Xbox 360 Spring Showcase

[Peench]

Peench's Thoughts on Xbox 360's Spring Showcase.

I'll have to break this up among a couple different posts, but to say I was amazed is would be an understatement. I had the opportunity of seeing the incredible titles that MS has in store for us this year and playing almost all of them. I can say that this Fall will be an expensive time to be a gamer. There was not one single game that I saw that I would not enjoy owning. I also had an opportunity to speak with Shane Kim. Enough cursory stuff, lets get on to the games.

NINJA GAIDEN 2

The first game I saw and played was Ninja Gaiden 2. From what I saw, I imagine fans of the series will not be disappointed. Personally I could not play through the first title because it was too difficult and I got too frustrated. Between the funky camera angles and the all-but too difficult gameplay, I set it aside for fear of breaking my controller.

Thankfully the developers have grown up a bit and now offer the Path of the Acolyte. Playing the game with this option will allow pseudo-n00bs like me to get through most of the game with only minimal frustration. I played for about 15 minutes and did not die. That is a record for me in any Ninja Gaiden game! For you seasoned Ninja Gaiden veterans, the Path of the Warrior offers a more difficult game and perhaps a more rewarding challenge.

The game itself is bloody as hell. There were limbs, blood and gristle everywhere. The lost limbs, however, are not simply a parlor trick or slick graphics. A lost limb on an enemy actually affects the gameplay. Let’s assume that you cut off an opponent’s legs. Contrary to medical belief, they won’t bleed out right away. Instead, they will slowly crawl their way towards you. Unless you dispatch them with further bloody swordplay, they will grab on to you and pull the pin on their grenades as a last ditch effort to take you out. Yes, kamikazie ninjas have arrived.

I still found the camera angles funky and had a hard time figuring out who was throwing ninja stars at me or attacking me. From what I understand, however, the camera angles have been improved.

New to this rendition is the constant dynamic feedback provided to the AI. This makes them smarter, more reactive and more able to lull you into traps and/or coordinate attacks. Bow wielding ninjas will throw down their bows and pull out their swords if you get close enough where ranged attacks are no longer effective. The interaction between the AI opponents is coordinated and responsive to how you are playing. You can approach the same situation multiple times and get multiple different reactions.

New to the franchise (from what I understand) are better tutorial hints at the start of the game. This (along with the Acolyte option) represents a paradigm shift in how the game is presented and how accessible it is to the general gaming public.

Also new is the ability to download clips of the top players in the world to see how they have approached any given situation to learn from their tactics. Additionally, the fighting mechanic has been tweaked to allow better fluidity in attacks and to avoid the need to use “cheap” tricks to pass certain levels (e.g. wall attacks only at later levels). This should lend itself to better and more cinematic gameplay through the entire game.

There will also be available a costume pack with 5 costumes for 200 MS Points. These change the appearance of your character through the entire game and can be changed at the load in screen. As more costumes become available they will be available on a spinning reel for your character to wear.

While I enjoyed my time playing Ninja Gaiden 2, this type of game is simply not for me. It is a very pretty game (if you like blood and guts and awesome Japanese style architecture), but the camera angles were still a bit too wonky for me and I felt like I was getting sea-sick trying to keep track of my character. While the Path of the Acolyte would allow me to likely play through the game without destroying my controller or my TV, I likely will not pick up this title. If you are a fan of the series don’t let my personal preference sway you. Everyone I talked to who had played and enjoyed the prior Ninja Gaiden games said this one was awesome.

[Peench]

SHANE KIM INTERVIEW

The next station our group attended was an interview only station and we had the opportunity to speak with Shane Kim. Mr. Kim made it clear that every title we saw showcased would ship this year. Most of these titles are likely to hit this fall in what will again prove to be an expensive fall for gamers.

Mr. Kim was asked about the Wii-like controller rumors that have been floating around the internet. The official party line is that Microsoft does not comment on rumors or speculation. That being said, MS recognizes that its accessory division has been a great success and profit center. They spend quite a bit of money on R&D to come up with great new accessories. While he did not come out and say it, chances are MS has prototypes of thousands of different accessories; including Wii-like controllers. Instead of acknowledging anything like this, Mr. Kim simply said that we will likely see quite a bit more accessory and hardware stuff from MS.

Mr. Kim was asked about BluRay and whether the 360 would ever support it. He said emphatically no. Instead he indicated that MS is committed to and believes the future will be digital distribution. This includes media as well as games in the future. MS is focused on LIVE and all that LIVE has to offer gamers (and non-gamers).

Mr. Kim recognized that to reach the mass market MS needs to make it as easy and as accessible as possible. While he didn’t say it, I imagine that if this means that the dashboard has to be revised to make it easier to reach the masses, it may be revised. He also indicated that IPTV was still in the works but he did not have any specifics.

