Massively Multiplayer: Gaming In The New Millennium

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Summer 2010 (Part 14) - Apple's Indie Game Still Strong

    • RySenkari

    Sati And The Hidden Doorway

    Sati And The Hidden Doorway is a puzzle/adventure game with visual novel elements, developed by Rainbow Castle and published by Apple for the iTwin. Developed by a small team, the game stars a 13-year-old Indian-American eighth grader named Sati, who with the help of her friends must solve a mystery that's causing trouble in her town. She must also deal with the fact that she's developing mysterious powers, and these powers will help her on her journey to solve the mystery and save her friends. The game uses a cel-shaded animation style that gives everything a colorful, cartoony feel, much like the Shantae series, and the gameplay itself takes inspiration from Syrielle, alternating between adventure segments and more subdued puzzle solving and visual novel segments. Most of the adventure gameplay consists of exploring and solving puzzles, with combat largely taking a backseat. Sati's powers are earned over the course of the story, and are mostly simple powers such as fireballs and bursts of wind, which are used more for the puzzles than they are for battling enemies. The dungeons themselves are fairly small compared to Zelda dungeons, with every room having some kind of puzzle to solve, but there are usually plenty of clues offered to the player as to how Sati can best progress through them. The visual novel segments are puzzles too in their own way, with Sati having to figure out which of her friends to talk to and who can help her uncover parts of the mystery. Sati's town is an average modern American town, while these dungeons sort of pop up as Sati uncovers more of the mystery, so for example, she and her friends might be in the library, when all of a sudden, a bookshelf slides away to reveal a staircase leading to a dungeon. The mystery itself involves strange things happening to people in Sati's town, with one person turning to stone, others turning into monsters, and still others just disappearing. When Sati and her friends complete a dungeon, part of the curse is undone, but another part remains, tied into an overall big mystery that covers the entire length of the game. The mystery is ultimately related to a treasure brought into the town museum, an ancient artifact plate that starts to activate and glow whenever something happens, either one of Sati's powers activating or part of the mystery being solved. The treasure hunter who found the artifact plate, Allen von Sadler, has disappeared completely, but he turns out to be the primary antagonist of the game, as he stole the artifact plate from an ancient queen who happens to be one of Sati's ancestors, and now the queen's powers have manifested through Sati. In order to solve the curse, Sati must take the missing piece of the artifact plate from von Sadler, but that won't be easy, as he's using Sati's friends as human shields to stave off the effects of the plate's curse (which is why bad things are happening to them). In the end, Sati and her friends (the ones that haven't been cursed or captured) are able to outwit von Sadler and get the missing piece from him. He gets arrested, the plate is returned to its resting plate, and Sati's powers mostly go away, though she retains a small portion of them as she is now an ancient defender with a duty to protect the ancient secrets.

    Sati And The Hidden Doorway is highly praised for its lovely graphics and fun, varied gameplay, and also its value (released as a $19.99 digital download for the iTwin, or a $29.99 physical release with a few small bonus extras). It manages to get some of the best reviews ever for an indie game, and becomes a best seller on the iTwin digital marketplace for some time after its release. Its success creates a popular new franchise, elevates Rainbow Castle as one of the most important indie developers, and even helps to sell a few iTwin consoles. It's the latest indie hit for Apple, but not the only one of 2010...

    -

    Apple's indie scene continued to thrive, both as a direct result of Apple funding certain indie studios, and as a result of indie companies gravitating to the iTwin platform for its ease of development and its popularity as a console.

    Apple-funded companies, of course, get certain perks, such as the right to use classic Sega franchises. A digital-only Sonic platformer is in the works for next year, with an emphasis on challenging levels done in the classic Sonic style, and there's also an intriguing Toejam and Earl project in the works by a popular indie studio. Even if indie developers aren't taking advantage of Sega IP, co-developing one's game with Apple allows companies to create more polished, technologically advanced games tuned specifically to the iTwin's specs. One of these games, Metronome, is a fascinating new title that utilizes the iTwin's motion controls to allow rhythmic combat against hordes of enemies, or well-timed button presses with the traditional controls. Metronome may not be the best looking game graphically, but its unique art style allows the team to create a modern looking game at very low cost, and with an emphasis on skillful timing and gameplay, it's one of the many Apple indies where graphics don't necessarily matter. Apple is also assisting in the creation of a classic-style RPG called Pier Solar and the Great Architects. Initially envisioned as a game that would use the Sega Genesis cartridge format to enable the publication of a brand new Genesis title, the development studio Watermelon accepted an offer from Apple to fund the project, which will allow it to have bigger production values and lower production costs, all the while keeping the retro look and feel.

    Many indie developers, however, choose to develop for the iTwin independently of Apple's support, and some of these indie games stand toe to toe with those published by Apple, including Ribbon Lancer, an exciting and fast paced platformer that features a young acrobatic girl running across a tricky 2-D stage, spearing enemies as ribbons trail majestically behind her. There's also Autoclad 710, a mech-shooter on rails that features fully 3-D graphics and that will also utilize the iTwin's motion controls for aiming and movement. Perhaps the most interesting iTwin indie game scheduled to come out this year is Disappear/Reappear, a competitive puzzle title that features rapidly phasing shapes that players must force into rows and columns, using special items to freeze them in either visible or invisible states. Players can compete either 1v1 or 1v1v1v1 to see who can clear their boards the fastest, and players can even compete with one using all visible blocks and the other using all invisible ones. It's a puzzle game explicitly designed for tournament play, and the development studio has stated that "those who can rise to the challenge will be able to experience a puzzler like no other". The game will be exclusive to the iTwin, but the developer is also creating a variation of the game for the iPhone, which is expected to be released next year.

    While all three consoles currently enjoy numerous indie exclusives, the Apple iTwin's indie scene has emerged as the most vibrant, creative, and commercially successful, and is expected to help bolster the iTwin's lineup as it enters the second half of its overall lifespan.

    -from an article on iTwinDefender.com, posted on September 8, 2010
     
    • Summer 2010 (Part 15) - Quaking In Our Boots

    • RySenkari

    Quake 5

    Quake 5 is a horror/FPS title created by id Software for the Sapphire, Xbox 2, PC, and Macintosh. Like previous titles in the series, Quake 5 is a game with an emphasis on horror, and this title takes place in an underground city plagued by demonic monsters and terrifying mutated creatures. The protagonist is a priest, Father Duncan, who must take up arms after witnessing his entire congregation ripped apart by unholy beasts. The game hearkens back to the original title's old school, medieval aesthetics, combining Gothic architecture and themes with futuristic technology, with a wide array of weaponry that can be used to finish off the monsters encountered in the game. Duncan is rarely without powerful weapons and plenty of ammo, but enemies are fast, cunning, and powerful, and the player must frequently choose between either running and hiding or staying and fighting the enemies to the finish, with the knowledge that every fight could be the last. As Duncan progresses through the ruins of the ancient city, he must collect relics from various dead people in order to ward off the demon incursions, clear new areas, and solve the mystery of what happened to his city. He must also search for survivors, though any survivors he does find, at least initially, have mutated and are on the prowl. Duncan rarely speaks, outside of cutscenes, and when he does speak, it's not in badass one liners, but in either a mournful tone or a hushed, fearful one. Duncan spends most of the game running for his life, and his personality and tone reflect that. He frequently prays, though usually after his prayers, he's just attacked by more demons, and it's not until the end of the game that he grows some semblance of a spine, when he finds the one person left he's still able to protect. The game takes place in an underground city called Tarnakus, and it's implied that the technology wielded by humanity has forced all civilizations deep underground, because the surface is far too polluted. All citizens of Tarnakus, even the clergy, are forced to train from a young age in all varieties of armed combat, as gangs of raiders and mutated beasts frequently intrude on the cities. It's implied that one of these raider gangs made a pact with some kind of devil, and that's what has lured these demons to overrun the city, in an effort to collect their debt of souls. The game features realistic injuries: when Duncan is hurt, he slows down, he sometimes leaves a bloodtrail, he can lose limbs, and he can even get infections if he lets his wounds fester long enough. These injuries can be healed, but generic medikits can only do so much: for infections and lost limbs, for example, special medicine or equipment must be found, and sometimes it's best just to let Duncan get killed off so he can come back with full health and a restored body. The weapons in Quake 5 range from generic pistols all the way up to flamethrowers, rocket launchers, and even a literal holy hand grenade that can be used to brutally eviscerate demons caught in its wake. Of course, apart from the single player campaign, Quake 5 also features a robust multiplayer deathmatch mode which pits gangs of raiders against one another in dozens of underground stages. Unlike modern FPS games like Call Of Duty, Quake 5's multiplayer mode takes place primarily in cramped, dark corridors with an emphasis on stealth combat, and communication in the confusing labyrinths becomes key. The multiplayer mode has a steep skill curve, but many players feel it's worth it because the game's multiplayer is like few other games of its type on the market. Quake 5 features some of the best graphics of its day, with the PC version of the game being one of the best looking FPS titles of all time. Quake games have always featured cutting edge graphics, and this game is no exception, with even the console versions looking very impressive. The console version of the game, which is identical in gameplay to the PC version, was designed for the Xbox 2, and is the best looking game on that console thus far, though the Sapphire version does look slightly better. Both console ports are considered excellent, and it's one of the few seventh generation games that would have been impossible to port to the iTwin without serious compromises.

    Quake 5 receives excellent reviews upon its release, with significant praise going to the game's graphics and sheer level of horror, with some fans considering it the scariest video game of all time. The protagonist, Father Duncan, does get some controversy for being a bit of a "wimp", but most critics consider him quite realistic and interesting, and also one of the better depictions of religious figures in a video game. Quake 5 is probably on the more difficult side of the FPS genre, the toughest Quake game to date (especially on the hardest setting, "Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me, My Lord?"), and this also helps it to achieve accolades amongst longtime series fans and hardcore players alike. The multiplayer proves extremely popular, especially on the PC and Xbox 2, with the game quickly building a large community. It does its best sales on PC (becoming the best selling PC game of the year), but sells quite well on the Sapphire and the Xbox 2. It's interesting to note that John Romero has stayed with id far longer than he has IOTL, owing largely to the situation with Tom Hall and Ion Storm, making Romero feel as if he had more of an "obligation" to stay with the company. However, despite the success of Quake 5, the heavy grind of making the game was causing Romero to feel burned out on the industry, and he would announce his resignation from the company around the end of 2010. Thanks to Quake 5, he got to go out with a bang, cementing his place as one of the great creators in the games industry. As for id, the company, as IOTL, would become an intriguing acquisition target.

    -

    John Romero: You know, I think id is in good hands with the people working there now. The young guys are taking over, and that's fine.

    Alex Stansfield: You think the company is ready to turn a corner?

    Romero: It already has. They're working on a new IP. It's... it's got nothing to do with me. It's not Doom, it's not Quake...

    Stansfield: Is it an FPS?

    Romero: I could say, but I won't. I'm not under any kind of NDA, but I want to let those young guys announce it when they're ready?

    Stansfield: And when's that?

    Romero: It's not going to be on any of the current console software. So yeah, it's a good ways away.

    Stansfield: Are you satisfied with how your career has turned out so far?

    Romero: *laughing* Hell yeah, I'm satisfied! You should see my garage! Are you a car guy?

    Stansfield: Actually, no! I mean, old cars are neat and all, but no, that's not really my thing.

    Romero: I'm gonna convert you into a car guy. You'll be a car guy when we're done looking around my garage! But to really answer your question, I mean... shit, I've been able to do what I love for so long, and I've made so many amazing games and met so many amazing people that yeah, I'm pretty satisfied. I'm just glad to have been able to do it for so long.

    Stansfield: Have you been playing a lot of Quake 5?

    Romero: Oh yeah. I wouldn't have released it if it wasn't a game I enjoyed playing. I've been playing a lot of it, even though I'm pretty familiar with it it's still fun to go through the levels and experience certain things again, things I couldn't have imagined we'd be able to do back when the original Quake came out.

    Stansfield: You ever do the multiplayer?

    Romero: Not yet. I will, but not yet. I don't want to freak too many people out right now.

    Stansfield: Yeah, people who recognize my voice from GameTV, sometimes it freaks them out a bit. It happens to Brittany a lot more since she's got a more recognizable voice, but from time to time people do recognize me.

    Romero: Also, I want to get good enough that I don't suck, because that would be humiliating.

    Stansfield: With all the rumors about another company coming in and acquiring id... if you could pick the company that could swing in and purchase you guys, who would it be?

    Romero: Nintendo.

    Stansfield: Really?

    Romero: I love what Nintendo's been doing these past few years. They used to be kinda lame, but they've come around. I mean, really ever since they put Doom on the SNES-CD and didn't hack it up too bad. Doom sold almost as many copies on the SNES-CD as it sold on the PC, and that's because Nintendo believed in the game and wanted to make sure it was as close to the original as possible. That's why we put Doom 3 on the Wave. Nintendo does a lot of good stuff, and they let their third party companies do a lot of good stuff. I mean, have you seen Twisted Metal? The newest one? Sweet Tooth does some fucked up shit in that game, and it's a Nintendo exclusive!

    Stansfield: And they're putting him in Smash!

    Romero: I mean, I could see them putting Doomguy in there.

    Stansfield: Have you asked them to?

    Romero: I have! And they said no. At least this time around.

    Stansfield: Keep asking!

    Romero: I will!

    -from an interview with John Romero on Games Over Matter, posted on September 22, 2010
     
    • Summer 2010 (Part 16) - Approaching The Midterm

    • RySenkari

    The summer of 2010 saw a news cycle increasingly dominated by the upcoming midterm elections. Jon Huntsman was still a very popular president, despite the growing anger and unrest amongst many American workers toward his conservative policies. His approval rating remained in the mid to high 50s, bolstered by the economic recovery and continued peace abroad. Two major issues were at the forefront of Huntsman's agenda: one domestic, and one foreign. On the domestic front, Huntsman found himself confronting environmental issues, particularly the growing issue of climate change. Huntsman once again turned slightly against his own Republican base when he stated definitively in a speech in early July that he believed atmospheric climate change to be real, caused by human activity, and a growing problem. He stated that he believed the overwhelming scientific consensus and that if people weren't more careful with how they utilize fossil fuels, it could spell disaster in the near future. However, Huntsman also explicitly stated that government couldn't solve the climate change problem, and that it would need to be solved by private industry, acting in its own interest to help protect the planet. He expressed support for a number of programs that would incentivize businesses that took initiative toward limiting carbon emissions and toward solutions to stave off climate change, but did not support any programs that would punish businesses that did otherwise. His business centric approach to the problem, which he called "Green Innovation", also made industrial safety a priority. Huntsman announced that he was encouraging business leaders to review their practices with an emphasis on environmental impact and human safety, and would be stepping up enforcement of certain existing regulations, though what he didn't say was that he wouldn't be proposing any new ones. Huntsman's initiative did show some early initial promise: two months after his Green Innovation initiative began, BP announced that they had discovered potentially dangerous flaws on some of its oil platforms that it would be spending $100 million to correct over the next five years, while other companies also announced the launch of new environmentally conscious programs that would continue the work done during the Gore administration, but on a private level. Huntsman would push for $50 billion in tax incentives to compensate companies that embarked upon these programs, and though many of the programs would lead to some crucial reforms, the degree to which companies had written off certain expenses would become a target of future investigation. As for foreign policy, the Huntsman administration would continue to monitor the situation in Iraq, as Qusay Hussein continued his campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Kurdish population. Increasingly troubling reports were coming out of that country, while the tension between Iraq and neighboring Turkey also increased, prompting NATO to issue numerous sternly worded condemnations of Hussein's activities. Kurdish refugees in Turkey and elsewhere reported massacres that had gone unnoticed in the worldwide press, with many remarking that Qusay was "worse than Saddam". While Huntsman continued to sharply condemn Hussein's actions againt the Kurds, he also continued to push for peaceful solutions to international disputes, and stated in an interview in late July that a war with Iraq was "completely off the table". Soon after that interview, he made his first state visit to Turkey, and discussed the possibility of support for a Kurdish state, though support amongst the people of the region for such a solution was still quite low. Huntsman also noted the tensions simmering between Turkey and Iraq, and re-emphasized America's support for NATO and its longstanding alliance with Turkey. However, for all of Qusay's saber-rattling, he wasn't about to push his people into a war with Turkey over the Kurdish refugee situation. Iraq was continuing to experience peace and a strengthening economy after its war with Israel, though looming sanctions threatened both of those things if his violence against the Kurds continued.

    In early August, sudden tragedy struck when Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died as a result of a severe stroke. She had been a liberal pillar of the court for nearly two decades, and her death would give President Huntsman a chance to once again change the ideological balance of the court, after Al Gore had appointed Sonia Sotomayor to replace William Rehnquist. Huntsman knew that he had to make a choice that would both be pleasing to conservatives and would also keep shocked liberals from "avenging" Ginsburg's replacement at the midterm polls. He would appoint a center-right justice to take Ginsburg's place, someone a bit less controversial than his Alex Kozinski choice, and also someone a bit younger. Once again, Huntsman would appoint a fiscally conservative and socially moderate justice, more in the libertarian tradition than the conservative one: Maureen Mahoney, a former Deputy Solicitor General who had worked in the private sector as a corporate lawyer for most of the last decade, had a strong pro-business record, and though some of the conservative base opposed her, nearly every Republican senator was ready to confirm her after her nomination in late August. Democrats pushed back hard, but they didn't have enough votes to mount a filibuster challenge, and ultimately, Mahoney's nomination sailed through relatively smoothly, 71-28, with one abstention. Mahoney would end up being more conservative in her rulings than Huntsman's other nominee Kozinski, but not quite as conservative as Thomas or Scalia. Her appointment would make the Sotomayor Court one of the most business-friendly Supreme Courts in the past few decades, despite the Chief Justice's numerous dissents against its rulings in the years ahead. It would ensure that rulings such as Citizens United v. FEC, which the Court decided 5-4 in favor of restricting campaign spending by organizations, would not happen again, at least until a Democratic president got a chance to replace one of the Court's five conservatives. It would also give Huntsman another legislative victory heading into the midterms, but would also push Democrats to the polls in an effort to at least make the Senate blue enough to filibuster future potential court appointments. Ruth Bader Ginsburg would be hailed as one of the most influential Supreme Court justices of all time, and would be the subject of an Oscar-winning biopic in 2012.

    -

    A strong push from young and active Democrats in this year's midterms has seen the elevation of many unlikely candidates to Congressional races, and one of the unlikeliest is the man currently running in Georgia's 4th district, former rapper turned community activist Jonathan Smith. After two-time Congressman Hank Johnson gave up his seat to run for the United States Senate, it opened the door for Smith, who won a hotly contested primary to emerge as the Democratic candidate. Active in the Atlanta rap scene in the mid to late '90s, Smith turned to business after his musical career failed to pan out at the turn of the millennium. Smith continues to rap on occasion, though his lyrics have softened from the hard-edged "crunk" sound that he and his fellow musicians used to perform during his glory days. Some of those lyrics have caused controversy for Smith on the campaign trail, with Smith's Republican opponent, Liz Carter, citing excerpts from some of those songs and condemning Smith as misogynistic.

    "You know, that's not who I am," said Smith, when we interviewed him while campaigning at a local community center. He cited his support for local battered women's shelters in the Atlanta area and his raising of two young daughters as evidence that his early rap lyrics don't reflect his current views. "I'm not gonna disown my old songs, because I performed them during some of the best times of my life, but I would never ever commit any kind of violent act against a woman. I've been helping the women and men of Atlanta for the last ten years, and that's why I'm running for Congress, because I wanna help people."

    Smith also made his opinions on President Huntsman known.

    "He thinks poor people are lazy, and let me tell you, the poor people I see here every day, they're the hardest working people I know. You've got people working two jobs, three jobs, trying to make a good life for themselves and still not getting ahead because the guy in the Oval Office only cares about his business buddies. He's giving them tax breaks left and right, and for what? For not moving jobs out of this country? It's a bunch of crap, and once the new Congress takes over next January, we're not gonna be giving out any more tax breaks to billionaires."

    When asked about the president's new environmental initiative, Smith continued to condemn the president, while saying that the government needs to do more to combat climate change and punish businesses that don't control their carbon emissions.

    "He's just giving out more tax breaks, and we don't even know if these companies are really doing what they say they're doing. I live in Georgia, and there's people down in Savannah who are worried about hurricanes every single year. It's a serious situation, and it's not gonna be solved by giving out more tax breaks. Just like every other problem, if the climate gets bad, it's gonna be the poor who suffer first."

