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Tying off a four-game joint-venture with Sega that includes Bayonetta, MadWorld and Infinite Space, Platinum Games released a debut trailer on their blog for Vanquish, their kept-behind-closed-doors game. Vanquish looks set to try and finish the partnership with Sega on a high-note, as the one and a half minute trailer packs a lot of punch.
Anyone who looks at things with a “glass half-empty” perspective will note that the trailer features pretty much no gameplay footage and has a very striking similarity to Halo. But as Wonderwall Web interestingly noted, the Quantum Theory trailer released a little while back is another shooter-based Japanese IP that bares a striking similarity to Gears of War. Maybe Japanese developers are looking to pay tribute to the games that us western gamers love so much, or maybe it’s to cash in on the success they’ve seen?
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Following clergy accusation that Capcom’s Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles promotes the occult, spokesperson Leo Tan has thrown down a calculated response of surprising sass and passion.
The Wii’s spiritual successor to the manoeuvrably inept Survivor series came under criticism from Bishop Bryant of Jarrow, Archdeacon Brian Smith and Rt Rev John Goddard for its glamorisation of violence and suggested promotion of the occult. Goddard, speaking for the triumvirate, said “if we dabble in this area we open ourselves to influences and put ourselves at risk”. Although surely not as ill-informed as to imply that a distinctly last generation shaky-cam rail shooter would breed anything resembling The Exorcist, he continues “I would regard any encouragement for children to be drawn into this behaviour with extreme horror”.
Despite being little more than a reactionary knee jerk, the trio’s religious credence elevated the complaint above traditional tabloid hubbub. In response, Tan, speaking like an atheist scorned, cried “This is scaremongering and typical religious hysteria. You cannot blame society’s ills on video games. It’s just absurd”.
Just as I thought Microsoft were scraping the bottom of the barrel when it came to promotions and advertising, this little gem pops up. To celebrate Memorial Day and remember those who have fallen in conflict, we get to shoot each other in the face. Recreating the battles we are solemnly thinking about. Fantastic.
In their own words:
Memorial Day, originally known as Decoration Day, was first observed in 1868 to pay tribute to casualties of the Civil War. In addition to honoring our service men and women who have fallen in battle, this holiday also marks the unofficial start of summer, and Xbox LIVE is ready to kick it off with a bang.
NerdfitTV Returns with Resident Evil 5!
Comments and ideas welcome for future videos. <3
“Survival Horror” is met with the same facial expression as “karaoke” or “mushrooms” when said to me. You get not just scorn, but also mild disgust and disappointment that you even tried. I understand that some people are wrong and like these things, but I, as a sane person, don’t. Or so I thought. As it turns out I’ve been horribly mislead. About Survival Horror anyway, mushrooms and karaoke can still go to hell.
Last Saturday I had a chance to head down to Sony HQ in the heart of London, thanks to Capcom, to play what I thought was my mushroom equivalent video game. Also, before I begin, big thanks to the sexy and humpable Hamza CTZ of Destructoid fame for passing on the invite.
I think it only fair to explain my wrongness with the genre. I never played survival horror games as a kid. I also never watched scary films. They scare me and I’m really bad at having nightmares. When I started getting into gaming I was embedded into twitch FPS’s and the through of these “bad controls” I heard so much about really put me off. I got up to the first zombie in Resident Evil 4 before stopping. I wasn’t even going to give it a chance.
Then people started complaining about crap controls, not running and gunning etc. in Resident Evil 5. I’ve played what some people have called a “survival horror” with running and gunning. It was called Dead Space and I hated it. Surely people can’t want this? No. Survival horror was enjoyed by those masochists who love their bad controls. And it needs to stay that way.
I argued seemingly endlessly with people about how the controls are designed to be crap, how the tiresomely slow speed, although I hate it, is meant to be that way. Otherwise it wouldn’t be survival horror.
Then I played the RE5 demo. By some weird brain chemistry, the idea the controls were crap was so embedded into my skull that I not only accepted it, but I embraced it. I basked in the inability to run and gun. Some people hate it, but I loved it. Accepting the shit controls even before playing really just made me love them.
Oh survival horror, how wrong I was. Now, back to London. Read more →
You play a tight shirt wearing, muscle bound special forces trained manly man who is angry at God for creating black people. You will fight a ridiculously huge squid monster, a Sackboy with a chainsaw, and in the process you will pick up a hot multicultural girlfriend who will fight beside you and always find a way to get surrounded by zombies. This is Resident Evil 5, hyped by many, hated by some. In the new generation of consoles, Resident Evil feels outdated; the game may look very shiny, but it controls like shit. When asked about the controls, Resident Evil 5’s producer Jun Takeuchi said;
I can’t really say that it is important for a Resident Evil game that you have that restriction on the player. What I can say is that it was important for the game that we were trying to make in Resident Evil 5 to place the player in that situation of fear, and to have them feel the tension of not being able to move as freely. That was certainly an important part of the game design and the feeling that we were trying to create in the game.
The whole argument for this game having complicated control scheme makes no sense. One of the scariest moments in video game history was the dogs jumping through the window in the original Resident Evil. This had nothing to do with the controls, it was scary because of the placement of the camera and the setting, which is key to any survival horror game. A game can have generic controls and still scare the crap out of you; Left 4 Dead has the most basic controls, and I still get chills when I hear a witch nearby. Read more →
Poor English translations for Final Fantasy XII, Tales of Vesperia and Yakuza are good examples of an RPG’s kryptonite. Final Fantasy XII was a very good game, however the dialogue, story, and cut scenes were let down by the English voice acting. The good parts to these games are left as piles of ruin due to the unprofessional job of handling translations. I can play them for a few hours but I eventually leave the game and never come back.
Now fine translations like Final Fantasy X and Professor Layton have given me hope for localizations and have nailed to the coffin my memories of the dreaded dialogues of Chris, Jill, and Wesker from the first Resident Evil (watch the opening cinematic for that game, then you will see what I mean). Even though there has been progress, my issue here is about video games that don’t include an option for the original language, specifically for the Japanese RPGs. I’d like to see more upcoming international games that ship to the West have these options, like the Polish soundtrack in the next Witcher game, and especially the original language in Final Fantasy XIII, for people like me who are bit picky about how well the characters talk.
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