I asked him when I would be able to engage in micro-transactions myself and sell my shirts like the girl in the commercial before the 360 shipped. He laughed and indicated that this is likely a long way off. He said MS must first focus on allowing developers and game companies to engage in these micro-transactions with gamers and then they would consider extending that to a situation where there could be transactions between gamers themselves.

He pointed to Forza as an example of where transactions between gamers already existed. The auction house allowed gamers to use Forza bucks to buy and sell cars they had created. The question is, do they want to flip the switch and allow this to be done with real money. Right now they are not ready, but obviously the infrastructure seems to be there.

[Peench]

BANJO-KAZOUIE; NUTS AND BOLTS

After an 8 year hiatus, Banjo-Kazouie is back and he’s ready to take the platform world by storm. Throw in some fun multiplayer and Banjo-Kazouie is sure to be a hit for gamers and families alike.

In Banjo-Kazouie; Nuts and Bolts, the bad guy is the Lord of Games. He seems to think that he controls everything and all games in the land. Our heroes must prove that this is not correct by engaging in a variety of mini-games and challenges to progress the story.

One large aspect of Banjo-Kazouie is vehicle creation. As you collect parts throughout the game you can use them to create vehicles that will assist you in completing various tasks within the game. Tasks can be completed in a variety of different manners. For example, if your task is to add 15 coconuts to the vac-o-nut, you could drive over, pick them up, drive back and drop them off, or you could use a grappling hook hanging off the bottom of a helicopter to grab the vac-o-nut and take it over to the coconuts to grab them.

You can customize vehicles in a huge variety of ways. Vehicles may drive, fly with balloons (slow), fly with jets (fast), float, etc. There is also the introduction of fixed-wing flight with Banjo-Kazouie; Nuts and Bolts. You may even need to upgrade or modify your vehicle during gameplay in order to complete different tasks.

As you progress the story you must collect jiggies and return them to the jiggy bank. To do so you must open up the 5 different game-worlds, go to them, complete the challenges with at least a D rating and then travel back to the main world. At the main world you must use a transport to drive the jiggies back to the jiggy bank. As the story progresses you must drive them farther and farther. While driving the cops will try to disrupt your driving and prevent you from dropping off the jiggies to the jiggy bank.

The multiplayer aspect of Banjo-Kazouie will allow up to 8 players over Live. I played a king of the hill variant where I customized my car with springs (offensive ones on the front of my car), a boot in the box (a box that opens up and allows a boot to kick the other vehicles), and some jet power. I tied with another player as we beat the snot out of the other 2 people playing by shoving them off the platform constantly. It was loads of fun and I can see playing this game with my Live Friends and my family for hours.

For Banjo-Kazouie fans Nuts and Bolts will offer the greatest aspects of the prior game with loads of new features and highly upgraded graphics. Throw in some great multiplayer fun and you’ve got a title that is gamer and family friendly. This one will likely make its way to my game library upon release.

[Peench]

VIVA PINATA 2

Hot on the heels of the successful Viva Pinata game, Viva Pinata 2 offers up additional great gameplay and some new and improved features. Recognizing that VP1 was a bit too difficult for many gamers, Viva Pinata 2 offers additional modes to let gaming n00bs and kids play alongside with adults. Drop in and out co-op allows you to help your children and play alongside Live Friends.

An in-game camera like the one in Halo is available to show off your gardens to the world and your Live Friends. New to the Viva Pinata world are trading cards. These cards can be traded with friends but serve a larger purpose. By using the Live Vision Camera, you can “scan in” the characters on the card and have them appear in your garden. These cards will also allow you to rid your garden of evil-doers and or to trick your friends into adding evil-doers to your non-friend’s gardens. The beauty of these cards is that it is not necessary to have the physical card in your hand. A scanned image of the card will work just as well as the card itself. I have had a couple of these cards for a month or so and think that a trading card area here at PreGameLobby would be a blast! You Viva Pinata fans have to let me know if you are up for it.

Also new are different areas for your garden. In addition to sand, there are beach, snow and water areas to support different kinds of Pinata animals. Also added is the ability to scroll through all of your animals to find just the one you need. No more will you have to frantically search through your garden to find just the Pinata you need. This should make it easier to play.

There are also objects with which you may interact in the game. Pinata shredders, bouncies, train tracks and other objects offer the ability to just have fun in your garden.

Viva Pinata fans will have a blast with this new game and new-comers to the franchise will find it easier to get right in and play.

[Peench]

TOO HUMAN

Much has been written about Too Human in the past couple of years. As an action-RPG fusion game, Too Human promises to make gamers of all types happy. Also announced was a firm release date for Too Human of August 19, 2008. Personally I cannot wait for this release.