    Smith is currently projected to defeat Carter by a 2-to-1 margin in November's election, though Carter has gained several points in the polls since Smith's rap lyrics began circulating in the press. President Huntsman remains popular, but Democrats are still projected to gain at least 20 seats in the upcoming election, far less than the 71 needed to regain control of Congress, but potentially enough to provide more meaningful opposition to Huntsman's policies.

    -from an article on the news blog Tales From The Political Battleground, posted on August 26, 2010

    -

    Hurricane Lola Batters Outer Banks, Second Major Strike On US This Season

    Hurricane Lola made landfall early Monday morning in the Outer Banks of North Carolina as a low-end Category 3 hurricane with winds of 115 miles per hour, becoming the second major hurricane to strike the United States this year, after Hurricane Bonnie, which hit the Florida Panhandle over the Fourth of July weekend, also as a Category 3. Lola made landfall at Ocracoke, North Carolina, placing a direct hit on the barrier island which had been evacuated prior to the storm's arrival. While Lola did bring an estimated 14-foot storm surge onto the island, so far no casualties have been tallied, likely due to the island's sparse population and the public heeding the evacuation. Lola is expected to narrowly miss the North Carolina mainland and curve out to sea, and it's already weakened to a Category 2 storm with winds of 105 miles per hour. Lola is the third consecutive newly-named "L" storm to make a significant impact in the United States, after Lisa in 1998 and Lydia in 2004. Lisa hit Tampa Bay directly as a Category 2 storm, killing 29 people and causing more than $10 billion in damage, while Lydia struck Pensacola, Florida and killed 12 people, causing significant damage to the city. Both of those storms were retired, though Lola's retirement might be unlikely due to the storm causing minimal impact in terms of casualties. So far, this has been a fairly active hurricane season, with 12 named storms and six total hurricanes, including three major ones. So far, three hurricanes have made landfall: In addition to Bonnie and Lola in the United States, Hurricane Frances struck Antigua as a poorly organized Category 1 hurricane, killing three there before turning north and dissipating in the cooler waters to the north.

    President Huntsman has already announced plans to visit the Outer Banks later this week to tour hurricane-damaged areas and meet with survivors. Earlier this year, he visited Carrabelle, Florida, where four were killed after Hurricane Bonnie made landfall there.

    -from an article on Yahoo! News, posted on September 27, 2010
     
    • Summer 2010 (Part 17) - The Prime Primate Is Back

    • RySenkari

    Donkey Kong Adventure

    Donkey Kong Adventure is a 2-D/3-D platformer exclusive to the Nintendo Sapphire. Published by Nintendo and developed by an entirely new studio with no involvement from Rare (the studio is a mix of various OTL and TTL game developers, with about 20% of its personnel having worked with WayForward IOTL), the game has a lot in common with OTL's Donkey Kong Country Returns, but also has some gameplay variations and aesthetic differences that make it an entirely original game. Like previous Donkey Kong Country games, it's primarily a 2-D platformer, though it does have a few segments of 3-D gameplay, particularly bonus rooms and boss fights. The game takes place across six different worlds, each of which features a different environment and set of challenges. Interestingly, the game has somewhat of an "open exploration" format within worlds, with the player able to choose from numerous levels to visit and play (though the player is required to eventually clear all levels to complete that world, save for some secret levels). The player controls Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong, who have access to all of the moves they had in the original Donkey Kong Country games, along with some new ones which include some brawling moves and some projectile shooting abilities. Unlike the tiki theme of OTL's Donkey Kong Country Returns, Donkey Kong Adventure has a sort of cyberpunk theme to it, with King K. Rool having some elements of a corporate leader/army general. Despite the sci-fi motif shared in many levels, the game's worlds are a wide variety of environments, featuring a cold world, a lava world, a flying world, a haunted world, a weather world, and a computer world. Enemies consist primarily of Kremlings, with returning foes like Zingers and Beavers, though there are plenty of robotic foes as well and some new enemies for Donkey and Diddy Kong to battle against. There's plenty going on from a visual perspective, with King K. Rool (who is voiced in this game by Corey Burton), appearing on monitors to speak to his armies or to the heroes themselves, and other exciting events happening in the background as well (a throwback to the original trilogy, which featured background animation as the main visual effect since the game's 3-D visuals weren't quite as impressive on the SNES-CD). Donkey and Diddy themselves don't have speaking voices, but numerous side characters do, speaking in mostly goofy voices and mostly in grunts or short one-liners to liven up the stage animation. The game looks visually beautiful, probably the best looking 2-D platformer ever made up to this time, with gorgeous animation and detail, comparable to OTL's Tropical Freeze or perhaps even a smidge better. Level design is unique and creative, using elements from past games in concert with entirely new games to create some of the most fun and exciting platformer levels ever. Difficulty isn't QUITE as severe as it is on the OTL Returns and Tropical Freeze games, though it's still a bit harder than the typical Mario game. The game does build a bit upon the tropes and gameplay elements established in Donkey Kong and Battletoads, though it's a bit more simplistic in terms of gameplay and more heavy on creative level design and visual flair.

    The game begins with Diddy and Dixie going on their first date, just as King K. Rool leads an army of heavily armed Kremlings in an invasion of DK Isle. He intends to snatch both Diddy and Dixie, but Diddy manages to get away and Dixie is captured, prompting Donkey and Diddy to lead the charge to rescue her by battling back K. Rool's armies across six worlds, each of which have at least eight levels (counting both mandatory and secret levels). The levels are as follows:

    Frozen Wastelands: DK and Diddy find themselves pushed to the farthest reaches of Kong territory, a stone cold wasteland stalked by Kremlings and evil penguins alike, with a fierce sasquatch as the boss.
    Roaring Volcano: The next world is a massive lava field surrounding a bubbling volcano. This area is full of fire levels but is also being extracted for minerals by K. Rool's machines.
    Flying Fortress: A massive floating castle that has served as K. Rool's base for most of the game, this world marks the game's halfway point and features a mini-battle against K. Rool himself, though it ends up being a fakeout final boss (obviously, since there are three more worlds left).
    Haunted Battleground: This world is haunted by the ghosts of the many Kremlings that Donkey and Diddy have taken out. It's also where a team of Kong ghostbusters resides, which makes for some fairly humorous moments.
    Severe Stormlands: This world is the result of one of King K. Rool's inventions gone haywire, creating all sorts of wacky weather! No level in this world has the same weather as any other, making for a wide variety of environments.
    K. Rool's Kontrol Center: A massive computerized mobile HQ for the dastardly Kremling forces, this is where King K. Rool makes his final stand. Donkey and Diddy will need to keep their wits about them to have any hope of stopping K. Rool and rescuing Dixie!

    Donkey Kong Adventure is released in September 2010. Highly praised for its visual creativity and level themeing, the game is also criticized for being a bit short compared to other Donkey Kong games, and also for rehashing the plot of Dixie being kidnapped (which also happened in the Battletoads crossover). It's definitely considered a good game, but also somewhat of a flawed one, not as memorable as any of the original SNES-CD games or as madly challenging as the Battletoads game. Some longtime fans also criticize the new studio for, well, not being Rare, a criticism that's ultimately unfair but one that does stain the game in the eyes of some fans. The game's sales are good, but fail to meet expectations, with first month sales even pacing slightly behind the Reynard iTwin game, and the game also fails to do nearly as well in Japan as some of the other Donkey Kong platforming games have. Considered to be a Sapphire tentpole title for 2010, the game's disappointment is distressing for Nintendo, but fortunately the company does have plenty of other major Sapphire games coming out that year and can afford at least one disappointment. The game does turn a profit, but fails to become the Sapphire seller some expected it to be.

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    Nintendo "Abandoning" Its 2-D Experiment With Next Round Of Sapphire Games

    2-D platforming was once thought to be making a comeback, a comeback that started with the success of Sonic Duo on the iTwin and continued with the successful launch of the Nintendo Sapphire with Super Mario Flip. However, it seems that Donkey Kong Adventure may be the last major first party 2-D platforming title on the Sapphire, with a number of upcoming games returning to a fully 3-D style of play. This includes a brand new Mario game rumored to be in development for the system that will be the first fully 3-D Mario title in the series since Super Mario Dimensions 2, and the first on a console since Super Mario Shades back in 2004. While Nintendo has yet to reveal anything official about the new game, including its existence, some leaks have made their way to the press, including a codename that implies Nintendo is going for an "experimental" approach with their new 3-D platformer. The game is expected to be a showcase for the Sapphire's technical capabilities, with one leak implying that it will squeeze out every drop of the system's power. That's a bold statement to make for any game, but Nintendo has been working on this title since just after the launch of the Sapphire, and as games on the system continue to look better and better, it's not surprising to hear about a potential Mario game designed around that power. Nintendo is expected to continue producing 2-D platformers on the Game Boy Supernova, and has responded quite positively to the strong reception for last year's Super Mario World 4. If we do see a Super Mario World 5, however, expect to see it on the Supernova, because according to this report, the days of 2-D platformers on the Nintendo Sapphire, at least among games published by Nintendo, are over.

    -from a September 18, 2010 article on Games Over Matter

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    "Following a series of leaks, Nintendo is now expected to at least tease its early in development Sapphire Mario game at the upcoming Tokyo Game Show next month. Nintendo rarely participates in TGS, but has been doing so with increasing frequency over the past few years, revealing numerous new games and promoting already revealed titles at the show. They still save much of their biggest reveals for E3, but announcing a new Mario game at TGS could generate a lot of buzz for the console, which has seen its sales continue to lag slightly behind those of the Apple iTwin in recent months."

    -from the September 23, 2010 episode of G4's X-Play
     
    • Summer 2010 (Part 18) - Back Into The Memory Hole

    • RySenkari

    Memory Hole 2

    The sequel to Looking Glass' 2007 hit Memory Hole, Memory Hole 2 was developed by the same company and co-produced by Microsoft and Ubisoft, as a cost-saving measure for the former. This arrangement makes Memory Hole 2 a timed exclusive, released exclusively to the Xbox 2 in September 2010, with a port coming to the Nintendo Sapphire sometime in 2011 (along with a port of the original game). Memory Hole 2, much like the original game, is a first-person shooter/adventure title, similar in many ways to OTL's Bioshock and sharing many thematic and gameplay elements of the original game. The protagonist of Memory Hole 2 is Lea, the girl from the original game, now a young woman in her late teens/early 20s. Lea begins the game trapped in an Eraser suit, gifted with strange powers but also cursed with them, with no idea of where she is and with only vague memories of her parents and past. She must piece together her old memories, figure out how she got into the suit and who put her there, and dodge attacks from mysterious masked soldiers sent to bring her down, along with a "heroic" figure known as the Slayer who blames Lea for murdering his beloved. The mechanic of controlling an Eraser in combat is similar in some ways to how Bioshock 2 had the player controlling a prototype Big Daddy IOTL, with Lea able to find and use keystones and superpowers in much the same way that David did back in the original Memory Hole. Rather than hunting down fellow Erasers in this game, Lea must find fragments of memory, souvenirs from her past that she can use to access one of her old memories, which also help the player piece together events that took place between the end of the first game and the beginning of the second. The game takes place in a massive city, a city that's eventually revealed to be Denver, Colorado, abandoned and mostly destroyed after the major civil war that took place in the 21st Century in this game's past. The change in setting, with more outdoor, open areas, makes Memory Hole 2 somewhat less linear than the original, though there are some indoor areas that must be carefully explored, with a mix of above ground and underground areas. Lea begins with more health and attack strength than David did in the original Memory Hole, but the enemies are faster, smarter, heavily armed, and much more dangerous, forcing the player to be somewhat more strategic and also to conserve their powers. There are a few friendly figures throughout the game, though Lea has trouble communicating with them (trapped in the Eraser suit, she's unable to communicate verbally), making "dialogue" a bit of a puzzle, with certain characters able to understand her better than others. Finding certain characters who can help Lea is key to succeeding in her quest, and eventually, Lea will be able to shed parts of the suit, reducing her abilities in some respects but increasing them in others. Like the original Memory Hole, this game is all about memories and what's fake and what's real, and how one's self-worth is defined by their thoughts and experiences. If Memory Hole explored the more empiricist side of philosophy, then Memory Hole 2 is all about rationalism, with more emphasis on what one thinks and feels rather than what one experiences (which compares to the objectivism/collectivism critique of OTL's first two Bioshock games). For most of the game, Lea can't speak, so her dialogue is all internal (she's voiced in this game by Jessy Schram, who takes over for Annasophia Robb who voiced her as a young girl in the original Memory Hole). We can hear her thoughts, her inner dialogue, and we can occasionally see part of her face, reflected on the inside visor of her suit. If there's an OTL game that Memory Hole 2 best compares to besides the Bioshock games, it's probably Metroid Prime, with Lea gaining abilities in much the same way Samus does, opening up more and more of the city to explore as she regains more and more of her memories. The cryptic world-building, the pacing, the difficulty progression, and even the way that many enemies fight, are all very comparable to OTL's Metroid Prime, though with a soundtrack consisting mostly of modern and "futuristic" music rather than an ambient score. Like the original Memory Hole, Memory Hole 2 contains many real songs, and a few cleverly placed original songs designed to "predict" what pop and rock music might evolve into in the future. It's one of the most unique soundtracks ever created for a game, with some very memorable musical moments placed throughout. Like OTL's Bioshock 2, Memory Hole 2 adds a multiplayer mode, which gets a strong reception thanks to its creative use of power-ups and its wide variety of different modes.

    The game begins with a series of disjointed cutscenes showing fragments of memories from Lea's life, then we see Lea herself, waking up to discover herself inside an Eraser suit and unable to get herself out. She's immediately pursued by enemies, and first she tries to flee, and then she is forced to kill them. She tries to remember who she is or who she knows, and remembers only her name, and a vague trail of clues that will eventually lead the player to the first memory fragment. As they explore, the player is treated to a post-apocalyptic city, though the level of destruction there is somewhat less than would be expected from a city that's been abandoned and destroyed for decades. She finds the first few clues about her identity and gains some memories of her parents, David and Susanna, who are nowhere to be found. She desperately wants to find them and eventually ends up climbing the city's tallest building, which leads to a series of tough firefights and a climactic scene in which she encounters the Slayer for the first time. The Slayer blames Lea for murdering his beloved Sophia, and turns his powerful automatic scoped rifle on Lea, wounding her to such an extent that she'll need to find a way to remove part of her suit to survive. She's able to remove her gloves, allowing her the proper use of her hands, but even with her hands she can't remove any other part of her suit, not yet. She continues through the city, finding memories, killing enemies, and gaining strength. Two things start to become apparent to the player: Lea, despite her sympathetic internal monologues and attempts to use peace instead of violence, almost seems like the villain of her own game. Secondly, her regained memories have started contradicting each other, almost as if they're split between three different realities. In one of these realities, her parents seem to have died. In another, her parents are alive and she's mostly happy, and in another, she's almost out of body, ethereal, as if she herself has died. The memories blend into one another, and the player starts to become unable to trust anything Lea is seeing, though her thoughts are clear, focused, and accurate, and the player can use Lea's thoughts to piece together more answers to the various puzzles they encounter. As Lea progresses, opening up more of the city and particularly, opening up a highway-type area that seems to lead to the suburbs, Lea's memories start to become more focused and clear, even if they seem to be from three different realities. They stop blending together. In some of them, her parents are clearly dead. In others, so is she. Lea seems to think the memories take place at different times, but then she realizes after finding more of them that they can't possibly. Meanwhile, the Slayer gets ever closer. Lea has a chance to kill him, but sees him assisting other survivors and taking care of a person that she herself wounded, and she hesitates, giving him a chance to hunt and nearly kill her. Lea also removes more and more of the suit, and finally, about 80 percent of the way through the game, is able to remove the stifling helmet and breathing apparatus from her head. She screams at the Slayer to stop, and he hesitates, before referring to her as Sophie. Lea looks in the mirror and sees a face she doesn't recognize, and runs from both the Slayer and the mirror in horror. She collapses to the ground, only to be surrounded by more well-armed hunters who surround her. She fights back: without the Eraser body she lacks firepower, but she makes up for it with incredible, almost superheroic speed. However, the hunters are too numerous, and she's about to be killed before the Slayer is able to save her. He calls her Sophie again and she pushes him away, screaming that she's Lea, only for the Slayer to tell her that Lea is the name of the Eraser that killed Sophie, and shows her a picture of an unhelmeted Lea, with a cold, evil look on her face. Lea has a near breakdown, staggering away again before collapsing and passing out and waking up in the Slayer's house.

    She has another, unprompted memory, remembering the Slayer and remembering his name: Harper, a boy she met when the two of them were 15. They bonded over the deaths of their parents... but then Lea remembers that her parents are alive. Aren't they? Lea tries to focus but only remembers more of Harper and how the two survived in the wastes together, fell in love, and how Harper got her father David's blessing... but then again, didn't they bond over the deaths of their parents? As Lea continues to try and recall things from her fractured mind, Harper comes in and tries to calm her down. Lea insists that she's Lea, not Sophie. Harper agrees to call her by that name, but tells her that she looks nothing like Lea, and that he saw Lea kill Sophie with his own eyes. Lea asks Harper how he thinks she got inside the Eraser suit, Harper says that Lea must have put Sophie in there to torture her somehow. Lea eventually agrees to stay with Harper, but she then sneaks out and goes looking for more memories, determined to reveal the truth to herself. What she eventually learns is that at the moment that David chose to kill or spare Susanna (from the previous Memory Hole), two parallel universes were created: one in which Lea dies and one in which she lives and her parents die. However, there was also a third universe created from the power of Susanna and the Erasers destroying Sarkel's mind to free Lea from his control. This universe couldn't exist, and reconciled itself by merging the other two universes together, creating two Leas. However, these Leas couldn't co-exist, so they both had a measure of existential identity crisis, which was reconciled by the Lea who remembered her parents' deaths changing her name to Sophie. The Lea that lived and that kept the name also kept all the baggage from Lea's life, including the enormous influx of psychic power held by the Erasers. This eroded her mind and drove her mad. She murdered David and Susanna and then attempted to murder Sophie. Harper found Sophie's destroyed body and protected her from Lea's psychic assaults, but the only way to save her life was to fuse her into an Eraser suit. So repulsed by his own actions, he purged his own memory of the events. Meanwhile, Lea has been able to use her psychic powers to take control of an army of survivors, who are tasked with hunting down Sophie and killing her. When Harper is given the memory of grafting Sophie into the Eraser suit, he's flooded with guilt and begs her to kill him, but she forgives him, knowing that she's the only one who can finish off her other self. Sophie makes her way to where Lea is (a thinly-veiled Broncos Stadium, in this game called Stallion Field) and battles her in a ferocious psychic showdown with some assistance from Harper. Like the original Memory Hole, Memory Hole 2 has three different endings, depending on how many of Sophie's 30 memories were found. If less than 20 were found (you need to find a minimum of 12 to complete the game), Lea and Sophie end up annihilating one another with psychic power, leaving a distraught Harper wandering the streets of Denver alone. If 21-29 of them were found, Sophie is able to destroy Lea, but she's forced to do it by taking on all of Lea's powers. The event causes a psychic overload, and Harper is forced to sacrifice himself to save Sophie. Sophie lives, but is left alone and burdened by memories and guilt and grief. If all 30 memories were found, Sophie annihilates Lea, reconciling their shared memories as the timeline repairs itself. Sophie is left a normal girl, without powers. Her parents are still dead, but she still has Harper and all the memories of her parents and of her time with him, and the two can live a peaceful and normal life together, helping the remaining survivors rebuild civilization.

    Released in September 2010 for the Xbox 2 and PC, Memory Hole 2 gets excellent reviews from critics and is widely considered the second best Xbox 2 title of the year, just behind The Covenant 2. It avoids a lot of the criticism that Bioshock 2 got IOTL, thanks to its exploration/adventure mechanics, its surprising and poignant twists, and its excellent visuals and sound quality. It keeps the series' strong reputation for quality and also achieves great sales, though sales do lag somewhat behind Memory Hole thanks to the fact that the Xbox 2 is somewhat slumping during this time (the eventual Sapphire release will rectify this problem). Ken Levine has created another beloved hit, after Junction Point and Memory Hole, but rather than continuing with this series, he wants to do a big, epic space title. Though the status of Looking Glass is somewhat up in the air (Microsoft hasn't spun it off like Psygnosis, yet), Levine is able to begin tentative work on his game, even though he isn't sure just what system it will eventually see release for. He does know for sure that it's going to be an eighth generation game, with inspiration taken from titles such as Selene, Half-Life, and his own masterpiece Junction Point to create a title that will not only be addictive and fun, but will make players think like no game before.
     
