Resistance 2 has tons of new ideas crammed into it. Some of them seem to be pure genius, while others seem to be cringe-worthy terrible.

The Great

• Co-op An FPS shooter co-op that plays like World of Warcraft instance runs is a brilliant idea. Even beyond this game, I hope we see future titles flesh this concept out even further.
• Competitive Most other shooters, including Resistance 1, tend to feel too chaotic and aimless. Insomniac sounds like they have some very clever ideas about handling this issue.
• Single-Player Campaign Resistance 1 excelled by delivering a variety of high quality enemies, weapons, and level types. It seems like they will continue to push the boundary in the sequel.
• Technology The massive enemies, the massive environments, the water effects, the animation improvements, and the increased volume of on-screen activity all seem like major tech improvements.

The Terrible

• Angry Macho Marines Gears of War raised the bar on this: Giant, thick, football players angrily shouting and pushing each other and loudly bragging about “curb stomping”. Gears captured all the obnoxiousness of young angry men and I absolutely hated it. Now, Resistance 2 seems to be imitating this exact style of machismo. In this video, you can see it all: young angry hulking space marines angrily shouting and pushing and storming around. Resistance 1 didn’t have a great story, but it was pleasant pulpy background material. The story bits in Resistance 2 just look obnoxious.
• Jokey old-timey Radio Announcer When Fallout 1 did the quirky old-timey humor angle, it was original and funny. Now, it is not. I understand that the game is set in 1950’s America, but they can not pull off the melodramatic goofball humor and they should get rid of it.

Agree? Disagree? Let’s hear it…

User Created Content Has one of Three Problems

• Older Games from a Simpler Era Tons of old games had amazing ecosystems of user created content. In the 80’s there was Eamon and Lode Runner. In the 90’s there was Wolfenstein 3D followed by Doom and Marathon. What happened is clear, as games got more complex, the skills to create content grew more sophisticated, and it became unrealistic for non-professional hobbyists to create content. While it was simple for anybody to create a Lode Runner or Wolfenstein map, almost no one can create content for most current games.
• Too Simple Some games like Syphon Filter or Halo 3 allow simple user-generated content, but they are basically just allowing users to make minor tweaks to the existing game content.
• Too Complex Games like UT3 allow the user a wide range of freedom, but to do something beyond a minor tweak demands large amounts of time, patience, self-management and substantial technical skills. There are also plenty of hobbyist game dev tools such as Flash, Torque, Ogre, or XBLA that face the similar hurdle. There are several success stories, but most of them involve ridiculous quantities of unpaid labor and self-determination from talented programmers and artists.

What’s amazing about LittleBigPlanet

• The Tools are Easy Regular game players can realistically make their own levels. Sure, it’s harder than playing a game and it takes skill and good ideas, but this is well within reach of regular gamers.
• The user-created levels are actually something that other people will want to play Have you seen the user-created LBP levels that are popping up on the web? Wow! These aren’t just tweaks or new map layouts, these levels have completely original themes, visuals, and animations. They look surprisingly fun to play.

In the Japanese print magazine, Famitsu, Sony revealed their first unannounced game for TGS: Demon Souls. This is a “dark fantasy” action RPG developed by Armored Core developers, From Software.

From 1UP:

The way Kajii and From Software director Hidetaka Miyazaki described it, Demon’s Souls is a bit of a hybrid — an RPG that uses the PS3’s hardware to the hilt while still retaining the challenge and exploration of traditional role-players. Your hero can use a wide variety of weapons, each of which has different attacks and animations depending on how skillful you are or whether you’re using one hand or two, and the game’s physics system places natural limits on what’s possible in any given tactical situation. “We gave a lot of thought to how to make the fun and charms of a classic RPG interesting all over again with the latest technology at hand,” Miyazaki noted. “We figured that doing the things that previous hardware ignored — having long weapons bump into walls, lighting the area in realtime with the torch in your hand — would make the game that much more fun. We’re taking the things you did through menus in Wizardry and letting you carry them out in real life.”

(thanks to fleakitten)

TGS (Tokyo Game Show) 2008 starts next week, October 9 through October 12. For the uninitiated, this is one of the big three public gaming expositions, with the other two being E3 for North America and Leipzig GC for Europe.

Highlights

• Nine previously unannounced first/second party (Sony published) PS3 titles, will be unveiled. I’d imagine some of these will be smaller titles, but I’d expect a few big ones. The long anticipated Team ICO title is widely expected (Sony exec Mr. Yoshida recently said that it would be shown “soon”)
• Two third-party PS3 exclusive titles from Konami and Irem will be unveiled and playable at the show.
• Nobi-Nobi Boy, from the original creator of Katamari Damacy, will be shown in non-playable video form. When this game was shown last year, this took the prize for the most obscene and buzz-killing preview footage.
• White Knight Chronicles, the hotly anticipated PS3 RPG from Level 5, will be shown. We haven’t heard anything from this title in quite a while and since Level 5 has recently said that this game will ship on 12/25 in Japan, we can expect a near-final preview build. They claim have some major new features to show.

