Mr. T has no pity for Nazis

In a small bit of strangeness, remember Zootfly? They’re the developer that put out a number of teaser trailers last year showing off their own take on the Ghostbusters using tech that they had put together, and the trailers looked fantastic.

Well, it wasn’t to be since they were unable to get the actual license. Ironically, their work helped Sierra Entertainment and developer, Terminal Reality, with their own proposal to Sony who then awarded the license to them instead after seeing the positive reaction Zootfly’s work had on the gaming public.

But Zootfly isn’t a one trick dev house and their latest idea sounds just as awesome…pitting Mr. T against the Nazis with the help of SimGod, Will Wright.

Yes, you read that correctly.

Mohawk Media had published a graphic novel based on the former A-Team member whose first chapter is available on their official site for everyone from the eighties to see just what he has been up to since running from the government. It casts Mr. T as the greatest bodyguard in the world and pits him against evil forces determined to do some kind of wrong that only he can put a stop to.

But his greatest fight might be in the game that Zootfly is planning around the Mohawked strongman which you can read a little of on their own site. The game that he’s planning to star in will pit him against Nazis and have him star beside Will Wright who is cast as a genius geneticist. And now Bluesnews reports that Joystiq also has an interview with Zootfly discussing the game and it’s just as bizarre as the concept.

I’m kind of surprised that a game like this is even in the planning stages. It just sounds too crazy to work. The only thing that would probably be better would be a game like Mercenaries with a wide open world like that found in Far Cry 2, and all of the craziness of Crackdown starring the A-Team and their indestructible van. But that will probably never happen, so a Mr. T game fighting Nazis is just as awesome if not seriously strange.

Then again, players have been rescuing princesses from castles and fighting mushrooms and giant apes with plumbers for nearly three decades, so hey, why can’t finding giant gold chains and using them as special weapons be as fun?

Maybe the members of the A-Team could be hidden characters in the game. Or maybe they'll be DLC later for 800 Microsoft Points.

Xbox 360 Review: Chronicles of Riddick – Assault on Dark Athena

Expanding the cinematic role that Vin Diesel’s brutal alter-ego onscreen is famous for, Riddick returns in the sequel to Escape from Butcher Bay and it’s every bit as fun. You could lift the story from this game and drop it into an animated sequel direct-to-DVD, but it wouldn’t be as entertaining without the gameplay. Even if you’re not a fan of the Vin, the Assault hardly holds anything back with its depiction its twisted inhabitants whether they’re desperate to escape or simply thirsty for bloodthirsty revenge. It’s definitely as unique as Butcher Bay whose melee fighting is more satisfying than the actual FPS gunplay and packed with multiplayer for those moments when being the lone wolf on the loose in the prison population isn’t enough. Solid stuff, Starbreeze.

My prison writeup is always available here.

Riddick prefers the hands-on approach to interpersonal conflicts

G.I. Joe Resolute packs in cartoon entertainment for the adults that remember the 80s

Adult Swim has begun broadcasting the ten webisodes for G.I. Joe: Resolute, a much harder take on the franchise, taking place between the era of “A Real American Hero” and the film.

And when I mean “much harder”, I mean that iconic characters are dying left and right, explosions kill whoever is stupid enough to trip the booby trap, and enemies fight to the bitter end. Blood is spent in nearly every webisode so far and its not the violence that makes the series, its the fact that it isn’t shying away from the reality that it brings to the table. It’s G.I. Joe for those of us that have grown up since the 80’s and its a fantastic way to get us talking about it again. After the japanime take on G.I. Joe with Sigma (which I didn’t think was THAT terrible), Resolute comes off as the dirtier, in-your-face version without apology.

Most every character from the series is here in full dress uniform just as I remember them with a clean animation style that makes it fantastic to watch. There are a few changes, but not in a bad way…not in the least. Roadblock doesn’t rhyme but he’s still good at what he does, Duke comes off as much more of a no-nonsense leader, and if you had ever wanted to see what would happen in the final battle between Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow…it’s here. Oh yes, it’s here. And I have just realized that a few of the figures I have in this continuity, if its canon or not, probably won’t be useful afterwards since death is kind of final.