    • Summer 2010 (Part 19)- The Rest Of The Games (Except For Reynard)

    • RySenkari

    (Here are the rest of the notable games from July 2010 to September 2010!)

    (Authors' Note: Pyro sent us some ideas for two spinoff games based on his Reynard character from the latest Commander Keen. While those games are released in this time frame, I'm feeling a bit under the weather today and I'm not quite able to give those games the coverage they deserve in this update. So, I'm going to cover them in a separate update hopefully sometime this weekend.)

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    Nintendo Sapphire:

    Ballistic Limit: No Escape

    A hybrid shooter for the Nintendo Sapphire, Ballistic Limit: No Escape takes the series in a somewhat different direction from previous titles in the series. Rather than being a big, epic shooter, the game is more of a closed-quarters title with horror elements, hearkening back to the original game. Its protagonist isn't Ash Beckland, but instead is a prisoner trapped in a mysterious intergalactic prison inhabited by terrifying monsters, brutal inmates, and governed by a powerful and sadistic warden. The game plays much like previous titles in that it allows the player to switch between a first person and third person perspective at will, with the first person perspective enhancing attack power, enabling special attacks, and using a special Ballistic meter that can be charged by dealing damage in third person mode. The game requires that players fight more conservatively, with enemies capable of dealing a great deal of damage and attacking in groups, requiring the use of stealth in certain parts of the game. The plot, at least for the first half, doesn't tie in with the rest of the series. Instead, it features a soldier being held in a mysterious space prison. After attempting to escape, the warden begins experimenting on him, and we learn that these experiments are designed to create ghost soldiers that can fight in other dimensions. These soldiers are then sold to the highest bidding space armies and used to fight by slipping through dimensions to be able to attack undetected. The soldier, whose name is Marcus Breed, is able to escape from his confinement, and now possesses these ghost powers, which enable him to fight the beasts that come through a dimensional wormhole created after the experimentation overloads the machine and floods the prison with antimatter energy. Breed must fight his way through the various horrors, until he is contacted by a mysterious ghost presence: Sara, Ash Beckland's love interest from previous games in the series. Sara is able to unlock more of Breed's latent powers, and eventually, Breed is able to liberate the prison and shatter the energy barrier that the warden has created around it. However, the warden himself has accessed a godlike power of his own, and attacks Breed and the surviving prisoners as they try to escape. After a timely intervention from a squad of space marines led by Ash Beckland, Breed is able to fight the warden one on one, and manages to defeat him, ending the experiments and the threat to the galaxy. Breed conveys a message from Sara to Ash, telling him of a mysterious being that threatens the ghost dimension, and Ash asks Breed to assist him on his next mission.

    Quite positively received upon its release, Ballistic Limit: No Escape is praised for its terrifying atmosphere and its compelling pacing. The rather linear game structure does turn off some players, but it IS a throwback to the old game's format, and thus most fans don't mind. The game's graphics and sound, while not quite cutting edge, are also well received, and the game ultimately sells well, even if it's not quite the blockbuster franchise it once was. Sony seems content to release one Ballistic Limit per generation at this point, and fans eagerly await the next installment, which will likely be for the Sapphire's successor.

    Fire Emblem: The Myststone War

    The latest in Nintendo's popular tactical RPG series, The Myststone War features all the familiar Fire Emblem gameplay elements and tropes, with a beautiful new graphical interface and fully animated CG cutscenes with full voice acting from Los Angeles-area pros for the English dub and popular seiyuu for the Japanese version. A fully HD game, it's Nintendo's biggest budget Fire Emblem yet, though it is somewhat light on things to do outside of combat in terms of character relationships and side quests. The game's biggest new element in terms of gameplay is the presence of Myststones, which hover over certain parts of the battlefield and provide combat buffs and debuffs for those standing in presence of them. These stones can be altered or destroyed or enhanced, and there are many different effects they can have, from simple stat boosts to enabling new combat skills, to preventing a certain number of permadeaths in combat (with no Casual option, huddling around these Resurrection Myststones is a major tactic in the game, though they are few and far between). The game's plot involves a sorceress queen named Melodia who is trying to conquer the continent by taking advantage of the power of these stones. She doesn't just sit on her throne either, she's a full combatant who isn't averse to getting her hands dirty in combat. The player character can be either male or female, and though they're named by the player, their official name is Ashley. Ashley must unite numerous warring territories in battle against Melodia's army before she conquers all, usually by defeating the leaders of these territories in combat. The Myststone War is a fairly well reviewed game, and, like most titles in the series, it's more popular in Japan than it is in North America. The main criticism is that it's a bit on the short side and that there's not a lot to do besides the main quest, while some critics also believe the Myststones make combat a bit too random (if a favorable Myststone spawns too close to the enemy side, you can lose a character or two due to no fault of your own). It's seen as a successful game, but would end up being overshadowed by the next Fire Emblem title, which would be released in the last days of the Game Boy Supernova's lifespan.

    Dark Explorer

    A sort of Metroidvania title, Dark Explorer features a mysterious cloaked character named Nomu exploring numerous dungeons full of scary creatures. Nomu can use melee combat or magic to battle enemies, and he can also hunt for various treasures and equipment to enhance his abilities. He's in search of a mysterious relic to resurrect his father, the king of a vast dying realm, but on his journey, Nomu himself learns what it means to be a king. The game can be compared in its gameplay style somewhat to OTL's Metroid: Other M, with 3-D and 2-D segments, but doesn't come with that other game's baggage and reviews are quite good, even if sales don't quite match up.

    Apple iTwin:

    Corona And Rouge

    A 2-D platformer with fully 3-D graphics, Corona and Rouge stars the two badass ladies of the Sonic universe, teaming up to battle a dangerous dark mage who seeks to take over the world. The game controls much like Sonic Duo, but nixes the 3-D gameplay segments in favor of fully 2-D gameplay like the old Sonic platformers. The game allows for one person to control both characters with the two iTwin controllers or for two people to play at once, and rather than speed focused gameplay, this game is focused more on combat and puzzle solving. Corona can use her energy lasers, Rouge can slip into tight places, and both of them can fly, enabling levels to feature plenty of vertical elements. For all the game's style and flash, it's a fairly standard platformer, and though fans of the two main characters will definitely be pleased, it's not nearly as innovative as many other recent Sonic titles, and definitely not the best game to jump into the series on. Sales generally meet expectations, with review scores being decent but not great.

    No More Heroes 2

    The sequel to the surprise iTwin hit from 2008, No More Heroes 2, like OTL's game, features Travis Touchdown returning to battle his way through dozens of powerful assassins to rise up the ranks in his profession, with plenty of humor along the way. The gameplay is fairly similar to the original, with optional motion controls once again returning. The game's structure is non-linear, allowing the player to battle assassins in the same tier in any order they choose, though they have to kill a certain number in that tier before moving on to the next one. The game features enemies and bosses who can attempt to the player's style and learn to counter certain moves that are used more frequently, even commenting on them both in and out of battle. This forces the player to change things up and learn new combos to be successful. Like OTL's game, No More Heroes 2 scores excellent reviews from critics, while sales are significantly better than OTL's sequel in both North America and Japan, keeping the game one of Apple's most successful franchises. Despite the game's success, Suda51 decides to take a break from the series and move on to a new project, one that will be a multiplatformer rather than an iTwin exclusive.

    Ecumenopolis

    A dark-themed, modern RPG with the most similarity to OTL's Resonance Of Fate, Ecumenopolis was developed by many of the same people who worked on that game, including Yoshiharu Gotanda, who is most notable for the Tale series of titles. Ecumenopolis, as the name implies, takes place in a massive, world-spanning city that is heavily stratified by class and social status. Members of the upper class battle it out with one another by hiring mercenaries to kill off their rivals, with successful mercenaries from the lower ranks ultimately able to rise to the upper classes. Battles themselves look quite visually similar to those in OTL's Resonance Of Fate, with fast-paced gun combat involving acrobatic moves, and the ability to cause parts to fly off of foes in combat. However, unlike that game, Ecumenopolis is a full action RPG with the player only able to control one character at a time. The scratch/direct damage system also remains, though the element of bezels from that game is not present in Ecumenopolis. Guns are highly customizable and characters can customize themselves through the use of various combat accessories. The three main characters are Gash, Jinna, and Lukas, three young mercenaries working for a mysterious young lord named Asheron. Asheron has a vast amount of money from an ancient family fortune, and hopes to eliminate his rivals to provide his part of the city with more food and water, giving the mercenaries a somewhat noble purpose to assist him. However, as they find out later, Asheron is actually a vampire who wants to convert the lifeforce of his rivals into energy to gain access to an ancient buried god that was once destroyed but is now trying to exert influence on the world's denizens to return and rule. The mercenaries must find others who can assist them in stopping Asheron, ultimately retracing the paths of three heroes who stopped the ancient god before the vast city was built over his tomb. Ecumenopolis is released to high praise for its fun combat system and excellent graphics and sound, and becomes one of the most critically successful RPGs of the year. It's a major success in Japan, and while it doesn't become a blockbuster in the States, it still manages to become one of the system's more popular JRPGs, achieving most of its North American sales on budget pricing later in its lifespan.

    Game Boy Supernova:

    Ridge Racer Mini

    A Ridge Racer spinoff title for the Game Boy Supernova, Ridge Racer Mini is a modern 3-D racing title not all that different from the console games, with some of the best graphics available on the Supernova. Featuring hybrid arcade/simulation gameplay and a wide variety of cars and tracks, it's arguably one of the best titles in the series, and stands up decently against the Supernova Gran Turismo. It's not a major hit but it's certainly a sales success.

    Return To Yoshi's Island

    Intended as a direct sequel to the original Yoshi's Island for the Super Nintendo, Return To Yoshi's Island has a similar graphical style and gameplay to OTL's Yoshi's New Island on the 3DS, but features more upbeat music in tune with the original game, rather than the sort of babyish music included on OTL's New Island. Yoshi and friends must rescue Baby Mario from Kamek and Bowser, traversing 48 levels in order to do so. The levels are packed with secrets and collectables, and the game features some truly huge and epic bosses, including a giant Mechakoopa, a ferocious dragon, and an RPG inspired battle with Kamek himself. The game gets excellent reviews and sales and is considered a worthy follow-up to Yoshi's Island and one of the best Supernova games of the year.

    Lyric: Whisper In The Wind

    A music-based platforming/puzzle game that attempts to capture some of the appeal of Mixolydia, but rather than utilizing sounds from the outside world, it utilizes 140 original built-in songs (most of them with full Japanese lyrics) that are gathered throughout the story. While praised for its unique gameplay and not being a Mixolydia ripoff, it's still not nearly as successful commercially.

    Neptune's Call 3

    Another title in the popular Neptune's Call series, this one features two playable heroes, Pogan and Rochelle, and continues the fully 3-D swimming gameplay of the first two titles as the heroes team up to retrieve a powerful magical shell in order to restore their respective homes. They must battle a new villain, the dark mermaid Bryssenia, whose backstory is incredibly tragic and who ultimately becomes one of the most sympathetic gaming villains in recent memory. The game's plot is probably the best in the series, and though the gameplay isn't all that much changed from the last two titles, its production values make it both a critical and commercial success on par with the previous two games.

    Multiplatform:

    Dead Or Alive

    A full reboot sequel that completely throws out the plot from every previous game in the series, Dead Or Alive brings the familiar combat of previous series games to the HD consoles for the first time, introducing nine new characters and bringing back nine fan favorites. Though the franchise's familiar fanservice does make an appearance, Dead Or Alive cuts down on it compared to previous games in the series and attempts to establish a new, more serious plot. While longtime fans are frustrated with the sudden reboot, they do have to admit that the gameplay and graphics are excellent, and many of the new characters are both quite well thought out and quite attractive. One of the stronger fighting games of the year, Dead Or Alive does reasonably well on both the Sapphire and iTwin, becoming a tournament staple for the next few years.

    Star Trek Online: The Next Generation

    The “sequel” of sorts to the original Star Trek Online, this game takes more locations and characters from The Next Generation, and features a vastly updated control interface and graphics. The game is much like its predecessor, allowing players to captain their own starship or explore on foot, either certain planets or the interiors of starships. Primarily known as a PC game, the game is also ported to the Sapphire and Xbox 2, but doesn't sell nearly as well on either of the two consoles, due to the game being easier to play on PC, looking better, and also having a larger community. Known as one of the year's best new MMOs, the console versions get only decent reviews, but the game's community on PC remains fairly strong for years to come.

    Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

    A fully 3-D brawler for the Sapphire and iTwin that also gets 2-D versions for the Supernova and iPhone, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a beat 'em up that features all the classic heroes and villains of the series, in a series of levels with various weapons and power-ups. Designed to be the seventh gen's definitive TMNT game, it largely succeeds, with fun gameplay and the ability for four players to play either locally or online on both the console and handheld versions. Sales aren't too great, but they are enough for the game to make a healthy profit, and fans are extremely pleased by this enjoyable beat 'em up.

    Tron Virtuality

    A somewhat disappointing 3-D adventure title for the Sapphire and iTwin, Tron Virtuality is an original adventure set in the world of Tron and featuring an entirely new set of heroes and villains. Though its release is somewhat timed to coincide with Tron Legacy, the film coming out later in the year, it's not actually tied in with that game, and instead features a new hero named Zex who comes to the virtual world to locate a piece of computer code in the service of a rich programmer, only to learn that the code is the key to defeating a powerful rogue AI. Though the game features nice graphics and all the familiar series elements, it's a bit too open, devoid of a lot of things to do and with repetitive combat and missions. It's not a bad game, but it's not really a good one either, and sales are underwhelming.

    Ace Attorney: Bar None

    A brand new title in the Ace Attorney series for the Supernova and iPod Play, the game features a new character, a young hopeful attorney named Roy Eager who is hoping to pass the bar. Phoenix Wright takes him under his wing through a series of cases tied into a mystery surrounding the murder of another young legal hopeful, Jema Crow. Jema was a smart, beautiful young woman who wanted to be a prosecuting attorney, but was murdered by a mysterious person, the hunt for whom stretches across several cases. As Phoenix and Roy get closer to learning what happened to Jema, a shocking revelation happens: Jema is actually alive, having faked her own death to cover up an accidental death she committed. When Phoenix is incapacitated before the final case, Roy must solve the case with Phoenix's guidance to expose Jema and establish himself as a proper lawyer. In the end, Jema is found guilty, but is given a light sentence due to her sincere repentance, while Roy becomes a proper lawyer and leaves to establish himself in a different city. Phoenix recovers from his injury, satisfied that he helped a young lawyer much like himself. The game is a bit of a critical disappointment compared to other recent games in the series, and becomes notable for being the last game in the series to appear on the Supernova.

    Bloody Train 2

    The sequel to Bloody Train is somewhat quickly put together, due to the last game's success. Like its predecessor, it's a horror/shooter title, though this one features a group of campers investigating an abandoned train wreck in the woods that teleports them to a mysterious dimension in which the same train is now a ghost train running on infinite tracks to nowhere, full of vengeful ghosts. Featuring much of the same horror and action as the original, it's not the most innovative shooter of the year but it's full of lots of horror and does manage to be much more challenging than the last, winning accolades amongst hardcore gamers even as sales and review scores lag behind the first.

    Vandal Hearts: Arisen To Power

    A tactical role playing game by Konami for the Sapphire and iTwin, this game is a bit of an effort to capitalize on the success of Valkyria Chronicles, playing in similar fashion to that one but with elements from the original Vandal Hearts game. Revolving around a young prince's quest to become a great king, running parallel with the rise of a would be usurper to his throne, this game is largely based on character relationships, and ends up standing somewhat in contrast to Fire Emblem: The Myststone War, which has a bigger focus on battles. That said, it's a bit of a vanilla game with rather dry gameplay, and the production values aren't quite on par with those of Fire Emblem. It's for tactical RPG fanatics only, with poor sales on both sides of the Pacific.

    Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Alteration

    The latest game in the Splinter Cell series sees release on the Sapphire, iTwin, iPhone, and Supernova, but curiously, not on the Xbox 2. It's a somewhat smaller scale game, with Sam Fisher investigating a theft of government records that seems to be an inside job, traveling all over America and later, the world in search of the culprit. Like previous games in the series, Alteration features heavy elements of stealth, with an emphasis on finding certain clues that the culprit has left behind. The Supernova and iPhone versions of the games are somewhat downscaled graphically, but feature all the same gameplay and missions of their console counterparts, making them some of the best looking games on those consoles respectively (with the iPhone version looking especially good for a handheld title of its day). Reviews mostly average in the mid to high 7s, with Ubisoft clearly not devoting as much resources to this game as previous Splinter Cell titles, almost as if the game is intended to set up something bigger down the road. Sales lag noticeably behind other Splinter Cell games, but with lower production costs, it's still able to turn a healthy profit.

    -

    Top Selling New Console Games In North America (in terms of sales over the first four weeks of release):

    July 2010:

    1. The Covenant 4 (Microsoft Xbox 2)
    2. Encounter: Last Stand (Nintendo Sapphire)
    3. Ballistic Limit: No Escape (Nintendo Sapphire)
    4. Encounter: Last Stand (Apple iTwin)
    5. Alpha Protocol (Apple iTwin)

    August 2010:

    1. Madden NFL 2011 (Nintendo Sapphire)
    2. Madden NFL 2011 (Microsoft Xbox 2)
    3. Madden NFL 2011 (Apple iTwin)
    4. Blackheart: Contract (Nintendo Sapphire)
    5. Blackheart: Contract (Apple iTwin)

    September 2010:

    1. Memory Hole 2 (Microsoft Xbox 2)
    2. The Life And Death Of A Mother (Apple iTwin)
    3. Quake 5 (Nintendo Sapphire)
    4. Reynard (Apple iTwin)
    5. Quake 5 (Microsoft Xbox 2)
     
    • Summer 2010 (Part 20) - The Great Reynard

    • RySenkari

    (Author's Note: This update was based on information provided by the reader Pyro, a mix of material he directly provided to us and material I wrote to fill in some of the gaps.)

    -

    Commander Keen: Billy's Brave Oddysey     had proven to be one of the most popular games in the franchise, and a big reason for that was the introduction of one of the most popular characters in the franchise's history, Billy's rival, the thief Reynard. After realizing just how popular the character was with fans, Apple began working on two new spinoff titles featuring the young thief, the first for iPhone and the second for the Apple iTwin. The two games would be developed concurrently, both aiming at a 2010 release date, with the iTwin game worked on by Ion Storm and the iPhone title developed by a new indie company, Saffron, . The games ended up being completed around the same time, with the iPhone title scheduled for August 2010, and the iTwin game scheduled for September.

    The iPhone game would be a prequel to the iTwin game, intended to be a stand-alone title but also to set up the events of the iTwin spinoff. Titled Reynard's Secrets, it's a puzzle/visual novel game, intended to give players the full game experience but provide something optimized for the iPhone's small screen, and would play very similarly to OTL's Professor Layton games, utilizing the iPhone's touch controls in order to provide players with many different ways to solve the game's tricky puzzles. The game features colorful, stylish graphics and a jazzy soundtrack highly novel for mobile exclusive games at the time. The main plot of the game concerns Reynard's long lost father Ritchie, a master thief who mysteriously disappeared after finding an artifact with immense power, thus catching the eye of an evil syndicate. After Ritchie disappears, Reynard must piece together the clues to find him and solve the mystery of his disappearance while also getting to the bottom of the mysterious syndicate that may have caused it. Reynard goes around the world, solving various puzzles while visiting the following locales: Florence (Italy), Macau, Yucatan, Transylvania, Antarctica, Indonesia. The Indonesia level takes place inside "the Syndicate's" volcano base where Reynard and his crew still the final MacGuffin/final artifact from them. Each of these levels have the same structure: the set-up, the heist, and the boss fight. The Italian boss uses a Di Vinci-like helicopter against Reynard in their confrontation. Macau's is a Triad-inspired gangster who uses martial arts. Yucatan's is an angry Mayan god looking to smite Reynard for violating his temple. Transylvania's is a take on Vlad the Impaler (who insists that he's NOT a vampire.) Some missions of the game involve Reynard evading Rosalyn LeBlanc, an INTERPOL cadet obsessed with his capture, and the final world has a mission where they're forced to work together to escape one of the Syndicate's death traps. While Rosalyn acts belligerently towards Reynard, he flirts with her to get a rise out of the cadet. For a twist, the final boss is Reynard's father who is working for the Syndicate, but it is ambiguous of whether he is brainwashed or doing it willingly. Reynard defeats his father, who escapes and thus sets up the storyline of the iTwin game, Reynard's quest to save his father.

