Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Lost Planet's mech finds trouble originally appeared on Nintendo Wii Fanboy on Wed, 03 Dec 2008 11:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Charliesdad asked: Wondering how you addressed the balance issues from earlier entries in the series. For example, Sands of Time was amazing, but going back to it recently the combat wore thin after a while (especially in the first big group fight) to be followed by long stretches of almost no combat. Does the new game fall on one side or the other or is there a middle ground that you all shot for and hit? And Demo tomorrow? Maybe?

First, one of our main goals in combat was to make every fight grandiose and meaningful, to make every encounter feel more epic. Thus, we decided to make the new combat system a duel mode in which every enemy has special attributes, a unique personality, cool moves, and his strengths and weaknesses. Having one enemy to fight at one time gave us much more possibility to push this encounter to the limit. Every enemy is as strong as the Prince and will seize his chance to use the environment, his corrupted abilities to counter every mistake the player makes. Every enemy has a background and their own personal objectives that will help push the story forward. Also, there are multiple combat moves and these will take some time to figure them all out and access the most spectacular combos. Using your glove, Elika, your sword and acrobatics, players will be able to combine those to create some breathtaking moves. This new combat system is not meant to be button mashed, but instead requires timing, strategy and the right combo depending on the situation. Also, many quick real-time mini-games where the player has a little fraction of time to react will keep the tension high. The battle system uses some dramatic camera shots that make every fight feel even more epic. Battles will take place usually before saving a fertile ground and pushing away the Corruption. There are different challenges before healing a fertile ground, one might be an acrobatic challenge, a puzzle, a fight and a lot of them are mixes of them all.
Sorry, there are no demo plans at this time.

KingBroly asked: What’s the framerate like on the PS3 version? I’ve heard this game employs the same engine as Assassin’s Creed, and the framerate on the PS3 version of that…not so good.

Fluidity of control and animation quality are hallmarks of Prince Of Persia games. We would never ship a POP title unless we were confident the player could fully appreciate the movement of the Prince in acrobatics and combat and – simply put – framerate hiccups get in the way of that. They break the

We have some of the most talented PS3 engineers at Ubisoft working for us on POP (and Ubisoft has now made quite a few PS3 titles) and I can assure you the performance on the PS3 is the same as the 360 – a solid 30fps throughout the game.

narde15 asked: are their any trophies?

POP does indeed ship with trophies from day one.

FeaturePreacher asked: Will the prince be able to use different weapons besides the sword that is seen in gameplay videos?
AND
Will the prince be able to level up his combat abilities? I hope the prince has a long list of combat combinations. Does he?

We want the player to feel like the Prince is an adventurer with a lot of experience already – he is an acrobatic warrior who has already been through and seen a lot. As such it made sense to us that he start out this adventure with all his abilities unlocked. Elika, on the other hand, evolves in her abilities as the game progresses, unlocking new magical abilities. What is important to us is that the player still feels a sense of progression and development because the « duo » of the Prince and Elika are certainly evolving as you play.

Finally, simply because the Prince has access to all of his abilities from the beginning of the game, doesn’t mean the players will know how to use them all. If it is your first time playing POP, don’t expect to be able to pull off the 14 hit combos and complete long uninterrupted strings of acrobatics without pausing - you’ll evolve towards that in time as you get more comfortable with the game systems.

SantanaClaus89 asked: Ever since The Sands of Time this series has been in a downward spiral. What if anything has been done to take the series “back to its roots” so to speak?

In POP Sands of Time trilogy, the innovation was the Sands of Time. We felt the need to find a new innovation for this new chapter:
• Open-ended structure
• New combat system
• New artistic direction
• Role of the secondary character, Elika

But you can also rest assured we’ve also kept the core fundamentals of what made the Sands of Time trilogy great.

• The balanced mix of acrobatics and combat
• Excellent visuals
• Highly detailed character and story
• Highly responsive controls
• 1001 night’s universe / fantasy elements

As you read this some reviews will have already hit online (IGN scored PoP 9.3, for example). One of the best compliments that any reviewer has given us so far is that we’ve recaptured the magic and mystery that made the original Sands Of Time so great.

narde15 asked: are you working on a prince of persia, playstation home space? will you consider one in the future?

We are not currently working on a Prince of Persia home space but we might consider it for future games.

