Massively Multiplayer: Gaming In The New Millennium
- Thread starter RySenkari
- Start date
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I'm willing to bet I would have gone to at least five birthday parties in an X-Zone ITTL.
I'd have had an X-Zone right in my backyard growing up in Milwaukee. It probably would have made me an Xbox kid.
Gross.
I've always had some appreciation and awe for the Xbox line. It went to show how millions of dollars and off-the-shelf PC parts could nearly force a long time market participant out. I had hoped that TTL Microsoft could do some lasting damage to Nintendomination, maybe it simply wasn't meant to be.
Go Apple. May your reign be much longer.
Gross.
I've always had some appreciation and awe for the Xbox line. It went to show how millions of dollars and off-the-shelf PC parts could nearly force a long time market participant out. I had hoped that TTL Microsoft could do some lasting damage to Nintendomination, maybe it simply wasn't meant to be.
Go Apple. May your reign be much longer.
Apple, being the successor to SEGA, is Nintendo's one True Worthy Opponent; Microsoft is (and always was/will be) an unwanted interloper. At least OTL's Sony has/had a legitimate score to settle with Nintendo.
I think MS had their place in both our timelines. ITTL Sega just didn't seem capable of ever emerging from Nintendo's shadow. They were making games which did nothing to expand their audience and The Covenant/GTA were the slap in the face they needed that people wanted something new. That's why Steve Jobs sought out Pixelworld and is constantly funding mid tier games with new ideas. Without Xbox, Katana would have been a repeat of the Saturn: Early lead, not too much buzz, Sonic game, things start looking up, Nintendo comes in and dominates, Sega tries to come back and fails, Sega tries a new console.
As for OTL, all I have to say is $599.
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Not to mention the original X-Box gave us a console with a built in hard drive and enhanced the online gaming experience for console players. MS mos def has it's place in gaming.
Winter 2008 (Part 4) - The Final Wave?
Captain Wario
Captain Wario is an action platformer exclusive to the Nintendo Wave, and also serves as the sequel to 2003's Wario World. It has numerous gameplay and graphical elements in common with OTL's Wario Land: Shake It!, including a cel-shaded animesque look that makes the game look significantly more colorful and fluid than Wario World. It's a 2-D platformer rather than a 3-D platformer, but does have a few 3-D platforming elements, giving the player the ability to explore in full 3-D in some rooms and areas in similar fashion to Sonic Duo and the upcoming Super Mario Flip. The game revolves around Wario as captain of a pirate ship in an attempt to one-up his familiar rival, Captain Syrup, by collecting treasure and gold coins to increase the size of his own ship. During the game, Wario is able to recruit new members of his crew, most of them taking the form of various anthropomorphic animals and strange creatures from previous Wario Land games. Wario has all of his familiar moves, including his headbutt and butt slam, but also can wield a cutlass to slash at enemies or cut down various objects to progress. The game keeps a running tally of the money that Wario collects as he progresses through the game's 30 levels, and there are plenty of secret alcoves full of treasures that will enable Wario's ship to get bigger. Increasing the size of Wario's ship allows the player to access various bonus levels and challenges, up to 12 in all, making for a total of 42 levels in the game. The plot itself involves Wario and Syrup searching for an ancient treasure that was sunk under the sea, belonging to the pirate captain Boneskull, who is now a pirate skeleton jealously guarding his treasure. Every five or so levels, Wario must battle a boss guarding a giant treasure horde, though the greatest treasure horde of all rests within the final bonus level, which can only be accessed by collecting enough treasure to fully upgrade Wario's ship and recruiting all 12 crew members as well. This bonus level contains a hidden boss, Boneskull transformed into a giant skeleton monster, but defeating Boneskull here wins ultimate bragging rights, as Wario is able to buy his own island, and this opens up a special cutscene where Captain Syrup actually runs away crying when she sees Wario's treasure island (in the regular ending, Syrup gets the best of Wario and ends up sailing away with his ship and his treasure, leaving him marooned). Captain Wario is known as one of the better platformers for the Wave in 2008, coming out in January 2008 amidst a moderate amount of hype. It achieves decent sales, though by now most of the Nintendo hype is being directed toward the Sapphire's release. Still, amongst Wario fans this is considered a very good game and somewhat of an improvement over Wario World even with the shift to 2-D.
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1080 World Tournament
1080 World Tournament is a snowboarding game for the Nintendo Wave. It has a heavy focus on competition and racing, though there are still plenty of tricks to do on a wide variety of slopes located all over the world. The game features controls familiar to fans of earlier games in the series, with a few features that make it easier for newcomers to get into the game, including an optional balance and steering assist and an HUD that shows the best areas to gain speed boosts. Despite these newcomer-friendly features, the game still has plenty of challenge, with the ability to make the AI quite tough to beat on some of the more difficult maps. The game features 16 different snowboarders, some familiar to series veterans, but others are totally new. No guest characters in this game, with Nintendo knowing that 1080 World Tournament isn't likely to be a major hit. There's no storyline to speak of, though there is a tournament mode where players can race on four maps at a time across four levels of difficulty, similar to the Grand Prix mode in Mario Kart. Despite the lack of a trick focus, the game does allow for more tricks than any previous 1080 series game, and does include a Stunt Mode where you can compete for high scores. There's also online gameplay in this for people wishing to race against other players, though it's often hard to find a match in the game's rather sparsely populated lobby. All in all, 1080 World Tournament, which is released in February 2008, is considered a decent skateboarding game for those who want a fun, polished experience. It's not considered as great as the recent White Mountain games or Thrillseekers: Winter Challenge, but for those who want some Nintendo-flavored snowboarding fun, it's worth the price. Reviews generally average in the high 7s/low 8s, and sales are decent, though fairly low for a Nintendo first party game and amongst the lowest for the series.
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Lash Out 2
Lash Out 2 is the sequel to 2005's Lash Out, created by David Jaffe. It's a hack and slash game with many similarities to OTL's God Of War series, though with much of the gratuitous sex and violence removed. The game's protagonist, Lash, uses two energy whips to attack enemies, solve puzzles, and reach new areas, and much of the gameplay revolves around the many different ways Lash is able to use those whips, with Lash Out 2 adding lots of new functionality including the ability to transform his whips temporarily into other weapons such as swords, axes, scythes, and crossbows, each of which have both weapon functions and secondary utility functions. Like the previous game, Lash is able to collect power-ups to expand his health bar, his special meter, and his repertoire of special moves, with some power-ups giving the players options about how to use them, sort of like a skill tree (a functionality that wasn't present in the previous game). Lash is also able to interact with people in more ways in this game, and is able to gain followers, who have their own repertoire of abilities and power-ups. Lash can only have one follower at a time, and the player's choice of follower depends on the strategy they wish to employ in battle. In similar fashion to OTL's God Of War 2, Lash Out 2 pushes its system's capabilities to its limit, with some of the best graphics the Wave has to offer. The game features an expanded voice acting cast, with a number of semi-famous character actors in major supporting roles. The advertising for this game skews much darker than the previous game, with none of the humor or light-hearted motifs present in the advertising for the original. Lash Out 2 is noticeably darker and more tragic than the first game, and the advertising is actually somewhat downplayed for this game since at the time Nintendo was focusing on promoting the Sapphire. However, with the Wave's price drop to $99 coming around the same time as this game's release, it would be somewhat heavily featured as part of the price drop push, with some retailers even offering bundles of the Wave and this game for the discounted price.
