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Jan

EAG Expo 2010

Categories: Article and Game News
Tags: 2010, arcade, bandai, Cooking Ma Ma, EAG Expo, namco, Tank Tank Tank, Terminator

It’s funny how your hear about things pretty much last minute. This past weekend our video contributor MarkBOSS told me about an amusement and gaming expo happening this week at the Excel center in London. So this past Tuesday I put on my gaming journalism hat and hit the Excel center.

Now this was only my second ever expo, and compared to Eurogamer, this was pretty different, it was also a lot quieter for one thing. As this was an Amusement and Gaming Expo, the split between actual arcade video games and coin operated amusements was about a 60/40 split, with the coin operated amusements taking the 60 % portion of the Expo floor. Which wasn’t too bad, but from a games journalism point of view wasn’t that great. Most of the gaming machines that were present at the expo I had seen before in the likes of the Trocadero and the bowling ally where I used to play arcade game back in Wiltshire.

But fear not readers, as there were some gems buried in what was a rather mixed bag of an expo. So without further ado, I shall reveal to you my highlights of the EAG Expo 2010.

Terminator Salvation: Arcade Edition.

Imagine Rambo arcade, mixed with some House Of The Dead. Once you have thought long and hard about what that interesting concoction of the FPS arcade genre would be like, throw in the story line and post apocalyptic scenery of the film Terminator Salvation, and you have what is surprisingly a pretty good game.

You are John Connor. You are heading the resistance, an army of humans who are trying to defend earth from the recent onslaught of the machines. The war against human and machine has raged on for some while now and it is time for you to make a stand. Armed with your plastic assault rifle it is time to kick some robot butt.

This arcade title is great for two reasons. 1) it’s the classic point and shoot mechanic we are used to in an arcade game - as I said before, the game play is reminiscent of Rambo arcade, in that you are constantly machine gunning enemies down, after doing so you are then faced with House Of The Dead like boss battles where you have to hit weak spots on a gargantuan machine beast in order to defeat it. It is truly a great mix and one hell of a stress killer. Reason number 2) The innovative way of using the plastic assault rifle. We are all used to arcade games where we either have to lift our foot off a pedal to reload or shoot away from the screen. In order to reload on Terminator Salvation however, you must hit a chunky button on the bottom of the magazine on the gun. Very simple but good thinking. There is also a nice red button for you to push on the side of the gun to unleash some grenade fury, everyone loves to push the little red button on the side of the gun.

So for me Terminator Salvation, is a good arcade game and defiantly one to look out for, especially if you have always dreamed about killing legions and legions of T-1000 mechaniods with an assault rifle.

Cooking Mama Arcade.

I can hear the groans already, the gamers dropping to their knees screaming “Why God? WHY!?” as they read the title of this section of the article. But can I just ask you gamers out there one question? When was the last time you saw a DS game have an Arcade machine port?

Yes the original DS version of Cooking Mama is probably going to make its way to an arcade near you soon. I had a go at it and to me, it’s not the greatest arcade game in the world, you have a chunky stylus to make your culinary delights with, and like in the DS game you have to progress through a number of mini games to create a marvelous meal. If you do well in these mini games you will have a happy Mama and some nice virtual nosh to tuck into, if however you do badly in these mini games you will then have a ticked off Mama and a meal fit for the next plague infested vermin you happen to come across.

So as you can see, the game play is not on par with good old Terminator up there, but the transition from DS game to Arcade machine is very well executed. Maybe the recent outing Cooking Mama had on the Wii was partly responsible for the idea in the first place, but with this game you still get the good clean cooking fun your used to from your handheld.

Tank Tank Tank!

This has to be the game of the show in my opinion - battletank games have always been rated highly for me. There is nothing like squaring off against your friends in a tank and blowing each other up to smithereens. So when Namco and Bandai took the idea of Battletanks and improved it tenfold I could not help but smile at this stroke of genius.

The game mode MarkBOSS and myself played was a 2 on 2 battle royale; where we were thrown into a suburban environment and left to blow the other team sky-high. All buildings that are inconveniently in your path are destructible, which is extremely satisfying. As you play, Mario Kart-esque question mark boxes fall from the sky. Once collected, you gain a new weapon, whether it is a huge laser gun, flurry of rockets, mini gun or nuclear bomb is totally set at random. I believe there are more weapon variants also but I didn’t pick them up.

What I thought was pretty good was how responsive the seat movement was. If you play extreme driving games at the arcade you are usually thrown about as the seat basically has a fit when you slide round corners, etc. But Tank Tank Tank! is in an element of its own, each weapon you use makes the chair respond differently. Normal tank fire makes the chair jolt slowly, where using the mini gun you are almost shaking so much you teeth my rattle out of your mouth. This is such a great little detail that it rounds the game off nicely.