DeforMAKulizer asked: What made you guys ditch the realistic style followed in AC and trying out for the new water color style? And which game was hard to code for… AC with its realistic graphics? Or maintaining the water color feel in PoP?
Thanks! Can’t wait to go back to the PoP series =D

We wanted to embrace the fantasy nature that defines every Prince of Persia game. The ‘Photorealistic’ artistic direction that is seen in so many games right now did not fit in well with the magical world we were exploring with this game. We wanted to try something new and the “Illustrative” art style really represents our vision in this game – to make it feel like a storybook.

chaosatom333 asked: I am disappointed that U guys didn’t include any time-shifting powers.
They were awesome. Why did u guys do that?

That mechanic started to feel old to us – it had been copied in many other games and had lost some of its uniqueness. Elika is our new sands of time and I think she more than makes up for their absence.

chaosatom333 asked: How long in production have u guys been?

Three years, start to finish.

chaosatom333 asked: How long is the game relatively speaking? like 12-16 or less. Something like that. How much platforming is there? The more the better imo.
Fights are nice too.

An average player will probably take around 12-15 hours to finish the game if they do the bare minimum needed to complete it. If you take the time to learn all of the backstory of the characters (through our ODD system) and collect all of the lightseeds (to get all of the trophies) I think you can certainly expect more in the range of 18-20 hours.

In terms of the breakdown between acrobatics and combat, it is hard to say for sure due to the open structure of our world. Certainly, though, there is the potential for you to spend a lot more of your time doing acrobatics then combat.

narde15 asked: how big is the world of prince of persia? will their be side quests?

It’s quite big. It will take you some time to travel from one end to another. Also, It depends of the path you take to make your way around. Additionally our world features a lot of vertical gameplay, taking you up to some dizzying heights to survey the world down below you as you progress through your quest. The size and height of our world certainly gives it a massive sense of scope.

Munkeh111 asked: What percentage of the game is combat? I am hoping for a high percentage of platforming!

It’s hard to say for the exact percentage but you will spend more time platforming than fighting that’s for sure. Collecting all the light seeds will definitely make you spend hours exploring the world, platforming and using your head to figure out how to get to that light seed! There are many combats as well.

lifeRPGs asked: What are Ubisoft’s plans for the after-PoP?

I’d be drawn and quartered if I gave away those secrets. Just a few days ago I saw an advanced prototype of an incredibly top-secret game and was floored with how cool it looked and felt. While I watched it being demoed I was furiously taking notes for ideas to draw inspiration from on my next game.

CrimsonFox13 asked: Beautiful art style. I’ve never played a Prince Of Persia game before, although I’ve always been interested. The beauty of this game captivated me. The game reminds me of Team ICO games. There’s a beautiful landscape with platforming involved, like the Team ICO games, and you’re traveling with a woman, just like in ICO. Did you draw any inspiration from either or both of the Team ICO games?

Team ICO is definitely an inspiration for us and both Shadow Of The Colossus as well as ICO were games we played extensively during the development of POP. Team ICO consistently proves that videogames can be so much more then “just” a form of entertainment – they can enlighten, teach, and make us feel. I welcome any and all comparisons to the incredible development talent of that studio.

It was very important to us, though, that our game be incredible accessible and action packed, too. We were not creating a game just for those players who like “art” in their games. We have spectacular acrobatics, incredible combat and a rich story. In many ways we consider games like Burnout influential as well in their immediate accessibility – you pick up the controller, press a few buttons, and right away spectacularly rewarding things occur. This was very important to us in the development of POP.

farmer_steve asked: For somebody who has never played a Prince of Persia game, how would you explain the experience? And what do you think is the main draw to it?

The first Prince of Persia game was created in the late 80s by Jordan Mechner and has become one of gaming’s most well-known franchises. Prince of Persia is a game with a balanced mix of acrobatics, combat and puzzle solving set in a fantastic Persian world where you control The Prince, the most agile warrior of all time as he Runs, Jumps, Flips and Fights his way towards saving the world. All the games are inspired by the 1001 night’s universe and feature an epic storyline with strong character development.

luckettx asked: How many language tracks have been recorded for the Blu Ray release of this game in Europe?

English, French, Italian, German and Spanish. There are other localized versions (one Dutch, another Polish, another Russian) but the main version will have those five languages on it.

Yuriki93 asked: Does this game have anything story-related to the previous games?

No, nothing that will affect the main narrative. We put in a few tongue and cheek references (hint: pay attention to the ODD system) but just as a ‘nod and a wink’ to the hardcore fans. We are telling a new story within the “Book” of Prince of Persia.

SomethingClever asked: From where did you draw inspiration from (games or other) in this iteration of PoP Some of the big reactions to date have been about the voice of the Prince. What led your team to choose such an American sounding voice actor, and was there any concern over people associating that voice to Nathan Drake?