The plot of Lash Out 2 picks up where the previous game left off, with Lash living peacefully in a village of natives on a somewhat backwater planet. He's renounced violence, which causes him to lose most of the power-ups he acquired in the previous game. However, the peace is shattered by the arrival of an android similar to Lash, who attacks with twin energy swords. The android's name is Locke, and he has a sadistic cruelty that causes him to completely destroy Lash's village, slaughtering its inhabitants. Lash barely escapes with his life, and realizes that Locke is one of the six androids created by the spacefarers from the previous game, the ones who also created him and Laika. The first part of the game finds Lash trying to find a way offworld as Locke hunts him down, seeking to take his powers for himself. Eventually, in a brutal and ferocious boss fight, Lash is able to defeat Locke, who claims as he is dying that Laika sent him. Lash suddenly finds himself absorbing Locke's powers, gaining the ability to transform his whips into swords. Lash makes it offworld and resolves to find Laika and hunt her down. The second part of the game has Lash meeting two other androids: Lumina, a female assassin who uses crossbows, and Lore, a cloaked android who is not hostile and who has lots of information for Lash. Lumina herself is not a sadist like Locke was, and Lore believes that Lumina can be a potential ally. Lash also meets two of his first potential followers, including a disgraced drunken space captain and a grimy technician. The space captain is a better fighter, but the technician can patch Lash up faster and give him better upgrades. During this second part of the game, Laika reveals herself to Lash and she's definitely taken a turn for the worse: she murders any humans she comes across and eventually blows up a spaceport. She also forces Lumina to attack Lash, who is forced to defeat her as well, gaining her crossbows as weapons. Lore joins as a potential follower for Lash as he journeys to the capital of the spacefaring civilization, hoping to gain even more answers. Here, the final android, Lonn, is revealed. Lonn is an axe-wielding, musclebound android who is still working for the spacefaring civilization, and though he too is hostile to Lash, he's also fairly friendly and is mostly just doing his job. Lash must also battle soldiers employed by the civilization, and their battle mechs as well, all the while trying to get to the bottom of Laika's sudden cruelty. By the end of this segment of the game, Lash discovers that Laika's motivations are much more complex and well-intentioned than he previously thought: the spacefarers are capturing people from other civilizations and rebuilding them with robotic parts. Lash isn't a full mechanical android, he was born as a human on a planet destroyed by the spacefarers. Lash eventually confronts Laika and tells her to stop her rampage, and that controlling Lumina and Locke was just as cruel as what the spacefarers did. Laika angrily denies making Lumina and Locke do anything, stating that her motivations are only to stop the spacefarers and that she didn't target Lash or anyone else. At this point, Lonn arrives and tries to kill Laika. Laika easily fends him off, but then she is wounded by a powerful shot fired by the spacefarers' new mech weapon. Lash decides to save Laika by attacking Lonn, which Laika tells Lash he'll regret doing, with a sad look on her face as she leaves. Lash defeats Lonn, and takes his weapon, only for a powerful shaking to begin. Laika is destroying the entire planet from space. Lash barely manages to escape, just as the spacefarers' planet is destroyed. Lash watches as the spacefarers' military fleet departs from the wreckage of the planet in pursuit of Laika. The fourth part of the game is Lash hunting down Laika, who appears in a deep state of sadness over the destruction of the spacefarers' planet. Lash spends most of his time battling the remnants of the spacefarers' military, who are attempting to conquer another inhabited planet to use as their new home. Eventually, Lash confronts Laika again. He knows that it was the spacefarers who turned Locke into a sadistic murderer and forced Lumina to attack him, but he still can't justify Laika destroying their world. Laika tells Lash that her hatred for them is so strong that she won't stop until she wipes them all out, and she wants Lash to destroy her to stop her. Lash finally battles Laika and in a spectacular fight manages to wound her enough to disable her, though he himself is badly injured. Lash refuses to land the killing blow and asks Laika to renounce violence and remove her weaponry. She begs him to kill her, telling Lash that as long as she lives, she refuses to stop killing the spacefarers until they're all wiped out. Lash refuses, but Lore steps up and offers to do it himself. He begins to dismantle Laika, taking her weaponry and adding it to himself, then he blasts Lash away. Lore reveals that he was waiting for an opportunity to take Laika's weaponry, revealing that Laika and Lash were always the strongest of the two androids, with the power to destroy worlds. Lore, an information repository, gathered all the information he needed to make his move, but needed Lash to disable Laika before he could take her weaponry. Laika tries to fight back but Lore finishes dismantling her and leaves her scrapped and Lash seemingly dead. However, when Lash awakens, he's in an underground lab deep below the planet. Lore and the spacefarers have conquered the world, but the remaining free citizens are all underground. Lore can hear Laika's voice in his head: he's been rebuilt with some of her remaining parts, and now the two are one. Lash has even gained the ability to use Laika's daggers, which are now deadly scythes. Lash is told that he must defeat Lore and the spacefarers, but if he can't, he has to use the planet destruction capabilities he has to destroy the planet so that the spacefarers can't conquer another world. The final part of the game has Lash retaking the planet with Laika guiding him in his head. He eventually confronts and defeats Lore, but Lore has programmed the planet's automatic factories to produce powerful ships and weaponry to rebuild the spacefarers' fleet, forcing Lash to float up into space in preparation to destroy the planet. He's unable to do it, but Laika takes over, and the game shifts to inside of Lash's mind, where Laika tells him that he has to defeat her inside of his head to retake control. Lash doesn't want to do it but Laika tells him that he doesn't have a choice, she'll use his body to destroy the planet if he doesn't. In an epic and very tragic battle, Lash defeats Laika, eradicating her completely and saving the planet by using his planet destroying technology to destroy the spacefarers' rebuilt fleet. The planet is liberated, and its inhabitants are revealed to be a group of rebels and former slaves who once lived on the spacefarers' home planet but fled many centuries ago to start their own world. Lash is given the chance to live with them, but instead he leaves for space alone to seek out his destiny. In a post-credits scene, he is sleeping in solitude when he sees Laika in his dreams, revealing that a small fragment of her still exists in his mind.
Lash Out 2 is released on February 19, 2008. It's heavily praised by critics for its graphics, gameplay, and storyline. Its review scores aren't quite as favorable as those for the original game, with the game being seen as a bit overblown and some of the gameplay being seen as repetitive and derivative of the original game despite its improvements. However, it's still considered perhaps the best Wave game of 2008, and becomes the best selling new title of the year for the system, taking its place as a sort of swan song for the console and laying the groundwork for an epic third installment on the Sapphire in 2010 or 2011.
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"For nearly five years, the Nintendo Wave has led the field in gaming innovation. Featuring excellent graphics, a powerful sound chip, and the ability to play both DVD movies and games from the Ultra Nintendo and the Super Nintendo CD, the Wave has enabled more than ninety million players to experience the power. The Nintendo Wave is home to nearly a thousand games, including hits like Super Mario Shades, The Legend Of Zelda: Hero Eternal, Star Fox: Heroic Universe, and Super Smash Bros. Clash, and now, it's easier to get your hands on one than ever before. With a new MSRP of $99.99, the Wave is the best bargain in gaming, and for a limited time, you can get the Wave and Lash Out 2 from selected retailers for its new low price. If you've waited this long to pick up one of the most successful home entertainment systems of all time, now's the perfect opportunity!"