So if your local arcade gains a copy of Tank Tank Tank! I suggest you jump straight on and destroy your friends. I believe there is a single player campaign mode also, if you just wanna kill some time in the arcade by yourself in a lunch break.

Other Worthy Mentions

Vulcan . M

The first arcade game that uses a replica turret mounted Minigun, which is fully mechanical. The turret whirls around at a rate of knots (ten revolutions a second so I am told) and a stream of bullet cases gets sucked into the machine. A very pretty looking arcade game, the game play however, I though was somewhat confusing story line wise, whether it had a story line really I’m not sure. Shooting world war planes and missiles out of the sky makes sense, but when a space ship comes out of no where in what seems to be a realistic World War scenario, it kinda feels a bit disjointed. But other than that a brilliant idea and a very pretty piece of machinery.

The First Ever Coin Op Candy Floss Machine

I had to mention it. Ivan Campbell, the director of Candy Floss Irland stopped me while I was walking round, to show me his coin operated candy floss machine. Didn’t seem that impressive to begin with but its the only one in the world and make damn tasty candy floss within a minute. Also plays some funky music while you wait. I also got some free Candy Floss. WIN!

The EAG expo was a good outing. I thoroughly enjoyed all the arcade games on offer (even if I had played most of them before. and yes Rambo arcade was there, so I had to use both 1p and 2p guns to se how long I would last using both) and it was a great day out. Will do it again next year to see if there are even more new arcade games to hit in 2011.

Garv.

Dec

Time Crisis 4 – Worth splashing out on?

By Garvaos Leave a Comment

Categories: Review
Tags: arcade, guncon3, namco, playstation, ps3, shooter, time crisis 4

Recently I did a post on how arcades are a dying breed, and have been for about the last decade or so. One of the reasons I gave for this statement was this generation of home consoles, have finally caught up with their arcade counterparts and are now beating them down to the ground as we speak.

Earlier in the year, my family turned to what some Xbox fanboys might call ‘the dark side’ and got a PlayStation 3. Now my mum surprisingly love arcade shooters such as Time Crisis (+5 cool points there) and she went and got Time Crisis 4 for the new shiny Japanese console. While my first reaction was some thing along the lines of ‘How damn cool is that!?’ I then took a step back and thought, is this such a great idea? But me being me, I don’t like to judge books by their covers. So grab a cuppa and take a seat as I will tell you about my time with the PS3 port of Time Crisis 4.

titleart

This version of the 4^th Time Crisis title doesn’t stray too much from the original arcade machine outing, in that you have the same cheesy over-the-top American storyline and characters that the original arcade game had; this is your typical Time Crisis game, whatever platform you choose to play it on. The low-down story wise is some terrorists have launched a biological weapon, known as ‘Terror Bite’. In a nut shell this weapon is just a load of genetically engineered bugs that will chew through any human being alive, So in true arcade style shooter fashion, your mission is to shoot your way through the game to stop these terrorists.

This is classic Time Crisis really, the PlayStation 3 version however is missing the pedal, which the Time Crisis series is really famous for, being one of those things that makes the Time Crisis series differ from your average arcade shooter.

screenshot

Speaking of hardware, I have to outline the huge FAIL Namco have done here with the PlayStation 3 port of the game. Now I don’t know if it’s my family getting a gargantuan sized TV, or Namco themselves not taking into account that people like to buy gargantuan TVs (bet you can see where I am kinda going here) but when you buy Time Crisis 4 for your PS3 you will have a nice day-glow orange light gun controller and two receivers for the gun, which are joined together by some wiring. The idea being you have to put each receiver on each end of the TV. The problem I had with it though is that the main HD TV I was playing it on is a whopping 55 inches, meaning the receiver could not reach each corner because the wire joining them together wasn’t long enough. It was still playable…till about half way through my play time. There is a bit in the game where you have to turn, by aiming the gun to the left or right hand side of the screen. I physically couldn’t move and was getting a lead pummeling from both sides, while I just stood there and watched a ceiling-mounted water sprinkler trying to put out a non-existent fire… awesome.

This isn't a shot of my actual TV, but you get the idea...

Hardware fails aside, something still lacks here, and I really cannot put my finger on it, I mean the gameplay is still the same-ish (minus the pedal, it’s just a lot of moving the gun about). Maybe it’s because you have to be in a room the size of a small town hall to really play it; or at least dismantle all your furniture in the living room. Die Hard Trilogy on the PSone never had this much trouble.

