Multiplayer Gaming Nights : Sen’s Fortress Edition

It’s good to be typing again!

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working hard to get my game stream working for the blog and haven’t had much room for articles. Still learning the streaming process and learning how to use Twitch.tv and exporting to Youtube. Getting sound to work properly is a bitch, but I’m getting used to it.

My streams are often long and cover every moment I spend playing a game, even the boring parts. Multiplayer Gaming Nights is where I gather some of our favorite moments and share them. Remember to increase your video quality in the embed, because I still haven’t found a way to default in HD.

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[NYCC 2012] Hands-On With Pikmin 3

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Ah Pikmin, such a quirky game about a man and his sentient plant-life. For this one, we got Suikoinfinity to play this since he’s been playing Pikmin 2 on his livestream page. Have you been seeing it? You should! For this demo, I’m sad to say that the tablet functions were unavailable beyond just displaying a map. But the rep did inform us that upon release the Gamepad will be fully supported and will be the main controller. So for now, let’s enjoy Suikoinfinity play Pikmin 3 with the Wiimore+Nunchuk setup.

Suikoinfinity: (Excuse incoming profanity) This is the one Wii U game I had time to play during my day at Comic Con. I got to look at the pretty map on the gamepad, but after being handed a wiimote/nunchuk it was just a fuckin’ tease. I bought original copies of the Gamecube Pikmin games just so I could avoid that “New Play Control” shit. I couldn’t find a melee attack button, or purpose for picking up apples and stuff aside from getting a better medal at the end of a stage (I missed getting Platinum — that’s a bummer). I can’t really give an opinion on control because I couldn’t use a decent gamepad, but the combat and atmosphere felt like any other Pikmin game. Here’s hoping there’s more to pick up than fruit/points and that Louie is a playable character!

[NYCC 2012] Hands-On With Crashmo

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“Oh, this looks like Catherine” is what some of us said when we saw the gameplay of Pushmo. And, much like Catherine, it was quite addictive, especially for our resident Pushmo fan Suikoinfinity. So we thought it proper to let him have a go at the sequel, Crashmo.

Suikoinfinity: I haven’t had much of a chance to express how much I love it, but while the rest of the team was playing Catherine, I was learning to solve Pushmo puzzles like a pro. I like to save my on the go time for puzzle games and on 3DSware, Pushmo is among the best. The similarities to Catherine is in the idea that you’re climbing a structure by pushing in and pulling out parts of that structure; in Catherine it’s boxes and in Pushmo it’s entire walls/floors that can come in any shape. Usually the goal is at the highest (or most difficult to reach) point on the structure. The major difference is that a Pushmo puzzle is embedded into the rear wall, so, while you can push segments in or out, it’s impossible to slide them left or right. Crashmo might feel more like Catherine, because puzzles are in the middle of the floor instead of attached to a wall, so you can slide in any direction. Gravity also becomes a factor, and entire segments of the puzzle can come crashing down with a slide, hence the title. As you can see in the demo, I wasn’t exactly prepared for the change in pace, but from what I played, Crashmo seems like it’s going to be just as addicting as its predecessor. Fans of the first game should love it, and to those new to the series, I recommend giving it a shot, especially if you love puzzle games! Also, my performance is embarrassing in this video — enjoy!

[NYCC 2012] Hands-On With God of War: Ascension (Multiplayer)

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Kratos is back and still ad angry as ever. However, we’re not here to see his anger. Instead, we’re here to see the multiplayer mode and to evaluate this mode has a chance of standing side-by-side with the single-player campaign.

Gesfrid: For the 1st time ever, SCE Santa Monica Studio has introduced a multiplayer feature for up to 8 players on the latest God of War game. In the beginning of the game, players can choose and customize their spartan warrior. The multiplayer game takes place on a desert. Players are on two teams of four where they will try to take control of the map so they can earn their rewards from the Gods. In the desert map, players will battle each other and go up against the giant Cyclops named Polyphemus in the background. The game offers a unique combat play-style and abilities in battle. Just like any other previous God of War game, players can use magic spells, select a variety of deadly weapons, open up chest to find orbs to heal your life or to upgrade your weapon up to a maximum level.

There is a mode called “Favor of the Gods”. In this mode, the 1st player to accumulate a target amount points will achieve victory. Points are earned by kills and is known as “Favor”. The Team can capture altars (which is quite similar to capture-the-flag) and they can also set up traps for opposing players. Another new control feature that was introduced is called “Escape and Heal” meaning you get to escape from opposing player grabbing you, then jump and heal yourself. Whoever captures the most gears and earn the most favor points, the Gods will award you with the spear of Olympus which will be used to annihilate Polyphemus and then the winning team will be able to gain it’s territory. However if the other team gain it’s territory, the giant cyclops will go back to its position and then the spear of Olympus will be lost. Overall, it is a very fun, great game so that millions of players can experience the new elements/features of God of War. Go forth in the name of Olympus!

