GameSpot gets in a demo for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2 at PAX 2010 in Seattle.
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We team up and fight giant robots with our bare hands…and stack some colored blocks.
It’s hard to miss the developers donning bright red firemen hats, located off to the side of one of the halls at the 2010 Penny Arcade Expo. Indie developer Firehose Games was busy recruiting people to jump in and play their upcoming PlayStation Network title, Slam Bolt Scrappers. Described as a combination of Super Smash Bros. and Puzzle Fighter, you and up to four friends can either team up and play through the campaign, or split off into teams of two and tackle each other.
As a scapper, your job is to punch these colored creeps that come from the sky, which gives you colored blocks to stack on top of one another in order to create weapons. Slam Bolt Scrappers doesn’t need much of a premise to get you engaged in some hectic gameplay. In the campaign, you play cooperatively with AI teammates or real people if you can gather them (no online play has been announced yet). There are various different levels but the objective remains largely the same. You must punch the flying grubs that come from the sky and they’ll drop colored pieces that makes it feel like you’re playing Puzzle Fighter. You’re stacking the same colored blocks to create two by two squares or anything larger. The bigger the square, the more powerful the weapon.
You use the X and Square buttons to punch, and you can button mash as much as you like. The circle button drops the piece that you’re carrying onto your tower and the triangle button lets you discard it. To rotate, you use the shoulder buttons. It starts to get crazy when you’re busy hitting things (or other people) and you begin to forget your main goal, which is to build up those weapons.
Each color determines what kind of weapon you’ll get. The game will automatically use that weapon once you’ve created the square. For example, if you can stack a two by two tower of red blocks, it’ll fire off a missile at whatever it is that you’re fighting. In our case, it was a giant robot. If you’re playing in the competitive mode, you’ll be firing at the opposing team, who is also furiously working to build their tower of destruction. You can always fly over and punch them to steal their blocks, but if you die, you’re out of the game for awhile but you can press a series of buttons that appear to get yourself back into the game.
Slam Bolt Scrappers is a bright, colorful four-player action game where you pick one of several goofy characters with silly hats, that have the ability to fly all over the screen. There is drop in drop out play, so it’s easy for friends to jump in and play with you. There’s also a beverage mode, which allows you to play the game with one hand while holding a drink in the other. Be sure to check back on our site for a demo of the game. Slam Bolt Scrappers is currently set to be released early next year.
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GameSpot editors Tom Magrino and Shaun McInnis team up with Editor-in-Chief Ricardo Torres for a PAX 2010 Day One daily wrap up.
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This mash-up of genres wears its influences on its sleeve, but it’s a very pretty sleeve nonetheless.
PAX may not quite be on par with E3 when it comes to major game announcements, but it’s still hard to get through the weekend without seeing a few new titles in the headlines. One of the more interesting reveals from the show thus far has been Ubisoft’s unveiling of Outland, an artistic platformer from the developer behind Super Stardust HD. Outland combines retro 2D platforming with a number of elements from shoot-em-ups–most noticeably a light-dark dynamic similar to Ikaruga. After hearing about the game yesterday, we took a walk over to the Ubisoft booth, hung a left at HAWX 2, and took a look at the demo being shown for this upcoming downloadable title.
If what they say about first impressions is true, Outland is certainly in good shape. Its slick art design combines stark black platforms with vivid, colorful background scenery. The level we saw had a definite jungle theme to it, with roots curling from the bottom of floating platforms and giant spider creatures skittering along on the ground.
The story diving the game is a simple one: one day you awaken from a strange dream, notice things around you aren’t quite right, and set out on a quest to speak with a shaman who can heal your ills. This sets the stage for a jungle world overrun by mysterious creatures and monsters. Along with the aforementioned spiders, we also saw an imposing boss figure named the Golem. This one-eyed creature towered over the protagonist, wielding a giant club and looking not entirely unlike one of the bosses from Shadow of the Colossus.
What seems like it will ultimately set Outland apart from other pretty 2D platformers is the light-dark dynamic that’s been heavily inspired (to put it politely) by the classic arcade shooter Ikaruga. Essentially, there are enemies, platforms, and hazards in the world that can either be neutral, light, or dark. As the player, you quickly unlock the ability to fully align yourself with either your light side (a pale blue) or dark side (a deep red). In terms of combat, you can only attack enemies of the opposite color (attacking same-colored enemies will wind up hurting you) while absorbing flying projectiles of the same color will heal instead of harm you. The game encourages clever exploration beyond the required path, often making certain moving platforms usable only when you’re aligned with that color.
The shoot-em-up comparisons don’t end at Ikaruga’s light-dark system, either. A lot of areas in the game will unleash what feels very much like a top-down shooter’s idea of ’bullet hell.’ You’ll see waves of flying blips that are actually harmful projectiles. These often come out of the ceiling in semicircles of alternating color, forcing you to both quickly take cover under platforms and rapidly switch sides to keep from getting hurt. Having not played the game, we can’t say how difficult this wind up being in practice, but developer Housemarque assures us that they’re keeping the difficulty accessible for casual players. These bullet hell areas, then, are more an optional challenge for the hardcore players to defeat in order to earn bonus items and collectibles.