To be frank I am disappointed. I wanna pick up a game and play it. Not pick up a game and have to assemble it like Ikea furniture before I get a chance to play, there is a time and a place for assembling things, and playing a video game isn’t that time or place. So take it from me, hitting the arcade and playing Time Crisis 4 is a lot less frustrating.

-Garvaos

Nov

Tekken 6

By Leon Leave a Comment

Categories: Preview
Tags: arcade, heihachi, jin, kazuya, namco, ps3, tekken, Xbox 360

cast

Tekken has been a series that I’ve always had mixed feelings about – when I was younger I remember getting Tekken 3 on the PS1 for Christmas one year, and being hooked for hours on end – the colourful cast and varied move sets keeping me entertained – Ling Xiaoyu, Jin Kazama, Heihachi Mishima and Hwoarang being among my personal favourites. It really gave me a sense of variation, whilst being easy to learn. At the time, it was my favourite fighter of all, and I also got hold of copies of Tekken Tag Tournament (which I loved for its wide roster) and Tekken 5.

However, over the years I lost interest in the series – while I still appreciate the cast of characters, something felt missing in Tekken 5, and something about it just didn’t make the cut for me – perhaps it was the new characters such as Raven making me feel somewhat alienated, or maybe it had just been too long since I had been hooked to the series, but after a bit of play I barely touched it again. As an adult, I now find myself a big fan of the Street Fighter titles and Capcom’s VS series’, which feel a lot more technical and somewhat more complex than the other fighters out there. However, with an open mind I have been looking into the latest in the series, and even had a go at it at the recent Eurogamer expo.

The new title is the first to leave the Playstation brand consoles, this time being released on both PS3 and Xbox 360, which is unsurprising seeing the Xbox’s recent successes this generation. The title is set after Tekken 5 and Tekken 5: Dark Ressurection, focusing on a power struggle between Jin, Kazuya and all of the other characters involved – as always this leads to everyone fighting each other, giving the arcade title a bit of background story.

xiaoyubrian

From what I played, I tested Xiaoyu and Kazuya, in the versus mode against a human opponent. The game felt very much like other Tekken titles, although a few new things have been added. These features include a new “Rage” ability, which can be activated once a player’s life has depleted below a certain level, which adds a new way to turn the tide of battle, and a few touches to the engine; such as the ability to stun an opponent by smashing them with a heavy attack. Although these features are nice touches, when I played I couldn’t help but feel that the characters felt a bit different to control – whereas Xiaoyu was a character I have always been comfortable with, I found that the moves wouldn’t always perform as easily as I’m used to, although I couldn’t work out the exact reason for this – perhaps the button timing has been tweaked, or I’m simply out of practise. However, the characters all seemed to retain their signature moves, such as Eddie Gordo’s capoeira attacks, and King’s wrestling moves.

jinkazuya

As well as the regular cast of characters, the title introduces six new characters, but they seem a bit mixed. Firstly, there’s Leo – a German female who looks like she wants to be Jin, donning similar red gloves and dressing like a boy. Secondly we have Lars, a new son of Heihachi (so Kazuya’s half brother) who looks cool, and should pack some nice abilities with his bloodline. Alisa serves as Tekken 6’s cute-but-deadly character, a robot in disguise with a range of nasty mechanical moves, while Zafina takes the place of the games femme-fatale, the scantily clad warrior in the vein of Nina Williams. Spaniard Miguel looks like a disco drop-out with puffy hair, who could either be quite cool, or tacky as hell. And lastly we have Bob, who seems to be the all-too-common “fat fighter” (no, not like Little Britain), looking like a cross between Street Fighter’s Ken and Rufus. As I said – a mixed bag, but it looks like there’s at least a couple of worthwhile additions in there.

zafina

Much like the predecessors, Tekken 6 is a graphical overhaul but is very much in the same vein as the past titles. Alongside the regular Arcade and Versus modes, as well as a new “Scenario Campaign” which takes place of the old Tekken Force and Devil Within modes, set in a free environment which can be walked around in a more “Streets of Rage” style – this looks improved from the previous versions, although I haven’t been able to play it – but hopefully it will feel a bit deeper than Devil Within was.

