And you thought the iPhone only played touchy-touch puzzle games. False.
Grand Theft Auto, one of the biggest franchises in videogames, touched down on the App Store this week, and brought its special brand of mayhem and manslaughter with it. A port of the PlayStation Portable edition of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (which was in turn a port of a Nintendo DS game), the iPhone version is a phenomenal play despite a handful of interface issues.
You are Huang Lee, the spoiled son of a Triad ganglord. After your father was murdered, you must deliver an ancient sword to your uncle so as to keep the empire in your family’s name. Ambushed at the Liberty City airport and left to die, you now find yourself drawn into the underworld with thoughts of vengeance. But what starts out as a simple revenge tale grows in scope, with a criminal world about to explode as gangs (and cops) square off for control. The Chinatown Wars narrative is strong, full of both humor and real drama, and benefits from excellent writing.
Instead of a 3D behind-the-shoulder view, Chinatown Wars returns to the top-down roots of the pre-PlayStation 2 GTA games. The art style is cartoonish and looks fantastic. The camera gives you a good view of the city around you, although when you start zipping through traffic trying to escape cops on a motorcycle you can almost get too far ahead of yourself. There is an option called Vehicle Camera Look Ahead that I recommend you try. You get a little extra real estate in the frame when driving, but sometimes it doesn’t feel like enough. However, pulling back the camera any more would rob the game of its rich detail (Liberty City lives and breathes with tons of pedestrians, buildings, and logical traffic patterns,) but it is often too easy to slam your car into a wall or an oncoming car. Click here to read more.. »
Yes, Apple’s inviting game bloggers to its January 27 super-secret product reveal, but I wouldn’t read anything into it. Unless the company’s launching a completely unanticipated device (always a possibility, but the odds are against it) expect to see–as a footnote to its writing and drawing capabilities–a slate-style computing gizmo touting slick touch-based entertainment demos. Maybe even some clever riffing on stuff like Crayon Physics. But nothing for which you’d ever trade in a set-top console or gaming PC.
Before you douse me in kerosene and fire up the blowtorches for saying so, I love the idea of an Apple tablet for all kinds of reasons. It’s just that gaming isn’t one of them.
Okay, qualification time. When I say ‘gaming’, I mean stuff like Uncharted 2, Dragon Age: Origins, Demon’s Souls, and Final Fantasy XIII. When Apple says ‘gaming’, it means Dizzy Bee, Trism, Critter Crunch, and Zen Pinball. If you’re an iPhone owner, you’ve possibly heard of one or two of those last five. Everyone else? Probably not.
So while there’s always the chance we’ll see a startling last-second metamorphosis, Apple’s gaming track record skews decidedly casual and mass-consumer. Even Apple’s mainstream OS X games are mostly delayed, underperforming Windows ports. The last halfway interesting Mac-debuted game? Bungie’s 1990s Marathon series. Click here to read more.. »
For an entertainment property to hit $1 billion in sales is a very rare feat. For two separate properties to pass the 10-figure mark at the same time may well be a first.
On Wednesday, Activision Blizzard announced that its mega-hit video game, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, had crossed the billion-dollar mark, after just two months on store shelves–and the entertainment industry’s single-day sales record. That milestone came shortly after it was announced that James Cameron’s uber-blockbuster movie, “Avatar,” had also reached that financial promised land.
To be sure, these are just round numbers, and don’t have any formal meaning, but there’s no arguing with the fact that it sure sounds good for the entertainment business to be sporting two separate billion-dollar titles at the same time, especially since they come from such different corners of the world.
In the history of video games, a billion-dollar hit is an extreme rarity. It’s hard to tell precisely how many there have been, but it’s possible that number is as small as two. Almost exactly a year ago, Activision Blizzard hailed its Guitar Hero III as being the first game to ever cross the billion-dollar threshold–at least as measured by retail sales. And my meanderings through Google failed to turn up another single title that has earned that much, including the much-vaunted Halo 3, or any of the seemingly endless number of Grand Theft Auto releases. Click here to read more.. »
Spending a little extra time with your Xbox 360? Wondering which games are worth your cash? From The Orange Box to Halo to Mass Effect, we sort through hundreds of titles to bring you 10 of the best Xbox 360 games that we’ve seen on the console so far.
10. Grand Theft Auto 4
Like Rock Band, Grand Theft Auto 4’s a tossup. If you’ve got the Xbox 360 build, however, you’re a truly lucky gamer. Rockstar Games is still dishing out GTA goodness in the form of episodic content, with great characters and intense new side stories to explore. If you’ve been itching to get back on Liberty City’s streets, try The Lost and Damned or The Ballad of Gay Tony. As if that wasn’t enough reason to count this game among the best Xbox 360 games ever, there’s always the fact that you can push people in front of trains, saw pedestrians down with helicopter blades, and drive your dinner date off a cliff. Be bad, be wild, and be a menace!
Talk about bang for the buck: The Orange Box includes five hit games from the FPS gurus at Valve Software, making this a must-have for any shooter fan. Not only do you get the award-winning Half-Life 2 and the follow-ups Episode One and Two, but you also get the butter-smooth online game Team Fortress 2. But the real jewel of this fantastic collection is Portal, a mind-bending puzzler that every gamer should experience at least once. Armed with one of the coolest weapons ever devised in the Portal Gun, you run through a series of deviously designed levels while the omni-present voice of GlaDOS gently coaxes you onward. Filled with delicious humor and addictive gameplay, Portal is worth the purchase price alone but lucky for you, there’s four other amazing games to keep you occupied long after you’ve discovered the secret of the cake (hint: it’s a lie).
