Friday, January 15, 2010

All Beyond Good & Evil fans: join me in saying "Hip-hip-huh?"

So apparently Beyond Good & Evil 2 is still in development, according to IGN and Ubisoft. This is stark contrast to comments made by Ubisoft president, Laurent Detoc, last July which gave the feeling BG&E2 had been put on indefinite hold or scrapped altogether.

At the time, Detoc said: "Whether or not it comes out remains to be seen anyway, but we didn't want to abandon that IP because it has a cache and authenticity about it," Detoc said at the time. "There's something very pure about that game and it's too bad that we were not able to build it as an IP at the time."

Wait...you're telling me that you're company is continuing to spend time and money on developing a game that you're not even sure will be released. Yeah, sure, that makes sense...to a crazy person. Although it's better than the alternative of the game being scrapped altogether.

So I'm not sure who these sources at Ubisoft are, but I wish they'd been a little more detailed. Anyways, enjoy the original teaser video (confirmed as being in-game by Ubisoft) as well as leaked footage that is, for some reason, still debated as to whether or not it's in-game, actually BG&E2, or even real at all. Courtesy of those crazy bastards at IGN.

For those of you that don't care because you didn't play the first game (which was the majority of you or the sequel wouldn't be on such shaky ground): the biggest, fattest "Shame on you" I can muster. Because you missed out on an absolutely FANTASTIC game. And since it came out on Gamecube, Playstation 2, Xbox AND PC I recommend you go pick it up right now and play it. Chances are you have one of those systems around, or a backwards compatible successor, if you're even at this site in the first place. Go. No, don't waste time watching these videos, GO! NOW!

Teaser


Leaked Footage

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Get your hands on 2 More Heroes. I mean, No More Heroes 2 hands-on


Chances are, if you're a "core" gamer looking for something outside the casual titles the Wii is famous for, you've played No More Heroes. The good news for you is not only is the game getting a sequel, subtitled Desperate Struggle (How did you not already know that? Psh!) but IGN has gotten some hands-on time and even written about it! And now, i'm going to re-write what they wrote! W007, indeed, but try to contain yourself.
According to IGN writer Mark Bozon, who had hands-on time with the game (lucky bastard) it's so good that he quadrupled the one-hour play time limit he set for himself. Given what he tells us in the rest of the article (and the first game itself) i'm inclined to believe him, although maybe with a little less of his excessive enthusiasm.
It looks like Grasshopper Manufacture, the game's developer, has taken the criticisms of the first game's travel in the overworld, job mini-games and hotel homebase to heart and made significant changes to each system. The oddball, slightly perverted, humor of the first game and gratuitous violents are still filly intact and ready to make you smirk, if nout laugh out loud, while playing.
Even the time passed in between the is given a humorous treatment. Your pet cat has gotten fat and, in fourht-wall shattering moment, main character Travis demands his love interest tell him what happened between the games. Of course she claims the player (that's you, jerk) would just skip the explanation anyway. Now, don't you feel bad?
Starting off in your hotel you'll find plenty to do before even getting into the game. You can play mini-games with your cat, and try to make her lose that "vacation" weight, or mess around with your TV, also making the return as a changed...thing. The TV now includes a minigame titled BJ5 (yes, that does mean what you think it does) that seems to be aiming to lampoon classic anime Sailor Moon. The stars of BJ5 are 5 girls of unrealistic, but anime norm, hotness that don't shy away from showing their undies, and more, when changing into their superhero outfits. BJ5 sounds like quite the in-depth game itself with mini-bosses, bosses and even a gameworld leaderboard which, when topped, unlockes a video that Bozon claims is hilarious.
Once you journey outside your hotel, you'll find a completely revamped overworld map that moves you from place to place without any need take your motorcycle on long treks back and forth across the game world.
The new map system operates exclusively through a menu system. For those that just groaned at how boring that sounds, the creators of the game have hinted at some type of free-roaming sections. The new system, however, seems like quite the speedy and headache free setup, something that can't be said for the previous game's method. Upon entering the outside world, the map gives you a birds-eye view of a grey Santa Destroy with a color-coding system applied to all missions, jobs, revenge quests and shopping. Simply select which one you want via the menu, and you're there.
Which brings us to the new job system and its rewards. All of the job minigames in NMH2 have been reconfigured into an NES art style. Everything from sucking up bugs in Bug Out to fixing up plumbing in Lay the Pipe (ala BioShock) gets a very retro treatment. Beside the fun factor of the new minigames, it sounds like the money they earn you will be a lot more fun to spend. Bozon claimes all the new clothes and light-saber like Beam Katanas available for purchase actually warrant the time spent gathering extra cash in the minigames.
Unfortunately the article doesn't go into the meat of the game, combat, missions, etc other than saying "Just wow" to game's second major fight (am I the only one that thinks IGN's getting lazy when it comes to the quality of their articles?) but you can see that for yourself in the original article right here.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Wii watch movies! (Are the Wii puns old yet?)

According to Engadget the Wii will be able to stream movies from Netflix sometime this spring.

This is a much bigger boon for Wii fans than it was when implemented into the PS3 or 360 as the Wii doesn't have a downloadable video library of its own. It will have limitations however. Since the Wii itself isn't capable of outputting resolutions higher than the relatively standard 480p HD movies will not be available. Also, just like the PS3, a disc will be required to stream movies. However, since the PS3 supposedly has a software update in the works to remove the need for a disc we can probably expect something similar from the Wii at some point down the road.

Friday, January 8, 2010

What Wii should be playing.

It seems lists are kind of the thing to do right now, as IGN has taken it upon themselves to assemble blurbs on the Wii's top 25 games to date. If you want to know what games to add to your Wii library, or are just looking for a reason to convince yourself or your spouse to pick up a Wii, this is your place to look. And for those of you that feel ashamed for cheating on your PS3 or 360 with your wife/girlfriend's Wii, you can find yourself some proper "core gamer" titles to pick up and lighten the load on your conscience. They also have video montages of each of the 25 titles to accompany the written word, and if a picture's worth a thousand word's, there's a whole lot of wordiness going on in this article. But I'll let you get to it, check out the Top 25 Wii Games at IGN.