And Cobra Commander? Yeah, he pretty much admits to killing one of those characters that we grew up knowing. This is an incredible reboot with gutsy twists and if you remember running into the living room after school to catch the latest episode of “A Real American Hero”, you should seriously consider checking out what Hasbro has done with the series now.

You can catch the episodes as they come out on Adult Swim Video online.

Red Faction: Guerilla demo has the goods

Upcoming mega-demolishion FPS, Red Faction: Guerilla, has just released a demo for the console crowd and being the curious sort, I downloaded the Xbox 360 version which proceeded to blow my expectations out of orbit with a mass driver. PC players have, so far, been left out of the goodness even though the game is coming out for that platform, too.

But the promises? They’re true. They really are. The whole destructibility thing is for real. The demo starts you off with a mission in Dust, one of the contested regions held by the bad guys which Red Faction is keen to piss off by stealing a construction walker held within one of their facilities there. Guess who gets to pick it up?

You start off with a basic assault rifle, an explosive thingy (I think it’s a mine, I haven’t used it), and a futuristic sledgehammer. For those that don’t know, Red Faction takes place on Mars almost more than a hundred years in the future. Mars is controlled by an evil corporation and Red Faction is the group resisting their every effort to exploit the settlers without the help of Michael Ironside.

Anyway, so I’m on the surface of Mars just outside the base and people are walking around minding their own business until I decide to run into the restricted area. I try hiding in a building, but where’s the door? Don’t need one. I’ll just MAKE one and so I’m inside, avoiding fire from angry soldiers and basically making myself a nuisance. But what’s this? It looks like a truck is nearby so I jump into the driver’s seat and proceed to drive on through the next checkpoint…literally. The puny guard post comes apart as my truck’s bumper kisses it, pieces flying everywhere, and I make it to the hangar where the walker is. I hated having to bid goodbye to the vehicle that had served me so well with roadkill, but it was time to graduate to something bigger and meaner.

Using my trusty sledge to smash my way in just because, I hop into the walker and walk through the garage doors, the dormitory, the APCs that are now shooting at me, and several office buildings. Walls shatter, beams barely hold onto what is left of their ceilings, and entire rooms are turned into piles of broken rubble. Fence in the way? Not for long. Brick wall in my path? Like that’s a problem for my friend, the sledgehammer, or my new friend, the walker.

I make it to the truck where my ally from Red Faction is waiting and load up the walker, taking point with the plasma gun mounted on the back of the trailer to act as the cover while he drives us to safety. Using the gun, explosions litter the highway with tumbling APCs, wheels head into the stratosphere, enemy soldiers fly out from windows and hatches as their vehicles twist from the shockwaves I leave as gifts along the road to freedom. I also squeeze off a few potshots at company property on the side of the road, watching as a gas station detonates in a thunderous fireball and propaganda billboards fall and splinter apart in the aftermath.

In the end I was left wanting so much more and the full game looks to offer an open world loaded with plenty of missions, side jobs, and other activities making it seem like it might be a mix between Mercenaries and Crackdown in sheer scope and an ability to finally live your dream out as a one man wrecking crew without having to play SimCity.

As for everything else, voice acting seems solid and the graphics look good if not spectacular, but the destruction that you can bring down on everything in sight is incredibly impressive stuff making me forget anything that might come short. If this is only a taste of what you can do, the <buzzphrase>emergent gameplay</buzzphrase> that the full version is sure to expand upon has me convinced that it will be worth buying into.

And now if you’ll excuse me, the demo is calling me back. Again.

No door? No problem!

Ready for more Fallout 3 DLC? Here’s a few new pics for Broken Steel.

The Pitt wasn’t exactly the most fun that I’ve had with Fallout 3 given the technical issues riddling its broken landscape, but the upcoming Broken Steel sounds like it could be just the thing to help get past it.

Here’s a short list of what Bethesda is promising to flash blind players with once it hits on May 5th:

• raising the level cap from 20 to 30 along with including a new perks, two confirmed so far:
  Steel Nerves – speedier regeneration of AP points
  Puppies! – If Dogmeat dies, he’ll come back as a puppy that can be recruited again at certain points in the game. Neat.
• New monsters including the armored Ghoul Reaper, Overlord Super Mutant, and a new Enclave soldier with a flaming personality
• New quest involving the Brotherhood of Steel fighting against a revitalized Enclave across the DC Wasteland
• New areas to explore including a Presidential Metro line running beneath DC and the Enclave’s new digs
• New weapons such as the awe-inspiring Tesla Cannon which can apparently down a Vertibird in one shot. Yeah, you’ll need that.

