Ubisoft unveiled some gameplay of their upcoming game Assassin’s Creed 2. In the sequel to the popular game Assassin’s Creed you play as Ezio, an assassin in 1486 Venice, Italy. The sequel adds more features to help you kill and escape from all those guards. The presentation showed off some of the new ways you can single and multiple enemies. We also get to see one of Leonardo da Vinci’s inventions, a machine that gives you bird like wings, to help you fly around the area. While on the flying machine you can fly low and take out your enemies. We also get to see how Ezio can distract enemies with a smoke bomb. Be sure to watch the entire video to see all of the cool things you will be able to do in Assassin’s Creed 2.
A new trailer for Namco Bandai’s new PSP game, Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny, came out this week. The gameplay looks like a Soul Calibur game, nothing out of the ordinary. What was exciting though was that Kratos, you know that guy from God of War, will be a playable character in the game and he looks so good. You get to use his Icarus wings, his blades of Athena, and a sword that looks very much like the Blade of Olympus.
Josh Randall, Harmonix Creative Director, confirmed with Joystiq today that any downloadable content for The Beatles: Rock Band will not be compatible with other Rock Band games and vice versa. This does not come as much of a surprise since past games like Guitar Hero: Metallica have not allowed downloaded content to be played in it. The Beatles have also been know for being very specific about their music and how it can be played.
According to MTV Multiplayer, Shigeru Miyamoto was asked for his thoughts on the new motion controls coming from Microsoft and Sony. He response was that:
It’s Nintendo’s policy to test their hardware repeatedly, ensure that it’s accessible and easy to use for anyone, make sure it works, and only then announce it to the public… until this sort of technology is in the users hands, its impossible to judge it.
This seems to be directed more towards Sony as their demonstration was nowhere near being ready for the public, however Microsoft’s Project Natal appears to be ready to go, although Miyamoto may be referring to there not being a playable demo of it at E3.
The upcoming Nintendo Wii game, Wii Sports Resort was shown off at E3 today. In this game you will be able to play 12 activities including Frisbee, Jet Skiing, Kendo, Table Tennis, Golf, Parachuting, Basketball, Archery, Cycling, Bowling, Canoeing, and wakeboarding. Of all of them, Archery was making the most buzz at E3.
During Nintendo’sWii Sports Resort presentation the Archery portion was demoed. The way you play the game is by holding the Wiimote as the bow and the nunchuk as the arrow. The difficulty of the game is described as like real life, as in it requires a great deal of skill. Players will find that the game is not about learning the controls, but doing what comes natural.
When playing you must account for wind, distance, and moving targets. By pulling back further and aiming higher you can arch your shot to hit your target. as you pull back a reticle appears and gets smaller the further you pull back.
This game looks like a lot of fun and we will give our full impressions when we get our hands on it.
Today Sony gave a demonstration of the new motion controls that they are working on. The controller that was used was only an engineering prototype to show off three tech demos. The prototype controller is more like a wand and it has an orb on the end of it that can change color depending on situations in the game. The controller will also have buttons on it to perform actions. The controller is used in conjunction with the EyeToy to track your movements.
The first demo took place in a virtual room where on screen the wand has an object superimposed over it depending on what you are doing. The objects they used as examples ranged from stop signs to guns. The point of this demo was to show off the amazing accuracy and one-to-one tracking of the device on screen. No matter how you hold the controller, it will be tracked accordingly.
In the second demo two controllers were used. This demo was to show how you could interact with a virtual 3D world as if it were right in front of you. The controllers were used to pick up, reposition, and scale objects. In addition they also showed how easy it is to write, draw, and paint with the motion controls. Due to it’s pinpoint accuracy it appeared to be incredibly easy to write and draw. When they were painting they showed how you could use spray paint and by simply rotating the can/ controller you would get a different look.
The third and last demo was to show off combat. In the demo one controller was used for a sword and the other for a shield. It worked exactly as how you would expect it to, the sword would swing exactly how you moved your arm. Then at the end they showed off a bow and arrow that was controlled much in the way that archery is handled in Wii Sports Resort. One hand holds the bow and the other draws the arrow. If you pull back far it will shoot harder, and if you rotate your bow hand the bow will rotate (gangster style as referred to in the demonstration.) then you press a button to release the arrow.
Overall this technology has lots of potential and will put Sony back on the same playing field as Microsoft and Nintendo in terms of controlling and interacting with games.
(One of many rows of TV’s where gamers will be playing games.)
(One of the many vendor sections being set-up at Game Unicon.)