The choice of Nolan North (Nathan Drake) as the voice of the Prince is entirely intentional. When we were designing the character of The Prince and trying to identify his personality, the two characters we returned to most often were Han Solo and Indiana Jones. Both, of course, played by Harrison Ford. Nolan North showed in his characterization of Nathan Drake an uncanny resemblance to Indiana Jones both in terms of tone and delivery. We thought it particularly appropriate given the heavy influence of these characters in the writing of The Prince that the voice actor we use be one who manages to capture the essence of the influencing characters deeply.

zombiefriend asked: oh also i just remembered is PoP going to have subtitles? i rly hope so b/c i have hearing loss and i wasnt able to fully appreciate ACs story like i wanted to

Prince Of Persia, like all Ubisoft games now, is subtitled in all languages.

PlasmaGlory asked: I know that your philosophy with Elika was to make someone that would never hold you back, so what’s to stop someone from just hiding in a corner and mashing the “Elika Button”?

It wouldn’t help much to just tap the Elika button in a corner. The game requires you to use all of the Prince’s abilities combined with Elika in order to be effective. Whenever you need Elika’s Help, she is there to do so, but only if you are doing something as well (ie: fighting, in the middle of a jump, etc).

Standing in a corner and mashing the Elika button will just summons a compass power over and over again – not much help in defeating the guardians of Ahriman.

jazzyrider asked: what additional items are packaged with the limited edition versus the normal package?

• Collectible Limited Edition packaging
• An exclusive look at the making of Prince of Persia
• A Prima digital mini-strategy guide full of developer’s secrets
• A digital art book
• The original soundtrack scored by master composer Inon Zur

sainraja asked: I am looking forward to this but how similar is this to Sands of Time?
Sands of Time was magical! I loved every minute of it. I thought the story was put together very well. It was the Uncharted of last generation! I can’t to try this out but I am hoping it will give me the same feeling that Sands of Time did.

We consider POP to be the spiritual successor of Sands Of Time. We invested a lot of time and energy into trying to ensure that the sense of magic, wonder and mystery that was so special and unique in SOT was reproduced in this new POP adventure while still bringing some strong visual and gameplay innovations to the series.

In terms of your passion for Uncharted, let me simply say I share your enthusiasm. Uncharted for me was an incredible game because it was so much more than the sum of its parts. I have a hard time putting my finger on the one feature of Uncharted that stood out as my favorite while I was playing, but as soon as I finished I wanted to start over from the beginning and play through again. It is easily one of my favorite PS3 games to date.

Dark_Vincent asked: Will there be different difficulty levels?

The game has just one difficulty level, but the challenge certainly progresses as you play and (hopefully) get more comfortable with the mechanics. New traps are released, more corruption infects the world, and the enemies unlock new abilities and combos.

TripOpt55 asked: Hey, I can’t wait for this game. Here’s my questions: Does the game autosave (or how does it save)? Can you create multiple save files?

POP features a ‘save anywhere’ system. No matter what you are doing, you can create a save (new save or overwrite – there is space for 10 save game slots). We don’t save the exact location, though (ie: if you are in the middle of the air and save, when you load you won’t fall to your death) but rather the last stable platform you were on. Don’t worry, though, these are never very far apart.

Zankantou asked: What motivated your team to take the franchise into a radically new direction artistically?
How did you guys come to the conclusion that this new installment should be not, or loosely, related to the previous trilogy in the last generation of consoles?
Is your team considering using this new artistic engine for future games as well?

In terms of the art direction, we wanted to do something new, something unique. Most of our favorite games – the ones that stand out in our minds years after playing them – had unique visual styles that did not try to emulate reality. Additionally, as I said above, we felt a more fantastic artistic direction would mesh well with our fantasy universe and story. Finally, we wanted to take the incredible concept art and illustrations that our teams created as reference material and do them justice by creating the tools and technology needed to make our game look like the illustrations – a highly detailed painting brought to life.

In terms of why we left behind the old trilogy, we felt the story of the Sands Of Time had been told and it was time to move on. We had never planned to continue to tell the story of the Sands of Time Prince forever, and the universe of Prince of Persia has so much potential for other themes to explore. By creating a new Prince, on a new adventure, we’ve added a wealth of material to the Prince of Persia universe to potentially explore in future games.

Finally, I believe very strongly in the artistic choices we took for POP and sincerely hope that this Illustrative style is used again at Ubisoft moving forward. Of course I don’t have any specific details, but I think it safe to say that the response has been positive enough that we’ll likely be returning to this stylistic choice in the future.