Pros

• Great Trivia Game I haven’t played a triva in years, and I’ve forgotten how much fun they can be. I played with several non-gamer tyeps and they loved it. If you have social, non-gamer-type friends over, or want to play with kids (my step-daughter can hold her own in the cartoon category), this game is perfect.
• Buzz Controllers Wireless, simple, easy to use, and fun. They’re perfect trivia controllers.
• Large Question Bank I haven’t seen any duplicate questions yet. Very impressive. The game also has some photo and video questions which are fun as well.
• Great Extras Fun couch-photos with PlayStation Eye, user created questions, online modes, DLC trivia packs. (I haven’t had a chance to play with all these extras yet).
• Polish, Presentation, Interface All the animations, transitions, question-modes, and character selection adds a lot of polish to the core game.

Cons

• Wireless USB Dongle This is a minor nitpick, but worth mentioning. The PS3 has native wireless. Why do all custom wireless controllers need a dongle? I think I know the answer but it’s not a good excuse. Bluetooth is more expensive and simple wireless controllers want to use cheaper, simpler RF. Ultimately, the PS3 should have been designed to support custom wireless controllers (whether it’s Bluetooth, RF, or whatever) without the need for USB dongles.
• Limited variety of inter-question transitions, announcer chatter, and animations

Bottom Line

This is a surprise hit. The core trivia game is so utterly simple, I’m surprised how fun it can be. This title pushes the genre with all the polish and extras.

It’s small, and there are no enemies, but it’s still fun to watch:

I heard people having issues with the game freezing and online not working. But I didn’t have a chance to play this game until later last night. So maybe it was fixed by then, because I played for over a hour and it played flawlessly. I even tried online.

I created a game and I noticed there is a friend reserve type option. I thought cool, I can invite and reserve a spot for friends. But no, you can not, or I’m not seeing how to do it.

Anyway the gameplay is great, classic WipEout action in gorgeous 1080P. The have a few new weapons which are fun. The pilot assist mode is perfect for people new to the series, it helps steer you away from the walls. You can turn if off if you want. I finished the first 2 sections of the campaign, and got a few trophies for it already.

Click for full size

The photo above is from the zone mode which looks amazing in motion. The walls and street are just a huge music visualizer. You can see it in the photo. In the zone mode you are alone on the track and with each zone you clear your ship gets faster and the neon looking highway your on, changes color in front of your eyes, it’s a great effect! You just keep going until your ship takes enough damage to fall apart.

WipEout has been around since the PS1 days, I actually remember playing the demo that came with my brand new PS1 long ago before I got my first PS1 game (which was Twisted Metal for the curious).

I’m excited to put together a custom techno playlist for WipEout. In fact NeoGAF has already done that, check it out here.

In short buy this game. It’s a steal at $19.99. It’s everything you want in a futuristic racer and more.

It’s doesn’t get more clear cut than this, folks. Engadget is calling out tech blogs for hating on Blu-Ray.

Engadget is accusing sites of cherry picking a single 13% week over week decline and spinning that into an overall trend, while ignoring neighboring weeks where the format shows much stronger gains and also ignoring other stats showing bigger picture rises in blu-ray sales.

They call out ArsTechnica and Slashdot by name. Engadget writes:

for some reason, the 13 percent drop in Blu-ray sales last week got a lot of attention. What we can’t figure out is why the 30 percent increases during the two weeks before (combined) went unnoticed. It boggles the mind why so many so-called tech evangelists only pick up on the bad weeks

Either way, when movies like the Forbidden Kingdom and TV shows like Terminator are stealing double digits away from DVD, sales are not down. But hey, predicting the end of Blu-ray is just so much more fun than actually analyzing all the data, isn’t it? Ah well, we’ll let the haters hate — meanwhile, we’ll continue to enjoy the highest quality hi-def around.

A report from August on afterdawn.com cites Home Media Research, showing a clear rise on Blu-Ray disc sales:

According to Home Media Research compiled by the Redhill Group, it appears that Blu-ray sales are actually quite solid for the year, and up 300 percent year-on-year from 2007.

The research says that Blu-ray movies are selling at about 1.14 million per month on average for the year, for a total of about 8 million. The combined total for 2006 and 2007 was about 6 million discs sold.

ITWorld also paints a negative picture without citing any market research or any data whatsoever. In an article titled, “Blu-Ray hits the skids, numbers continue to decline”, they write:

The cause could be a variety of factors, from the failing economy to the summer gaming doldrums, but the effect is clear: Blu-Ray as a media format is in decline.