No one expected Batman: Arkham Asylum to be this good. In fact, no one expected it to be one of the most impressive and thrilling action games to ever hit the Xbox 360. Thankfully, Rocksteady Studios and Warner Bros./DC Comics made the invaluable choice of enlisting help from the best talent possible, including big-ticket names like Paul Dini, Kevin Conroy, Arleen Sorkin, and of course, Mark Hamill. For once, a video game developer got everything right in a Batman game, and Rocksteady may have single handedly saved this series from an eternal cycle of horrible cash-in clunkers. But most rewarding was the fact that The Caped Crusader fought like a demon from Hell, his tools were inventive and intuitive, and the atmosphere of Arkham Island was as demented and dangerous as its inhabitants. Welcome back, Batman.
Hop on the bus, Gus, and if you happen to live in San Francisco, you’ve got a shot at playing the US version of Final Fantasy XIII three months early. Square Enix’s latest fashion fantasy game (i.e. FFG…see what I did there?) isn’t due to ship in the States until March 9, 2010.
The press release claims to preview ‘the North American’ version, but I’d be surprised (not unpleasantly) if it’s really full and final. My understanding was that the the US version–which unlike the PS3-exclusive Japanese release will ship here in both PS3 and Xbox 360 flavors–is still very much in process. That’s practically confirmed by the tour’s description of what you’ll have access to as “never-before-seen demo areas.” We’re probably talking placeholder or currently finished English dubs (or subs) then.
Worth the bother? I’d go were I California-bound just to sample the new battle system. Also: To bask in the weirdness of it all. Yeah, the game’s premise about a bunch of utopians rocked from their cradle doesn’t exactly straighten my neck hair, but then neither does “Amnesiac mercenary fights to stop mega-corporation from sucking the planet dry,” and look how that turned out.
Square Enix says the bus hits the road tomorrow, with plans to stop in San Francisco and the Bay area through this Saturday, January 16. To keep the crowds manageable (or who knows, scare up flocks of followers) they’re revealing demo locations last minute through their Twitter site @PlayFFXIII.
Just three short years after the CES 2007 announcement that Microsoft’s Mediaroom software would turn your Xbox 360 into an IPTV set-top box, Microsoft is finally ready to deliver on that promise (and no, the 2008 BT rollout doesn’t count). “I’m happy to announce that later this year AT&T will also enable subscribers to U-verse to enjoy [the new Mediaroom 2.0] service on their Xbox 360 consoles,” Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told his keynote audience. This was in addition to U-verse support for Windows 7 and Windows Mobile, though the details on all three platforms end there.
We’ll be digging for more details at CES this week, but this is certainly promising news for the country’s 2 million U-verse subscribers (and the “more than 20 million living units” that the service is purportedly available in).
According to a press release summing up Microsoft’s CES 2010 keynote that dropped just before Ballmer took the stage, the company will be releasing Project Natal in “holiday season 2010.” We heard earlier today about what year the future controller would be arriving, but now, folks, now we know during which group of months it’ll be arriving at retail.
The release explicitly states that the still-codenamed Natal project is “scheduled to be available in holiday season 2010,” adding that Natal “is only the most recent example of Microsoft’s work creating natural user interfaces.” With any luck, by E3 we’ll have an actual name and maybe even a specific month for when we’ll get to check it out at home! Until then, we’ll have to get by with the inspirational video about Natal’s origins created for today’s release, embedded above.
Capcom’s Twitter feed got a bit more informationey later on this evening, showing off the Capcom suite at CES, complete with “new hotness from MadCatz.” Though the shot is significantly more blurry, it certainly seems to indicate a new arcade stick coming from MadCatz for Super Street Fighter IV.
Considering the Consumer Electronics Show is happening right this minute in Las Vegas, it’s no surprise that Capcom’s Twitter account is busy teasing pictures of yet-to-be-revealed arcade sticks for the upcoming sorta-sequel Super Street Fighter IV. As you can see in the image above, an inky outline of Ryu overlooks a more colorful button set than the previous game’s stick. Additionally, the shape of the controller’s box certainly bears a striking resemblance to the Street Fighter IV Tournament Edition joysticks from MadCatz that were in such short supply last year. We’ve followed up with Capcom but were told there’s no official comment just yet.
During its CES 2010 keynote, Microsoft’s Robbie Bach announced 30 arcade titles will be available in the Xbox Game Room when the service launches this spring for the Xbox 360 and Games for Windows Live.
Hours following a leaked interview featuring Robbie Bach, Microsoft has confirmed the existence of a virtual arcade room for Xbox Avatars via this trailer unveiled at CES 2010. The Xbox Game Room is slated to hit the Xbox 360 and Games for Windows Live this spring, allowing players to visit a virtual room filled with classic arcade titles. According to the video, users will be able to customize their arcade rooms (presumably for Microsoft funny money) and challenge friends to a plethora of original arcade versions of games such as Centipede, Outlaw, and Star Raiders.
The news that Game Room will also launch for Games For Windows Live raises the question, will the service see Avatars added in the near future? As the upcoming arcade is centered around entertainment for your virtual identity, we’d hope the service would see an interface upgrade bringing it closer to the Xbox’s current NXE, rather than locking our poor Avatars up inside of an executable program.