    This quest would be depicted in the iTwin console game Reynard, a full spinoff title starring the young thief and introducing numerous new characters while also including many characters from Reynard's Secrets. This would include Brianna, the nerdy inventor and another rival to Billy Blaze/Commander Keen. She serves as Reynard's mission control, who is overly cautious and somewhat insecure in contrast to Rey. However, sometimes she's forced to go out into the field to save Reynard when he finds himself caught in a trap. The second would be Reynard's brother, George, who is a savant at mechanics and an excellent driver/pilot despite being twelve years old. He is socially awkward and more interested in machines than people, but still more than happy to participate in his younger brother's heists. Though not explicitly stated, George is on the autistic spectrum and was included to help ameliorate the portrayal of those on the spectrum. The game itself plays much like the mainline Commander Keen titles, but with more stealth and puzzle solving, with Reynard controlling much like he does during his playable segments in Billy's Brave Odyssey. Like Reynard's Secrets, the game features an upbeat, jazzy soundtrack, fully orchestrated and even featuring dynamic changes depending on what the player is doing at the time. The game also has full voice acting and animated cutscenes in both 2-D and 3-D, with the 3-D cutscenes being fully rendered within the game's engine. Like Reynard's Secrets, the game takes Reynard all the way around the world, with eight main locales, each with its own set of missions and levels. The game is a bit more serious than the iPhone title, with more grounded and realistic bosses (most of whom consist of either Interpol agents or the upper echelons of the syndicate) that pose a more personal threat to Reynard as he battles it out with each of them. Rosalyn returns as Reynard's foil in the game, but plays a slightly less antagonistic role, while the game introduces some more overtly hostile Interpol agents who play more of a villainous role (with one of them working as a Syndicate double agent). Reynard eventually manages to get to the bottom of his father's role as leader of the syndicate: Ritchie is indeed helping them willingly, doing so to more easily accomplish his goals of thievery and take advantage of the artifact's power. Reynard manages to defeat his father in an epic boss battle, returning his father to normal and seizing the artifact from him. In the end, Ritchie departs, leaving Reynard wondering if his father will ever turn away from the syndicate or if the two of them are destined to continue fighting each other. Reynard decides to return to thievery, once again running afoul of Commander Keen, and the game concludes with the two of them battling it out once again, perhaps setting up the events of a future title.

    The dual Reynard-related releases proved to be one of the biggest events of the year for Apple. Reynard's Secrets became one of the best selling mobile titles to date, while Reynard was one of the iTwin's biggest hits of the year, especially during the holiday season when it was positioned to be a major tentpole family release. Fans of the character were quite satisfied by the two titles, and it was clear that more Reynard games were in store for Apple on both its consoles and mobile platforms.
     
    • Fall 2010 (Part 1) - Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood

    • rick007

    Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood:

    Background:

    Production of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood started when Assassin's Creed II finished. Using the same engine, and the same characters, allowed the production team to work much faster on this game. The reason that this one isn't numbered is because fans, and the production staff, quite reasonably would assume that this would mean a new protagonist and setting, instead of continuing Ezio's story. However, there was a bit of a bump in the road as Creative Director Patrice Desilets decided to take a creative break.

    During this absence, the team decided to add multiplayer. This angered Desilets as he wanted it to be a strictly single player only experience. But since he was taking a break, there wasn't much he could do. While Desilets didn't do much more work on this game in the series, or the next one for that matter, Ubisoft did manage to talk him into doing one more game in the series with Assassin's Creed III, but I'll get to that at a later date. Around this time, Jade Raymond was promoted for her work on the game.

    Cast/Characters:

    Roger Craig Smith as Ezio Auditore da Firenze

    Scarlett Johansson as Elise Stillman

    Nolan North as Desmond Miles

    Fred Tatasciore as Mario Auditore

    Carlos Ferro as Leonardo da Vinci

    Manuel Tadros as Rodrigo Borgia

    Ellen David as Maria Auditore da Firenze

    Angela Galuppo as Claudia Auditore da Firenze

    Lita Tresierra as Rosa

    Alex Ivanocivi as Bartolomeo d'Alviano

    Arthur Holden as Octavian de Valois and Ercole Massimo

    Liane Balaban as Lucrezia Borgia

    Harry Standjofski as Juan Borgia the Elder

    Danny Wallace as Shawn Hastings

    Jessica Alba as Anita Crane

    Cam Clarke as Clay Kaczmarek aka Subject 16

    Andreas Apergis as Cesare Borgia

    Margaret Easley as Minerva

    Nadia Verrucci as Juno

    Cristina Rosato as Catarina Sforza

    Shawn Baichoo as Niccolo Machiavelli

    Phil Proctor as Warren Vidic


    Plot:

    After a brief sequence as Ezio in Viana, Spain in 1507, Desmond awakes out of the Animus, still in the truck. Getting out, Desmond finds that they are in Monteriggioni. Desmond, Shawn, Elise and Anita, discuss why they can't access the 1507 memory just yet, with a call back to the first game. After setting themselves up in the area under the main villa, it was time to get to the main game proper.

    We open at the end of the previous game: December, 1499, just after Ezio gets Minerva's message. Understandably confused, he exits the vault where he finds some of the papal vestments on the ground, Rodrigo gone. Mario appears above him, telling him to get out and they eventually make their way out of The Vatican and back to Monteriggioni. Along the way, Ezio tells him what went on in the vault as a recap of what happened at the end of the last game.

    After running some errands in the city, including testing cannons, Ezio meets the others (Machiavelli, his uncle Mario, his sister Claudia, his mother Maria, Rosa and Catarina Sforza). Their reactions to Ezio sparing Rodrigo range from slight disbelief to, in Machiavelli's case, storming out of the meeting. Catarina, seeking an allegiance with Ezio, ends up in Ezio's bed. The next morning, Rosa storms in finding them and saying that it doesn't matter, the Borgia found them.

    Just then a cannon ball come flying through the window and destroys Altair's armor. As they make their way to their troops Ezio and Rosa meet with Mario in the courtyard of the villa. After a brief conversation, they split up again. Ezio tries to hold off the attackers with the cannon until most of the people got out. Then we get our first real introduction to Cesare. During the cut scene that follows, Mario is killed and Ezio is wounded (though how remains a question considering the guns of the time. Then again three were pointed at Ezio. Plus video game logic).

    When Ezio comes to, Rosa is helping to carry him away from the action. After escaping out the back of the villa, Ezio and Rosa decide to head to Rome, though not together. Ezio eventually collapses on the road to Rome. When Ezio comes to, he finds that he is in a house near Rome and that the woman living there tended to his injuries.

    After getting a new Assassin's outfit, he is told to meet Machiavelli. But before that, Ezio makes a little side trip to help a civilian in need. Eventually, he and Machiavelli meet and discuss the situation in Rome while riding on horseback. Seems the Borgia have completely broken the people's will to resist them. Ezio plans to fight back. Machiavelli says that they might have allies in the city but first they have to get something.

    A thief steals some of Ezio's money and temporarily leads him away from Machiavelli. Eventually, the two meet up again and Machiavelli leads Ezio to a contact at the Coliseum. There they have to save him and get an encrypted message off of a Vatican courier. Once he does, Ezio goes to the ruins of the Trajan Baths and gets attacked by men wearing wolf skins.

    Looking around, Ezio finds where they came from: Nero's Golden Palace under Rome. After picking up a key there, Ezio exits and Machiavelli tells him that they are the Followers of Romulus and they are false pagans that are driving people into the arms of the church (the other Followers of Romulus Lairs are optional). Using a series of underground tunnels, Ezio and Machiavelli get to a disused store room that will serve as the Assassin's headquarters in Rome. Here, Ezio tells Machiavelli the full extent of what Cesare did at Monteriggioni.

    Turns out the Assassins don't have that many allies in Rome: Bartolomeo and his mercenaries are busy fighting the French and the Borgia on two fronts; the madam of a local brothel popular with the clergy (hey, it was the 16th century) would rather attend parties then help the Assassins; and the thieves aren't talking to Machiavelli though he doesn't know why. Ezio decides to go out and recruit them.

    Recruiting the courtesans requires trying, and failing, to save the madam from slavers. This forces Ezio to put his sister and mother in charge. Recruiting the mercenaries requires relieving the Borgia attacks on Bartolomeo and his forces, through this mission and various side missions. Recruiting the thieves is a bit more difficult as Rosa doesn't entirely trust Machiavelli. She suggests spying on him. After seeing him converse with some Borgia guards, the thieves attack the guards shortly after Machiavelli leaves. After rescuing a wounded thief and making it back to Rosa, she agrees to help but she wants to be sure of Machiavelli's loyalty.

    This leads to Rosa getting a small side mission line involving these investigations, once players got to a certain percent completion, (replacing the OTL Christina missions) and confirming that Rosa is Desmond's several times removed great grandmother. After this, everyone meets at headquarters to discuss strategy. Ezio plans to break Catarina out of the Castel Sant'Angelo and, if he can, kill Cesare and Rodrigo while he's at it.

    During the infiltration, Ezio discovers that Rodrigo was away from the Castillo and Cesare leaves before Ezio has a chance to kill him. But he does rescue Catarina. After their escape, and while Ezio is still fighting the guards on the bridge leading to the Castillo, an explosion goes off distracting the guards enough to let Ezio escape.

    After getting back to the hideout, Machiavelli takes a little longer to get back. Though disappointed that Cesare and Rodrigo were not killed, he does agree to Ezio's idea to undermine the Borgia in Rome. First step is to start recruiting locals who are already fighting the Borgia. To recruit them you have to first destroy Borgia Towers around Rome (12 in all) and then help someone fighting the city guards.

    After eliminating some targets with their help, Leonardo da Vinci shows up. He says that the Borgia are forcing him to create War Machines. Leonardo asks Ezio to destroy them. Destroying the machine gun (really a rapid fire cannon) is a required mission, but destroying the bomber (the flying machine from the last game with a cannon on it), naval gun (a gondola with rockets on it) and the tank (a circular man powered cart with armor on top and cannons on the bottom) are optional. Though if you do destroy them all, Leonardo gives Ezio parachutes as a gift.

    Machiavelli set up carrier pigeons to communicate with the recruits by the time Ezio gets back to headquarters. Ezio tells the others that he plans to destroy the Borgia's base of support by killing Cesare's allies. Cesare's Banker, whom one of Claudia's clients, a senator, owes money to (I mean the senator owes money to the Banker not the other way around); the leader of Cesare's French allies, the Baron de Valois, whom Bartolomeo is fighting; and finding a way back into the Castel once everything else is ready. Rosa says that Lucrezia's latest plaything (her words), an actor named Pietro, has a key. Soon after, Catarina leaves never to be seen again in the series.

    Ezio goes after Cesare's Banker first. With Claudia and Rosa's help, he helps the senator get back home safely, get him the money he owes and tails him to the money drop off point. After replacing the guard with the money, Ezio takes the money to the party (the game gives you indicators from the other guards to tell you whether you are going the right way) with Rosa and Claudia's girls helping you (i.e. taking the money once the guards are distracted) once inside. After killing Cesare's Banker, Ezio returns to the brothel finding out that the girls were followed. Fortunately, Claudia and Rosa killed them before Ezio got there.

    Next the Baron de Valois. After helping Bartolomeo ward off an attack by the French, the Baron comes to his barracks, revealing that he kidnapped Bartolomeo's wife, Pantasilea, and will give her back once Bartolomeo surrenders. After scouting out the Baron's fortress, Ezio hits on the idea of using French armor to disguise Bartolomeo's men and, after "taking Bartolomeo prisoner", they get inside and take the Baron's men by surprise. The Baron is killed in the process.

    Next, getting the key to the Castel. Rosa, in the course of her investigations, has found no evidence either exonerating or condemning Machiavelli, but she still has her suspicions, which seem confirmed when one of her thieves comes in saying that the Borgia know where their spies are and that Machiavelli asked where they are earlier. After an attack on the inn, Ezio says he still believes that Machiavelli is innocent. Rosa is not so sure.

    After rescuing several thieves, who give information about Pietro including that Cesare has sent his top assassin Micheletto to kill him, Rosa says that she will wait but this is the last straw. If Ezio doesn't kill Machiavelli, she will. With no other choice Ezio, with the help of his recruits, goes to stop Micheletto alone. After following him, killing the guards and taking their costumes along the way, Ezio infiltrates the play and rescues Pietro. After a grateful Pietro hands over the key to the Castel, Ezio spots the real traitor a random thief who was carrying a pardon letter from the Borgia, and then kills himself after getting caught.

    Fortunately, what Rosa said earlier about killing Machiavelli was a ruse to get the traitor to relax. Rosa had been tailing the traitor herself, in the hopes of catching him, but Ezio got to him first. Later, Claudia is admitted into the Assassin Order. Machiavelli reveals to both Ezio and Rosa that he was the one who helped Ezio, under the guise of helping the Borgia with their plans. Then it's time to sneak into the Castel Sant'Angelo and kill Rodrigo and Cesare Borgia.

    With the previous entrance now blocked, Ezio now has to take a more direct route. He does this without getting caught and overhears Rodrigo trying, and failing thanks to Lucrezia, to poison Cesare (apparently attacking Monteriggioni was all Cesare's idea, he would not listen to his father). Cesare then successfully poisons Rodrigo, which causes Rodrigo's death (don't ask me how that works. Maybe Rodrigo choked on Cesare's hammy acting). Lucrezia then tells Cesare where the Apple is, while he was choking her. By the time Ezio gets in Cesare has already left. Fortunately, Lucrezia tells him where the Apple is too, the large ornament outside St. Peter's Basilica. It's not a complete turnaround for her, but you take what you can get.

    Fortunately, Ezio gets there first and escapes with the Apple. After that Ezio and the others further pull Cesare's support, until he is finally arrested. However, Cesare says that "Chains will not hold me! I will not die by the hands of man!" Ezio, worried, consults with Leonardo, Rosa, Claudia, Machiavelli, Bartolomeo and Pantasilea about it. Leonardo suggests asking the Apple and, after briefly touching it, Ezio realizes what needs to be done.

    Cut to Viana, Spain in 1507. Just after the beginning of the game Ezio is fighting mooks, when cannon fire hits and takes them out. He then makes his way through the battle to Cesare at the top of a battlement. After defeating him, Ezio throws Cesare off the battlement. The game then shows Ezio hiding the Apple under the Coliseum. Desmond gets pulled out of the Animus with the others ready to go. But, as Anita points out, there is no door handle. Shaun figures that it must be password activated. After figuring out the password, thanks to a message Ezio left on a wall in the villa, they go to the Coliseum.

    Desmond has to find a way into the vault while the others find the topside entrance inside Santa Maria Aracoeli. All the while Minerva and Juno can be seen giving competing messages about what to do (which only Desmond seems to hear). Eventually, Desmond unlocks the way into the vault and opens the door. After powering the stairs to the central pedestal, they get to the Apple. It displays symbols (two of which the Phrygian Cap and a Masonic eye; they are over taken by a stylized lion and a hunter's horn). When Desmond touches the Apple, the others freeze. Juno tries to get Desmond to kill Elise, but Minerva manages to stop her by putting Desmond into a coma before he reaches her.

    During a segment of the credits, Elise says that while she doesn't know what's going on but someone named Bill tells her to put Desmond back in the Animus. After the credits things reset to before the downfall of the Borgia. There are several DLCs: two separate dungeons for some extra cash, The Copernicus Conspiracy and the Da Vinci Disappearance.

    The Copernicus Conspiracy (released in 2010) is an exclusive DLC for the Nintendo Sapphire and PC, though went the game gets rereleased for the eighth generation of consoles it gets bundled in with the other DLC. It involves Ezio keeping Copernicus alive while he is in Rome to make his observations on the nature of the universe.

    The Da Vinci Disappearance (released in April 2011) involves Ezio meeting Leonardo in 1506 and getting involved in a plot find the so called perfect number of the Hermeticists and their leader Ercole Massimo. The number turns out to be a set of coordinates: 43 39 19 N 75 27 42 W, Turin, New York, though Ezio and Leonardo don't know that. However, the numbers and a letter change to: 52 22 0 N 4 54 0 E or Amsterdam. We hear Elise telling Shaun and Anita that since Minerva wanted them to head north, they'll head north.

    Multiplayer:

    This game has a fairly unique take on multiplayer. You take on the role of an Abstergo employee who goes into the Animus, take on the role of someone from the game (minor targets of Ezio's all of them) and try hunting each other around the map. Whoever gets the most points from killing the most players wins. For 2-16 players. Online only.

    Gameplay:

    Expanding slightly on the tools of the previous game, players can now chain multiple kills together, provided there are enough guards within range of your weapons. In this game, instead of making money off of repairing Monteriggioni, players make money by rebuilding the city of Rome. Well, certain buildings (banks, tailors, art merchants, blacksmiths, doctors, aqueducts, monuments) and whenever you buy a building you get money. Banks will hold up to 80,000 Florins and players can pick up their earnings at any bank location.

    Leonardo is also on hand to give you more than just parachutes (though you still have to pay him): poison darts, a climb glove and double bracers for hidden blades. The game is still the sandbox stealth game, though set in only one city. The assassin recruits can be called in to assist you and, depending on how many recruits are available, send a hail of arrows at your enemies. You can also send the recruits out on missions around Europe (and Istanbul and Calcutta), though this makes them unavailable for missions. Speaking of, a new feature, starting with this game in the series, are Sync Objectives. These are optional objectives that you can complete to get 100% Sync, or rather 100% completion. These range from completing a mission in a set time limit to not getting detected to not killing anyone at all to making sure you or someone else doesn't get hit. It's maddening for completionists and one hundred percenters as, while most are relatively easy, there are some that are annoyingly difficult.

    Achievements/Trophies:

    Julius Caesar: Get every other trophy -/Platinum

    Technical Difficulties: Attempt to access Sequence 9 for the first time 10g/Bronze

    Battle Wounds: Complete DNA Sequence 1 20g/Silver

    Sanctuary! Sanctuary!: Find a secure place to hide and re-enter the Animus 20g/Bronze

    Rome in Ruins: Complete DNA Sequence 2 20g/Silver

    Fixer-Upper: Complete DNA Sequence 3 20g/Silver

    Principessa in Another Castello: Complete DNA Sequence 4 20g/Silver

    Fundraiser: Complete DNA Sequence 5 20g/Silver

    Forget Paris: Complete DNA Sequence 6 20g/Silver

    Bloody Sunday: Complete DNA Sequence 7 20g/Silver

    Vittoria Agli Assassini: Complete DNA Sequence 8 20g/Silver

    Requiescat in Pace: Complete DNA Sequence 9 20g/Silver

    A Knife to the Back: Secure the Apple of Eden 50g/Gold

    Perfect Recall: Achieve 100% Synchronization with any sequence other than Sequence 1 30g/Bronze

    Déjà Vu: Replay a memory 30g/Bronze

    Undertaker 2.0: Discover the Shrine in the Catacombe di Roma 20g/Bronze

    Golden Boy: Discover the Shrine in the Treme di Traiano 20g/Bronze

    Gladiator: Discover the Shrine in Il Colosseo 20g/Silver

    Plumber: Discover the Shrine in the Cloaca Laterano 20g/Silver

    Amen: Discover the Shrine in the Basilica di San Pietro 20g/Silver

    Bang!: Destroy the Machine Gun 20g/Bronze

    Splash!: Destroy the Naval Gun 20g/Bronze

    Boom!: Destroy the Aerial Bomber 20g/Bronze

    Kaboom!: Destroy the Tank 20g/Bronze

    Home Improvement: Renovate 5 buildings in the Antico District 20g/Bronze

    Tower Offense: Burn all the Borgia Towers 20g/Bronze

    Show Off: Complete 10 Guild Challenges 20g/Bronze

    .. .- -- .- .-.. .. ...- .: Solve all of Subject 16's Puzzles 20g/Silver

    Perfectionist: Earn 3 Gold Medals in the Animus Virtual Training Program 20g/Bronze

    Brotherhood: Recruit 3 Assassins 20g/Bronze

    Welcome to the Brotherhood: Train a recruit all the way up to the Rank of Assassin 20g/Bronze

    Capture the Flag: Remove all the Borgia Flags in Rome 30g/Bronze

    In Memoriam: Collect all the Feathers 20g/Bronze

    Dust to Dust: Collect one artifact in 2012 20g/Bronze

    Serial Killer: Complete an Execution Streak of 10 kills 20g/Bronze

    Spring Cleaning: Kill a guard with a broom 10g/Bronze

    Your Wish is Granted: Throw money down a well 10g/Bronze

    Fly Like an Eagle: Jump with the parachute off the Castel Sant'Angelo 10/Bronze

    The Gloves Come Off: Win the highest bet in the fights10g/Bronze

    Mailer Daemon: Access your E-mail in 2012 20g/Bronze

    Multiplayer achievements:

    Synchronization Established: Complete an entire Session with at least one kill 10g/Bronze

    Needle in a Haystack: Kill your target while hiding in a hay bale 5g/Bronze

    Strong Closer: Take the lead 10 seconds from the end of the Session and win the game 20g/Bronze

    Fast Learner: Kill your target and escape your pursuer in 10 seconds 25g/Bronze

    Job Skills: In Open Conflict kill your target and escape 20g/Silver

    Download Complete: Reach level 50 40g/Silver

    Role Model: Receive all the Co-op Bonuses in 1 Session 20g/Bronze

    Overachiever: Score 750 or more points on a single kill 20g/Bronze

    Abstergo Employee of the Month: Receive all bonuses at least once 20g/Bronze

    Ahead of the Curve: Perform a Double or Triple Escape 20g/Bronze

    DLC: The Da Vinci Disappearance:

    Strong-Arm: Throw a Long weapon, a Heavy weapon and a smoke bomb more than 10 meters at a guard 10g/Bronze

    High Roller: Win 10,000 Florins playing Hazard 20g/Bronze

    Il Principe: Receive 100% synch in ACB and full synch in the Da Vinci Disappearance 100g/Silver

    Airstrike: Kill 10 guards with a single arrow storm 20g/Bronze

    GPS: Complete the Da Vinci Disappearance 20g/Silver

    Clowning Around: Beat up five thirsty harlequins 30g/Silver

    Special Delivery: Double assassinate from a parachute 20g/Bronze

    Grand Theft Dressage: Steal five horses from their riders, while on horseback 20g/Bronze

    Going Up: Kill a guard with the bag that drops from a lift 5g/Bronze

    Easy Come, Easy Go: Pay 500 Florins to an orator, then steal it back 5g/Bronze

    Review:

    Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood was released for the Xbox 2, Apple iTwin and Nintendo Sapphire in 2010 (November 16 in North America, November 18 in Europe, November 19 in Australia and November 20 in Japan), with a PC release in March 2011. The game play was tweaked a little but not too much. Nevertheless, the game got scores in the high 8s-low 9s, with an occasional 10 thrown in. Still the features that were added gave fans enough.