[NYCC 2012] Hands-On With The Wonderful 101

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Hideki Kamiya: a name that commands respect within the gaming community. The man behind Bayonetta and Devil May Cry is back, and this time he wants us to lead a group of superhero citizens in The Wonderful 101. Prota shows the crowd how it’s done with his playthrough of the demo.

Prota: The Wonderful 101 is a hard game to put into words. It has a visual style akin to Viewtiful Joe, you gather citizens to assist you in various ways like in Pikmin, and it has combat that is reminiscent of Kamiya’s previous action titles, such as Bayonetta. It takes all these things, and the innovation that Platinum Games is known for, and rolls them up into one extremely fun package. The touchpad worked fine for the most part, but I did have issues trying to form a ladder with it, which is when I tried the right analog stick instead and discovered how incredibly slow it was in terms of drawing the symbols. I hope you can adjust the right analog’s sensitivity when the game comes out. I also really enjoyed the section where I had to look at the gamepad’s screen to solve a puzzle in order to continue the level. I can’t wait to see what other ideas the people at Platinum come up with.

I’m not yet sold on getting the Wii U at launch, but when I do get one, it’ll be for games like this.

[NYCC 2012] Hands-On With Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge

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This time around, our Cameraman Gesfrid took a shot at playing a game for us. The game: Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge. Earlier this year, Ninja Gaiden 3 was lambasted by critcs and gamers for dumbing down the gameplay too much from its predecessor, creating a rather soulless and easy game. So with Ninja Gaiden 3 Razor’s Edge, Team Ninja is seeking to rectify this issue by bringing back what made the previous Ninja Gaiden’s fun and challenging: brutal difficulty and more weapons to wield. While we can speak for the weapons in this video, we can say something about the difficulty. Gesfrid was only the second person to beat the demo (after recording unfortunately), and it was in the afternoon. Everyone else just quit. Poor souls.

Gesfrid’s reaction after the break.

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[NYCC 2012] Hands-On With Rayman Legends

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Remember last year when we had a terrible camera-person and we glitched the game when playing Rayman Origins? Well that didn’t happen this year! Nope, everything was smooth sailing when playing Rayman Legends. StevenDPX took over playing as the limbless wonder Rayman with the Pro Controller while someone else played with the Wii U Gamepad aiding him on his platforming adventure.

StevenDPX: The controls handled pretty well for the game. This was also the first time I played using the Pro Controller. It did feel weird having the face buttons at the bottom of the controller, but I soon got a bit used to it. The game also supported using the control pad thankfully since I’m horrible using joysticks for 2D platformers. My co-op partner did well when compared to previous people who used the gamepad. He was responsible for clearing the way, pulling platforms, distracting enemies, and in one instance flipping a large wheel Castlevania IV style. Overall this was a mighty fun romp in the land of Rayman. Now to see if I could get my hands on Rayman Origins…

[NYCC 2012] Hands-On With Game & Wario

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Finally, The Wired Fish plays a Wii U game… on camera. From the guys who made the Wario Ware and Rhythm Heaven series comes Game & Wario. In this minigame, the player uses the tablet controller sideways to launch arrows at enemies, mines, and a boss at the end.

StevenDPX: The gameplay definitely had that weirdness of the WarioWare games. There was some fun to be had, and you also had to think fast about how exactly to clear out the enemies. There are mines on the floor, and you had to think “do I blow it up now, or wait for a bigger group to come in.” It became second nature to launch an arrow from the tablet, but there were instances when I shot nothing, looked down to see if a new one loaded, and accidentally shot it somewhere whilst I scrambled to take out incoming enemies. I was surprised when the rep told me this was a retail game. With all-do-respect, this looked like something for the download space. Of course, there are more minigames than this. But we’ll see how this pans out.

[NYCC2012] Hands-On With Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion

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Sorry we took so long. But duty called, and it said “rendering: 2 hours.” But enough of that, here’s some gameplay footage from our time at New York Comic-Con 2012. Here, StevenDPX was playing Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion for the Nintendo 3DS.

StevenDPX: The gameplay felt like a mix of a 2D platformer mixed with Okamiden. You’ll see that at first I tried to manually fill in the Mickey Mouse insignia. But then I realized that I just had to trace out the outline. I ended up glitching the game when I tapped the screen before pressing X to initiate painting. The rep there told me that that particular 3DS was acting weird all day, but I had a feeling it was the game. Hopefully it gets ironed out in time for release.

Night-Time Listenings Wrap-Up: Week of 10/8/12

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Today was the second day of New York Comic-Con, and we wrapped of Comics Week yesterday. We kicked it off with some Maximum Carnage. Then we tagged in Captain America with Marvel vs. Capcom. We died a lot to the rockin’ tunes of Silver Surfer. We punched fools in the face with Batman on the NES. And finally, we punched more fools in the face to the tunes of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.

If you want to see the music as it goes up (and not wait every Saturday for these wrap-ups), remember to go to our Tumblr page and follow it. Music for Night-Time Listenings goes up every weekday at 10PM

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Tomorrow Is New York Comic-Con, And We’ll Be There!