The industry's first video games -- Pong, Asteroids, Space Invaders -- were all 2D by necessity. A few early games experimented with basic 3D, such as Battlezone's vector-based tank simulator, but these games were simply interesting footnotes, not the mainstream.

Everything changed in 1992 with id Software's Wolfenstein 3D, which popularized 3D as the leading edge of game development. Since then, almost no corner of the industry has been left untouched by the transition from 2D to 3D graphics. Almost every franchise, from Mario to Zelda to even Pac-Man himself, has tried out 3D technology.

Now that this transition is essentially complete, it may finally be a good time to ask ourselves what we have learned in the process. What are the advantages of 3D? What are its challenges? For what is 2D still best?

Perhaps game developers can now at last choose the best graphics environment on a game-by-game basis instead of making the move to 3D just from competitive pressure.

Troubles with Cameras

3D games and cameras have a long, troubled history. While first-person games are essentially a solved problem for 3D, most other genres are still adapting to the new technology. Teaching the player how to use a camera while also teaching the game's core experience can be a tough challenge.

One distinct advantage 2D games have is that the easiest camera to teach is one which doesn't exist. In fact, 3D games have been trending away from giving the player extensive camera controls.

Super Mario 64 is credited with being the first successful 3D platformer, but it required the player to make extensive use of the camera controls to keep Mario visible and heading in the right direction.

Platformers attempted more intelligent camera systems over the years, trying to dynamically determine the best perspective at any given time. Such solutions, however, are bound to fail at some point, such as when the character gets stuck behind a corner or under a ledge.

To solve this sticky problem, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time introduced two alternative static camera perspectives that the player could access at any time. God of War took this approach a step further and enforced a single fixed camera for each of the game's scenes, approaching the level design almost like a film cinematographer.

Super Mario Galaxy has a dynamic camera without any controls whatsoever, although it adopts a nearly top-down view to enable the player to always see the surrounding area. Other avatar-based games, such as World of Warcraft, prevent the player from tweaking the camera while moving, ensuring that the player can never end up running directly into the camera.

Strategy games have also gone through a progression of camera systems, similarly trending towards taking camera controls away from the player, or at least hiding them from the novice. Star Wars: Force Commander, one of the first 3D RTS games, had an infamously difficult free camera, which made finding the right angle to view your troops a constant chore.

Warcraft 3 may be considered the first RTS to get 3D right. The designers achieved this feat by greatly restricting the camera's freedom -- the zoom range was minuscule, the pitch angle came directly from zoom, and the only camera rotation was attached to an obscure hot-key.

Lead Designer Rob Pardo describes the process behind these restrictions:

"With 3D, we decided to bring the camera down quite a bit and try out some things. The problem was with the camera pulled all the way down, it became a pseudo-third-person experience.

It was a challenge because we still wanted a fun strategy game. Eventually we pulled the camera into a more traditional isometric view, and that's when we really started making progress."

But Which 2D?

Not all 2D games are the same. Two major styles have developed: “classic” 2D, which is a straight top-down (chess/checkers) or side-on (Sonic games) view, or isometric 2D, which tries to fake 3D with an isometric projection at a pre-set angle. Before making the full jump to 3D, many genres made a move from classic 2D to isometric 2D as an intermediary step.

For example, the original Civilization had a traditional top-down grid view while Civ 2 had a three-quarters isometric view. While this new perspective gave the game world a more life-like appearance, the change did come at a cost to the user's game experience. Namely, distances are much more difficult to judge on an isometric grid as the east-west axis takes up twice as many pixels as the north-south axis.

To solve this problem, for Civ 4, our 3D perspective actually hearkened back to the original game as we showed the game's grid straight ahead and not at an angle. The easier the players perceive the grid through the graphics, the better they can “see” their possible decisions.

It is significant that Advance Wars: Days of Ruin (DS), the latest version in this long-running series, has maintained the traditional chess-board view, keeping the player focused squarely on the core gameplay. The “chunky” unit art familiar to the series is a great example of an artistic style which flows from the limitations of the game's presentation.

In contrast, a game heavily influenced by the Advance Wars series -- Age of Empires: The Age of Kings (DS) -- chose to move the same game mechanics into an isometric 2D world. The transition was not altogether successful.

Not only was the immediacy of the grid harder to follow, but because units extended beyond the edges of their tiles, selecting units and locations became a significant problem when groups of units overlapped one another. Thus, tile-based games tend to be more successful when a top-down view is adopted.