    This game was another success for Ubisoft. While the producers wanted to move on, they weren't quite ready to leave Ezio and Rosa just yet. So, for the next game, they decided to wrap up their stories, along with Altair's story, while giving some Revelations.

    -Review of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood by R.C. Anderson, Nothing is True: A History of Assassin's Creed on Consoles, Gamesovermatter.com, November 27, 2017.
     
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    • Fall 2010 (Part 2) - Dark Humanity

    • RySenkari

    Dark Humanity

    Dark Humanity is the fourth console game in the Velvet Dark series, continuing from the events established in Velvet Dark: Conspiracy. Like the previous games in the series, it's a sci-fi based FPS title starting Joanna Dark and her sister, the AI construct Velvet. It continues the series' themes of humanity's relationship with artificial intelligence and the nature of the human mind, along with the theme of government conspiracies and corporate power. It's a fully HD FPS featuring the series' best graphics and most refined gameplay to date, but also features less shooting segments than any previous game in the series, incorporating elements of both RPG and puzzle titles to embellish the personal journeys of Joanna and Velvet as they attempt to protect both humanity and benevolent AI from the twin threats of an overbearing government determined to stomp out AI at all costs and the malicious AI that has given rise to the government's efforts. The game's overarching plot thread involves unraveling the conspiracy that started the events of the previous game, in which two malevolent AI programs attempted to take over and destroy the United States government, prompting a massive extermination campaign against all AI programs, including Velvet, who has been forced underground with her sister. Unlike previous titles, particularly Synthesis and Conspiracy, in which Joanna and Velvet frequently interacted and shared a constant bond, Dark Humanity forces the sisters apart for around a third of the game, but then brings them back together for the second half in which the player is allowed to switch between them, sometimes in mid-mission. Velvet's playstyle is much more immaterial than Joanna's, as Velvet can freely move in cyberspace, transferring herself between robot bodies almost like an Agent in The Matrix, able to transfer herself into almost anything electronic, while Joanna is much more physical and plays like more of a typical FPS character. The two sisters can even execute synergy moves, with Velvet able to detect AIs and Joanna able to hack and interrogate them. Though Rare has spent a great deal of time and money developing the game's control system, and the FPS action is some of the smoothest ever seen on a console, with incredibly accurate aiming and realistic damage reactions and enemy AI, the game itself plays less like an FPS than almost any other FPS on the market, and controls much differently than something like a Call Of Duty game, with a more deliberate style of aiming and firing. While players are able to react extremely quickly and shoot extremely accurately, the game plays almost like an "anti-FPS", even as it has all the hallmarks and appearances of a first person shooter. This evolution of gameplay style is a deliberate attempt to separate the game from the growing crowd of FPS titles, and to establish that Dark Humanity occupies its own niche. It's not just a "sci fi FPS", it's a fully cinematic first person experience designed to provide unique gameplay and a thought provoking story. Five years in the making, Dark Humanity was designed to be like no other game ever made, and Rare is fully committed to setting the game apart not just from its fellow FPS titles, but from the last three games in the series. Cinematically, Dark Humanity is a rich experience, with a strong crew of voice actors. Rebecca Mader returns as the voice of both Joanna and Velvet, Crawford Wilson reprises his role as a slightly aged up Scam (who is much less of a comedy relief character in this game, having been through a lot since the events of Conspiracy), and the game features actors such as Bruce Campbell, Martin Csokas, Annabeth Gish, Chi McBride, and Brett Dalton in prominent roles, along with a few career voice actors including Yuri Lowenthal, Tara Strong, and Hannah Telle. The game features some of the best graphics to ever appear in a console title, with cinematics eclipsing those featured in games such as Thrillseekers 2 and Final Fantasy XII, and even a few later titles including Necrocracy 2. The game also features an extensive multiplayer mode, including both competitive, co-operative, and counter-operative modes. These modes take advantage of the game's hacking and cyberspace features, which allows for new strategies never before possible in a multiplayer FPS title.

    Dark Humanity begins not with the player controlling Joanna, but Velvet, as the AI/cyborg operative infiltrates a government data center, presumably to take a file connected to the targeting of several AIs slated to be killed. This mission gives the player a glimpse of Velvet's abilities, but is mostly standard FPS fare, though there are some parts that can only be traversed by connecting Velvet to cyberspace to move through walls and security barricades. The mission ends with Velvet seemingly being shot to pieces, but she manages to upload herself into cyberspace just in time, and this is where the opening logo and cinematics actually play, with Velvet now fully in the cyberworld, as we get some exposition about the ongoing struggle of AIs to hide from the government's death squads. Velvet communicates with Scam as she tries to get another lead, and we see some missions play out in cyberspace itself, which morphs and shifts somewhat like the Matrix. After a couple of missions in cyberspace, Velvet is able to download herself back into a clone body, and she meets with her contact AI, discussing Joanna's possible whereabouts while also trying to make sense of who's friend and who's foe. As the player progresses through the game, they won't be able to easily tell who's human or who's an AI, who's on what side, who's good or who's evil, all of which must be gleaned by completing missions, interacting with various people, and experiencing the game as the characters do. Velvet's goal is to establish a safe haven for benevolent AI, a place where AI constructs can roam freely in physical form while also easily uploading themselves to and moving around cyberspace. All of this is done under the auspices of what's left of the Genesis Institute, and its genius leader, Daniel Carrington. As Velvet works to protect her fellow AI, we discover that she has gotten more ruthless out of necessity. Velvet's deeds in the game aren't entirely heroic: at times, she acts viciously and kills innocent people in order to protect AI programs. This does disturb her, as she has a great deal of sympathy and love for humanity, even though it's capable of great evil. In a way, the game continues the series' parallels with Blade Runner, with Velvet almost acting in a similar fashion to Roy Batty as she fights to protect AI from extermination. It's implied that this has put somewhat of a strain on the relationship between Velvet and her sister Joanna, and as the game progresses with Joanna still not having made an appearance, we can sense the emotional impact of Velvet's time apart from Joanna. In the meantime, the game also acknowledges the presence of truly malevolent AI programs, some seeking power, others seeking revenge. Over all of this lurks the conspiracy that has driven a wedge between AI and humanity, with unraveling the identity of the figure that drove AI and humanity apart being the primary goal of the game, even over Velvet's goal of keeping her fellow AI programs safe. The first major climax of the game comes as Velvet infiltrates the headquarters of XOarch, a company that is attempting to produce "domesticated AI" with the support of the government: an AI programmed to be completely subservient to humanity with no thoughts of its own and no way to rebel. Velvet attempts to hack into this facility and erase all work on the project, but in doing so, she accidentally absorbs some of its code, and is forced into compliance by the company's CEO. It looks like Velvet is about to be turned into a mindless slave, only for "Velvet" to reveal that she's in fact Joanna, having been converted into an AI program for the purposes of overriding vulnerabilities in her sister's code. Joanna's presence eradicates the compliance code, and Joanna begins to fight the XOarch CEO's guards and security system in realspace, while in cyberspace, Velvet synchronizes with her sister by literally fighting the hostile code in perfect sync with her sister's actions in realspace, while the player controls both of them at the same time in a hybrid split-screen/cutscene switch sequence that's unlike anything that's ever been done in a video game before. After the battle is concluded and the sisters make their escape, Joanna sits down in seclusion, and the two have a conversation in the cyberworld, echoed by Joanna appearing to talk to herself in realspace. The real Joanna Dark is in cybersleep in Carrington's lab, with the code working as a sort of cyber projection of Joanna's will, enabling Joanna and Velvet to operate both independently and in complete synchronization, with the two sisters sharing their thoughts and emotions during this time. Velvet expresses her guilt about her recent actions to Joanna, and Joanna expresses a sort of mixture of disappointment and acceptance, with the implication being that the sisters' thoughts are bleeding into each other. Carrington observes this phenomenon too, and it worries him. It also raises the specter of whether or not malevolent AI programs have absorbed this evil from the humans that created them, but Velvet answers that if AI can only be evil because of humanity's hand in its creation, wouldn't that say the same for good-natured AI? Ultimately, Joanna and Velvet re-affirm their desire to get to the bottom of the conspiracy that seeks to wipe out AI, and Joanna re-uploads into her own body to operate independently while Velvet supports her. From this point forward, Joanna takes over as the game's primary protagonist, but the player will still get many opportunities to control Velvet as the plot works toward its conclusion.

    There are now three main antagonistic forces at work: XOarch, crippled by Velvet and Joanna's assault but still active and dangerous, the government itself, and the mysterious conspirator. Joanna knows that there are still forces working within the government that seek to protect AI and to abolish the laws mandating its eradication. She works on unraveling some of these threads, seeking out defectors and potential clues as to both the conspirator's identity and the government's next targets. Meanwhile, Velvet works behind the scenes to help Joanna hack and infiltrate certain facilities. Joanna soon becomes acquainted with Dr. Nadia Sevier, a medical and cybertronics expert who was working on a breakthrough in medical AI when the ban came down. She reveals that she's still been working secretly on her project, known as Seraph (think Baymax, but more serious and less cuddly, and in the form of a human doctor). Seraph is a program capable of curing almost any ailment, but Sevier's project has been stymied by a pharmaceuticals company which was working on a rival program. Joanna infiltrates this company and learns that someone within the company was working on a biological agent with the potential to sicken a large fraction of humanity. As Joanna works to prevent the agent from being dispersed by what turns out to be a rogue employee of the company, she is captured by agents of XOarch, and is about to be implanted with an AI program, only to be saved by Scam, who manages to disable XOarch's electrical power and give Joanna time to escape. She is able to then stop the biological agent and save the Seraph program as well, though Sevier is tragically killed. Joanna and Velvet gain more clues as to the identity of the conspirator as the government seems to be engaged in a kind of cyber civil war with itself as AI supporters and agents of the government battle it out in the cyberworld. During all of this, Joanna acts somewhat strangely, but is able to continue doing her job even as Velvet gets more and more disillusioned with her own actions. Events come to a climax as Joanna seems to be on the verge of determining the identity of the conspirator, at the same time that Velvet has become a leader of the AI forces rebelling against the government. This culminates in a battle between Joanna and the government official responsible for carrying out the AI extermination, but when the time comes for Joanna to put a bullet in him, she puts a bullet in Velvet instead. As Velvet falls, lifeless, to the ground, Joanna reacts not with horror at her own actions, but with cold professionalism. The government official turns out to be an AI, and he deactivates as soon as Joanna "accomplishes" her mission. Then, Joanna awakens in Carrington's lab, asking about her sister, but unable to remember shooting her. Carrington reveals himself as the conspirator, the one behind the events of both this game and the previous one. Carrington reveals that after the events of Synthesis, which led to heavy government restrictions on AI development, he knew that it would only be a matter of time until conflict erupted between the government and AI. In order to protect benevolent AI, Carrington had to orchestrate events in such a way that he could bring all AI programs under the control of the Genesis Institute, to keep them safe and continue research on them until they could be perfected. Joanna continues to ask about Velvet, and Carrington, showing deep regret, tells Joanna that Velvet had grown too dangerous, and had become a variable he couldn't control, until he was forced to kill her. Joanna is furious at Carrington, since Velvet is his own daughter, but Joanna can't bring herself to kill him because she's programmed to be unable to. When Joanna had been "captured" by XOarch, she really was implanted with an AI program, one that programmed her to protect humanity by taking out all threats to it. Carrington knew that even he wouldn't be able to completely tell the difference between safe and unsafe AI, and instead programmed Joanna to know the difference. He then sends Joanna out to end the war by taking out the last few AI programs that pose a threat to humanity, while he plans to keep all the safe AI programs at the Genesis Institute. The next few missions show Joanna carrying out this programming but also openly mourning her sister. She carries some of Velvet's benevolence within her, and while she aches for revenge, she also seems to know that Carrington's intentions are good, and not just because of the AI chip implanted within her. Her final target is an AI named Evangel, programmed to spread the last remaining sample of the biological agent. Joanna defeats Evangel, but is infected, and decides to isolate herself rather than to return to the Genesis Institute, not wanting to spread the virus to her father and the people working there. As she sits, she fades into a coma, and awakens in the cyberworld, guided by Velvet, who remains alive inside the cyberworld, disconnected from everything. Velvet seems to have gone mad in her isolation, but as Joanna nears, she realizes that Velvet has been talking to "Joanna" the entire time, a dark fragment of herself. Carrington never intended to kill Velvet, Velvet told Carrington to "kill" her to keep "Dark Joanna" contained. Joanna realizes that the demands that have been made on Velvet have twisted her, creating a malevolent AI that has completely assumed Joanna's nature. Joanna then wonders if she herself has died and has become an AI, since she had Carrington's chip implanted in her. In a mind-bending, reality-twisting sequence, the player as Joanna must hunt down and kill "Dark Joanna", but Dark Joanna's AI is based on the player's own actions as Joanna throughout the game, making the player truly believe that they're fighting themselves, while coming to doubt how real the original Joanna truly is. At the end of this sequence, Velvet sacrifices herself by annihilating both herself and Dark Joanna, while Joanna begs her not to do so. Joanna wakes up in the same spot she "died", as Seraph administers an antidote to her. Meanwhile, we see another Joanna (a reserve cybernetic body Carrington made in case anything happened to the real on) in the Genesis Institute, and it wakes up as Dark Joanna (the game explains in a somewhat convoluted but also understandable way how Dark Joanna survived Velvet's annihilation). Dark Joanna kills Carrington and then begins killing the benevolent AI programs taking shelter in the Institute. Meanwhile, Joanna realizes that Seraph was only able to find her and heal her because Velvet also survived and is now inhabiting the Carrington AI chip within Joanna. Together, the two sisters make their way to the Genesis Institute to stop Dark Joanna. The final mission has two components, a cyberspace component with Velvet and a realspace component with Joanna. Velvet's goal is to protect the remaining benevolent AIs, while Joanna's goal is to take out the government agents that have been summoned to the facility by Dark Joanna. Along the way, Joanna finds Carrington's body, and she and Velvet both mourn him. The two sisters unite in one body to battle Dark Joanna, who is defeated after Joanna lands a fatal blow in realspace while Velvet surrounds and annihilates Dark Joanna's presence in cyberspace. As more government agents approach the building, Velvet realizes that she has to lead the surviving AIs to safety in cyberspace, while Joanna remains in realspace. The two sisters "embrace" (Joanna hugs herself tightly while code representing Velvet's essence flows out of her and into the aether), and Joanna stays to take "credit" for destroying the last of the rogue AIs. Joanna is offered a job as a government agent, but declines it and retires, deciding to head as far away from civilization as possible as she contemplates the events of the last few years and the loss of her sister. The surviving AIs find niches in cyberspace to lie dormant for when humanity decides to adopt AI again, living together in secret on the deep web in their own virtual world. Velvet, however, cannot live with them, and only wishes to reunite with her sister. Scam manages to find Joanna, and hooks up her isolated retreat with some "dumb" AI tech, basically a network of Alexa/Google Home-esque devices, which Joanna doesn't want but which Scam manages to cajole her into reluctantly accepting. The final scene after the credits is of one of Joanna's devices calling her name, then taking on Velvet's tone of speaking and saying something that only Velvet would know. Joanna laughs and says "I guess it's true... we humans can't live without our technology." "It can live without humans," Velvet replies, "But I can't live without you." Joanna says, "welcome home, sis", and holds a glowing Echo Dot-like object tightly to her chest as the game ends.

    Dark Humanity is universally praised by critics and fans alike, both for its outstanding graphics and gameplay and for its riveting, if sometimes slightly confusing story. The game seems to conclude the Joanna/Velvet Dark saga in a final and satisfactory way, though it still leaves the door open for the two sisters to return in some capacity (they are alive, after all, and it's confirmed that Rare is working on a follow-up game for the Sapphire's successor). It receives some of the year's best review scores, and sales are outstanding as well, making it one of the Sapphire's most successful titles of the year. Some critics do take issue with the game's happy ending, with some saying that everything is wrapped up too neatly, that the sisters shouldn't have reunited at the end, or that one of them should have died, but this is probably the biggest critical quibble with the game itself, and it ultimately becomes one of the best selling games on the Sapphire and a contender for 2010's Game of the Year. However, after the development of Dark Humanity and next year's Slaughtered Planet, many longtime Rare employees would begin to leave the company, either to take lucrative offers from other gaming companies or simply in some cases to retire. Whether or not this would impact the quality of Rare's games moving forward wouldn't be answered until the next generation of games, but it would be a major shakeup for a company that for 20 years has had a sterling reputation for great games and has provided some of the biggest franchises and characters of all time.
     
    • Fall 2010 (Part 3) - Dungeons And Diesel

    • RySenkari

    Bulwark Of Stonewall

    Bulwark Of Stonewall is a WRPG produced and developed by Vin Diesel's independent gaming company for the Sapphire, Xbox 2, and iTwin. Co-produced by Diesel and Ken Rolston, the game takes place in the country surrounding a massive fortress that forms what's left of an ancient dying kingdom called Stonewall. The protagonist is a knight of that kingdom tasked with venturing beyond the kingdom's borders in search of a way to bring power and glory back to Stonewall before its enemies destroy it. The player has a great deal of creative freedom in this game, with the entire world opened up right from the introductory sequence (though defeating enemies in certain areas will be difficult). The protagonist can either be male or female, and the game's creation system is heavily inspired by Dungeons and Dragons, which Diesel has been playing for more than 30 years. This lets the player choose their character's race, affinities, traits, and statistics, and also allows them to recruit NPC allies to their party, some of whom can also be customized to a limited degree. Combat is fairly slow-paced and somewhat random, though a skilled and leveled up character will still be able to defeat most enemies fairly easily. There are hundreds of different sidequests, and rather than a main quest line, instead, every side quest has a certain amount of value toward the main quest, which will then open up new quests that will eventually allow the main campaign to be completed. Some side quests don't advance the main story at all, but others tie in heavily, and even after earning enough quest value to complete the game, the player can still do side journeys and ignore the main quest for as long as they wish. Stonewall itself can be expanded upon somewhat, though don't expect any type of town-building minigame. Instead, it can be fortified to an extent, certain defense quests can be opened up there, and the player's relationship with certain NPCs who live there can also change. There's no romance storyline in the game, no marriage option, though the player does have the option of "dating" certain characters if their relationship with them is strong enough. The game features a wide variety of different races and magical creatures, and there's a significant quest line devoted to slaying certain legendary beasts to protect the realm from their dangerous power. The game features plenty of other collectibles and secrets designed to reward players who venture off the beaten path, and is one of the biggest worlds ever seen in a console WRPG, with an incredible amount of things to do and places to go. The game's graphics are decent, about average for WRPGs of the time, with more attention paid to creating a more detailed and content heavy world than is paid to enhancing the graphics. There's plenty of voice acting in the game, with Diesel himself voicing the King of Stonewall, who gives some quests to the player and also helps fight off attackers at certain points in the game. Diesel was also able to get a few of his celebrity and D+D playing friends to voice certain characters, including fellow celebrity D+Der Dame Judi Dench (who narrates the game and also plays an important NPC) and his Transporter and Fast And The Furious co-star Ziyi Zhang, who voices a potential companion character. Diesel said that he wanted to make the player feel as much as possible like they were playing through a Dungeons and Dragons campaign, with the game explicitly designed with that feeling in mind.