-from Nintendo's official press release announcing the Nintendo Wave's final official price drop on February 12, 2008
Captain Wario is an action platformer exclusive to the Nintendo Wave, and also serves as the sequel to 2003's Wario World. It has numerous gameplay and graphical elements in common with OTL's Wario Land: Shake It!, including a cel-shaded animesque look that makes the game look significantly more colorful and fluid than Wario World. It's a 2-D platformer rather than a 3-D platformer, but does have a few 3-D platforming elements, giving the player the ability to explore in full 3-D in some rooms and areas in similar fashion to Sonic Duo and the upcoming Super Mario Flip. The game revolves around Wario as captain of a pirate ship in an attempt to one-up his familiar rival, Captain Syrup, by collecting treasure and gold coins to increase the size of his own ship. During the game, Wario is able to recruit new members of his crew, most of them taking the form of various anthropomorphic animals and strange creatures from previous Wario Land games. Wario has all of his familiar moves, including his headbutt and butt slam, but also can wield a cutlass to slash at enemies or cut down various objects to progress. The game keeps a running tally of the money that Wario collects as he progresses through the game's 30 levels, and there are plenty of secret alcoves full of treasures that will enable Wario's ship to get bigger. Increasing the size of Wario's ship allows the player to access various bonus levels and challenges, up to 12 in all, making for a total of 42 levels in the game. The plot itself involves Wario and Syrup searching for an ancient treasure that was sunk under the sea, belonging to the pirate captain Boneskull, who is now a pirate skeleton jealously guarding his treasure. Every five or so levels, Wario must battle a boss guarding a giant treasure horde, though the greatest treasure horde of all rests within the final bonus level, which can only be accessed by collecting enough treasure to fully upgrade Wario's ship and recruiting all 12 crew members as well. This bonus level contains a hidden boss, Boneskull transformed into a giant skeleton monster, but defeating Boneskull here wins ultimate bragging rights, as Wario is able to buy his own island, and this opens up a special cutscene where Captain Syrup actually runs away crying when she sees Wario's treasure island (in the regular ending, Syrup gets the best of Wario and ends up sailing away with his ship and his treasure, leaving him marooned). Captain Wario is known as one of the better platformers for the Wave in 2008, coming out in January 2008 amidst a moderate amount of hype. It achieves decent sales, though by now most of the Nintendo hype is being directed toward the Sapphire's release. Still, amongst Wario fans this is considered a very good game and somewhat of an improvement over Wario World even with the shift to 2-D.
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1080 World Tournament
1080 World Tournament is a snowboarding game for the Nintendo Wave. It has a heavy focus on competition and racing, though there are still plenty of tricks to do on a wide variety of slopes located all over the world. The game features controls familiar to fans of earlier games in the series, with a few features that make it easier for newcomers to get into the game, including an optional balance and steering assist and an HUD that shows the best areas to gain speed boosts. Despite these newcomer-friendly features, the game still has plenty of challenge, with the ability to make the AI quite tough to beat on some of the more difficult maps. The game features 16 different snowboarders, some familiar to series veterans, but others are totally new. No guest characters in this game, with Nintendo knowing that 1080 World Tournament isn't likely to be a major hit. There's no storyline to speak of, though there is a tournament mode where players can race on four maps at a time across four levels of difficulty, similar to the Grand Prix mode in Mario Kart. Despite the lack of a trick focus, the game does allow for more tricks than any previous 1080 series game, and does include a Stunt Mode where you can compete for high scores. There's also online gameplay in this for people wishing to race against other players, though it's often hard to find a match in the game's rather sparsely populated lobby. All in all, 1080 World Tournament, which is released in February 2008, is considered a decent skateboarding game for those who want a fun, polished experience. It's not considered as great as the recent White Mountain games or Thrillseekers: Winter Challenge, but for those who want some Nintendo-flavored snowboarding fun, it's worth the price. Reviews generally average in the high 7s/low 8s, and sales are decent, though fairly low for a Nintendo first party game and amongst the lowest for the series.
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Lash Out 2
Lash Out 2 is the sequel to 2005's Lash Out, created by David Jaffe. It's a hack and slash game with many similarities to OTL's God Of War series, though with much of the gratuitous sex and violence removed. The game's protagonist, Lash, uses two energy whips to attack enemies, solve puzzles, and reach new areas, and much of the gameplay revolves around the many different ways Lash is able to use those whips, with Lash Out 2 adding lots of new functionality including the ability to transform his whips temporarily into other weapons such as swords, axes, scythes, and crossbows, each of which have both weapon functions and secondary utility functions. Like the previous game, Lash is able to collect power-ups to expand his health bar, his special meter, and his repertoire of special moves, with some power-ups giving the players options about how to use them, sort of like a skill tree (a functionality that wasn't present in the previous game). Lash is also able to interact with people in more ways in this game, and is able to gain followers, who have their own repertoire of abilities and power-ups. Lash can only have one follower at a time, and the player's choice of follower depends on the strategy they wish to employ in battle. In similar fashion to OTL's God Of War 2, Lash Out 2 pushes its system's capabilities to its limit, with some of the best graphics the Wave has to offer. The game features an expanded voice acting cast, with a number of semi-famous character actors in major supporting roles. The advertising for this game skews much darker than the previous game, with none of the humor or light-hearted motifs present in the advertising for the original. Lash Out 2 is noticeably darker and more tragic than the first game, and the advertising is actually somewhat downplayed for this game since at the time Nintendo was focusing on promoting the Sapphire. However, with the Wave's price drop to $99 coming around the same time as this game's release, it would be somewhat heavily featured as part of the price drop push, with some retailers even offering bundles of the Wave and this game for the discounted price.
The plot of Lash Out 2 picks up where the previous game left off, with Lash living peacefully in a village of natives on a somewhat backwater planet. He's renounced violence, which causes him to lose most of the power-ups he acquired in the previous game. However, the peace is shattered by the arrival of an android similar to Lash, who attacks with twin energy swords. The android's name is Locke, and he has a sadistic cruelty that causes him to completely destroy Lash's village, slaughtering its inhabitants. Lash barely escapes with his life, and realizes that Locke is one of the six androids created by the spacefarers from the previous game, the ones who also created him and Laika. The first part of the game finds Lash trying to find a way offworld as Locke hunts him down, seeking to take his powers for himself. Eventually, in a brutal and ferocious boss fight, Lash is able to defeat Locke, who claims as he is dying that Laika sent him. Lash suddenly finds himself absorbing Locke's powers, gaining the ability to transform his whips into swords. Lash makes it offworld and resolves to find Laika and hunt her down. The second part of the game has Lash meeting two other androids: Lumina, a female assassin who uses crossbows, and Lore, a cloaked android who is not hostile and who has lots of information for Lash. Lumina herself is not a sadist like Locke was, and Lore believes that Lumina can be a potential ally. Lash also meets two of his first potential followers, including a disgraced drunken space captain and a grimy technician. The space captain is a better fighter, but the technician can patch Lash up faster and give him better upgrades. During this second part of the game, Laika reveals herself to Lash and she's definitely taken a turn for the worse: she murders any humans she comes across and eventually blows up a spaceport. She also forces Lumina to attack Lash, who is forced to defeat her as well, gaining her crossbows as weapons. Lore joins as a potential follower for Lash as he journeys to the capital of the spacefaring civilization, hoping to gain even more answers. Here, the final android, Lonn, is revealed. Lonn is an axe-wielding, musclebound android who is still working for the spacefaring civilization, and though he too is hostile to Lash, he's also fairly friendly and is mostly just doing his job. Lash must also battle soldiers employed by the civilization, and their battle mechs as well, all the while trying to get to the bottom of Laika's sudden cruelty. By the end of this segment of the game, Lash discovers that Laika's motivations are much more complex and well-intentioned than he previously thought: the spacefarers are capturing people from other civilizations and rebuilding them with robotic parts. Lash isn't a full mechanical android, he was born as a human on a planet destroyed by the spacefarers. Lash eventually confronts Laika and tells