Graphics are not Gameplay

3D graphics are not the same things as 3D gameplay. For example, two sci-fi RTS games -- Homeworld and Sins of a Solar Empire -- use very similar 3D engines to recreate the vast scale and special effects of deep space combat.

However, they do not share core gameplay, as Homeworld is a "true" 3D game, meaning that ships could be moved freely along the z-axis, while Sins actually has 2D gameplay, as the game is played on a single, flat plane, meaning that ships cannot fly above or below each other.

In fact, the game could have been implemented with a 2D engine; using 3D was a secondary choice to enable smooth zooming and to evoke the "feel" of outer space. The team's decision to adopt 2D gameplay saved Sins from the interface complications of Homeworld, which required two or three separate clicks to give units a destination in all three dimensions.

Many other example of hybrids exist, where games use 3D graphics to render essentially flat 2D gameplay. Super Smash Bros. Brawl, for example, is fought on a single, vertical plane that uses the 3D engine for the all-important animations and fluid background environments.

Cliff Bleszinski has described the gameplay of Gears of War as a horizontal version of the classic 2D platform Bionic Commando. Instead of using the grappling hook to ascend from platform to platform, Gears players "jump" from cover point to cover point along a horizontal plane.

Essentially, most games can be divided into three play mechanic categories which are related to but semi-independent from the graphics:

1. Tile-Based Games (Tetris, Puzzle Quest, Civilization, Oasis, NetHack)
2. Single-Plane Games (Starcraft, Madden, Geometry Wars, Super Mario Bros.)
3. Real-World Games (Portal, Super Mario Galaxy, Burnout, Boom Blox)

Good rules-of-thumb exist for each of these categories.

Real-world games essentially require 3D graphics. Of course, the term "real" is not meant to be taken literally. The gun from Portal is not real, but the user enjoys playing with it because of the expectation that its unique behavior exists in harmony with the physics and gravity of our own world.

The easiest way to guarantee that the player bring along assumptions from the real world is to immerse them in a 3D environment that looks, behaves, and feels real. These environments are the equivalent of what-you-see-is-what-you-get for games.

On the other hand, tile-based games usually work best as top-down 2D games, with little separating the player from the core game mechanics. For single-plane games, the choice comes down to largely one of aesthetics and technology.

Can the game's platform support 3D graphics smoothly? Does 3D provide an advantage, from either shared animations or dynamic effects or general flexibility, that makes the technology worthwhile?

All in all, 2D is an underrated style that is often unfairly ignored as an old technology. Developers should not underestimate the advantages of avoiding the technical overhead of maintaining a bulky 3D engine and asset pipeline.

Furthermore, well-made 2D graphics never really go obsolete. Sulka Haro, lead designer of Habbo Hotel, likes to point out that their retro 2D style looks just as good today as when the game launched eight years ago. If they had used 3D, Habbo would probably be on its second or third engine by now.

Once a 2D engine is up and running, the artists can focus on simply improving the game's look piece by piece. If 2D helps clarify and communicate the underlying game mechanic, then all the better.

[You can find out more about Game Developer magazine, including how to subscribe to physical and digital versions and its digital sample issue, at its official homepage.]

Today we bring you the second set of XNA Community Games that are gearing up for tomorrow's release of the New Xbox Experience.

There's 10 more games to look through here . It appears that over 30 games will be available on Community Games at NXE launch now - so think of these posts as a helpful shopping guide when searching through every single Community Game available.

The next update will include not only the final selection of XNA Community Games, but GamerBytes' top games that you should really consider buying. It's going to be a very big market - get ready to swim through it all.

Poker Ball

Creator: MarkcusD
Genre: Card & Board
Price: 200 Points

Trial Play: Poker Ball takes the essence of Arkanoid and plugs Poker hands into the mix. The last 5 cards you've hit pop up in the side bar and you get an additional score based on the hand you get. Sounds good in theory, but Arkanoid is such a random game that even attempting to make a decent hand out of your cards isn't that achievable without a lot of chance on your side.

Weapon of Choice

Creator: MommysBest
Genre: Action & Adventure
Price: 400 Points

Trial Play: Feel like blowing stuff up? Than Weapon of Choice is for you. A hark back to the days of Contra and Metal Slug, WOC is perhaps the most game-like game out right now on XNA Community. Run around, blow stuff up, several different routes through the game, several different characters with their own unique weapons. Definitely give it a look.

Beat IT!

Creator: MonsuneMoon
Genre: Family
Price: 200 Points

Trial Play: A multiplayer only game in which you play "Simon" with an Xbox 360 controller. The screen will tell you to do something - actions like twisting the analog stick or pressing the trigger buttons, and you've got to do it just before the timer runs out and the highest possible score value - it will also randomly tell you to switch players, while also getting faster and faster. Looks like the kind of game that'll get you laughing while you and your friends are drunk and barely comprehensible.