    The actual plotline of the game involves bringing glory back to the dying kingdom of Stonewall, while occasionally returning to defend it from attackers. The titular Bulwark is a massive fortress, almost like a city in and of itself, and its facilities can improve as the player continues through the game, selling better equipment and even having secret passages open up. Bringing glory back to Stonewall involves finding magical artifacts and bringing back treasures, while also doing battle against the kingdom's enemies, including an evil wizard named Deothane and an ambitious prince named Lance. The player can also do battle against a menacing dragon that was responsible for the queen's death, a dragon named Lutanius who guards an enormous treasure pile on the far side of the world. In order for the game to be won, either Deothane or Lance must be defeated, and they can only be defeated by fulfilling enough quests to raise the quest level to a certain amount, which typically requires playing about twelve hours' worth of main story questlines (but can be done by speedrunners in just over an hour). While playing straight through to the end of the quest is possible, the player will have a tough time if they don't take things a bit slower, getting good equipment and building up the bulwark somewhat to survive attacks from enemy armies. In order to do this, the player will need to be a sufficiently high level. It's possible to level up to 30 in this game, but the main quest is generally beatable around level 20. Even after reaching level 30, there's plenty of ways to power up the protagonist, so becoming level 30 isn't a dead end by any means, as runes, spells, and equipment can be collected to make the protagonist vastly more powerful. Though many details of the ending can change, the ending itself is basically the same no matter what the player does: the kingdom of Stonewall is brought back to its former glory and becomes a thriving kingdom once again. Once the main quest is completed, the player is able to return to a previous save to continue doing side quests at their leisure.

    Bulwark Of Stonewall is released in October 2010. It's highly praised by critics, who love the attention to detail and the game's uniqueness compared to other WRPGs of the day. Being a gamer himself, Vin Diesel wanted to make a good game and put in a great deal of work along with his fellow developers, even as he was filming movies during the time of the game's production. He refused to release a game that he himself wanted to play, and was exceedingly proud of the final product, promoting it heavily on whatever platforms he could. While Bulwark Of Stonewall isn't quite a game of the year contender, it's still a unique and excellent experience, and a recommended play for all RPG fans. Its sales are extremely good, turning a big profit for Diesel's studio which makes future games, including future games in this series, possible. Bulwark Of Stonewall has a small amount of DLC in the form of extra quests and costumes, but there isn't much of it, with Diesel wanting to release a complete game and not, in his words in an interview shortly after the game's release, "nickel and dime" his fellow gamers.

    -

    Vin Diesel: It's pretty awesome how much love Dungeons And Dragons is getting these days. Just the other day, I was flipping channels, and I saw, on Cartoon Network, a show about a game just like Dungeons And Dragons!

    Alex Stansfield: Oh yeah, Dungeon Dorks, that's a cool show.

    Diesel: Where these kids are playing and it affects the real world. That's such a neat idea for a show. I remember the cartoon back in the 1980s, the official one, and it had the kids going to a different world entirely, but in Dungeon Dorks the stuff actually comes out of the game into real life and they gotta deal with that, which I think would have been a great idea for a movie.

    Stansfield: Hey, maybe it still can be!

    Diesel: *laughing* Probably not while the cartoon's still running. It's why I couldn't name my king in the game Melkor, I wanted to name him Melkor but he's actually in Lord of the Rings and I couldn't get permission to do that. They wanted too much money and I wanted to put that money into the game itself.

    Stansfield: Your studio spent a lot of money on the game, were you ever worried it wouldn't be popular?

    Diesel: Oh, of course. You can make a great game and have it still flop, you can't make people play something, all you can do is make it as good as you can make it and hope for the best.

    Stansfield: It looks like so far the game's doing pretty well, so that's a good sign. Do you have any other Dungeons and Dragons related projects on the way?

    Diesel: Well, funny you should ask that, because I worked with some people while doing the game and they're fans of D+D too. One of the guys I met worked on some of the voices, his name is Matt Mercer and he's... he might be an even bigger fan of Dungeons and Dragons than I am.

    Stansfield: Oh yeah, I've worked with him before, he's an awesome guy. He is a HUGE D+D fan.

    Diesel: So... there MIGHT be something in the works with him, but I can't say too much right now because we're still planning everything out. And then, I talked to your friend Brittany, and she's a Dungeons and Dragons player too, and she might be a part of this project too. She actually mentioned you by name.

    Stansfield: Oh, she didn't say anything to me!

    Diesel: *laughs* Well, it's a big secret.

    Stansfield: Apart from that, are you planning a sequel to Bulwark of Stonewall?

    Diesel: Too early to say, but the chances look pretty good right now I think. We'll see.

    -from a Games Over Matter interview with Vin Diesel, posted on November 2, 2010
     
    • Fall 2010 (Part 4) - It's In The Game

    • RySenkari

    The Ride

    The Ride is an extreme sports title published by Electronic Arts. Intended to be somewhat of a rival to the Thrillseekers franchise, the game features several extreme sports combined with a storyline featuring six main characters and a large cast of supporting characters, with a focus on open ended gameplay rather than a linear progression of events. The game features a total of eight extreme sports, including skateboarding, snowboarding, surfing, BMX biking, base jumping, bodysurfing, motocross, and skiing. Unlike Thrillseekers, which has a "support" meter system for various tricks, The Ride has a "momentum" system in which players are encouraged to take major risks and ride on more difficult sections of track to accumulate more points and bigger combos. The game is divided into two main parts, "free riding" and "story mode", much like the Thrillseekers series in which players can choose whether to experience the game's story or just participate in the sports. The game has less unlockables overall than Thrillseekers, but those unlockables can't all be unlocked via the story, and must be unlocked through both the story mode and by completing various challenges outside of story mode. There's also significantly more DLC than the Thrillseekers series currently has, with nearly $100 in DLC available from the game's launch date. The Ride has a somewhat more arcade style of gameplay than Thrillseekers, with more spectacular tricks and a looser control scheme, with multipliers and combos a major part of racking up big points. There are less overall tricks, which lends to a gameplay style that encourages more repetition (with no trick repetition penalty like there is in Thrillseekers).

    The game's story mode is somewhat open-ended, with the player given the option of which events they want to compete in first and also given several side missions that directly affect the story. The story mode features six main characters, all of them male, a group of young people who film themselves going on extreme sports adventures. Unlike Thrillseekers, there's no "novice" character. All six of the main characters are quite experienced in their sport of choice, and all of them are friends before the start of the game's events. There's less interpersonal conflict and drama in this game, with most of the drama coming from a corporate sponsor putting pressure on the six friends to produce high quality videos and make a lot of money. The six main characters are:

    Brodie: A snowboarding champ and a very friendly young man, Brodie is sort of the "main" character of the game, as the player will start out as him. He's the one who comes up with the idea for the six friends to film themselves doing extreme sports.
    Wade: Wade is the prototypical "surfer dude". It's implied that he's a stoner, though we never see him use drugs or even talk about drugs during the game. He's also one of the frendlier characters, and a source of comic relief.
    Mosh: A hard rockin' skateboarding champ and a bit of a punk, Mosh is one of the edgier characters in the game, with a mohawk, lots of tattoos, and a bit of a temper, though he's ultimately a loyal friend.
    Jimmy: A BMX/motocross expert of Asian decent, Jimmy is one of the more serious characters in the group. A film buff, Jimmy knows how to get a cinematic look for the group's videos, but is a bit wary of them doing certain dangerous tricks.
    Tommy: A skiier, Tommy has the most money in the group, having become a skiing expert from his family's frequent trips to Aspen. Tommy funds the group's activities, though he might be in danger of getting cut off.
    Liam: A base jumping pro, Liam is the biggest daredevil in the whole group and also the one with the most experience globetrotting. He's not quite as reckless as Elissa (the Thrillseekers character he gets often compared to), but he does tend to take the biggest risks and he's also a bit arrogant.

    Other supporting characters in the game include the team's mentor John, a friend of Brodie's deceased father who taught several of them their various sports and who serves as the main teaching character throughout the game. There are also some prominent female characters, including surfing expert Caitlin and pro BMX biker Vanessa, who serve as rivals/love interests to the main team. The game's production values are some of the best ever for an EA Sports game, and the cast of voice actors is fairly star studded, including Steven Yeun, Matthew Lillard, Drew Roy, and Luke Perry. The game even has a bit of Thrillseekers cross-casting, with Lacey Chabert voicing Caitlin (using a slightly deeper voice than the one she uses for Stacy Summers). The game features a soundtrack of 38 licensed songs, with a bit more variety than the original Thrillseekers cast list, though every song in the game came out in the last 10 years.

    As mentioned before, the game's plot isn't nearly as dramatic as the plot of Thrillseekers. There aren't any criminals or kidnappings, though the corporation serving as the game's main villain does operate in a somewhat shady manner. The personalities of the six main characters aren't quite as developed or varied as the Thrillseekers cast, and there's a lot of "bro" and "dude" moments in the game, though it never quite reaches the point where it becomes overly cheesy or annoying. The cast is quite likable for the most part, and like with Thrillseekers, fans do like to ship the main characters with each other, although it's made somewhat clearer in The Ride that the main characters all have opposite-sex love interests (it's a bit ambiguous with Tommy, though fans looking for the same level of LGBT diversity as there is in Thrillseekers are generally disappointed). The overall level of difficulty is less than in Thrillseekers, with few mandatory missions thanks to the game's more open-ended structure. Essentially, players only have to accumulate enough "subscribers" to move on by completing various missions or side missions. There are some mandatory missions between chapters to gate the player's progress, but these are fairly forgiving for the most part, with only two or three missions in the whole game coming off as exceptionally difficult. In the end, the six friends are able to win their freedom from the oppressive contract that the corporation tricked them into, and win fame and glory from their internet videos, able to strike out on their own and do as much extreme sports as they want.

    The Ride is released in October 2010, as one of EA's most heavily promoted games of the generation. It's released on the Sapphire, Xbox 2, iTwin, Supernova, iPod Play, and iPhone, with the handhelds and mobiles receiving nearly complete ports of the game with only the graphical fidelity reduced and some of the cutscenes removed. While not as content-rich or as revolutionary as the original Thrillseekers, it's still considered a quality extreme sports title, with addictive gameplay and likable, if somewhat boring, main characters, and reviews average in the mid 7 to low 8 range, good enough for the game to sell quite well. It would get a lot of the same marketing and promotion as Activision's Thrillseekers, with a clothing line, toys, and tie-in comics, though there's no animated series, and plans for both a DTV animated movie and a live action theatrical movie ultimately never come to fruition. Its sales success is part of a banner 2010 for EA Sports, and though it never achieves the level of success that Thrillseekers does, The Ride is remembered as a fun game and proof that sometimes, follow the leader can be a very successful strategy in the games industry. The Ride wouldn't become an annualized franchise, but it would get at least one more game in the seventh generation.

    -

    "Madden NFL 2011 hasn't reinvented the wheel, but it's definitely the most refined football game of its generation, with smooth ball-carrier controls that allow rookies to have a ton of fun learning the game, and pros to excel at a truly high level. Combined with the many meaningful tweaks made to the game's franchise and customization modes, and you've got a recipe for a game that's far more than a yearly upgrade, and quite possibly the best Madden in at least five years. Will this game be a best seller regardless of how good it is? Of course. But it's good to know that if you're buying this game just to keep up with the latest rosters and play with your friends, you'll be getting something that, at least this year, is well worth the money."
    -from IGN's 9.2/10 review of Madden NFL 2011, posted on August 16, 2010

    "NHL 11 rings in the series' 20th anniversary with style, providing a graphical and presentation update that gets plenty of use out of this generation's crop of consoles, and some really nice physics upgrades too. It would've been nice to be able to customize your team a bit more, and the online gameplay could use some work, but if you're launching a single season by yourself, or even a new franchise, you won't get tired of grinding your way through an NHL season. It's good to see EA putting more effort into their sports franchises this year, and after the excellent Madden 2011, NHL 11 continues the company's winning streak."
    -from IGN's 8.6/10 review of NHL 11, posted on October 4, 2010

    "NBA Elite 11 is the best basketball game ever made. The attention to detail in the presentation is beyond compare, but the real attraction of the game is its Create A Career mode, which gives players total control over how they want to enter the league. Want to earn your way to the top with a completely raw rookie? Set your sliders all the way down and try your luck. Want to come into the league as a Jordan-esque phenom and dominate in your rookie season? You can do that too. This game lets players do whatever they want from the word 'go', and when combined with the best commentary we've ever heard in a video game, and set to authentic TV-style presentation complete with John Tesh's Roundball Rock? It's basketball nirvana, and the jewel in EA Sports' 2011 crown. We thought the transition from NBA Live to NBA Elite would go a lot rougher, but Elite lives up to its name, and stands on the sports game Mt. Rushmore with NHL 96 on the Saturn and Ken Griffey's Hall Of Fame on the Nintendo Wave."
    -from IGN's 9.6/10 review of NBA Elite 2011, posted on October 11, 2010
     
    • Fall 2010 (Part 5) - Standing Firm At The Midterm

    • RySenkari

    Wolf Blitzer: Very early into Election Night, we can project that Republicans will indeed continue to hold both houses of Congress. It was a foregone conclusion from the polls going into tonight that showed Republicans easily holding onto both houses, but this is certainly a big win tonight for President Huntsman to get such good news so early.

    Jake Tapper: That's right, Wolf, right now we're projecting that Republicans will only lose 21 seats in the House and two in the Senate, though in the Senate we do at least have some close races that could swing a few seats the Democrats' way, or even allow the Republicans to hold onto their supermajority. I don't see a path for them to gain any seats, so if things do go really well for them and they keep 59 seats, they'll still need the support of Nevada senator Penn Jillette, who has proved mostly favorable to Huntsman's agenda apart from a few issues.

    Blitzer: And one of the big issues that Republicans and Jillette differ on has been the president's health care plan, also called Romneycare by some, named after the Secretary of Commerce Mitt Romney, and so far that health care plan has proved popular, with costs generally going down so far thanks to the Medicare expansion.

    Tapper: Health care and also terrorism, many credit Huntsman's diplomatic approach with keeping America safer, but only time will tell whether that holds true over the remainder of his first term and potentially his second.

    S.E. Cupp: You know, what I think Jon Huntsman's presidency has done so far is to energize the left, the younger, more radical elements of the left, and so I think a lot of people may have been turned off to those candidates who won their primaries. Huntsman has really been a down the middle, moderate kind of president, and that's where his votes are coming from and the votes for some of the Republicans in this election.

    Blitzer: Well, we know that Hillary Clinton in an interview just last week expressed concerns about the electability of certain Democratic candidates, and she may have been correct if these election results do bear out.

    Tapper: I want to return to what my colleague S.E. Cupp said about these young Democrats, because, you know, some of them did win big tonight. Jonathan Smith is projected to win his election in Georgia, and uh, Pete Buttigieg, the young, 28 year old from South Bend, Indiana is going to win Indiana's 2nd Congressional district over Jackie Walorski in what's being seen as somewhat of an upset.

    Cupp: First of all, Jonathan Smith won a much closer election than the Democrat won in 2008. That's a deep blue district and Smith is only going to win there by about 26 points. The right Republican might be able to flip that district in 2012. And as for that Indiana election, okay, I'll give you that one. It was a miracle that Buttigieg was even able to primary Joe Donnelly, that was, in my opinion, the much bigger upset.

    Tapper: And it shows that there is some energy amongst young, left-wing Democrats that could give them momentum going into 2012.

    Cupp: Jon Huntsman has proven tonight that he's still a very popular president, and he's still going to have a very Republican congress to work with for at least two more years.

    -from CNN's midterm election coverage at 8:44 PM on November 2, 2010

    -

    Sean Hannity: So here's a man that probably isn't too happy about tonight's election results, Nevada Libertarian senator Penn Jillette. And hey, there's a lot of people right now who probably agree with you. Republicans won't have a supermajority after tonight.

    Penn Jillette: Well, Sean, they never did, because I'm a Libertarian.

    Hannity: But you usually voted with the Republicans.

    Jillette: That's true, but not always.

    Hannity: And it's looking like the Republicans will have either 57 or 58 seats, depending on the results from that election in Wisconsin between Scott Walker and Russ Feingold, but um, either way, you won't be the deciding vote in cases of filibusters anymore.

    Jillette: That's a good thing. One man shouldn't have so much power.

    Hannity: Even if it's you?

    Jillette: What? Hell no, especially if it's me! *laughing*

    Shepard Smith: *laughing*

    Jillette: Honestly, this just means we'll have to compromise more to get things done, which is a good thing. I'm looking forward to working with the new senators to help the people of this country.

    Hannity: Are you looking forward to potential obstruction and filibustering by the Democrats?

    Jillette: We don't live in a dictatorship, Sean. Jon Huntsman is not the dictator of the United States. And yeah, it can be kind of annoying when Democrats, you know, filibuster things like tax cuts and the assault gun ban repeal. They were able to filibuster those for a little while because a couple Republicans jumped over to help filibuster it. But at the same time, the filibuster is important because it gives individual senators and individual states a voice. We live in a republic, with 50 states, and if there's something that's going to hurt one state, that state should be able to say "hey, wait a minute, that's not right, you need to listen to me and hear me out why this isn't right". So, I mean, there's going to be filibustering, but that word "obstruction", that's such a... it's a dirty word, it's the kind of word a dictator uses when someone stands up to him.

    Hannity: So it's okay if Democrats go against the will of the people and block the president's agenda?

    Jillette: See, Sean, would you be saying that if Paul Wellstone had won? If Paul Wellstone had won and I was standing up there in the Senate filibustering all the bills he put up there, would you be saying I was being an obstructionist, or would you be calling me an American hero?

    Hannity: I'm just asking if it's okay that the Democrats are doing it.

    Jillette: They're representing the people of their states, Sean. I don't have to agree with it but that's what they're doing. The bottom line is that the Republicans still hold a majority in Congress. A majority of Americans, not all, but a majority, like what the president is doing. But everybody's voice has to be heard. Just like you used to do a show with Alan Colmes, and now you have your own show, and I think your show was a whole lot better when you had Alan Colmes calling you out on your crap.

    Hannity: Hey, I like a lot of what you're doing in the Senate.

    Jillette: Well that's great, I bet you don't like that I'm trying to get pot legalized.

    Hannity: That's a debate we can have another time, let's just talk about the election.

    Jillette: Can I talk about all the Libertarians being elected on a local level? We didn't get any more Libertarians in Congress but we won some mayoral races and some state legislature races and that's great news for the future of this country. We even got some Libertarians elected to a few school boards, which, I dunno, maybe that's a little bit counter-intuitive, but hey, if we can spend that money a little bit smarter, that's always a plus.

    Hannity: See, it's good when we're not fighting about things.

    Smith: I was actually enjoying watching you two go at it.

    Jillette: Nah, I didn't come here to pick a fight with Sean Hannity. Maybe another time, though, because I would LOVE to talk about religion with you.

    Hannity: I bet you would.