her to stop her rampage, and that controlling Lumina and Locke was just as cruel as what the spacefarers did. Laika angrily denies making Lumina and Locke do anything, stating that her motivations are only to stop the spacefarers and that she didn't target Lash or anyone else. At this point, Lonn arrives and tries to kill Laika. Laika easily fends him off, but then she is wounded by a powerful shot fired by the spacefarers' new mech weapon. Lash decides to save Laika by attacking Lonn, which Laika tells Lash he'll regret doing, with a sad look on her face as she leaves. Lash defeats Lonn, and takes his weapon, only for a powerful shaking to begin. Laika is destroying the entire planet from space. Lash barely manages to escape, just as the spacefarers' planet is destroyed. Lash watches as the spacefarers' military fleet departs from the wreckage of the planet in pursuit of Laika. The fourth part of the game is Lash hunting down Laika, who appears in a deep state of sadness over the destruction of the spacefarers' planet. Lash spends most of his time battling the remnants of the spacefarers' military, who are attempting to conquer another inhabited planet to use as their new home. Eventually, Lash confronts Laika again. He knows that it was the spacefarers who turned Locke into a sadistic murderer and forced Lumina to attack him, but he still can't justify Laika destroying their world. Laika tells Lash that her hatred for them is so strong that she won't stop until she wipes them all out, and she wants Lash to destroy her to stop her. Lash finally battles Laika and in a spectacular fight manages to wound her enough to disable her, though he himself is badly injured. Lash refuses to land the killing blow and asks Laika to renounce violence and remove her weaponry. She begs him to kill her, telling Lash that as long as she lives, she refuses to stop killing the spacefarers until they're all wiped out. Lash refuses, but Lore steps up and offers to do it himself. He begins to dismantle Laika, taking her weaponry and adding it to himself, then he blasts Lash away. Lore reveals that he was waiting for an opportunity to take Laika's weaponry, revealing that Laika and Lash were always the strongest of the two androids, with the power to destroy worlds. Lore, an information repository, gathered all the information he needed to make his move, but needed Lash to disable Laika before he could take her weaponry. Laika tries to fight back but Lore finishes dismantling her and leaves her scrapped and Lash seemingly dead. However, when Lash awakens, he's in an underground lab deep below the planet. Lore and the spacefarers have conquered the world, but the remaining free citizens are all underground. Lore can hear Laika's voice in his head: he's been rebuilt with some of her remaining parts, and now the two are one. Lash has even gained the ability to use Laika's daggers, which are now deadly scythes. Lash is told that he must defeat Lore and the spacefarers, but if he can't, he has to use the planet destruction capabilities he has to destroy the planet so that the spacefarers can't conquer another world. The final part of the game has Lash retaking the planet with Laika guiding him in his head. He eventually confronts and defeats Lore, but Lore has programmed the planet's automatic factories to produce powerful ships and weaponry to rebuild the spacefarers' fleet, forcing Lash to float up into space in preparation to destroy the planet. He's unable to do it, but Laika takes over, and the game shifts to inside of Lash's mind, where Laika tells him that he has to defeat her inside of his head to retake control. Lash doesn't want to do it but Laika tells him that he doesn't have a choice, she'll use his body to destroy the planet if he doesn't. In an epic and very tragic battle, Lash defeats Laika, eradicating her completely and saving the planet by using his planet destroying technology to destroy the spacefarers' rebuilt fleet. The planet is liberated, and its inhabitants are revealed to be a group of rebels and former slaves who once lived on the spacefarers' home planet but fled many centuries ago to start their own world. Lash is given the chance to live with them, but instead he leaves for space alone to seek out his destiny. In a post-credits scene, he is sleeping in solitude when he sees Laika in his dreams, revealing that a small fragment of her still exists in his mind.
Lash Out 2 is released on February 19, 2008. It's heavily praised by critics for its graphics, gameplay, and storyline. Its review scores aren't quite as favorable as those for the original game, with the game being seen as a bit overblown and some of the gameplay being seen as repetitive and derivative of the original game despite its improvements. However, it's still considered perhaps the best Wave game of 2008, and becomes the best selling new title of the year for the system, taking its place as a sort of swan song for the console and laying the groundwork for an epic third installment on the Sapphire in 2010 or 2011.
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"For nearly five years, the Nintendo Wave has led the field in gaming innovation. Featuring excellent graphics, a powerful sound chip, and the ability to play both DVD movies and games from the Ultra Nintendo and the Super Nintendo CD, the Wave has enabled more than ninety million players to experience the power. The Nintendo Wave is home to nearly a thousand games, including hits like Super Mario Shades, The Legend Of Zelda: Hero Eternal, Star Fox: Heroic Universe, and Super Smash Bros. Clash, and now, it's easier to get your hands on one than ever before. With a new MSRP of $99.99, the Wave is the best bargain in gaming, and for a limited time, you can get the Wave and Lash Out 2 from selected retailers for its new low price. If you've waited this long to pick up one of the most successful home entertainment systems of all time, now's the perfect opportunity!"
-from Nintendo's official press release announcing the Nintendo Wave's final official price drop on February 12, 2008
That's assuming Microsoft is still in. Given their poor fortunes, I could easily see Microsoft selling their gaming division to Samsung.
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Quite a diverse bunch of developers from countries then. IOTL, its basically Japan vs America at this point.
ITTL, it would be American, Japanese.... and South Korean.
The one bad thing about having competitors change in this world is the ability to play old games.
Imagine it's 2014 ITTL. Samsung has it's own, independent console. Apple doesn't much like backwards-compatibility. Nintendo, I assume, would still have backwards compatibility in whatever comes after the Sapphire.
But say you wanted to play a Katana game, and just had it on disc. If you don't want to pay for it again from Apple, you need an old Katana. What if you wanted to play an Xbox game that wasn't on a digital marketplace? You'd need an Xbox or Xbox 2 to go back and play it.
I think we'll see the TTL retro gaming market be younger than ours, simply because Nintendo still lets you play a game from 1992 on a system from 2008. Retro gaming may revolve around the early 2000s, rather than the 90s.
I'll probably have to wait until the hiatus to have time to crunch all the numbers. So it'll be included in one of those hiatus bonus updates.
Well, there are eight more updates left until the hiatus, so I thought I might go ahead and just let everyone know what to expect. I won't list actual dates for these, but unless something happens, the normal schedule will apply for most of them.
Update 1: The Conduit. This is the OTL Wii game, but for the iTwin instead (and released about a year earlier than IOTL). I hope to also briefly discuss the iTwin's motion controls and their impact on the gaming industry thus far.
Update 2: Alien: Xenowar. An FPS for the Xbox 2, this update will present a bit rosier of a picture for the Xbox 2 than recent updates have been.
Update 3: Wheels Of Time. A handheld RPG for the Game Boy Supernova, this update will mostly discuss the state of JRPGs outside of Squaresoft, Enix, and Game Arts.
Update 4: News update, mostly covering the primaries/caucuses from January-March, but also covering some things like the writers' strike and that minor tragedy I mentioned earlier.
Update 5: Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic II. Maybe some Bethesda discussion too.
Update 6: Panzer Dragoon Zeta. This is a big game, probably will be the only thing discussed in its update.
Update 7: The other non-Sapphire games from January to March.
Update 8: The Sapphire launch update and the final update before the hiatus. This update MAY take a few days to work on, so don't expect it the day after the "other games" update, maybe don't even expect it until the weekend after next. There are at least two games in this update (Super Mario Flip and Metal Gear Peace) that would otherwise be worthy of their own updates, so this will be a huge post.
Update 1: The Conduit. This is the OTL Wii game, but for the iTwin instead (and released about a year earlier than IOTL). I hope to also briefly discuss the iTwin's motion controls and their impact on the gaming industry thus far.
Update 2: Alien: Xenowar. An FPS for the Xbox 2, this update will present a bit rosier of a picture for the Xbox 2 than recent updates have been.
Update 3: Wheels Of Time. A handheld RPG for the Game Boy Supernova, this update will mostly discuss the state of JRPGs outside of Squaresoft, Enix, and Game Arts.
Update 4: News update, mostly covering the primaries/caucuses from January-March, but also covering some things like the writers' strike and that minor tragedy I mentioned earlier.
Update 5: Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic II. Maybe some Bethesda discussion too.
Update 6: Panzer Dragoon Zeta. This is a big game, probably will be the only thing discussed in its update.
Update 7: The other non-Sapphire games from January to March.