Since work on this DLC was mentioned to have begun in December of last year, I have high hopes that this won’t have the kind of issues that The Pitt suffered from. Aside from changing the ending allowing the game to be more open ended, depending on what you chose to do at the climax of the adventure the Wasteland will reflect your decision in whether you followed the “good” side or snuck in something special for “evil”.

And here are a few juicy pics to show off some of the new stuffs:

The Brotherhood of Steel and their valiant superweapon, Liberty Prime, bring their arsenal of freedom to the oppressed masses of the Wasteland!

The Enclave won't be happy to see you again after what happened the last time you visited one of their hangouts.

As you can see, our newest Super Mutant, the Overlord, epitomizes our focus on crushing their foes into bloody paste and then pulverizing them some more just to be safe.

Here's a Presidential Perk that will come in handy.

If only you thought about attaching those pipes to a bottling plant first, but noooooo. You had to activate it "for the good of everyone". Pffft.

Finally, my Big Guns skill won't feel so useless anymore!

Viva Las Vegas Fallout Style

As has already been reported everywhere else, Bethesda let slip that Obsidian Entertainment will be working on Fallout: New Vegas.

SWEET.

Why sweet? Three of the Fallout series’ original developers…Feargus Urquhart (Fallout 2, Planescape: Torment), Chris Avellone (Fallout 2, Planescape: Torment), Chris Jones (Fallout, Arcanum)…call Obsidian Entertainment home.  Already hard at work on role-playing spy game, Alpha Protocol, it’s very cool news to hear that Obsidian will also be focusing on a Fallout title. I’m not sure yet whether Urquhart, Avellone, and Jones will be working on the game themselves, but I certainly hope that they will be involved in some capacity as it is something that has come back home for them to play with again. And that’s just awesome.

The only thing I remember about Nevada was what I saw from Fallout 2 with New Reno and that was as close as anyone had gotten to the City that Never Sleeps. Traveling through that cesspool was a great experience filled with interesting characters, all of which were vying to control New Reno through drugs, guns, and good ol’ fashioned violence. Fun times, so I’m guessing New Vegas will be a much bigger and badder version just waiting for some wanderer to come drifting through.

It’s also interesting to hear that New Vegas isn’t an official sequel, nor an add-on, which means that its likely a spinoff title taking place within the character of Fallout’s world to expand the lore and to open up more of what is going on in the world After the Bomb. Does this mean we might see new Fallout titles opening up the rest of the world in the same way that Redguard and Battlespire had opened up the Elder Scrolls series outside of the major chapters? Although both titles weren’t exactly blockbusters, they did add to the lore of the Elder Scrolls and expanded on its world allowing players to participate in these side trips which was great to see.

I hope so, I really hope that’s exactly what it means.

Edge of Eternity Official Site Open, Steampunks Unite?

The official site for Edge of Eternity, a new RPG being developed by tri-Ace (Valkyrie Profile, Star Ocean) and to be published by Sega, is now open with plenty of teaser material. It’s all in kanji since it’s only the Japanese site that is open, but there are enough visuals to get some interest going. You might be wondering how I could be excited over another tri-Ace title after SO4, and the answer is simple: Takayuki Suguro, the planner behind Final Fantasy Tactics and Vagrant Story is helming this project which has given me a little encouragement that it’s going to revitalize my hopes for the developer’s knack for storytelling.

Edge of Eternity takes place in an unspecified future where poisons within the Earth had broken out and had nearly killed all of humanity. A massive purification tower, Burzel, was constructed and the area around it holds what may be the last of mankind as a city eventually grew up around the base. Everything within the game will take place within this pipe and clockwork flavored environ as well as the vertical city of Burzel, where the rich live high above the contaminated surface. But now the purifier is malfunctioning leaving the survivors to wonder just what the future may hold. I can already see class conflict, political scheming, the potential twists, and plenty of possibly steampunkish attitude here mixed in with a little Mad Max survivalism…or it may all burn out in the end in another stereotypical JRPG that doesn’t reach far beyond the genre. But the setting already sounds great so I have some hopes that it will turn out to be decent stuff.