    -from Fox News' coverage of midterm election night at 10:10 PM on November 2, 2010

    -

    The midterm election of 2010, while on one level a "defeat" for Jon Huntsman, was, on another level, a victory. Democrats gained only 18 total seats in the House of Representatives and two seats in the Senate, maintaining the strong Republican majorities in both houses and enabling President Jon Huntsman to continue to push his fiscally conservative agenda. For the most part, the election was an affirmation of the Huntsman agenda, as the American people continued to enjoy a recovering economy, relative peace abroad, and key reforms in the areas of health care and taxes. While average Americans weren't enjoying all the benefits of the Huntsman tax cuts, they did provide a short-term stimulus to the economy that accelerated the recovery from the recession of 2007-2009, while peace abroad helped to put downward pressure on oil prices, keeping consumer prices stable and helping Americans' money go farther as the recession ebbed. However, Democrats could take solace in two key areas. One: state legislatures. Democrats made crucial gains in state legislatures across the country, giving them almost 50-50 control in houses and seats. When it came time to redistrict Congress later that year, state houses would be forced to compromise, keeping gerrymandering to a minimum and resulting in some of the "fairest" district maps seen in decades, which would have major implications for elections during the 2010s. This would also encourage President Huntsman to push for gerrymandering reform, which Republicans, not having quite so much to lose, would reluctantly go along with in order to curry electoral favor going forward. Another crucial element of the 2010 election for Democrats was that it introduced a younger, more leftward element to the party. The Huntsman reforms, which put many middle class and working class Americans in more difficult economic straits, turned their anger into political action, and more than a dozen WARG-affiliated Democrats won election to the House of Representatives in 2010. It's also likely that WARG helped push Russ Feingold across the finish line in Wisconsin, enabling him to beat Scott Walker in an extremely tough election. Feingold would be a major opponent of Huntsman's policies in the Senate, leading numerous filibusters in the remainder of Huntsman's term and generating momentum for Democrats in 2012. Jon Huntsman's presidency helped push Democrats to the left, which made itself evident in 2010 and would continue to resonate for the remainder of the decade. While Huntsman and the Republicans came away from the 2010 midterms still firmly in control of all three branches of government, Democrats had girded themselves for a political fight, and 2012 was already expected to be a much different story.

    Jon Huntsman spent the remainder of 2010 preparing for the political battles he intended to wage in 2011. A major battle shaping up for that year was over the issue of immigration. With only mild losses in the 2010 midterms, Huntsman felt he had the support he needed to propose his immigration bill, which would allow for increased levels of immigration to the United States, including so-called "low skilled" immigrants. He knew he'd have to battle forces from both parties, including social conservatives on the right and labor unions on the left, but he was ready to make his case that increased levels of legal immigration, coupled with tougher border enforcement, was the right formula for America moving forward into the 2010s. He also planned to push for new environmental and technology innovations, including an increase in funding for the space program that would include subsidies for corporate forays into space exploration. Huntsman was a firm believer that America's future rested in space, and it was a matter of utmost importance and national prestige for America to lead the way back to the Moon and possibly to Mars. Early in 2011, he planned to announce a new space agenda that would include increased funding for NASA and cooperation with private industry. He also planned to introduce a new rail transport system that would be mostly funded by private industry and would help transport both people and goods across the country at high rates of speed. Technology would play a major part in Huntsman's agenda going forward, and, provided he won a second term in 2012, he hoped to see some of his new partnerships and programs pay off before he left office. While bitterly opposed by a strong coalition of labor unions, young people, and the working class, Jon Huntsman remained a very popular president, who'd avoided even the slightest whiff of scandal thus far and had overseen a slowly recovering economy. He'd also overseen a time of peace for America and its allies, with the lowest levels of terrorist activity in a decade, and rising American prestige worldwide. Despite his fiscal conservatism, Huntsman was even popular overseas, having made numerous successful trips abroad, using his diplomatic acumen to make friends even with those heads of state who disagreed with him politically. Huntsman's vice president, Sonny Bono, had also proven to be one of the most popular vice presidents in decades, despite his agenda largely being a mirror image of Huntsman's. Though Bono hadn't been highly politically active during his two years in office, he'd served the president quite well and was also highly popular amongst the American people. Huntsman hoped to keep Bono on as his running mate in 2012, and barring scandal or health issues, would certainly look to keep him in the office for four more years. The first two years of Jon Huntsman's presidency had been successful, but now, the honeymoon period was over, and whether or not Huntsman would win a second term would depend on whether or not he could continue to keep his base happy while also maintaining the bridges he'd built with the moderate left.

    -

    U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ELECTION RESULTS

    Republicans - 270 (-18)
    Democrats - 165 (+18)

    -

    U.S. SENATE ELECTION RESULTS

    Republicans - 57 (-2)
    Democrats - 41 (+2)
    Libertarians - 1
    Independents - 1 (Bernie Sanders, caucuses with Democrats)

    -

    Early 2012 Polls Show JFK Jr., Hillary Leading The Way

    In what looks to be a much more crowded Democratic field than 2008, New York senator John F. Kennedy Jr. leads a field of 12 potential Democratic presidential candidates in a poll conducted amongst likely Democratic voters in key swing states. While no potential Democratic candidate has yet announced that they will run, these 12 were selected as being the most likely opponents for Huntsman in the 2012 race, and each have been speculated as running that year. The early poll shows JFK Jr. and Hillary Clinton in almost a dead heat, with Illinois senator Barack Obama running a strong third and Maria Cantwell, who finished strongly in 2008's Democratic primaries behind Paul Wellstone, in fourth. Many within the Democratic party have asked JFK Jr. to run for president since 2000, and it was speculated he would run in 2008 until he finally confirmed in the summer of 2007 that he wouldn't. Many analysts also believe that Hillary Clinton may announce her candidacy early next year, in order to get a jump on potential fundraising in anticipation of her opponents' entries into the race.

    On the Republican side, while a few analysts believe a potential social conservative primary opponent to President Huntsman may emerge, perhaps even Rick Santorum, few serious insiders believe that's even a remote possibility.

    John F. Kennedy, Jr.: 27%
    Hillary Clinton: 26%
    Barack Obama: 15%
    Maria Cantwell: 8%
    Evan Bayh: 5%
    Joe Biden: 4%
    John Kerry: 4%
    Joe Lieberman: 3%
    Martin O'Malley: 3%
    Sherrod Brown: 2%
    Bernie Sanders: 2%
    Bob Menendez: 1%

    from an article on Politicwatch.com, posted on November 19, 2010
     
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    • Fall 2010 (Page 6) - Ubisoft Family Franchises, Old And New

    • RySenkari

    Rayman: The Light Of Heroes

    Rayman: The Light Of Heroes is a 3-D platformer developed and published by Ubisoft. Directed by Michel Ancel, and worked on around the same time as Beyond Good And Evil 3 (Ancel oversaw both projects, but they were worked on by different teams), the game is four years in the making and is intended to be the first serious Rayman platformer for the HD consoles, after numerous spinoffs and Rabbids titles. Comparable in some fashion to OTL's Rayman Origins and Rayman Legends, The Light Of Heroes shares many graphical and gameplay features with those games, though those games were 2-D while The Light Of Heroes is fully 3-D. Part collectathon platformer and part adventure title, The Light Of Heroes takes some inspiration from Beyond Good And Evil in that Rayman is able to collect and use a massive variety of weapons and powers over the course of the game. Environments don't have one simple theme, there's no "fire" world, "ice" world, or "grass" world, but instead, environments are a blend of different elements and tropes, blending naturally into one another and striving for artistic creativity rather than stark variety. This leads to moments when the player will need to switch between Rayman's powers on the fly, and thanks to a fun and innovative wheel/hotkey system, they're able to. However, players can also utilize one set of powers throughout the entire game, for the purposes of challenge, gameplay variety, or personal preference. There's plenty of freedom to decide what Rayman should do, and the player is given plenty of tools to use that freedom. Other characters from the series, such as the Rabbids, do make cameo appearances, but Rayman and his new allies are the focus of the game. These allies include a warrior princess character similar to Barbara from OTL's Rayman Legends, a magical princess fairy character that's somewhat of a contrast to the warrior girl, a giant hulking beast character that can smash objects easily, and a tank operator who can fix Rayman's contraptions when he breaks them. These characters are among the "heroes" referred to in the game's title, and Rayman must help all of them find their light, while also finding their own. In order to do this, Rayman is able to collect shards of light that he can bestow upon the heroes to enhance their abilities and free a part of their personality. How Rayman chooses to grant this light to the heroes determines which ones will follow him throughout the game and which ones will become prisoners and have to be rescued. Rayman will also have to fight some big, dangerous bosses over the course of the game, each of which has its own attack pattern and multi-stage battle order. These boss battles are full of fun animation, spectacular action moments, and fun challenge and strategy that will test the player's skills and their knowledge of the game. The game's storyline, while more serious than most recent titles in the series, is still fairly light-hearted, full of wacky moments and comic relief. The game has no voice acting, with characters instead making grunts and facial expressions to show their emotions, with words displayed on the screen. In some ways, The Light Of Heroes is a throwback to old school platforming titles, including old school Rayman games. In other ways, it's a brand new and innovative title that uses modern technology to take the series in a brand new direction. The game is released for the Sapphire, iTwin, Supernova, and iPhone (the iPod Play, even the 3.0 version, just can't quite handle the ported game's graphics), and sells well on all four consoles, thanks to great reviews and plenty of promotion. The game begins a brand new line of Rayman titles, though the wacky Rabbids spinoffs still continue as well.

    -

    "Project Ladybug" Revealed At Paris Game Expo

    While not quite as high-profile as the Tokyo Game Show, which is going on around the same time, the Paris Game Expo is mostly a chance for French game developers to show off their newest titles for both European and worldwide release. While a majority of the games being shown off are indie games, there are a few heavy hitters here, including Selene 2, which is commanding a massive booth as brand new gameplay footage is unveiled and attendees have the chance to play through a never before seen demo. And, of course, Ubisoft is here, showing off all kinds of titles, from the upcoming Assassin's Creed games to their latest Beyond Good And Evil 3 DLC. However, the most intriguing new Ubisoft title is a game in the early concept stages of development, with just a bit of animation and character drawings available at the show. The drawings depict a young girl superhero in a ladybug costume, and Ubisoft has announced that the game is currently being developed for a "next generation console". When asked for clarification, Ubisoft has confirmed that this game, codenamed "Project Ladybug", will be released for a console that hasn't yet been announced, which makes it one of the first eighth generation titles to be announced, and makes us even more intrigued about this game. The animation and art suggest some kind of family platformer or adventure title quite similar to the Mario series, and Michel Ancel, who, while not the creator of the project, is announced to be helming development, says that he also intends the game to be a "more lighthearted and family friendly Beyond Good And Evil", meaning that we'll likely get some Zelda-esque elements as well. Ancel also said that this is a "major upcoming Ubisoft project, on the level of a Beyond Good And Evil or Delta Force type of game", and even the early animation, which looks absolutely beautiful, showed that Ubisoft isn't messing around when it comes to Project Ladybug.

    The game will take place in Paris, and it's confirmed that the main costumed character is some kind of superheroine who will be fighting against evil. She can swing between Parisian buildings like Spider-Man, and we even saw storyboards for a Sailor Moon-esque transformation sequence. Even this early footage of Project Ladybug proved to be one of the biggest announcements of the entire show, with crowds flocking to the Ubisoft booth to see the footage and review the various early animatics. We're not likely to see this game until late 2012 at the absolute earliest, with 2013/2014 being a more likely release window as an early eighth-generation release. We don't know whether the game will be multiplatform or a console exclusive, but we may see it properly announced alongside the first announcements of the next generation of consoles, which could come as early as next year.

    -from an article on Games Over Matter, posted on October 20, 2010
     
    • Fall 2010 (Part 7) - Adventures In An Alternate World

    • RySenkari

    (Authors' Note: The following idea was given to us by the reader HonestAbe1809!)

    -

    Freedonia

    Freedonia is an epic adventure game developed by Canticle Studios (an original TTL game studio staffed by many of the same programmers and creators of OTL's Mass Effect games, with the other half staying with Bioware and developing Necrocracy) and published by THQ. The gameplay has similarities with titles such as Bioshock and Dragon's Age, with a mix of action and RPG elements. The game takes place in an alternate universe America in which all the myths, legends, and stories from our world are real, a sort of Once Upon A Time meets American Gods sort of story, in which all technology is actually magic and the world is a sort of steampunk magitek hybrid plagued by the same social problems as our world. The format of the game is a sort of "road trip" format, almost OTL Final Fantasy X-esque in how it handles dungeons and towns (imagine a Legend Of Zelda game with all the dungeons outside on the highway), and follows a trip taken by the main protagonist (who can be male or female and one of five different races: human, elf, dwarf, fairy, and orc), across the country and back (the game begins in Baltimore, journeys all the way to the Pacific for a major halfway story climax there, and then the protagonist and their allies return to Boston and then Philadelphia, the country's capital). The protagonist can use firearms, melee weapons, or magic, or a combination of them, and their various stats depend on their race and equipment. Combat is somewhat slow paced and deliberate, with strategy taking precedence over mechanical skill (for the most part). The player can have up to two NPC companions out of a total of ten different possible characters, each of whom has their own strengths and weaknesses. The game is fairly epic (it has to be, since it follows the player across an entire country and back), with twelve total "chapters", a bevy of main quests and side quests, and many, many hours of cutscenes, both in-game and rendered. The game can take anywhere from 20-60 hours for a normal player to complete, and even for speedrunners it can usually take between 8-12 hours, with not a lot of glitches to exploit and skip areas. Towns are actually somewhat small, save for some of the larger cities such as Philadelphia, Boston, and San Francisco. Though each of those cities retains its original name, the country itself is named Freedonia rather than the United States, giving the game its name. Its implied that the butterflies of legends and magic being real acted in strange ways, totally changing some things while leaving others exactly the same. Though the game has a steampunk aesthetic and general technological level, some elements of the game, including "modern" tech in some instances, suggest that the game actually takes place in the 21st century, with a strange mix of design elements from all across the 20th and 21st Centuries.

    The game features a wide variety of unique characters, most of them based off literature or myths. These include:

    Morgaine Pendragon: A the daughter of the king of Albion (Great Britain), who is a descendant of King Arthur and a member of the Pendragon family. She has fled Briton and disguised herself because she believes her family to have been corrupted by the game's villains (as it turns out, they haven't, but this isn't revealed until much later in the story). Though it implies that she may turn on the protagonist, she is actually one of their closest allies.
    Sparrow: A member of the Loxley Clan, the descendants of Robin Hood and rivals to the Pendragon Clan. He starts out as a noble thief and ally to the protagonist, but turns on him later.
    Laughsy The Clown: A creepy clown character with elements of Freddy Krueger and Pennywise from Stephen King's "It", Laughsy starts out as a horrifying boss character, but his evil urges are redirected by the protagonist and he becomes a companion.
    Fortunato: Directly based off the character from Edgar Allen Poe's Cask Of Amontillado, he died chained to a wall and buried alive, but since "death" isn't permanent in Freedonia, he returned as a zombie, and now seeks revenge.
    Sakura: A ninja woman who once fought in the service of the Japanese Emperor (who actually has divine powers in the world of this game), Sakura came to Freedonia seeking an ancient relic to dull his divine powers and aid her beloved.
    Tea: A living automaton woman who fell in love with her creator and served him for a hundred years before his death of old age. She has enhanced speed, strength, and knowledge, so despite her frail appearance, she can dish out a lot of punishment.

    The game also contains references to works such as The Grapes Of Wrath, the works of H.P. Lovecraft, the works of Isaac Asimov, and even has a vampire companion, with vampires actually being mostly peaceful and victims of persecution by vampire hunters. As mentioned earlier, dead people are typically buried in giant catacombs beneath cities, because they tend to resurrect quickly, roaming the catacombs as ghouls and zombies (one of the game's levels has the main character falling into one of these catacombs). Freedonia has some of THQ's highest production values yet, with excellent graphics and an orchestrated soundtrack. Most of the voice cast is relatively unknown, with actors being hired based mostly on talent rather than name recognition. However, there are some exceptions to this, including Robert Englund as the voice of Laughsy the Clown, and TTL Oscar nominee and OTL/TTL Broadway star Eden Espinosa as the voice of Morgaine. The game was also delayed several times, first from late 2009 to early 2010, and then to November 2010, as more graphical polish was added and gameplay glitches excised.

    The main plotline of Freedonia concerns a conspiracy to bring back the High Chancellor, the central evil figure of a massive world war two generations prior that nearly destroyed the world. The High Chancellor, sort of a cross between Sauron and Hitler, took control of Freedonia and attempted to execute a genocide against all non-human races, but was brought down by a coalition of armies from across the world uniting with Freedonian rebels. The High Chancellor, however, had many minions and subordinates, who began infiltrating various governments around the world and who remain active in Freedonian politics, and the game's plot takes place just as these conspirators are setting events into motion to resurrect him (unlike most other dead people in the world, the High Chancellor's remains were burned in holy fire by an exorcist to prevent him from coming back, but a small part of his soul still lingers, and the conspiracy has managed to find it). The protagonist is just an average person living in the Baltimore slums when they save their friend from some guards, who are actually working with the conspiracy. The protagonist becomes a marked man/woman and must flee the city, while acquiring clues to the conspirators' activities and gathering allies to aid them in fighting the cult. The player will venture through many different cities, solving people's problems, battling cultists, and acquiring allies all along the way. As they do so, the player learns a vast amount of information about Freedonian history and culture, which guides the protagonist and their allies onward. While the conspiracy itself is acknowledged as universally evil, most other factions in the game have some shades of gray to them, and there are plenty of twists and turns as the protagonist and their allies venture across the country, with the first major goal being to reach San Francisco, said to be the seat of power of an influential political figure and the place where the High Chancellor's soul fragment is said to rest. San Francisco is a vast meeting place for all five races and many different cultures, and is the second biggest city in the game apart from Philadelphia (which is the first city visited after the protagonist leaves Baltimore and is sort of the "hub" for the first part of the game, and where the player will eventually return). In San Francisco, the player is led to believe that Morgaine has betrayed them, but in reality, Morgaine has been captured by a cultist that was initially believed to be an ally (the city's mayor, a seemingly friendly man who turns out to be a greedy, powerhungry monster). The team is helped by an expy of famous San Franciscan Emperor Norton to discover the truth behind the mayor and to rescue Morgaine, though in doing so, the protagonist and his allies attract some extremely powerful enemies as they plan to return to Philadelphia to defeat the conspiracy once and for all. The return trip is much more dangerous than the first half of the game, and at one point the heroes must track all the way to Mexico, where they encounter a still powerful Aztec Empire ruled by members of the elven race utilizing powerful magic. The heroes are detoured from Philadelphia, visiting the city of Boston which is being plagued by Lovecraftian horrors, and where they learn they are too late to stop the resurrection of the High Chancellor, who can now use powerful magic to subjugate the peoples of Freedonia. The heroes learn that Freedonia is being targeted by all the nations of the world with what are essentially magical nukes in order to kill the Chancellor before he can start another war, and the heroes are forced to fight one of these "nukes", a godlike beast capable of wiping out entire city blocks at a time. The Chancellor, however, destroys the rest of them, utilizing secret magic technology developed during the great war but never able to be used. Finally, the heroes return to Philadelphia, and infiltrate the conspirators' lair to discover the Chancellor's weakness. They eventually battle the High Chancellor himself, defeating him and saving the world from his genocidal rule. Morgaine returns to her family, ready to ascend to the throne as the rightful ruler of Albion, while the protagonist chooses a more peaceful life, returning to Baltimore.

    Freedonia is released in October 2010. One of the year's most hyped games, it achieves some of the year's best reviews, with critics praising the game's mix of literary references, its beautiful graphics, and its innovative story. A few critics call the story "a bit of a mess", but the consensus is that it's a fun mess, and reviews average in the low to mid 9s. However, the sales and coverage from the general gaming press aren't quite as good as they're expected. It's still a very profitable game that sells well over a million copies combined between the Sapphire, iTwin, and Xbox 2 (eventually it reaches five million sales), but it's not initially a blockbuster, and while critics love the game, they don't talk about it as much as they do some of the year's other big hits. Still, it manages to win some Game of the Year awards, including some very notable ones, and is generally remembered as one of 2010's best games, though not one of the games people immediately think of when they think of 2010.
     