Update 8: The Sapphire launch update and the final update before the hiatus. This update MAY take a few days to work on, so don't expect it the day after the "other games" update, maybe don't even expect it until the weekend after next. There are at least two games in this update (Super Mario Flip and Metal Gear Peace) that would otherwise be worthy of their own updates, so this will be a huge post.
Winter 2008 (Part 5) - A Conduit For Motion Control
The Conduit
The Conduit is a first person shooter exclusive to the Apple iTwin. Similar to the OTL Wii game but with true HD graphics and a somewhat different plot, The Conduit was created by many of the same developers and programmers who made the game IOTL, but it began development about a year earlier than it did IOTL and gets released about a year and a half earlier. The developers were initially commissioned by Steve Jobs and Reggie Fils-Aime to work with Sega developers to create a new original shooter IP for the iTwin, one that would persuade hardcore gamers to purchase the console. Thus, the ideas that inspired The Conduit IOTL were brought into being significantly earlier than they were with OTL's Wii, and the iTwin, with its more powerful technology, required less developmental compromises than the Wii game did. The gameplay is similar to OTL's title in some aspects, but allows for the use of either traditional controls or motion controls, and has a heavy emphasis on dual wielding. Though the traditional controls allow players to dual wield, it's preferable to use the motion controls, as players can use the twin controllers to wield each weapon independently, and even have the option to allow two people to each wield a weapon (though those weapons are controlled as if belonging to the same person). The All-Seeing Eye companion from OTL's game also appears in this title, and can solve puzzles and scan enemies as it can IOTL. It too can be controlled by a second player, with one player utilizing both iTwin controllers and the second player using a traditional controller to operate the ASE. The game features a multiplayer mode as complex and deep as OTL's game, with a vast variety of modes that rival any multiplayer game released thus far on the iTwin, and allows for both online and local play. The Conduit features high quality graphics and sound, and features a stronger cast of voice actors than the OTL game, with Carlos Bernard (who played Tony Almeida in both TTL and OTL's 24) voicing the game's primary protagonist, Secret Service agent Alan Rickard.
Unlike OTL's Conduit, which was a fairly straightforward alien invasion plot, TTL's Conduit is much more subtle about the alien invasion aspects of the game, drawing inspiration from The X-Files, which involved a government conspiracy and only alluded to aliens until the later seasons. This is due to the game's developers not wanting to mimic games such as EA's Encounter and the Xbox 2's Alien: Xenowar, which was set to be released around the same time. This means that The Conduit has a plot that actually strays fairly close to OTL's Perfect Dark (with TTL's Velvet Dark edging more toward an AI-centric plot, this meant that deep alien conspiracy plots hadn't yet been explored in a recent significant FPS). The game features ten levels in all. The main crux of the plot begins with Rickard saves the president from an assassination attempt which is initially said to be related to terrorism but in reality is related to an ongoing government conspiracy to cover up an impending alien invasion. The president had learned something deeply disturbing and was planning to reveal it to the public when he was suddenly attacked by two of his Secret Service agents, with only Rickard remaining loyal. As Rickard helps the president reach a safehouse, he is attacked by highly trained agents who are utilizing alien technology. Rickard learns that humans have been collaborating with an unseen alien overlord for quite some time, and that this collaboration extends to the highest levels of most of the governments in the world. Unknown to Rickard, a resistance exists that has been learning of these conspirators and seeks to undermine them to prevent the aliens from taking over humanity. This resistance, led by a female "terrorist" leader named Elayna (voiced by Lucy Lawless, a sort of nod to the OTL Conduit which had the terrorist leader Prometheus voiced by Kevin Sorbo), has been quietly stealing alien technology, most notably their teleportation devices, called Conduits, which allow the aliens to move people and materials from place to place. Rickard uses them to find the conspirators' bases, located around the world, and take out the collaborators one by one, all the while protecting the president and working with Elayne to organize a larger resistance. Eventually, Rickard comes face to face with Sombus, a man born in the 19th century, one of the people who made first contact with the aliens back in 1871 and now using an immortality device to maintain his health. In the final battle of the game, Rickard defeats Sombus, who is heavily armed with alien technology, and Elayne reveals the conspiracy to humanity. However, in the game's end credits sequence, it's implied that in defeating the conspiracy, the "truce" between the humans and aliens was broken, and that now aliens will begin directly invading the planet, meaning that the fight for Earth has only just begun.
The Conduit is released on March 4, 2008. Considered one of the two major iTwin releases of the month (the other being Panzer Dragoon Zeta), the game gets a good amount of hype from Apple, probably more than the Wii game got IOTL. Reviews are significantly better than OTL's game, which averaged in the high 6s/low 7s, as TTL's Conduit is significantly more polished, much better looking, features much better motion controls, and has a stronger online mode as well. It's considered to be another quality "mature" title for the iTwin, and strengthens the system's growing lineup of games geared toward older/hardcore players. Early sales are strong, though they drop off a bit once Panzer Dragoon Zeta and the Sapphire are released. It's another successful IP for Apple, and a sequel quickly goes into development.
-
The iTwin's motion controls have been one of the console's most highly praised aspects, but are they truly a selling point? Most of the iTwin's best selling games do feature motion controls, which are optional for developers: the only control-based requirement for games is that they include a traditional, non-motion control scheme. Of the games that do feature motion controls, a majority of them are fairly simple, with the option to shake a controller to perform an input, or to point at objects on the screen. But for games that utilize a more robust motion control scheme, the amount of flexibility and immersion that they add can be immense, and can even supplement a strong traditional control scheme. Games like Sonic Duo utilize the motion controls to allow one player to skillfully control two characters at once, while the new FPS The Conduit uses motion controls to enable one of the most precise dual-wielding shooting schemes in recent memory.
From the beginning, motion controls were intended as an option, to "enhance" the iTwin gaming experience. As Steve Jobs put it in an interview at 2006's E3: "We don't want to force these things on anyone. We're looking to give the player more options, never less." It's an unusual stance for Apple to take, as the company has typically given its users a defined set of parameters, and has usually told users who want more options to look elsewhere. When asked why Apple uses a different approach for gaming than it does for its other devices, Jobs said: "Gamers want more options, they demand more say in how they experience a game. We've learned that we can't take the one size fits all philosophy that's proven successful for products such as the iMac and apply it to gaming. Gaming is all about interactivity and defining your own experience, and the more flexibility afforded to the player, the better." While this approach to motion controls has been criticized by some, including one commentator who stated: "Apple's refusal to go all-in on motion controls has limited the true impact this new technology will have on the industry," most gamers have sung Apple's praise, with positive reviews and record breaking sales for the iTwin.
The iTwin has yet to spawn many imitators, though the Nintendo Sapphire controller will have a limited range of motion control technology, mostly limited to tilt controls for certain games. It's possible that motion control accessories could show up if the iTwin continues to be successful, though neither Nintendo nor Microsoft have revealed plans for any such technology in the near future.
-from an article on Gamespot.com, posted on March 16, 2008
The Conduit is a first person shooter exclusive to the Apple iTwin. Similar to the OTL Wii game but with true HD graphics and a somewhat different plot, The Conduit was created by many of the same developers and programmers who made the game IOTL, but it began development about a year earlier than it did IOTL and gets released about a year and a half earlier. The developers were initially commissioned by Steve Jobs and Reggie Fils-Aime to work with Sega developers to create a new original shooter IP for the iTwin, one that would persuade hardcore gamers to purchase the console. Thus, the ideas that inspired The Conduit IOTL were brought into being significantly earlier than they were with OTL's Wii, and the iTwin, with its more powerful technology, required less developmental compromises than the Wii game did. The gameplay is similar to OTL's title in some aspects, but allows for the use of either traditional controls or motion controls, and has a heavy emphasis on dual wielding. Though the traditional controls allow players to dual wield, it's preferable to use the motion controls, as players can use the twin controllers to wield each weapon independently, and even have the option to allow two people to each wield a weapon (though those weapons are controlled as if belonging to the same person). The All-Seeing Eye companion from OTL's game also appears in this title, and can solve puzzles and scan enemies as it can IOTL. It too can be controlled by a second player, with one player utilizing both iTwin controllers and the second player using a traditional controller to operate the ASE. The game features a multiplayer mode as complex and deep as OTL's game, with a vast variety of modes that rival any multiplayer game released thus far on the iTwin, and allows for both online and local play. The Conduit features high quality graphics and sound, and features a stronger cast of voice actors than the OTL game, with Carlos Bernard (who played Tony Almeida in both TTL and OTL's 24) voicing the game's primary protagonist, Secret Service agent Alan Rickard.