All in all, Outland certainly looks like an interesting platformer. It may wear its influences on its sleeve, but the combination of different genres is at least creative in its own right. We’re hoping to get a chance to play it soon to see just how these different elements come together. Keep an eye out for more coverage.
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We kickoff PAX 2010 with the keynote address by Junction Point founder Warren Spector.
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On Today on the Spot, we take a look a look at what’s new This Week on PSN, get a demo of Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes on the PlayStation 3 and GameSpot editors chime in on Tokyo Game Show 2010!
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Sony shows off its arcade style action game for PlayStation Network at PAX 2010.
Sony is showing off Eat Them!, a new PlayStation Network action game, at this year’s Penny Arcade Expo. The game is being developed by European developer Fluffylogic, who last worked on Savage Moon, and owes a bit to arcade classic Rampage as well as Sony’s own War of the Monsters. We had the chance to try out a very early version of the game which has a nice retro feel to it.
Eat Them! documents what happens when monsters go on a destructive tear in a city. At the moment that doesn’t involve anything too surprising for anyone who’s watched a Godzilla movie. Buildings are smashed, ant-sized people go running around screaming, the military tries to put a stop to things- you know, the usual. You’ll play as one of several monsters, each with their own unique attributes, who have to level everything around them within a time limit. Your arsenal of moves is almost exactly what you’d expect. You’ll be able to run, kick, and smash into the buildings around you to satisfying results. If the basics aren’t good enough for you, you can improvise by grabbing most anything and using it as a makeshift club. Your grab move can also be used to pick up the hysterical masses running at your feet which serve as tasty snacks that restore your health. Your arsenal of moves gets a technological boost courtesy of weapons bolted to your massive frame. While that all sounds well and good, Eat Them! offers the cool twist of a monster lab you can use to create your own unique critter of destruction. While the selection of monsters in the version of the game we played were fine, we have to say the option to create your very own freak of nature has a very special appeal- you can just never cram enough eyeballs on a misshapen head as far as we’re concerned.
We tried a brief sampling of missions in the game which are set in one of four themed environments that are laid out as pulpy 1950’s style comic books. The demo we played let us hop into the different books and choose a mission. We reckon the game will feature a linear progression that has you unlocking missions are you tear your way through the city. Your destructive stroll through the city conveniently yields cash that it appears you can use in the game’s shop to pick up some essentials. While we were only able to try single player in the version we played, Sony rep on hand noted that Eat Them! is set to include online multiplayer for four people which has the potential for a whole lot of fun.
Eat Them!’s presentation helps tie the comic theme together very nicely thanks to a clean cel shaded look. There’s some nice line work on the monsters that helps the unsettling details, such as teeth, eyes, tongues, piping and other parts of their anatomy, stand out. The city and industrial environments we had a look at were laid out tightly, offering plenty of opportunities for smashing and mayhem. The third person camera worked pretty well most of the time but required some minor adjustment when we were trying to line up some attacks on buildings or dealing with a helicopter.
Based on what we played, Eat Them! is funky little arcade-style title that looks very promising. There’s just something satisfying about running around destroying cities as a monster. The addition of custom monster creation, and online play to the classic ’smash everything’ formula makes Eat Them! a game that’s worth keeping a look out for when it releases on PlayStation Network this holiday. Look for more on Eat Them! in the coming months.
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We grapple, leap, and uppercut our way through this retro sequel.
Bionic Commando Rearmed played like a love letter to a bygone era of 8-bit platformers, adding a stylish coat of paint to a game whose overall structure felt firmly rooted in the 1980s. Of course, there was a perfectly good reason for that: Bionic Commando Rearmed was a remake of an NES classic. Rearmed 2, being a sequel to a remake, doesn’t have that same immediate connection to a decades-old predecessor. This has given Capcom and developer Fatshark the creative leeway to make some changes and additions to the original formula, several of which we’ve just had the chance to experience in the game’s latest hands-on demo.
The most noticeable one is your character’s ability to jump. Bionic Commando was a game that revolved around a grapple mechanic, having players run along and swing across gaps rather than leap over them. Grappling is still at the heart of the experience in Rearmed 2, but now you can move around in a way that feels, to put it simply, more natural. Levels are still designed in such a way that you’ll need to thoroughly master that grapple mechanic to get by, as well as seek out new weapons to unlock special sequestered goodies a la Metroid, so the addition of jump feels like less of a game changer and more of a slight breath of fresh air.
A number of new attack abilities are in store for players, as well. You can now do a sort of death from above attack when leaping from high platforms down to enemies below, which is also a mechanic that plays a role in progressing through puzzles whenever you’re trapped behind a stone wall. You can unlock a powerful uppercut ability that can instantly take care of weak enemies or let you quickly launch an explosive barrel at the tougher ones.