And three of the main characters have also been introduced:

Zephyr is the youngest out of the three at seventeen, and has joined a PMC (private military contractor) as a mercenary. Street smart and an orphan, he acts as the main hero of the story.

Number 20 is a bio-engineered nineteen year-old woman whose lifespan will terminate at the age of 20. She escapes her confines in an attempt to change her fate.

Vashyron is 26 and runs his own PMC, inviting Zephyr to join him. He once served the cardinal of the city and is seasoned survivor who has seen battle.

Burzel and the surrounding city at its base, which looks like a titanic timepiece gone vertical.

From what has already been reported, it looks like the game is already 65% complete. It’s scheduled for release in Japan at the end of this year for both the Xbox 360 and the PS3.

Xbox 360 Review: Star Ocean 4 – The Last Hope

SO4 was a disappointing experience for me. As much as I loved the gameplay, the story felt like an absolute low point in the series leaving only the streamlined mechanics to carry me through. But as I’ve written about before, the freezes in the game conveniently step in to kill the experience at the worst moments. And this is from someone that actually didn’t think the ‘twist’ from Til the End of Time was bad. If you’re a Star Ocean fan like me, though, don’t expect this game to explain anything from SO3. It’s been reputedly said that this game takes place in a parallel dimension which is a convenient excuse to escape the corner that SO3’s version of events have painted its continuity with.

But I digress. SO fans, like me, will undoubtedly get more mileage out of this if only because of the combat and crafting systems. Newcomers might like it if only because it manages to keep things simple. Storywise, enter the vacuum with extreme caution.

You can catch my report to the SRF on how this mission turned out here.

The story will test your hardcore love for anime inspired melodrama.

Assassin’s Creed 2 teases fans with Renaissance inspired goodness

If da Vinci were an assassin, I'm guessing this would have been what his notes would have looked like. And yes, that's a dagger up there.

Ubisoft has put together a teaser site that has gone live in anticipation with the media blowout expected from Game Informer this month. How do I know this? Because the website hints at this without too much subtlety at the end of its Flash crafted, da Vinci inspired presentation.

The storyline and new setting have been kept closed secrets until now, with hints that it may be taking place in Renaissance-era Italy…specifically, Venice. With what is being pandered about on the site, it’s probably a safe bet to say that there’s some truth to that.

I liked the first game despite how repetitive it had gotten with some of the samey jobs that players were forced to play through from city to city, or how limited the dialogue could sound with only accents to remind you that the locale was different. But Ubisoft’s reputation for creating vast, imaginative worlds is also a big factor in my excitement at seeing more of what the sequel could offer. Gameplay may not have been the greatest, but Assassin’s Creed has some of the most impressive visuals and animation work seen yet in this generation.

Can’t wait to see more!

Valkyria Chronicles the Anime hits the ‘net

Valkyria Chronicles' anime series has started!

Fansubbers have translated the first episode of the anime adaptation for the PS3 game, Valkyria Chronicles, produced by A-1 Pictures (Persona -trinity soul-, Tetsuwan Birdy: Decode), and it’s not a bad start to the series. A few liberties have been taken with the character designs, most notably with one or two of the faces which is kind of disappointing, but not altogether terrible. It’s most noticeable with Alicia and Isara who have had their ‘cuteness’ factor increased in subtle ways, but it’s still watchable.

The animation style also mixes in a little of the line art shading used in the game, lending the characters and scenes only a hint of the ’sketched watercolor’ feel that the game had promoted throughout its design which still does the job. It also mixes in cell shaded CG work that blends in well with the hand drawn backdrops instead of standing out like a sore, armored thumb.

The story has also had a few liberties taken with it to stretch out those periods of time within the game spent more on battle than in extended cut-scenes. Some of the original music can also be heard within the episode, although the opening and ending credits are original tunes.

Altogether, I’m pretty happy with how it has turned out so far and am looking forward to the next episode to see what other changes they’ve made. I also had to chuckle during the credits…Selvaria Bles in a kitchen?!

Yep, Alicia's kawaii factor has gone up. I kind of miss the more mature look from the game, but this still works.