DUOtrix

Creator: Mo
Genre: Puzzle & Trivia
Price: 400 Points

Trial Play: Think Tetris, but playing two games at once. Single blocks drop from the top and bottom of the screen to join up in the middle, but they could be different colors, causing all sorts of confusion. It's a little limited, it only has single player, but what's there is pretty decent.

Organon

Creator: DarthCheesiest
Genre: Shooter
Price: 200 Points

Trial Play: A time based 3D-Space shooter where you've got to hit all the coloured squares in the level as quickly as possible. Not bad looking, but I felt the controls were not very well suited to the Xbox controller. I'd rather be able to move around like other shooters, and use the triggers to push forwards and backwards with thrust.

Bad Atom Episode 1

Creator: kstrat2001
Genre: Action & Adventure
Price: 200 Points

Trial Play: Bad Atom has you flying around a sphere, where you're always aiming towards the middle. You've got to maneuver your ship around the environment to shoot the red baddies with the blue and the blue with the red. It's pretty difficult to understand what's going on, but they've attempted to put in a bit of a story in there.

Abstacked

Creator: lutas
Genre: Puzzle & Trivia
Price: 200 Points

Trial Play: Abstacked is another drop down puzzle game where you connect objects together. The hook is that you cannot remove the stars normally - you can only do so by putting two of the same shape on opposite sides of the stars. Nice idea, but the presentation is really poor on this one. Drab, stretched presentation with little or no audio makes it a fairly ugly game.

Endless Swarm

Creator: Andrew Thayer
Genre: Shooter
Price: 400 Points

Trial Play: Think Missile Command meets Desktop Tower Defense. You set up your laser and other cannons at the bottom of the screen, point them in a certain direction, keep them alive by healing them, and make sure the oncoming swarms don't take down your two factories. An interesting take on DTD games. Give it a go and see if you can get your mind around it.

Tail Gun Charlie

Creator: Duckocide
Genre: Shooter
Price: 400 Points

Trial Play: Charlie Chatsworth must shoot things in order to win. Plays like you're playing Space Invaders from looking at the bottom. Aiming seems to be pretty difficult and honestly did not have a lot of fun with this.

UAV Wars

Creator: Some Call Me Tim
Genre: Action & Adventure
Price: 200 Points

Trial Play: You are a space ship shooting other space ships. The aiming is difficult as you need to judge vertical space as well. You also hear the sound of a lawnmower the entire time of playing. Just not really that much fun.

Oh Capcom. I love you guys. Really, I do. Street Fighter IV? Looks and plays great. Mega Man 9? I was feeling it and its controller-smashing retro difficulty (even though you never sent that retro box to us like you had promised). Dark Void is looking slick, too, with its vertical combat and jet-pack goodness. And even NeoPets Puzzle Adventure is on my "must have" list this holiday.

So I'm sorry its so hard to get behind the upcoming port ... remake ... whatever you want to call it, Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop for the Wii. Don't get me wrong -- zombies are my jam, and despite some flaws, the Xbox 360 version of Dead Rising remains one of my favorite games. But so far, it seems like Chop Till You Drop has less everything than the original, from gameplay to the available weapons to zombies hordes. 

Hell, even this box art for the game features fewer zombies than the Xbox 360 version. I count 14, including the two sets of undead hands near the "Closed for Lunch" sign. The 360 version by comparison has at least 23 in the foreground, and that's not even counting the stragglers in the background. 

Capcom, step it up -- I don't want to hear single-zombie screams echoing through the empty halls of Willamette Mall when Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop ships next year. 

A Wii release that includes mini-games? Been there, done that. But mini-games in a fighter? That's what you'll be getting when you pop in your copy of Tatsunoko vs. Capcomin your Wii when it comes out in Japan next month.

The fighter will come with character-themed mini-games that have you waggling away with the Wiimote in a collection that, if nothing else, will give you something to do when you tire of the main game.

No word yet on whether every character in the roster will get their own mini-game, but here are the ones that have been announced so far.