All in all, Tekken 6 seems to be more or less what would be expected – a new Tekken game with updated graphics, the odd tweak and the regular cast with a few additions. Personally I found the combat felt a little different to control, but no doubt this would become normal after some practice - as far as I could tell the actual controls were more or less the same, only it took me a few attempts until the move I was trying to do actually worked. Tekken 6 didn’t blow me away with anything in particular, but will no doubt be enjoyed by fans of the earlier titles. I think I’ll stick with Street Fighter until this goes down in price, but I believe everyone has a fighter title that suits them best; Tekken just isn’t mine any more. I’m sure many people will enjoy this game, all in all – it does what it says on the tin, only now there are two tin designs – either the one marked “Playstation 3″ or the all-new “Xbox 360″ version.

-Leon

Sep

Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny (PSP)

By Leon Leave a Comment

Categories: Preview
Tags: broken destiny, god of war, kratos, namco, PSP, soul calibur

Soul Calibur is a series that I’ve never been totally sure about – I’m quite picky when it comes to fighting games, and generally I’m more of a Street Fighter fan. However, I do own a copy of Soul Calibur IV, and when I got it I enjoyed playing it for a while. The combat is easy to pick up, yet it does feel as though there’s an element of mastery that the player can pick up, with blocks, reversals and counters and the like. I also quite enjoy the weapon aspect to the game – giving the creators more room for varied characters such as Ivy with her whip-sword, and Taki with her dual ninja blades.

Tomorrow, we will see the release of Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny on PSP (whether or not its release on the same day as Square-Enix’s Dissidia fighter release is a coincidence I am uncertain). The game will feature over 30 characters, including all of the main characters included in Soul Calibur IV(excluding Star Wars/Bonus characters), and in true Soul Calibur fashion includes a new game cameo character – God of War’s Kratos. There is also a brand new character, Dampierre, who looks a little like a cartoon villain with an overly large moustache and top hat.

The gameplay itself looks as fluid as the console counterpart – obviously the game’s graphics have been toned down but it seems they have managed to recreate the game on the handheld platform without losing much in fluidity or quality. It seems the game is faithful to Soul Calibur 4 in terms of its combos and special moves, and it looks as though there are still plenty of attacks for each character.

Kratos himself looks like a very nicely made character – Namco have managed to keep his attitude and attacks true to the God of Wargames, while keeping him suitable for the Soul Calibur gameplay. He looks to have a wide range of moves, and also uses abilities and alternate weapons seen from the series. Although I somewhat feel that Soul Calibur’s use of cameo characters shows an obvious marketing ploy, I am a fan of God of War, and it seems they’ve done Kratos justice.

The character creation mode from the more recent Soul Calibur titles returns in this title, which was personally one of my favourite features. Although some aspects, such as changing muscularity and physical attributes have sadly been left out of this title, the game will allow you to have some control over the size, position and rotation of certain clothing and accessories which could be a very nice addition. With 16 custom character slots, there should be a fair amount of room for creativity – assuming there’s a decent selection of unlockable clothes. With the PSP’s Playstation Network connectivity, I wouldnt be surprised if we might see some DLC to expand upon the wardrobe at a later date.

The game offers a few different modes, but there seems to be one major flaw – the game lacks a standard Arcade mode, which is generally the ‘main’ core of solo gameplay in fighting games. The game offers Quick Match mode, which allows players to choose from a lobby of random virtual opponents, however they are all Custom characters, rather than the standard game characters. The second mode of the game is the Gauntlet, which is like a giant Tutorial mode, consisting of various stages that require you to perform certain actions or techniques. Next we have Trials mode, which consists of Attack and Defence stages that score you depending on your use of combo chains or defensive skills respectively, and also Endless Trial which is somewhat like Survival Mode, perhaps the closest thing to Arcade that the game offers. Lastly we have Training mode, although this seems a bit superfluous with the long Gauntlet mode.

The game does have Versus mode, although sadly there is currently no online capability or 1P vs CPU play. Therefore it is solely for Ad-Hoc – which means you’ll need to know someone else who has the game to use this feature.

The game is also one of the first PSP titles to include the “Data Install” option which allows you to install data from the UMD to your memory stick in order to drastically reduce loading times - a nice addition.

All in all, the gameplay is looking good – rather than a ‘watered down’ Soul Calibur title, Broken Destinylooks to offer real Soul Calibur gameplay. However, the lack of a basic Arcade mode seems to be such an unnecessary flaw that the title looks to be incomplete – the game has more Tutorial modes than actual gameplay modes. And with all that training, there’s no online play so human competition will be hard to come by unless they release an update at a later time, or you have a lot of friends who happen to love Soul Calibur.

Broken Destiny seems to be a great fighter, yet is let down by its flawed selection of basic game modes. If you’re a big fan of Soul Calibur, I’d recommend you give this a shot – but personally I’ll be opting for Dissidia: Final Fantasy tomorrow.