Unlike OTL's Conduit, which was a fairly straightforward alien invasion plot, TTL's Conduit is much more subtle about the alien invasion aspects of the game, drawing inspiration from The X-Files, which involved a government conspiracy and only alluded to aliens until the later seasons. This is due to the game's developers not wanting to mimic games such as EA's Encounter and the Xbox 2's Alien: Xenowar, which was set to be released around the same time. This means that The Conduit has a plot that actually strays fairly close to OTL's Perfect Dark (with TTL's Velvet Dark edging more toward an AI-centric plot, this meant that deep alien conspiracy plots hadn't yet been explored in a recent significant FPS). The game features ten levels in all. The main crux of the plot begins with Rickard saves the president from an assassination attempt which is initially said to be related to terrorism but in reality is related to an ongoing government conspiracy to cover up an impending alien invasion. The president had learned something deeply disturbing and was planning to reveal it to the public when he was suddenly attacked by two of his Secret Service agents, with only Rickard remaining loyal. As Rickard helps the president reach a safehouse, he is attacked by highly trained agents who are utilizing alien technology. Rickard learns that humans have been collaborating with an unseen alien overlord for quite some time, and that this collaboration extends to the highest levels of most of the governments in the world. Unknown to Rickard, a resistance exists that has been learning of these conspirators and seeks to undermine them to prevent the aliens from taking over humanity. This resistance, led by a female "terrorist" leader named Elayna (voiced by Lucy Lawless, a sort of nod to the OTL Conduit which had the terrorist leader Prometheus voiced by Kevin Sorbo), has been quietly stealing alien technology, most notably their teleportation devices, called Conduits, which allow the aliens to move people and materials from place to place. Rickard uses them to find the conspirators' bases, located around the world, and take out the collaborators one by one, all the while protecting the president and working with Elayne to organize a larger resistance. Eventually, Rickard comes face to face with Sombus, a man born in the 19th century, one of the people who made first contact with the aliens back in 1871 and now using an immortality device to maintain his health. In the final battle of the game, Rickard defeats Sombus, who is heavily armed with alien technology, and Elayne reveals the conspiracy to humanity. However, in the game's end credits sequence, it's implied that in defeating the conspiracy, the "truce" between the humans and aliens was broken, and that now aliens will begin directly invading the planet, meaning that the fight for Earth has only just begun.
The Conduit is released on March 4, 2008. Considered one of the two major iTwin releases of the month (the other being Panzer Dragoon Zeta), the game gets a good amount of hype from Apple, probably more than the Wii game got IOTL. Reviews are significantly better than OTL's game, which averaged in the high 6s/low 7s, as TTL's Conduit is significantly more polished, much better looking, features much better motion controls, and has a stronger online mode as well. It's considered to be another quality "mature" title for the iTwin, and strengthens the system's growing lineup of games geared toward older/hardcore players. Early sales are strong, though they drop off a bit once Panzer Dragoon Zeta and the Sapphire are released. It's another successful IP for Apple, and a sequel quickly goes into development.
-
The iTwin's motion controls have been one of the console's most highly praised aspects, but are they truly a selling point? Most of the iTwin's best selling games do feature motion controls, which are optional for developers: the only control-based requirement for games is that they include a traditional, non-motion control scheme. Of the games that do feature motion controls, a majority of them are fairly simple, with the option to shake a controller to perform an input, or to point at objects on the screen. But for games that utilize a more robust motion control scheme, the amount of flexibility and immersion that they add can be immense, and can even supplement a strong traditional control scheme. Games like Sonic Duo utilize the motion controls to allow one player to skillfully control two characters at once, while the new FPS The Conduit uses motion controls to enable one of the most precise dual-wielding shooting schemes in recent memory.
From the beginning, motion controls were intended as an option, to "enhance" the iTwin gaming experience. As Steve Jobs put it in an interview at 2006's E3: "We don't want to force these things on anyone. We're looking to give the player more options, never less." It's an unusual stance for Apple to take, as the company has typically given its users a defined set of parameters, and has usually told users who want more options to look elsewhere. When asked why Apple uses a different approach for gaming than it does for its other devices, Jobs said: "Gamers want more options, they demand more say in how they experience a game. We've learned that we can't take the one size fits all philosophy that's proven successful for products such as the iMac and apply it to gaming. Gaming is all about interactivity and defining your own experience, and the more flexibility afforded to the player, the better." While this approach to motion controls has been criticized by some, including one commentator who stated: "Apple's refusal to go all-in on motion controls has limited the true impact this new technology will have on the industry," most gamers have sung Apple's praise, with positive reviews and record breaking sales for the iTwin.
The iTwin has yet to spawn many imitators, though the Nintendo Sapphire controller will have a limited range of motion control technology, mostly limited to tilt controls for certain games. It's possible that motion control accessories could show up if the iTwin continues to be successful, though neither Nintendo nor Microsoft have revealed plans for any such technology in the near future.
-from an article on Gamespot.com, posted on March 16, 2008
On an off topic, like in OTL with Flight 93, there was a movie made about Flight 77 ITTL in 2006. It starred Dennis Quaid as Charles Burlingame, Clark Gregg (yes, Agent Phil Coulson in Agents of SHIELD IOTL) as David Charlebois (1), and Felicity Huffman as Barbara Olson (those were my choices; if you look up Charles Burlingame and David Charlebois's photos, they do resemble Quaid and Gregg, respectively); I assume it did fairly decently at the box office...
Getting back to this, I'd have had an Ultra Nintendo but, assuming me and my mom still get too many cats (and dogs), they will wreck it; it's what animals do (I know from experience, believe me)…
So, if you get any devices ITTL (and IOTL) keep them away from your pets...
Getting back to this, I'd have had an Ultra Nintendo but, assuming me and my mom still get too many cats (and dogs), they will wreck it; it's what animals do (I know from experience, believe me)…
So, if you get any devices ITTL (and IOTL) keep them away from your pets...
Winter 2008 (Part 6) - Alien: Xenowar
Alien: Xenowar
Alien: Xenowar is an FPS exclusive to the Xbox 2. It's the follow-up to previous games Alien: Parallax and Alien vs. Predator, and has gameplay similarities to the Colonial Marine mode of the latter. It portrays a massive Xenomorph invasion of Earth and the efforts of a Colonial Marine and the Weyland-Yutani Corporation to stop the invasion and save humanity. At the same time, Weyland-Yutani is conducting an experiment to replicate Xenomorph DNA, and this experiment forms the basis of a secondary threat to Earth. The game features a slew of futuristic weaponry and a mix of squad-based and solo gameplay, with the protagonist Colonial Marine, Damian Sanchez, sometimes fighting with a group and sometimes fighting on his own. The game features a huge variety of Xenomorphs, from the classic alien immortalized in the iconic films to mutated Xenomorph forms exclusive to this game. As the game is the first of its kind on the Xbox 2, it features the series' best graphics to date, with realistic Xenomorph animation and dramatic scenes of cities under siege from the alien threat. Sanchez and his squadmates are equipped with specialized power armor allowing them to fight the Xenomorphs on equal footing, this armor can be upgraded throughout the game, either with upgrades purchased via bounties for killing aliens, or via upgrades found throughout the game. Some of these upgrades are Predator equipment (Predators themselves don't appear in the game, but are alluded to, as this game takes place in the same continuity as Alien vs. Predator). Many upgrades can be swapped out on the fly, which helps for battling different types of Xenomorphs. Sanchez is able to save civilians in certain circumstances, and will get a bonus in his pay for doing so, especially if he rescues VIPs. This can create a moral conundrum: sometimes Sanchez is offered a choice between different people to save: for example, a young mom screaming that she wants to get back to her kids, or a dickish CEO angrily berating the Marines for not coming to his rescue. Saving the mom is the right thing to do, but saving the CEO will provide Sanchez with a much bigger bonus and will allow him to buy better weapons/upgrades from Weyland-Yutani. This causes some critics to compare the game to Memory Hole, which offers similar moral problems. Like previous series games, Alien: Xenowar features voice acting. Most of the cast consists of unknowns, though Sanchez is voiced by Gabriel Luna, who at the time ITTL was starring in the hit TNT cable drama Earn Your Chops.