As a side note, here is a tutorial, that just come out today, for writing your own BD-J applications in Java that can be played on any Blu-Ray player.

This is a great update this week. I already have WipEout HD downloading and should be done by the time I get home. Burnout Paradise is a great game, but I’m disappointed that trophies are not retroactive like they said it would be. Not way I’m starting the game over from scratch.

DEMOS

► Burnout Paradise (still available, SP-only I think)
► Mega Man 9
► NBA 09 The Inside
► NBA Live 09

GAMES

► Burnout Paradise - Full game including all updates ($29.99)
► Geon: Emotions ($9.99)
► Mega Man 9 ($9.99)
► Wipeout HD ($19.99)
► Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords (PSP) ($14.99)
► Untold Legends : Brotherhood of the Blade (PSP) ($14.99)

GAME CONTENT

► Buzz! Quiz TV
-National Geographic Safari Quiz ($7.99)
-Quiz Sci-Fi Pack ($5.99)
-Videogames Pack ($5.99)

► Rock Band (all individual tracks $1.99 each)
-Bad Religion - “Sorrow”
-The Cult - “She Sells Sanctuary”
-Hot Hot Heat - “Bandages”
-Kasabian - “Shoot the Runner”
-Sleater-Kinney - “You’re No Rock N Roll Fun”
-Stone Roses - “Love Spreads”

Rush Pack ($10.99)
-The Camera Eye
-Limelight (orig version)
-Red Barchetta
-Tom Sawyer (orig version)
-Vital Signs
-Witch Hunt
-YYZ

► Soulcalibur IV - Customization Equipment 2 ($1.99)

VIDEOS

► Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway - Making Of #4: Eyes Only
► Burnout Paradise - Bikes Trailer
► Dead Space - Animated Comic Issue #5
► PAIN - New Characters Trailer
► Resistance 2 - Shattered History
► Tomb Raider Underworld - Gameplay Trailer

THEMES & WALLPAPERS

► Buzz! Quiz TV - themes
► WipEout HD - theme
► Soulcalibur IV - wallpapers

DEMOS

► Beijing 2008
► MegaMan 9
► Mercenaries 2: World in Flames

GAMES

► Burnout Paradise (€29,99 / £24.99)
► MegaMan 9 (€9,99 / £6.99)
► WipEout HD (€17,99 / £11.99)

► Burnout Legends (PSP) (€19,99 / £14.99)
► Burnout Dominator (PSP) (€24,99 / £17.99)

GAME CONTENT

► Buzz! Quiz TV - Videogames quiz (€4,99 / £3.49)
► High Stakes Poker - Add-On 2 (gratis)

► Rock Band
○ All That Remains Pack 01 (€2,29 / £1.69 or €0,99 / £0.69 per song)
♪ “Chiron”
♪ “This Calling”
♪ “Two Weeks”

○ Rush (€1,99 / £1.49 per song)
♪ “Limelight” - Rush
♪ “Red Barchetta” - Rush
♪ “The Camera Eye” - Rush
♪ “Tom Sawyer” - Rush
♪ “Vital Signs” - Rush
♪ “YYZ” - Rush
♪ “Witch Hunt” - Rush

VIDEOS

► PAIN Amusement Park
-Call Da Shot Trailer
-Trauma Trailer

► Ferrari Challenge - Trailer
► Metal Gear Solid 4 - Game Trailer
► PES 2009 - Trailer
► PURE - Launch Trailer
► Valkyria Chronicles - Trailer

THEMES & WALLPAPERS

► BioShock theme
► Fallout 3 theme

Read the rest of this entry »

Bionic Commando Rearmed was an old game remade with new technology.

Mega Man 9 is a new game built with old technology.

Most people probably prefer the former approach: an old game, re-imagined with new technology. However, in the case of Mega Man, they are doing the opposite. Many fans didn’t like the direction that the series took when they tried to add newer technology to it, so they are reverting to strictly old tech.

I know plenty of fans who are excited to get another classic-style Mega Man. Anyone here in that crowd? Personally, I loved Mega Man back in the day, but I have no desire to return to the technology of NES days.

I e-mailed Insomniac about splitscreen support in Resistance 2, and this is the email I got back:

Hey Henning

This is Bryan Intihar, Community Manager at Insomniac Games. Ryan passed along your questions about splitscreen. I have some of those answers for you:

So far, we’ve confirmed that we’ll have splitscreen (offline) for up to two players in our new co-op mode. Expect more announcements concerning splitscreen as we get closer to launch.

Thanks againfor the e-mail.

–Bryan

Two player splitscreen co-op! Woo-hoo! Resistance 2 is moving up the list again! Unfortunately, nothing else has been confirmed. But things look promising…