There’s been a bunch of talk about why the 4-player co-op was reduced to 2-players only. Apparently with the testing that was done it was found that with 4 people in the game together there was simply too much going on and it was too hard to follow. By dropping it down to 2 players the story could be progressed better and the gameplay itself would not suffer. The developers chose quality over quantity in this case.

The fighting mechanic is awesome and is somewhat governed by the class you choose. Certain classes are faster and more melee driven, while others are slow and better suited for ranged attacks while others are simply balanced so you can take your pick as the need arises. With these different characteristics, ranged gamers can “serve” up the opponents for their melee driven co-op partner to dispatch. The cool thing is that this can be done in the air! A mostly-air battle where you are flying from one opponent to the other taking them out is a sight to behold.

You can use the same player from your SP mission in co-op. In co-op you can set how loot, items and other things you discover are parsed out to the players. This avoids the typical gauntlet style fighting for stuff.

Another awesome feature is removal of the inventory mini-game. What’s that you ask? Those of us who have played an RGP (Diablo or Oblivion for example) know that when you are out and about in the world you tend to pick up more loot than you can carry. What follows is the inventory mini-game where you try to fit as many items in the slots you have available as you can or you try to determine which items have better attributes and should be kept and which should be dropped. Too Human alleviates this chore with the optional “auto-sell” (it is called something else but I can’t remember it now) feature where your crappiest items will be automatically auctioned off if you pick up something better. By turning this option on, gamers who simply want to get to the action will avoid the need for detailed inventory control. Those gamers who like the inventory mini-game can leave the option off and fret over inventory items until their hearts are content.

Overall Too Human looks awesome. Rhino and I played co-op for about 30-45 minutes towards the end of the night. Both of us didn’t want to stop when they told us they were shutting down. Too Human was barrels of fun and I personally can’t wait until August 19, 2008, to pick up my copy and play with you all in co-op over Live!

[Peench]

FABLE 2

Fable 2 was one of the two games that we did not get any hands-on play time with. This was okay as Peter was there to personally give us an overview of the game with code as up to date as this past Sunday (May 11, 2008). Fable 2 will be released this Fall (or Autumn if you speak the Queen’s English like Peter) and it looks freaking awesome! This is another one I can’t wait to play!!

The showcase of Fable 2 this time focused on the story and dayum is it going to be deep and incredibly engaging. The one thing that I always try to avoid when reading about upcoming games is spoilers. Unfortunately Peter dropped a huge story spoiler on us so I’m kinda bummed. But despite me being bummed about that, I can totally see why he did it as it gives a glimpse of what drives the lead character and just how deep and dramatic the story will be. I will not be sharing the spoiler at any point in this review or at any point in the future.

Your character starts as a powerless street kid. The goal here is to work from nothing to an all-powerful hero to permit the contrast and really engage you in the story.

There is a huge sense of freedom in how your character, the story and how the entire world develops. For example, let’s say you approach an area where a cut-scene would play. You can either listen to the cut-scene or simply walk away. If you listen to the scene it remains interactive. If you use expressions or fart during the cut-scene the person speaking will react to how you are acting and it may have repercussions in how the story develops. If you simply walk away, you will get the story elements in a different fashion later on during the game.

Also added is a breadcrumb feature that will always point you in the direction of the next place in the story. It will not, however, be in your face, but is instead designed to permit you to wander around and explore while always being able to get back to where you need to go to progress the story. This avoids the need for a mini-map completely. It is also adaptive. If you use it religiously, it will glow quite well, but if you do not use it all that much it will fade away quite a bit.

The areas in the game are pretty darn huge and you can explore ALL of the areas. Go into all of the houses; watch how the AI characters spend their day. Interact with the AI characters. Go anywhere and do anything. Get engaged in the story as if you were truly acting it out!

Part and parcel to this engagement in the story is the ability to change how the world develops. Based on your actions certain cities may develop into trading ports or into seedy underbellies. What you do at certain points in the game will cause the city to develop in one way or the other. If you are playing consistently, this should play in well with your character. For example, if you are nice and “do the right thing” a city may develop into a thriving trading port where you can engage in trading. If you do the “wrong thing” the city might fall to the criminals and you might be able to hire yourself out as an assassin. Awesome stuff!

The simulations in camps and towns are all dynamic and fully interactive. You can watch the residents of a camp go about their daily business or you can get married to one, buy a home and settle down. What you do is totally up to you.

The co-op play is entirely seamless with true drop in and out at any time. The friend you bring in will be developed based on the hero on your hard drive. This will prevent someone too strong coming into an early heroes’ game, etc.

There are apparently co-op surprises that they don’t want anyone to know about as they simply teased us with a “we have a few surprises of things that no one has ever done” line but didn’t tell us what it was. If it is as good as what we did see, I already love it!

