Other than next week’s Metroid: Other M, Disney’s Epic Mickey is my most anticipated Wii game release this year. (That’s right, Donkey Kong Country Returns? meh.)
Disney recently put out the intro cinematic for the game and in it you can clearly see how much of a dick Mickey Mouse is. I mean seriously, who goes and messes up someone else’s carefully created world by bringing in a darkness of unimaginable horror then bounces back into his own dimension for 50+ years without so much as leaving a courtesy note?
Bed Intruder quickly become ensconced in my top 10 songs of the year from the moment it was released 3 weeks ago. The autotune the news team are talented musical arrangers.
Now, Hayley Williams (Paramore), Jordan Pundik (New Found Glory), and Ethan Luck (Relient K) have taken it upon themselves to cover the song in the only musical style they could have – pop punk.
I <3 my early-mid 2000’s pop punk bands, but this power chord heavy version lacks a certain je ne sais quoi. In fact I’m going to go ahead that the only reason this cover is noteworthy is because of the performers’ celebrity status.
What do you think? Does the fact that “the girl from Paramore” and “the guy from New Found Glory” covered the song make it any more “legit”?
Alright, this trailer for Portal 2’s cooperative gameplay is incredibly short, but I imagine it’s exciting for the throngs of Portal fans out there.
I’m excited for Portal 2 as much as the next guy, but I’m going to play the part of jaded gamer dude and hold it in my pants until we see something truly cool. Call me when they show puzzles where we’ve got to juggle our coop partners with 4 portals on the fly.
Ok, I think I’ve figured out this video for Yeasayer’s Madder Red.
It’s got to be part of an ARG promoting Bioshock Infinite. I can’t believe they would spoil the game this early, but you can clearly see that Kristen Bell’s one armed face-monster rules the clouds at the end of this video. There’s no doubt it’s the final boss.
I’ve really come around on the developer walkthrough video as my pre-game release promotional content consumption of choice.
It offers these two simple, yet crucial, elements:
1) Real gameplay footage without bullshots/cutscene smoke and mirrors.
2) Informative narration straight from the game creators on how the game plays.
Unfortunately, dev walkthrough videos tend to run on the long side, so you have to have a little interest in the title before you commit the time to view them.
Let’s take care of that little detail for Uber Entertainment’s first title, Monday Night Combat.
It’s a class-based third person shooter. Focus is obviously on the 6v6 multiplayer and creating a “Monday Night Football” feel to each match. There’s a rewards and upgrade system where you can level up certain skills in the middle of the match and also on a meta-level between games too. From the looks of things it could be to the Xbox 360 what Team Fortress 2 is to the PC/Mac, especially at the $15 price point.
Sound interesting? Check out the two developer walkthrough videos below:
It may be ultimately pointless and/or sadistic, but something about seeing professionals masquerade amongst the hoi polloi and utterly owning the unsuspecting public in their craft is absolutely enthralling to me.
As part of their Starcraft 2 release coverage last week, TeamLiquid (a professional-level Starcraft community) posted a video of a diamond-level Starcraft 2 player playing through his five mandatory placement matches. Don’t worry if you’re not familiar with the terminology – all you have to know that this guy is really good and the reason he’s matched up against these poor victims is because everyone has to go through this process in order to be placed into the correct skill-level league. Kind of like taking a placement test to see if you’re in the gifted kid class or the short bus class.
You’ll see entertaining things such as writing out “LOL” in Auto-Turret placement in the enemy base or spelling out his online handle in the middle of the map using carefully placed units. You will also see ridiculous strategies utilized such as using double offensive Planetary Fortresses.
Basically, it’s a much nerdier equivalent of Jewel doing undercover karaoke. Well, maybe with more embarrassment for the common man.
(You can start the video at 3:10 if you want to skip past the internet gamer humor introduction.)
When a gyroscope was announced as one of the new features of the iPhone 4 a few weeks ago, I was admittedly a bit nonplussed. After all, didn’t we already have tilt gaming on the iPhone?
Like the Wii Motion Plus, all it took was some hands on gameplay experience before I “got” it.
Eliminate: Gun Range is a simple shooting gallery game that requires the iPhone 4. (supposedly a 3GS version is on the way) You’ll earn credits by hitting a certain target number threshold on a given range scenario. Credits can then be used to unlock more guns and challenge levels to play. The game itself not very original, but the method of control is.
Aiming in Gun Range utilizes the iPhone 4’s gyroscope to present a 1:1 movement to graphics representation on the screen ratio. Think about how fluid the screen display is when you use the camera app to take a picture. Now imagine that smooth display in a game. That’s basically how Gun Range feels. The graphics are also very nice, taking advantage of the Retina Display, but the star of this show is the control scheme.
It’s almost more of a tech demo than a fleshed out game, but there’s enough entertainment in this $0.99 package that it’s worth keeping around to play even after you’re done showing off your new iPhone 4 to your friends. I can’t wait to see where this leads iPhone game developers. If nothing else, we’ll have a great way of aiming in iPhone first person shooters.
From Shinji Mikami (Resident Evil) and Platinum Games/Sega comes this epic game of US robots vs Russian robots over the demise of San Francisco.
Yeah.
It does look pretty fun though. I’m reminded of the fast paced movement of Virtual On with the wackiness of Bayonetta and the big budget effects of Gears of War. If all of those hunches play out, we could have a new standard for awesome.
I’ll definitely be checking this out at E3 next week.
Band Pairings I Never Would Have Conceived of: Ben Bridwell (Band of Horses) with Pearl Jam covering All Along The Watchtower.
Having seen it in action though, can’t say it didn’t help my mental judgment of Bridwell. Dude can play a tambourine hard. Maybe if Band of Horses rocked harder, I would find their latest album, Infinite Arms, less… mediocre.
Our boys in Underworld (along with Welsh DnB producer, High Contrast) have finally evolved one of their old live standbys, “You Do Scribble” into a delightful new single.
Nothing like some inspiring drum and bass to get you through that early morning commute or run. Can’t wait for the full 8 minute long version of this. Feels like this 3 minute radio edit is just the taste of something grand.
Scribble? I’ll do you one further and Scrobble the heck outta this song.