• Ryu: Intense Training: Scorching Hadoken- Shake to fill a gauge, then blast away with your spirit energy.
• Ken the Eagle: Galactor Base Underwater Assault- Duck Hunt, but with baddies and fellow heroes instead.
• PTX-40A: A K Extermination Mission- A Lost Planet-themed vertical scrolling shooter.
• Tekkaman: Waldaster UFO Giant Invasion- Shake to speed up Takkaman, trying to reach a goal.
• Alex: Super Throw- Throw cars by spinning the Wiimote.
• Jun the Swan: G3 Edition Test Flight- Fly through rings as Jun.
• Saki: Destroy the Asteroid Field- Shoot down oncoming asteroids.
• Viewtiful Joe: Viewtiful Shot- Take pics of Joe in action, framing him correctly.
• Ippatsuman: Reversal Strike King- Throw balls at a scoreboard.
• Doronjo: Just in the Nick of Time Dorombo da Koron- Collect treasures, avoid bombs.

Images: Capcom

Tatsunoko vs. CapcomAlso Comes With a Mini-Game Collection[Siliconera]

See also:

• Hands On: Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, or Street Fighterfor Dummies
• Viewtiful JoeJoins Tatsunoko vs. Capcom
• Japan Gets Tatsunoko vs. CapcomStick

In addition to reducing the amount of damage received from high-level encounter NPCs, each Ward on high-level armor set pieces worn will now affect the amount of damage players are able to do to those NPCs. Players not wearing any pieces of the appropriate armor set will see their damage greatly reduced. For each piece of the appropriate armor a player wears, their damage against the boss monster will increase. [Source]

Basically, if you don’t have any of the set you do 1dmg per hit to the mobs in the dungeon (100% decrease), if you had 1 set item you do 80% reduction, 2 peices a 60% reduction, etc.  (Source of these findings)  This change effectively placed Warhammer Online onto the same path that Trials of Atlantis took Dark Age of Camelot.  Essentially it was going to turn Warhammer Online ito a gear-treadmill based game just like World of Warcraft.  Instead of needing the gear to make your character’s stats and abilities better, it would simply be needed to let your character do any damage at all to the mobs.  It was forcing players to spend their time farming Dungeon A to move to dungeon B to move to dungoen C, and so on and so forth.   There’s no need for me to explain much more about why that is a horrendous form of game design since Mythic hotfixed it out.  The players spoke - and they spoke loudly.  Here’s what Mythic said tonight:

In response to player feedback we have reverted the recent change to the Ward system on high level encounters throughout the game. Players will once again do regular damage and the set bonus will only impact your resistance to the encounter’s attacks.

The ward system will continue to undergo further testing and development on our internal and public test servers. In the future we intend to introduce improvements to not only the ward system but to the item rewards tied to the system as well.

Please note if your character is currently logged in you will need to un-equip and re-equip the pieces in order for this change to take effect. [Source]

I think improving the item rewards and the dungeons themselves is the first step.  Although it feels like WAR has a lot of items, in reality the ones worth using are limited and players have already designated the “best” gear.  I want to avoid the pitfalls of having to PvE-treadmill in order to take out the Kings of a city (which would have been a likely result of the 1.0.4b change) and just have the encounter be dynamic and aided by having the gear - not required.  WAR is not a PvE game and quite honestly the PvE is lackluster (what I’ve seen so far - I still need to see Lost Vale and some city dungeons).  Forcing me to do specific dungeons/raids/etc will only cause people (myself included) to find a game that has better PvE.

So again, good call on taking this one back Mythic.  There are plenty other directions to go other than treadmills.   PS, Darkness Falls now kthx.

On a side note, Wrath of the Lich King releases tonight at midnight.  I’ll be honest and admit that I had an urge to get it and play but when I saw that the content was all 65+ (probably 70+ in reality) I became uninterested.  Vertical expansion FTL.  Tomorrow will be an interesting day for many games out there… I have a feeling we’ll be seeing a lot of tumbleweeds.

I race up five flights of stairs and break open the door to the roof with a single kick. Once my eyes adjust to the brightness, I hurdle a few solar power generators, dodging machine gun fire from the helicopter hovering nearby.

I need to lose altitude fast, so I leap off the side of the building, my arms and legs pumping furiously as I gaze down at the tiny cars a dozen stories below. When I land on the roof of a nearby building, I tuck and roll to absorb the impact. The helicopter targets me again as I notice that there's a chicken-wire fence topped with barbed wire between me and my next objective. How the hell do I get past that?

That's a typical 20 seconds in Mirror's Edge. This Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC game might best be described as a first-person runner. (We reviewed the Xbox version.) It's a vertigo-inducing, blazing fast and challenging game based on parkourthat has you running and jumping across buildings, making death-defying leaps and miraculous escapes. Despite a few frustrations and imperfect design decisions, developer DICE has created a whole new genre of action-adventure game.