Alien: Xenowar begins fairly grimly, with multiple simultaneous reports of massive Xenomorph attacks all over the planet. The Xenomorphs don't seem to have arrived from space, but instead seem to have just appeared out of nowhere, and are wreaking havoc in dozens of cities. Sanchez and his squad are sent to Los Angeles to fight the Xenomorphs there. The Los Angeles of Xenowar is futuristic but grim, somewhat like the Los Angeles depicted in Blade Runner (maybe not QUITE as grim as that, but close). Though the game itself is fairly serious, it features plenty of comic relief, such as banter amongst the soldiers and the fact that Weyland-Yutani is a satire of real-world megacorporations (the company even makes its elite soldiers buy their own armor upgrades and weaponry). Sanchez and his squad manage to liberate Los Angeles, and most of the squads around the world are successful in repelling the initial wave of Xenomorphs, but more are popping up, and faster than Weyland-Yutani and the Marines can take them down. Sanchez is sent to a facility where the Xenomorphs may have originated from, and he learns that the invasion didn't originate from space, but came from somewhere on Earth, most likely a crashed ship that was lost in an earthquake some decades ago. Missions alternate between liberating cities and towns and investigating the origin of the Xenomorph incursion, and slowly but surely, Sanchez also learns more about Weyland-Yutani's experimentation, particularly from a scientist named Izumi Tsukikoshi (voiced by Tamlyn Tomita) who worked on a top secret Weyland-Yutani project where Xenomorph DNA was deliberately injected into Colonial Marines in an attempt to give them superpowers. As part of this experiment, captured Xenomorphs were kept deep underneath a top secret facility, and were put in combat arenas to fight these injected soldiers. The experiment went smoothly at first until one soldier began experiencing animalistic reactions and tried to escape. This caused a Xenomorph to escape as well, but both were put down by Colonial Marines, or so Weyland-Yutani stated in its internal reports. In reality, this experimentation may have accidentally created a breeding population of Xenomorphs that began to disperse throughout the planet in secret, in preparation for an invasion. In order for the Xenomorphs to have coordinated such an attack, they must have a Queen somewhere, but when Sanchez reports that they need to look for a queen, he is regarded as crazy by his commanding officer, and then is attacked by Xenomorphs resembling humans. These turn out to be some of the Colonial Marines injected with Xenomorph DNA several years earlier, and Sanchez has to fight them off. Thinking that Weyland-Yutani is targeting him, he returns to his commanding officer and leads a mutiny, but as it turns out, his commanding officer didn't know anything of the attack, and that even higher-ups at the company don't know of the experiments, meaning that they must have been performed by someone at the company who went rogue. Sanchez reunites with his squad in the middle of a massive Xenomorph attack on Washington that they just barely manage to repel, defeating a Xenomorph queen in the process. This seems to be the queen who coordinated the Xenomorph invasions, and for a while, the attacks cease, but something seems amiss. Tsukikoshi had gone missing earlier, and it was implied that she was abducted and killed by Weyland-Yutani or whoever was responsible for the experiments, but Sanchez discovers evidence that leads him to believe something else is going on. It's then implied that Tsukikoshi is alive and working for the real Xenomorph queen, but the reality is much more disturbing: Tsukikoshi IS the Xenomorph queen, having experimented on herself with Xenomorph DNA in an effort to escape Weyland-Yutani's control (she was being held prisoner by them because of her intelligence). The DNA combined and mutated inside of her to produce a Queen-like brainwave pattern that took over her mind and led her to coordinate every Xenomorph on the planet and everyone who'd been injected with Xenomorph DNA. Sanchez confronts her, but she sics a powerful new form of Xenomorph on him and flees. When finally cornered, she injects herself with something and then in an incredibly disturbing scene, allows herself to be consumed alive by a Xenomorph, which she then takes control of and mutates from inside of its body, turning it into a terrifying and massive Xenomorph Queen, which Sanchez must then fight. When the Xenomorph Queen is defeated, Sanchez tears a hole in its chest and physically rips Tsukikoshi out of it, hoping to keep her alive so she can have the Xenomorph DNA removed from her and return to normal. However, when she tries to force her hand down his throat to implant Xenomorph DNA inside of his body, he's forced to shoot her in the head, finishing her off. With Tsukikoshi dead and the rest of the Xenomorph threat neutralized, the planet is saved. Sanchez returns to his unit and is congratulated on a job well done, but in a sequence right before the credits, he's shown to be tossing and turning in his bed. He lays on his back and then his chest begins to bulge, the screen goes black and we hear him scream "OH, GOD!" just before a horrific tearing flesh sound is heard, implying that Tsukikoshi managed to impregnate him after all and that Sanchez's chestburster will kick off an entire new Xenomorph threat on Earth.
Alien: Xenowar is received extremely positively by critics, living up to the hype and then some. The game is praised for its gameplay, its HUGE selection of weapons (way more than in the disappointing Alien: Parallax), its excellent graphics, its voice acting, and its uncompromisingly scary and gory plot. In fact, some longtime fans consider it the best piece of Alien-related media since James Cameron's classic Aliens film back in 1986. The game's multiplayer mode is fairly basic but still becomes popular just by virtue of the game's strong sales, and either way, it's the campaign that's considered the real selling point of the game. The success of Xenowar is another bright spot for the Xbox 2, which has been seeing its fortunes pick up somewhat after the lackluster holiday season, with sales holding steady and the system catching up with the iTwin (in fact, over the months of January and February 2008 it managed to beat the iTwin in North America, though in worldwide sales it's still lagging somewhat behind). Released on March 11, 2008, just two weeks before the Sapphire launch, it's considered a much-needed exclusive hit for the console, and in fact, it performs well in an area that the Sapphire is lacking in (the Sapphire does not launch with a new exclusive FPS). With other FPS titles on their way, particularly that summer's Cyberwar 3, the Xbox 2 is delivering in one of the hottest gaming genres of its day, and in a way that the Sapphire doesn't seem poised to do, at least not in 2008. Alien: Xenowar is perhaps the best bit of news for the Xbox 2 since the launch of Memory Hole, and it comes at a time that couldn't have been better.
