Remedy Uses Bizarre Excuse for Not Bringing Alan Wake to PC Players
If you’re a hardcore PC gamer then you are used to hearing excuses as to why certain games only appear on consoles. Usually, these reasons take the form of “limited funding”, “not enough time”, or the ever-popular “PC games don’t sell like the console counterparts.” All valid excuses. So when Remedy, the creators behind the flashlight simulator Alan Wake, made it clear their game wouldn’t be coming to PC rigs, their excuse struck me as downright bizarre:
“Some games are more suited for the intimacy of the PC, and others are best played from the couch in front of a larger TV screen,” states Microsoft. “We ultimately realized that the most compelling way to experience Alan Wake was on the Xbox 360 platform, so we focused on making it an Xbox 360 exclusive. Both Microsoft and Remedy have long histories in PC game development. This decision was about matching this specific game to the right platform.”
Errr, what? All this time, I’ve been playing my Xbox 360 wrong. I have it hooked up to HDMI inputs on my widescreen PC monitor, flipping back and forth as the need arises. I had no idea I was draining the “intimacy” out of games by not playing in my living room.
Remedy’s reasoning lacks any semblance of logic. It just comes across as an utterly strange thing to say. Honesty would have worked just fine here, something like “Piracy is an issue on the PC.”
Probably doesn’t matter anyway. My gut instinct tells me Alan Wake will debut to a chorus of yawns. Has that certain stink that precedes a lackluster debut.
Hudson sheds light on new Wii platformer, Shadow Tower
An article in the latest Famitsu magazine, summarized by 1UP, reveals a new Wii game from Hudson Soft. Shadow Tower doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the From Software PlayStation RPG of the same name, instead appearing to be a platformer in which players control the shadow of an otherwise invisible boy.
As he travels through an abandoned landscape and climbs up the tower featured in the name, the silhouetted character actually travels on the shadows of platforms and structures, interacting with shadow objects to trigger movement in their real counterparts. He is joined by a butterfly who can reach objects he can’t — 1UP offers the example of a light source that the butterfly changes to alter the shape of the shadow landscape and make a chasm navigable.
Pretty much everyone who sees this mentions the ICO-esque look, and we think that’s an apt comparison. Given that we like the look of Team ICO games, and we like original platformers, we’re going to be following this one.
[Image via Nintendo Everything]
Hudson sheds light on new Wii platformer, Shadow Tower originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Scribblenauts: one level, many solutions
This is exactly the kind of thing we wanted to see with Scribblenauts: the same puzzle attempted multiple times, each using different means. A series of videos on Nintendo Raw shows one of the game’s puzzles, in which the player is dangled from a rope next to a caged Starite, also suspended, using different items.
After the break, we’ve embedded our favorite take on the puzzle, which earns that distinction for its use of a moustache as a problem-solving item — wearing it causes the hat to which the rope is suspended to come off. Check Nintendo Raw to see several more attempts, some more successful than others.
Continue reading Scribblenauts: one level, many solutions
Scribblenauts: one level, many solutions originally appeared on Joystiq Nintendo on Mon, 20 Jul 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
The Shorts DS game draws our attention
Normally, a DS game based on a kids’ movie wouldn’t attract our notice — they’re as common as rocks, and tend to be less fun to play with. But the DS game based on Robert Rodriguez’s Shorts, a movie about a neighborhood of kids who find some kind of wish-granting rock, appropriates one of our favorite new trends in side-scrolling games: drawing platforms.
Kirby Canvas Curse started it, but in the last year there has been an explosion of games that mix traditional platforming with user-created platforms. The Chase: Felix Meets Felicity did it, and the upcoming Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter, MarkerMan Adventures (also published by Shorts publisher Majesco), and, outside of the DS, Crayon Physics, Drawn to Life on Wii, Max and the Magic Marker on WiiWare, and Trine allow players to make platforms by drawing shapes.
And, as it turns out, we are extremely receptive to this idea, even when it is in a game in which you control a character named Loogie. See the trailer after the break.
Continue reading The Shorts DS game draws our attention
The Shorts DS game draws our attention originally appeared on Joystiq Nintendo on Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | Comments
Scribblenauts could come to other platforms
It’s a scientific fact that 100 percent of people on Earth love Scribblenauts — trust us, an actual scientist said that — unfortunately, not everyone owns a Nintendo DS. Sure, almost everyone owns a DS, but that still leaves a small sliver of humanity who will be unable to experience 5th Cell’s wordy puzzler whenever it hits store shelves this September.
Fortunately for this minuscule contingency, there’s a chance Scribblenauts could be released on other platforms. In a recent interview with VG247, the game’s technical director, Marius Fahlbusch, explained, “We never limited ourselves to the DS as platform in our heads and we’ll see what the future holds.” Personally, we think it would be a hit on any platform, whether that platform be Xbox 360, PS3 or coloring book.
Scribblenauts could come to other platforms originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 10 Jul 2009 19:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Skateboarding god versus Cthulhu in Scribblenauts
We don’t know which god the “god” in Scribblenauts represents — in our eyes, he’s vaguely Zeus-esque. But we do know, thanks to this demo given to IGN by 5TH Cell’s Jeremiah Slaczka, what would happen if this god got into a fight with Cthulhu. While on a skateboard. And holding a shotgun.