One of the most memorable things that happened to me this year was the first time I got my hands on an early demo of Mirror's Edge . Within seconds, I was clambering up walls, swinging on pipes, hanging from rooftops.

Yes, countless other games have let you run and jump in 3-D. But Mirror's Edgeis revolutionary because of the amazing immediacy that comes from its first-person point of view. That simple change makes it feel like you aren't simply steering around an agile little Mario-type character -- it feels like you're actually performing the parkour, barely catching hold of a ledge and avoiding a 900-foot drop.

At first, Edgestruck me as a fusion of everything I loved about the superpowered cop in Crackdown and the urban rollerblade kids of Jet Grind Radio: the gorgeously funky futuristic aesthetic, an array of acrobatic moves and the intoxicating ability to explore the vertical dimensions of a cityscape.

But the more I played, the more it felt like Prince of Persia. Mirror's Edgefrequently requires you to chain together a sequence of carefully coordinated moves to reach the next objective, and it's extremely easy to fall to your death if you mistime one. There are plentiful save and restart points, but I died so often at some points that I found myself wishing that Edgeshared Prince of Persia's time-rewind function.

The game is well-paced, alternating between cramped, claustrophobic spaces and wide-open ones, between pursuit and evasion. It mixes in a bit of combat and puzzle-solving here and there. But it's fundamentally about running, jumping and tumbling. Yes, it's repetitive, but in the way that the Burnoutracing games are repetitive, where the better you get at it, the more fun it becomes.

There are sometimes multiple paths through levels, but it's not a free-roaming game. This seems restricting at first, but it helps the replay value quite a bit. The first time you traverse a level can be frustrating, with a few head-scratching moments and a lot of trial and error. But go back and try the level again with a better sense of how to tackle its acrobatic challenges, and it's a lot more fun. The first time you make it through without dying, it's a blast. And once you know the level by heart and you're racing through at a dead run, looking for shortcuts and trying to beat your best time, it's glorious.

The story plays out in brief animated scenes that, as many people have noted, look a lot like the ads for Esurance. It concerns a repressive and uncool government that has the citizenry on a short leash, and apparently only foot messengers with parkour skills are successful at rebelling against it.

I imagine that most players will skip the story scenes, and the developer seems to be OK with that -- you only have to view them for 20 or 30 seconds, while the level is loading. Mid-level loading times are infrequent, but rather lengthy -- the game pulls that Mass Effecttrick of having you climb into an elevator and travel what appears to be 500 floors while the game extracts the next environment off the disc.

From a purely aesthetic standpoint, I love the unique graphic style of Mirror's Edge. The monochromatic color scheme works perfectly, making any bits of color pop out of the screen. Said bits of color are used in a subtle way to guide you to your next foothold or jumping-off point. The clean, antiseptic offices and open-air malls give way to dingy alleys and clammy subway tunnels.

But the blown-out brightness and inky darkness are miserable if you're trying to find your way around. As I moved from light areas to dark areas, I had to adjust the game's brightness and contrast settings -- and then the brightness levels on my TV. At one point during the final chapter, I entered an extremely under-lit room and groped around blindly for 30 to 45 minutes before I found the way forward.

There's been some brouhaha about the game's tendency to induce nausea. In general, I'm fairly susceptible to this sort of thing: When I played through Half-Life 2on PC, I had to pause frequently and walk around the block to let my stomach settle. I had a few twinges of queasiness during Mirror’s Edge, particularly when the point of view was whipping around 180 degrees. But making my avatar stand still for a second while I took a deep breath always seemed to take care of that.

Still, it's a testament to how visceral and involving the game experience is that this is even an issue. No game has ever come this close to creating the sort of physical sensations I get while riding a roller coaster. You know that feeling you get when a coaster has just completed a steep climb, and it's picking up a little speed, and you know that it's about to seriously plummet several stories? I felt that way every time I leaped off a building in Mirror's Edge.

Despite some regrettable drawbacks and frustrations, Mirror's Edge is a singular and incredibly compelling experience. If you're looking to try something that's genuinely new and not just a refinement or tweak of some existing genre or play mechanic, you really owe it to yourself to play this.

WIREDOriginal play mechanic, instantly accessible, endlessly enjoyable

TIREDOccasionally confusing and/or invisible objectives

$60 (360, PS3) $50 (PC), Electronic Arts

Rating:

Read Game|Life's game ratings guide.

Image courtesy Electronic Arts

See also:

• Mirror's Edge Trilogy Planned
• Free Mirror's EdgeRemix Album in November
• Mirror's EdgeMakes the Jump to Comics