The beauty of the fighting mechanics in Fable 2 is that it is balanced enough that both spectrums of the gaming community can play; hard core gamers and casual gamers can play side by side. Maybe my wife will finally play a game with me!! The fighting is controlled by 3 buttons. One is for melee, one is for ranged and one is for magic. While this sounds simple, you will gain experience depending on how skillful you use any of these abilities. You can then unlock rhythm, flourish or other combos that hard core gamers will love and casual gamers may or may not ever notice.

There are 8 spells with 5 dynamic ways to use them. Sure 8 spells doesn’t sound like very many, but with the ranged or localized usage along with the many different ways in which to use a spell, you will have a hard time running out of combos and/or using the magic in the manner you desire most.

Something else new is that you have to work for Gold. Examples include running a shop, being a blacksmith, trading with others, hiring yourself out, etc. As a precursor to this need to earn money in game, there will be a (or a few) Live Arcade titles that we can play before Fable 2’s release through which we will be able to earn money for our Fable 2 universe. To avoid the “I’m starting the game with 1000000000 Gold” issue that will be created by those people who have nothing better to do than game, the Gold will not be instantly available to you. Instead, it will come to you later in the game as part of the story. Peter didn’t elaborate, but I’m going to assume it will be in some cool story aspect where perhaps an uncle dies and leaves you an inheritance or something equally as cool as that.

The death aspect has been changed from what we talked about at E3 last year. Instead of being scarred, apparently if you die you will simply lose quite a bit of the experience that you have gained during fighting. Focus groups apparently showed that when people died they were shutting off their machines to avoid their characters becoming scarred. Rather lame if you ask me – sack up people; have a cool scarred looking dude! So this dynamic was changed and now you will lose experience you might have otherwise gained during a battle. The amount you lose will depend on how much it takes to bring you back to life. If there is more left over you may not lose it all.

All in all Fable 2 is shaping up to be another AWESOME game. I’m waiting, but it is going to be difficult and Fable 2 is going to suck hours of my life away!

[Peench]

GEARS OF WAR 2

If you go by the name Pickle, you probably just skimmed over everything else and got to this point. Gears of War 2 was another title that we unfortunately were not able to play. That being said, we did watch Cliffy B. play through the entire 2nd level of the SP portion of the game. OMG it was awesome!!!!!!!

The graphics looks way better. The bad guys, the vehicles, the weapons – everything is awesome. The story starts with the Locust having the ability to sink entire cities. Everything has fallen except for Jacinto. Apparently the geological structure beneath the city has prevented the Locust from sinking the last human stronghold. But the humans realize that to win this war they must take the fight to the Locusts. To do so they drop people directly into the Locust hell to fight them from the inside. To do this, however, they must fight through everything above ground first.

What we saw was a fight to get to a drop point and OMG was it awesome. There was literally non-stop action through the entire level. Stuff was coming from everywhere; the portions of the mission were varied; and a variety of different tactics were available. The environments can be destroyed so you won’t be able to sit behind a single log for too long while sniping people.

Another cool feature was localized damage. By shooting Locust in the legs you can blow off their legs. It seemed as if the AI (both sides) fought better. How they move has also been addressed to prevent the ability to track them and anticipate their moves.

The chainsaw melee brings up kind of a mini-game where you have to tap B as many times as possible to get the finishing move. Instead of simply chainsawing through the chest, if you hit B fast enough and enough times, you will chainsaw the locust from the taint to the tongue! Bloody entrails everywhere!

You can use Locust as meatshields then toss them aside when they become bullet-ridden and useless. All in all it was amazing. I was in awe the entire time I watched. The battle itself was enormous and everyone played their part.

Multiplayer was not discussed as they are holding back a few surprises. Apparently there are loads more surprises and these will be revealed and confirmed at E3 2008. All that was said was that MP is way more robust, with more maps, more modes and more features that people have come to expect.

CONCLUSION

That was my trip and those are my thoughts. I am truly amazed at what looks to be yet another incredible Fall filled with awesome titles for the Xbox 360. I’m going to have to start saving now if I want to pick up all these amazing games. You should start saving too because you know you are going to want them!!

[D_Litch]

Sounds like you had just a little too much fun. Glad you enjoyed yourself, and thanks for providing us with a more "real" look at these games.

[Prophet0ne]

Thanks Peench!!! Please disregard my PM about puckered butts.

[MadBryan]

Great work Peench. I appreciate the effort. (why didn't you let us know you were going though)

[Lord Geoff]

Thank you!

[supafreak]

Nice write up man. That was a lot of work and much appreciated. Glad to hear you didn't get mugged on your journey there.

[kingsfan2099]

Great stuff Peench. I've been interested in Too Human and now hearing your opinions on it I can't wait to get my hands on it. The links to Diablo I've heard as far as the loot and such are awesome and the sci-fi setting should be really refreshing to those of us tired of the swords and sorcery scenery.

[The Milk Man 09]

I need to get a job soon or else I am going to have to do unthinkable things to get some of these games.