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Missed us last year? Worry not as we’ll be back at the ol’ Con again. This time we’ll try out the Wii U and finally see for ourselves if this newest console from Nintendo is worth getting this year. We’ll also see what’s cooking at Square Enix, Ubisoft, and… a certain something over at Hasbro’s booth. And maybe, just maybe, one of us will finally meet a Final Fantasy legend.

Hopefully videos will go up the same day they’re filmed. Pics will mostly likely come later (videos take priority over photos here).

Keep your eyes peeled for us!

Capcom Vs Capcom Pitched Once, Didn’t Quite Fly

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Given Capcom’s propensity to crossover with many franchises (it even has its own Trope page), a Capcom crossover game where Capcom characters fight themselves wouldn’t seem too far off. Hell, Nintendo’s done it. Even Capcom had something like this with Capcom Fighting Evolution, though many agree that game was an absolute mess. But Capcom’s a bit wiser on the fighting games (though most lack content lately), so maybe now’s their chance to try that route again? Well, Christian Svensson tried pitching it, and it wasn’t swaying any execs. “I’ve pitched Capcom vs. Capcom a few times internally” said Svensson in an interview with Rohan Mayers of Capcom Unity. “It’s never really found traction though among the producers or with marketing.” Svensson does stress that either way their”…fighting resources are being utilized on other projects right now so it’ll be some time before such a thing could really be considered for greenlight.”

Well, that’s nice to hear. At least we know those producers and marketers don’t see much happening with a fighting game, yet think a smartphone Capcom crossover game will win over fans.

Svensson pitched Capcom vs. Capcom game internally, hasn’t found traction – fighting game resources currently occupied [EventHubs]

How Ironic, PETA’s Now Picking On Pokemon

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Team Plasma–er, PETA, being the saints they are, have made a new game with Pokemon as the main stars. This isn’t the first time they’ve castigated a videogame for depicting the “wrong message” to kids. Before this they did Mario Kills A Tanooki, and also picked on poor Cooking Mama for daring to cook a turkey. In their press release, they compare Pokemon being in Pokeballs to elephants being “…chained up in train carts, waiting to be let out to ‘perform’ in circuses” PETA’s Marketing director states that games like Pokemon “…send kids the wrong message that exploiting and abusing those who are defenseless is acceptable when it’s not.”

Maybe they forgot the part that there’s a Team in the game that act just like them. I will admit though that the title screen they made looks pretty badass (uh, save for that one Pokemon with the syringe in its head. That’s really pushing it guys. Stop that). So now that they got the attention of the gaming community again, I suggest checking out this video that reveals some pretty nasty things PETA has done in the past.

[via TinyCartridge]

Resident Evil 6 Has On-Disc DLC

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After being critically hammered, the last thing Capcom wants to do is make Resident Evil 6 less enticing. But in comes word that Resident Evil 6 has on-disc DLC, a practice that has proved very controversial this year after Street Fighter X Tekken was revealed to have over 12 characters locked behind a pay-gate. YouTube user FluffyQuack was modding his disc when he uncovered several bits of content already on the disc. The only full piece of content on the disc is a new difficulty mode called No Hope, which is harder than Professional. The rest is partially on the disc. These include 2 map packs, 4 new multiplayer modes, and an a Co-op mode for Ada’s campaign. The Multiplayer modes are called Onslaught, Survivors, Predator, and Siege. You can read up on what each mode is on Fluffly’s video description.

Fluffy points out that some of the info other sites are reporting are wrong, like costumes and taunts. He sates that some of these, while on the disc, don’t seem to be locked behind a pay-gate but through normal gameplay (A and S Ranking Mercenary maps with each character) and unlocked via RE.net. The only items players may have to pay for is what’s mentioned in the previous paragraph. Capcom reached out to Eurogamer to clarify that some of the data is on the disc to ensure compatibility and that “there will be one piece of content, that for technical reasons, requires the use of a combination of newly downloaded data and data that is included on the retail game disc.” If that’s the case, then maybe they should’ve stuck to that original release date in November to, y’know, finish it. You can see all of Quacky’s Mod videos after the break.

Capcom responds to Resident Evil 6 on-disc DLC revelation [Eurogamer, via Kotaku]

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Pokemon, Mario, Zelda, And Halo Represented In College Marching Band Tribute

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I’ve seen routines like this, but not at the level of finesse these guys at Ohio State University do it. They kick it off with Space Invaders, but surprised me when they decided to do Pokemon and the Red/Blue battle theme. You can hear someone near the camera guy question why the hell they’re doing Pokemon. I’m guessing his knowledge of the videogame franchise only went as far as the anime or trading cards. Good game OSU, good game.

Big ups to our podcast cameraman Gesfrid P. for the tip.

The Ohio State University Marching Band – TBDBITL Halftime 10-6-12 Video games Nebraska [Youtube, via MSN Now]