Like the original Rearmed, the sequel will also have a co-operative multiplayer mode that allows two players to play simultaneously. You share lives and unlockables, and there’s no friendly fire, so there’s not much of a chance to grief your teammate. While the level design doesn’t change to require team-focused progression through puzzles, there are a number of enemy types that require you to work as a tight pair rather than let one person do all the work. You’ll have the chance to play it alone or with a friend when Bionic Commando Rearmed 2 is released in early 2011.
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GameSpot’s very own Editor-in-Chief Ricardo Torres moderates this 2010 PAX panel for inFamous 2 where we get to see the various incarnations of Cole in the making.
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PAX 2010: Sucker Punch Productions talks about the changes made to its super hero action game over a tumultuous three-and-a-half-year development cycle.
Who was there: A trio of Sucker Punch staffers were on stage: game designer Darren Bridges, development director Chris Zimmerman, and artist Edward Pun. The panel was moderated by GameSpot’s own editor-in-chief Ricardo Torres.
What they talked about: The theme of this panel was just how much one game can change over the course of its development, with the original Infamous being the case study. As the single most jarring piece of evidence, Sucker Punch showed the game’s original pitch reel. This was the video that the Bellevue-based developer used to convince Sony to fund a new super hero game after previously spending years working on the Sly Cooper series. Compared to the version of Infamous that shipped in May of last year, the pitch video was unrecognizable: a city populated by cartoon characters, a superhero in tights and a cape, and the work-in-progress title “True Hero.”
The game played remarkably different in those early days, as well. “It was like Animal Crossing meets Spider-Man,” joked Zimmerman. Far from the gritty anti-hero he would later become, the game’s original protagonist–still not yet named–was something of a ladies’ man. There was a romance system being toyed with early on that allowed the player to win over pedestrians with acts of heroism and, if all went well, reap the benefits with a giant kiss from random passers by. A clip of this wooing mechanic revealed that the player could simply run up to a couple, do a few back flips, and instantly break them up by making the girl fall in love with the player.
Another clip from early in development showed that the hero of the game wasn’t always going to use the powers of electricity as his preferred method of moving about down and dispensing with criminals. One clip showed the player zipping through the city on a dirt bike, riding on the ledges of a pedestrian bridge like an extreme sports game. In terms of weapons, early versions of the hero were shown using grenade launchers, handguns, and even sharpened bike gear projectiles. With every clip they showed–about a dozen in total–the hero would use more and more electrical powers until they did away with the traditional weaponry altogether.
Though the early combat videos seemed to show a steadily increasing amount of electrical powers as a sign that Sucker Punch at least knew in the back of their minds where they wanted to take the game, the look of the hero didn’t follow any sort of recognizable progression. Early versions of the hero ran around in shorts and sunglasses, while later versions were shown wearing a bandanna mask, one with dreadlocks, and a few with glow in the dark shoes and gloves. The chronology of the videos revealed that Sucker Punch wasn’t shy about abandoning a new design in order to go back to an old one, as well. The team ultimately settled on the bike messenger version of Cole fans know today, but not without a few iterations showing him with varying lengths of hair before going with the buzz cut seen in the final game.
However, if you believed the Sucker Punch crew’s self-deprecating laughs, none of those design growing pains caused as much of a headache as actually naming the character. Joked Zimmerman once more, “I have two children, and naming a video game character was like eight million times harder.” Early versions of the hero were code-named everything from “Gear Wolf” to “Chance.” Eventually they arrived at the name Cole MacGrath. They happened upon this surname after browsing entire books’ worth of Scottish clan names, studying the names for meanings to see which had the best fit for the image of the lightning-powered hero. In the end, the MacGrath clan’s association with the word “persistence” won over Zimmerman and his team.
Even with a clearly defined hero, there was still plenty of work left to be done. Once the team decided that Cole would eschew traditional weapons in favor of electrical powers, they spent a good deal of time coming up with ways for Cole to exert those powers. A few of the abilities that were shown but never made it into the game were a stasis field that caught bullets and sent them flying back at enemies; the ability to turn pedestrians into electrically controlled zombies doing your bidding; and the ability to take a cowering citizen and turn them into a giant that would then go off crushing enemies under its feet. A lot of ideas were thrown against the wall, and subsequently a lot of ideas were cut from the final game.
This led into a brief demo of Infamous 2. Even though the team now has a better defined vision for the series after the rough start they experienced with the first game, this sequel has still had its fair share of cut features. A clip was shown displaying some of the ideas that were toyed with for Cole’s new powers in Infamous 2, including giant spiky balls of electricity, and the ability to shrink enemies into tiny little miniature street thugs.
Quote: On the subject of making necessary changes, Bridges said, “We try not to be precious with any of our work. We try to be divorced from it. If it’s good, it stays, and if it’s not we throw it away and try it again.”
The Takeaway: Even though it went on to receive critical praise, Infamous endured a long development cycle filled with change and uncertainty. Sucker Punch overcame this and ultimately shipped a successful title, but it was a game that bore few resemblances to the original goal.
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