Alien: Xenowar is an FPS exclusive to the Xbox 2. It's the follow-up to previous games Alien: Parallax and Alien vs. Predator, and has gameplay similarities to the Colonial Marine mode of the latter. It portrays a massive Xenomorph invasion of Earth and the efforts of a Colonial Marine and the Weyland-Yutani Corporation to stop the invasion and save humanity. At the same time, Weyland-Yutani is conducting an experiment to replicate Xenomorph DNA, and this experiment forms the basis of a secondary threat to Earth. The game features a slew of futuristic weaponry and a mix of squad-based and solo gameplay, with the protagonist Colonial Marine, Damian Sanchez, sometimes fighting with a group and sometimes fighting on his own. The game features a huge variety of Xenomorphs, from the classic alien immortalized in the iconic films to mutated Xenomorph forms exclusive to this game. As the game is the first of its kind on the Xbox 2, it features the series' best graphics to date, with realistic Xenomorph animation and dramatic scenes of cities under siege from the alien threat. Sanchez and his squadmates are equipped with specialized power armor allowing them to fight the Xenomorphs on equal footing, this armor can be upgraded throughout the game, either with upgrades purchased via bounties for killing aliens, or via upgrades found throughout the game. Some of these upgrades are Predator equipment (Predators themselves don't appear in the game, but are alluded to, as this game takes place in the same continuity as Alien vs. Predator). Many upgrades can be swapped out on the fly, which helps for battling different types of Xenomorphs. Sanchez is able to save civilians in certain circumstances, and will get a bonus in his pay for doing so, especially if he rescues VIPs. This can create a moral conundrum: sometimes Sanchez is offered a choice between different people to save: for example, a young mom screaming that she wants to get back to her kids, or a dickish CEO angrily berating the Marines for not coming to his rescue. Saving the mom is the right thing to do, but saving the CEO will provide Sanchez with a much bigger bonus and will allow him to buy better weapons/upgrades from Weyland-Yutani. This causes some critics to compare the game to Memory Hole, which offers similar moral problems. Like previous series games, Alien: Xenowar features voice acting. Most of the cast consists of unknowns, though Sanchez is voiced by Gabriel Luna, who at the time ITTL was starring in the hit TNT cable drama Earn Your Chops.
Alien: Xenowar begins fairly grimly, with multiple simultaneous reports of massive Xenomorph attacks all over the planet. The Xenomorphs don't seem to have arrived from space, but instead seem to have just appeared out of nowhere, and are wreaking havoc in dozens of cities. Sanchez and his squad are sent to Los Angeles to fight the Xenomorphs there. The Los Angeles of Xenowar is futuristic but grim, somewhat like the Los Angeles depicted in Blade Runner (maybe not QUITE as grim as that, but close). Though the game itself is fairly serious, it features plenty of comic relief, such as banter amongst the soldiers and the fact that Weyland-Yutani is a satire of real-world megacorporations (the company even makes its elite soldiers buy their own armor upgrades and weaponry). Sanchez and his squad manage to liberate Los Angeles, and most of the squads around the world are successful in repelling the initial wave of Xenomorphs, but more are popping up, and faster than Weyland-Yutani and the Marines can take them down. Sanchez is sent to a facility where the Xenomorphs may have originated from, and he learns that the invasion didn't originate from space, but came from somewhere on Earth, most likely a crashed ship that was lost in an earthquake some decades ago. Missions alternate between liberating cities and towns and investigating the origin of the Xenomorph incursion, and slowly but surely, Sanchez also learns more about Weyland-Yutani's experimentation, particularly from a scientist named Izumi Tsukikoshi (voiced by Tamlyn Tomita) who worked on a top secret Weyland-Yutani project where Xenomorph DNA was deliberately injected into Colonial Marines in an attempt to give them superpowers. As part of this experiment, captured Xenomorphs were kept deep underneath a top secret facility, and were put in combat arenas to fight these injected soldiers. The experiment went smoothly at first until one soldier began experiencing animalistic reactions and tried to escape. This caused a Xenomorph to escape as well, but both were put down by Colonial Marines, or so Weyland-Yutani stated in its internal reports. In reality, this experimentation may have accidentally created a breeding population of Xenomorphs that began to disperse throughout the planet in secret, in preparation for an invasion. In order for the Xenomorphs to have coordinated such an attack, they must have a Queen somewhere, but when Sanchez reports that they need to look for a queen, he is regarded as crazy by his commanding officer, and then is attacked by Xenomorphs resembling humans. These turn out to be some of the Colonial Marines injected with Xenomorph DNA several years earlier, and Sanchez has to fight them off. Thinking that Weyland-Yutani is targeting him, he returns to his commanding officer and leads a mutiny, but as it turns out, his commanding officer didn't know anything of the attack, and that even higher-ups at the company don't know of the experiments, meaning that they must have been performed by someone at the company who went rogue. Sanchez reunites with his squad in the middle of a massive Xenomorph attack on Washington that they just barely manage to repel, defeating a Xenomorph queen in the process. This seems to be the queen who coordinated the Xenomorph invasions, and for a while, the attacks cease, but something seems amiss. Tsukikoshi had gone missing earlier, and it was implied that she was abducted and killed by Weyland-Yutani or whoever was responsible for the experiments, but Sanchez discovers evidence that leads him to believe something else is going on. It's then implied that Tsukikoshi is alive and working for the real Xenomorph queen, but the reality is much more disturbing: Tsukikoshi IS the Xenomorph queen, having experimented on herself with Xenomorph DNA in an effort to escape Weyland-Yutani's control (she was being held prisoner by them because of her intelligence). The DNA combined and mutated inside of her to produce a Queen-like brainwave pattern that took over her mind and led her to coordinate every Xenomorph on the planet and everyone who'd been injected with Xenomorph DNA. Sanchez confronts her, but she sics a powerful new form of Xenomorph on him and flees. When finally cornered, she injects herself with something and then in an incredibly disturbing scene, allows herself to be consumed alive by a Xenomorph, which she then takes control of and mutates from inside of its body, turning it into a terrifying and massive Xenomorph Queen, which Sanchez must then fight. When the Xenomorph Queen is defeated, Sanchez tears a hole in its chest and physically rips Tsukikoshi out of it, hoping to keep her alive so she can have the Xenomorph DNA removed from her and return to normal. However, when she tries to force her hand down his throat to implant Xenomorph DNA inside of his body, he's forced to shoot her in the head, finishing her off. With Tsukikoshi dead and the rest of the Xenomorph threat neutralized, the planet is saved. Sanchez returns to his unit and is congratulated on a job well done, but in a sequence right before the credits, he's shown to be tossing and turning in his bed. He lays on his back and then his chest begins to bulge, the screen goes black and we hear him scream "OH, GOD!" just before a horrific tearing flesh sound is heard, implying that Tsukikoshi managed to impregnate him after all and that Sanchez's chestburster will kick off an entire new Xenomorph threat on Earth.
Alien: Xenowar is received extremely positively by critics, living up to the hype and then some. The game is praised for its gameplay, its HUGE selection of weapons (way more than in the disappointing Alien: Parallax), its excellent graphics, its voice acting, and its uncompromisingly scary and gory plot. In fact, some longtime fans consider it the best piece of Alien-related media since James Cameron's classic Aliens film back in 1986. The game's multiplayer mode is fairly basic but still becomes popular just by virtue of the game's strong sales, and either way, it's the campaign that's considered the real selling point of the game. The success of Xenowar is another bright spot for the Xbox 2, which has been seeing its fortunes pick up somewhat after the lackluster holiday season, with sales holding steady and the system catching up with the iTwin (in fact, over the months of January and February 2008 it managed to beat the iTwin in North America, though in worldwide sales it's still lagging somewhat behind). Released on March 11, 2008, just two weeks before the Sapphire launch, it's considered a much-needed exclusive hit for the console, and in fact, it performs well in an area that the Sapphire is lacking in (the Sapphire does not launch with a new exclusive FPS). With other FPS titles on their way, particularly that summer's Cyberwar 3, the Xbox 2 is delivering in one of the hottest gaming genres of its day, and in a way that the Sapphire doesn't seem poised to do, at least not in 2008. Alien: Xenowar is perhaps the best bit of news for the Xbox 2 since the launch of Memory Hole, and it comes at a time that couldn't have been better.
So that's what would have happened if we didn't trust Randy Pitchford with the Alien IP.....
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