We also learn what happens when a villain sees a full moon: he transforms into a werewolf. Obviously. It’s worth noting that none of these things helped get the Starite out of a tree, which was the actual objective of the level. That’s going to be the biggest challenge in Scribblenauts: actually playing instead of just screwing around.
Gallery: Scribblenauts
Continue reading Skateboarding god versus Cthulhu in Scribblenauts
Skateboarding god versus Cthulhu in Scribblenauts originally appeared on Joystiq Nintendo on Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Hands-on: Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter (DS)
5TH Cell received a lot of attention at E3 for its DS platform adventure Scribblenauts, but that wasn’t the only DS game 5TH Cell brought to the show. THQ had a demo station set up running the DS sequel to the company’s first DS hit, Drawn to Life. Planet Moon’s (different) Wii version of Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter was also on display, but we were unable to spend any time with it.
Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter takes the main mechanic of the original — the ability to draw not only your hero, but elements of the in-game world as well, something that still feels fresh — and improves upon both the drawing and the game integration. Your hero now can have up to four arms and legs, any or all of which can be resized; you can use up to 64 colors to render your character. This time, you’ll be able to choose a weapon from the start — a gun, melee, or flail-type weapon (which you draw), and pick up the rest as the game continues. Most importantly, you’ll be able to draw different forms for your character — more on that in a bit.
The existing art has been refreshed as well. 5TH Cell’s Matthew Pellicane was beaming with pride at the new hub world, a village built on the back of a giant sea turtle. The village is no longer a tile-based map, but a prerendered environment composed from a single piece of detailed 2D artwork from 5TH Cell artist Edison Yan.
The one brief level we played took place in a cave full of lava pits. Early in the stage, we were faced with an extra-long chasm with a few floating squares. The squares, Pellicane explained to us, were connection points for the new Action Drawing lines. We were able to make one platform each out of each kind of “ink” : one which just made a platform in the shape of our line, another which would have had gravity had we not anchored it, and a third that created a sort of trampoline.
We were also able to experiment with the game’s forms. Over the course of the game, your character gains the ability to morph into both a “spider” and a “blob” form, both of which can be drawn. The blob can squeeze through small passages, and can absorb an enemy, using the added weight and momentum as a weapon for a rolling attack. The spider can walk on walls and ceilings, swing from webs, and immobilize enemies with a web attack. The addition of these two mobility-increasing forms is not only fun, but it suggests a Metroidvania element to the game, wherein you can return to previous levels with new abilities, and access previously unreachable elements.
Combine that with the heavier emphasis on platforming that we saw in the level (which was much more linear and involved more jumping, in much more of a Mario style), and Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter should be of more interest to the gamers who found the first game too leisurely.
Hands-on: Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter (DS) originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 09 Jun 2009 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | Comments
EA wants to ‘take some risks’ on Wii
According to EA’s Joe Booth, plans for the Nintendo Wii are “long-term” at EA, as the company tries to strike a good balance of titles for the popular platform in 2009. In an interview with the Official Nintendo Magazine, the senior producer for Electronic Arts’ Nintendo group said the company wants to “take some risks” with Nintendo’s home console.
“The industry has woken up to the Wii,” Booth told the mag. In his own estimation, Booth — who is overseeing Need for Speed Nitro for Wii — feels the Wii has a lot of “new energy,” which drives his group’s passion. Perhaps Nintendo’s energy stems from sailing high above the competition in hardware sales.
Electronic Arts has a slew of Wii exclusive software planned for 2009, including EA Sports Active and Dead Space: Extraction, along with special Wii versions of its annual sports franchises.
[Via Edge]
EA wants to ‘take some risks’ on Wii originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 21 May 2009 02:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Icarian: Kindred Spirits trailer flies high
Despite flying under the radar (but also presumably too close to the sun), Icarian: Kindred Spirits looks totally great. Developer Over the Top Games sent us this new trailer, featuring pretty locations (especially for WiiWare) and promising gameplay.
Icarian is a motion-controlled sidescrolling platformer about Nyx, “an enigmatic winged girl, that must descend from heaven in search of her missing friend Icarus.” Along the way, she picks up abilities from the Olympian gods that allow her to fight enemies and solve environmental puzzles. There’s no official release date (of course, it’s WiiWare), but it should be out in Europe before the end of this summer.
Icarian: Kindred Spirits trailer flies high originally appeared on Joystiq Nintendo on Wed, 22 Apr 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Proof that Starfy in English is really happening
We still can’t believe that Nintendo has actually decided to grace us with a Starfy game — in the same year that we’re given a Rhythm Tengoku game. Why didn’t we ever see the previous games? It’s not like Nintendo of America didn’t trust TOSE to create a good platform game. What’s next, Kuru Kuru Kururin?
Whatever the reasoning, it appears that Nintendo is finally going to give us a Starfy game for reals. Look at those screens! Localization is happening! The Legendary Starfy is launching in North America on June 8. Head into our gallery if you feel prepared for five points of cuteness.
[Via IGN]
Proof that Starfy in English is really happening originally appeared on Joystiq Nintendo on Mon, 13 Apr 2009 14:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Top 10 Best Selling Games
-