    • Pokemon: Gen 5

    • RySenkari

    Pokemon Rise And Fall

    Pokemon Rise And Fall is the fifth mainline Pokemon title, the second and final mainline Pokemon for the Game Boy Supernova, and the first in the series to take place in a region not based on Japan. Instead, like OTL's Gen 5, it takes place in an American-based region, the region of Dorad, based on Colorado, with a massive mountain range bisecting the region, rivers, valleys, and plains, making it the most geographically diverse region to date, but also the first landlocked one (though a large lake has been added to provide a sort of ocean-like area). The game features 140 new species of Pokemon, and for the first time, all of them are original TTL (though some are based on OTL Pokemon). In addition, though there is a focus on the new Pokemon, old Pokemon do show up before the postgame (unlike in OTL's Gen 5, where only new Pokemon show up until then). The game has a more "open world" feel to it, with shortcuts through the mountains that allow players to visit certain cities and areas before they'd normally be expected to do so, enabling them to acquire certain Pokemon and TMs and beat certain Gym Leaders early. All the enhancements from previous games return, with few truly new innovations, though there is the addition of the "terrain" system, with terrain bonuses for certain Pokemon. The different styles of terrain include Rugged, Alpine, Lake, Forest, Prairie, Urban, Suburban, Farm, and River, among up to 20 terrain types in all. There's also the Action system, in which a Pokemon might dodge a certain attack or repel it depending on battle circumstances. These changes make battles a bit more exciting and dynamic, and of course more strategic. There's probably less changed from Gen 4 to Gen 5 than any other generation gap, both gameplay-wise and presentation-wise. The graphics are still excellent, somewhere between OTL's 3DS Pokemon titles and OTL's Let's Go Pikachu, and voice acting also returns, with all the gym leaders and many other NPCs being voice acted. The game's soundtrack is based on rock music, with lots of electric guitar and blues rhythms, though there's also some folk and prog sounds as well. Character motifs, and even individual Pokemon motifs, are also introduced, with the game now having different songs for certain types of wild Pokemon and trainers, another innovation from previous titles.

    The game's world, as mentioned before, is heavily based on Colorado. There's a central city, based on Denver, with a heavily suburbanized area to the north and south (the "metro area" contains three Pokemon Gyms). There's plains to the east and mountains to the west, and a big forest just west of the mountains, based on the forested areas in OTL Colorado. The game even has a mountain resort area and there's a small, almost hidden reference to South Park in the form of a small town up in the mountains full of rude children. The main cities of the game are:

    Pebble Village: The game's starting area, in the southern part of Dorad, where the main character is from and where Professor Pine lives. Professor Pine is the first female professor in the series, and she gives you your starting Pokemon. She's not just a Pokemon professor, she's also a geologist, and likes to study mountains and rock formations.
    Sandstone City: Based on OTL Pueblo, this is where the first Gym is located. The Gym Leader, Rocco, uses Ground type Pokemon.
    Hornfels City: Based on OTL Grand Junction, this is where the second Gym is located, after passing through a massive forest. The Gym Leader, Alice, uses Bug type Pokemon.
    Quartz Town: A suburban city based on OTL Aurora, this is where the third Gym is located. The Gym Leader, Mel, uses Ice type Pokemon.
    Obsidian City: An urban city based on OTL Denver, this is where the fourth Gym is located. The Gym Leader, John, is the star quarterback of the local football team, and uses Fighting type Pokemon. He's based somewhat on John Elway.
    Rhyolite City: Based on OTL Boulder, this suburban town has a massive Pokemon university, and you have to graduate to battle the Gym Leader, Chandra, who uses Fire type Pokemon.
    Fort Basalt: Based on OTL Fort Collins, this northern Dorad city is home to General Charge, Lt. Surge's CO and an expert user of Electric type Pokemon.
    Geode City: Based on OTL Greeley, this somewhat gloomy city is home to Darrell, who uses Poison type Pokemon.
    Mariposite Springs: Based on OTL Colorado Springs and sitting on a big, beautiful lake, this city is home to Orchid, who uses Water type Pokemon.
    Lapis Resort: Based on OTL Aspen, this resort town is where Dorad's Pokemon League sits, and where only the elite trainers may battle for a chance to fight the Champion on top of Dorad's highest peak.

    There are other cities and towns in the game, and even a few exclusive to the postgame, but these are the ten most important in the game. There's also plenty of caves, abandoned factories, and even haunted houses to explore, and lots of mountains to climb. There's more outdoors exploration than any other game in the series, due to Colorado being known for its bevy of outdoor activity. The game features a total of 140 new Pokemon, some of whom are listed below:

    Gosgro/Vinehorn/Groshika: The Grass starter line, a goat-like Pokemon that gradually evolves into a beautiful godlike Grass/Psychic deer, with a heavy focus on the Special Attack stat.
    Ishdrop/Splatfish/Bubloupe: The Water starter line, a small guppy-like fish that evolves into a huge predatory fish much like OTL Wishiwashi.
    Lolite/Ardole/Drilflagration: The Fire starter line, essentially Excadrill from OTL, but on fire, with Drilflagration being a Fire/Ground type with massive Attack and Speed.
    Wisper/Dazzee/Fulbloom: A flower-based evolution line, sort of like a Jumpluff/Sunflora cross but with slightly better stats.
    Kickolt/Kroncho: A Ground/Fighting horse Pokemon with similarities to OTL's Mudsdale line. The signature Pokemon of the Obsidian gym leader.
    Snosty/Frostpal/Blistack: An Ice-type Pokemon, the TTL equivalent of the Vanilluxe line in terms of stats and moves, but taking the form of a snowman rather than an ice cream cone.
    Choochoo/Chugatrane/Locomaker: A train-based Steel type Pokemon line, this is another line that's heavy on Speed but also on defense.
    Stonecub/Rockroar: A Rock-based Pokemon line based on grizzly bears, heavy on attack and defense.
    Hummibur/Wingnose/Flitterby: The generation's main Normal/Flying-type line, based on the hummingbird. Fairly weak.
    Slith/Rattleback: A Poison-based rattlesnake line. Somewhat similar to Ekans/Arbok, but more heavy on speed.
    Bebibis/Waterbuff: A Water/Ground line based on the buffalo. Somewhat bulky and similar to Wooper/Quagsire, but more heavy on Attack and Defense.
    Fuzzder/Rantular: A Dark/Poison type line based on tarantulas, like Joltik and Galvantula but without the electricity.
    Vivee/Regroth/Spredoubt: A Grass-type line based on a slowly growing field of vines, somewhat like OTL's Tangrowth line.
    Baront/Gargantusaur: One of the two fossil Pokemon lines in this game, based on an apatosaurus/brachiosaur.
    Armorr/Spikepred: One of the two fossil Pokemon lines in this game, based on the ankylosaurus/spikosaurus.
    Slaice/Piepan/Panzone: Instead of an ice cream based Pokemon in this game, we get a pizza based Pokemon, with a Fire/Steel typing. Panzone, who looks like a giant calzone with a pizza cutter stuck in him, is actually decently powerful.
    Crunky/Granatt/Rockcrawla: The three-stage Rock evolution line in this game, somewhat similar to Gigalith, but cooler looking, with Rockcrawla being a giant rock monster.
    Cyphor/Rumalesk/Queatela: This game's pseudo legendary line, Cyphor is a small bird-like creature, but it eventually evolves into Queatela, a beautiful Dragon/Psychic dragon Pokemon with majestic, multicolored feathers.
    Obelaske: The version mascot and legendary for Pokemon Rise, Obelaske is a living monolith and the source of spiritual power for the Dorad region, with a Rock/Psychic typing.
    Voidestrudo: The version mascot for Pokemon Fall, Voidestrudo is a Dark/Ghost type shapeshifter, representing erosion and decay that threatens to crumble the mountains of Dorad.
    Monteagle/Treagle/Praireagle/Springeagle: Four majestic eagle-like birds representing the mountains, the trees, the prairies, and the springs, these are four new legendary birds of Rock/Flying, Grass/Flying, Ground/Flying, and Water/Flying types respectively, and are four more Legendary Pokemon that can be caught in game.
    Antabbit: An antelope/rabbit creature based on the jackalope, it can be hunted down and caught in-game (making it a Legendary, not a Mythical), but it's incredibly hard to do so, based on luck and quite frustrating. The creature is Normal/Fighting.
    Snohuge: A Bigfoot-like Ice/Fighting creature and another Legendary Pokemon, this one is also hard to find but much less frustrating and luck based.
    Hybridd: One of three Mythical Pokemon in the game, this Electric/Steel construct creature created by Team Plasma is only available through an event.
    Lilisprite: Another Mythical Pokemon, a Bug/Psychic type similar to Celebi, it too is only available via event.
    Agassoth: The game's final Mythical Pokemon, a Dark/Water creature of incredible power, based on a Lovecraftian horror and buried deep under the Dorad lake. Connected to a very dark special event that connects to the events of the Gen 6 game.

    Pokemon Rise and Fall begins with the player trainer, who can be either male or female, venturing outside of Pebble Village, getting attacked by a Pokemon, and being saved by their new friend/rival, a boy/girl (whichever one the player didn't pick) named either Jack or Stephanie. The rival takes the trainer to Professor Pine to get their first Pokemon, and the adventure begins. The first part of the game is fairly straightforward, as the player will venture first to Sandstone and then to Hornfels, meeting Team Plasma along the way. Like in OTL's game, Team Plasma seems somewhat innocent at first, and the player's rival will start to be swayed by their rhetoric, but won't give up on their journey. Once the player reaches the Obsidian metro area, things change a bit. The three gyms here can actually be visited in any order, or the player can even choose to explore in the Fort Basalt/Geode area, but won't be able to fight the two gym leaders there. As the player completes more events in this area, they'll gradually get to know their rival more and more. The rival in this game is sort of the equivalent of N in OTL's Gen 5, but much more knowledgeable about the world, having not been sheltered from a young age. The player will also get to know Rocky, a guru/mountain lover and expert Pokemon trainer. Rocky's appearance and soft-spoken mannerisms are an homage to OTL's John Denver, with an almost "Rocky Mountain High"-esque folk motif played during his appearances. Once the three gyms in the Obsidian area are completed, more of the Fort Basalt/Geode area will open up to the player, and those two gyms can be conquered in either order as well. Finally, the player is able to cross the lake to the Mariposite Springs area, but Team Plasma has taken over the city, with the player's rival now completely under the sway of Ghetsis, the Team Plasma leader and very similar in character and motive to his OTL self. He seeks to take all the Pokemon of the world away, and plans to have the player's rival ascend to the highest peak in Dorad and order every trainer to give up their Pokemon. To do this, he plans to use Voidestrudo (in Pokemon Rise) and Obelaske (in Pokemon Fall). Voidestrudo will crumble all the mountains of the world, showing Ghetsis' power and using fear to make people surrender their Pokemon, while Obelaske will use its psychic powers to convince everyone to do it psychically. The player must find a way to capture the other legendary Pokemon (Obelaske in Rise and Voidestrudo in Fall) to counteract this. After defeating Team Plasma and kicking them out of Mariposite Springs, the player is able to access Orchid's gym and defeat her, but Team Plasma is making their way to the mountains to enact their plan, and the player must storm their base and defeat them one last time. Unlike in OTL's game, this does not replace the Champion battle, but instead replaces the Victory Road sequence, with the player battling trainers all the way to Ghetsis and their rival. Once the two are defeated and the world saved, the player's rival is reformed and the player can battle the Elite Four and Champion proper. The champion turns out to be Rocky, who engages the player in a friendly and fierce battle for the title. After the player becomes the Pokemon League champion, the postgame opens up. The postgame is actually an exploration of eastern Dorad and an homage to Wild West legends, with the player able to visit some ghost towns and battle cowboy trainers, while also fighting unique Pokemon, trainers from other regions, and even catching some Legendaries. Gen 5 has the most robust postgame to date, keeping trainers busy for many hours after the main game.

    Pokemon Rise And Fall is released on November 16, 2010, worldwide, exclusive to the Gameboy Supernova. Released amidst a wave of massive hype typical for the average Pokemon game, it receives excellent reviews for its unique variety of Pokemon and unique regional flavor, along with its strong musical score. It's the best reviewed mainline Pokemon game since Gen 2, and its sales would be the fastest yet for a Pokemon game, becoming the top selling overall title of 2010, even outselling Modern Warfare 5 in North America. Colorado fans in particular buy the game in massive droves, and the state would officially celebrate the release of the game with big ceremonies statewide. South Park would devote a three part episode to the game (which would also serve as a sequel to the Chinpokomon episode from way back in the day), and the game would even drive huge amounts of tourism to the state. It would represent somewhat of an end of an era for Pokemon, with the next generation's game having already entered production. It would take the series in a darker, more mature direction, bringing new fans to the series but also shocking some of the old ones. Whether or not it would continue in the success of its predecessors would determine whether or not the series would return to its roots or march forward in a way that the series never had IOTL...

    -

    The Pokemon Rise And Fall anime, taking place between 2011-2013 (and still airing on Cartoon Network after all these years), would follow the storyline of the games fairly closely, while introducing a unique character dynamic that would make the series unlike any of its four predecessors. It would follow the adventures of Jack, Stephanie, and Rocco as they explored the Dorad region and battled Team Plasma. Jack was the protagonist, with Rocco being somewhat of a "big brother" character and Stephanie being the nominal love interest/companion. However, right from the beginning of the series, Stephanie was set up to betray Jack, and was given a detailed backstory to explain this betrayal. The other shoe would eventually drop midway through the second season, shortly after the team left Geode City, with Stephanie joining Team Plasma and becoming Ghetsis' right hand minion. Stephanie would remain one of the primary antagonists throughout the rest of the season, before eventually being defeated in a spectacular battle atop the tallest mountain in Dorad. She would escape while Ghetsis would be taken to jail, and the third season would be based on the Wild West postgame, with Jack training to battle Rocky for the title of Champion while teaming up with a new female companion, Katie. Katie, a more brash and bold character, was sort of a Calamity Jane expy, complete with a Wild West accent and cowboy brashness. Stephanie would return as the villain of the third season, heading up a still dangerous Team Plasma while hot in pursuit of Jack. Eventually, however, a new villain would emerge, a black-cloaked figure related to the mysterious lake monster Agassoth. Stephanie would eventually see the error of her ways, but Jack would never fully trust her again, and eventually Stephanie would leave Dorad at the end of the series to find her own way in the world. Jack would battle Rocky, but would lose to him. However, the battle would leave him yearning to continue on as a Pokemon trainer, and he decided to take up Rocky's life of wandering and enjoying nature. Rocco and Katie (who the series implied were now together) would head back to Sandstone to work at the gym together. In the end, the series implied that Jack and Stephanie might reunite, but left their ultimate fates a mystery for the viewers to decide.

    -

    November 30, 2010

    Naughty Dog North was a busy place at the end of 2010. Not only was the studio hard at work on the upcoming Pokemon: Legend Quest, a Sapphire game that would include Pokemon from all five generations and would present a simplified but full Pokemon adventure on the Nintendo Sapphire, but the studio was also working on the next Dog Dash game and a brand new IP that would be featured on the upcoming Nintendo console, whose dev kit had just come in during the past few weeks. All of those projects were taking up plenty of Neil Druckmann's time, but the project that had landed in his lap earlier that year was perhaps the most significant project he'd ever embarked on. So far, he had only a small team working on it, a team comprised of both Japanese and American developers, but more people would come onto the project as the weeks and months progressed.

    It too required the use of a devkit for an unreleased, unannounced system: the Game Boy Supernova successor. Its tech was top secret, but from what Druckmann had learned from his development team, it was intentionally designed to have an unprecedented level of connectivity with the Sapphire and its successor, connectivity that would bridge the gap between the two consoles and enable this new handheld device to bring the worlds of Nintendo together like never before. It was also very, very powerful, about as powerful as an Apple iTwin, which made developing for it a difficult but intriguing challenge, and he knew that the game his team was developing for it would absolutely blow players away.

    But Druckmann himself wasn't working on programming the game. He and a small team were coming up with the game's story, and Sony had told him that despite the franchise's normal tone, he would have the freedom to do what he wanted, within reason.

    He was currently on the phone with Amy Hennig, who was working down at Naughty Dog Mothership in Los Angeles, overseeing the finishing touches on Tales Of The Seven Seas: Horizon.

    "This time around, we're not going to let players choose their main character's gender," said Druckmann. "It's going to be a girl. They can pick the name, though."

    "Sony's already signed off on that?" asked Hennig, intrigued but skeptical.

    "They have," said Druckmann. "Pokemon is such a big deal that we don't think boys will skip a generation because they have to be a girl."

    "That's what I was thinking too. I'm still surprised Sony and Game Freak were okay with it though."

    "Just this once," said Druckmann with a laugh. "Also, I've picked out her default name. We're going to give her more of a personality this time around, she'll be able to actually speak."

    "Will she be the main character of the anime?"

    "I've heard they'll be going a different direction with the anime tie-in, but that's way down the road, they haven't even started airing the Rise and Fall anime yet."

    "This is seriously a big deal. They're letting a Western studio do a mainline Pokemon game."

    "I know, it's all because of the hard work Mark and the rest of the people at the company have done these last 15 years. It's a big honor though, I'm still kind of nervous about all of it."

    "Well, you're gonna do great," said Hennig. "I'm really looking forward to seeing the first design sheets for the game."

    "Yeah, I think I'll even think up a few Pokemon, maybe," Druckmann replied, laughing again.

    "I'll have to let you go, I've got a meeting starting up, but it was awesome to talk about the game. Don't work too hard."

    "Can't guarantee that," said Druckmann, starting to move the phone away from his ear.

    "Oh...! Before I forget, what's the main character's default name?" asked Hennig. Druckmann picked up a small piece of paper, on which was sketched a teenage girl with a brown ponytail and fairly plain looking clothes emblazoned with a Pokeball symbol.

    "Ellie."
     
    • Fall 2010 (Part 8) - The Activision Colossus Grows

    • RySenkari

    Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

    Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is the eighth game in the Call Of Duty series and the third in the Modern Warfare series, depicting a fictional World War III between the United States and China. Like previous titles in the series, it's a military-based first person shooter with an emphasis on realism and squad-based gameplay, though this game more than any other in the series has a focus on dramatic, cinematic setpieces that wouldn't be out of place in a modern action movie. It features both an extensive single player campaign and a multiplayer mode loaded with weapons, arenas, and options. Like previous games in the series, Modern Warfare 3 features three playable protagonists in its single player campaign. The first one has also been featured in the two previous games: Rob Zalnasko, voiced by Dean Winters. Zalnasko is the game's primary protagonist, tasked with defending Alaska from a Chinese invasion while also participating in a mission to infiltrate China across the Pacific Ocean and end the war by sabotaging the country's nuclear missile defenses. The second main character of the game is Tommy Stokes, voiced by Tupac Shakur (who also participated in the promotional campaign for Modern Warfare 2). Stokes is tasked with defending the American mainland from the ongoing Chinese invasion. Then there's Akata Hachimura, voiced by Shin Koyamada, a Japanese-American soldier fighting the Chinese Army in Hong Kong and Japan, who eventually joins up with Zalnasko on the final series of missions. These three characters all have distinct personalities, though their basic gameplay style is essentially the same. Modern Warfare 3 controls much like previous games in the series, with a few quality of life improvements mostly involving reloading and staying close to your squadmates in combat, as well as improvements to the game's cover system. By now, the Call Of Duty gameplay has achieved a level of refinement few other FPS titles can boast, and though missions can be quite tough, with plenty of enemies firing from all sides, it's never been easier to control characters in battle. The most improvements have come to the game's multiplayer system, which has added a boatload of new modes and options and has strongly increased the diversity of its battlefields, adding huge indoor spaces such as skyscrapers and even an underground tunnel system to allow for intense, cramped battles. Of course, most of the arenas remain outdoors, taking place in a wide variety of locales and environments. The most popular and innovative new online mode is the "reinforcements" mode which essentially makes backfill a dedicated part of a match, with designated reinforcements showing up at certain times, which sometimes will leave one team shorthanded and one team with a numerical advantage. Though the time both teams spend short-handed is always the same, players and teams must work to take full advantage of the times when they're up on numbers in order to build a lead for the times they go behind. Of course, all the standard deathmatch modes also return, and all new servers have been added to ensure that the games are as lag-free as possible. Modern Warfare 3 boasts the most complex and player-friendly multiplayer mode ever devised in a console FPS, and it's where Activision plans to make most of its money on the game.

    The game begins with Zalnasko's campaign, in which he's battling Chinese troops in Alaska, starting with a mission in which Zalnasko's squad must fight to defend Anchorage, and then a series of island hopping missions in the Aleutians. This is where Zalnasko receives his mission to take out China's anti missile defense system and where he also gets intel on the North Korean spy who continues to operate within the Chinese government. The game then shifts over to Stokes' squad, defending a neighborhood in Los Angeles where he grew up, and then getting a call to ship out to Seattle, where a massive battle has broken out. This mission is one of the game's biggest set pieces, featuring a collapsing Space Needle and furious fighting in the city's streets, culminating in a huge bombardment from a Chinese submarine that's made its way into Puget Sound. We then shift over to Hachimura's squad, battling in Hong Kong alongside British soldiers to repel a full scale Chinese invasion of the city, including segments fought in a skyscraper with office-to-office fighting. Next, Hachimura's squad fights a battle in Tokyo. Then, he gets a secret directive to head to Korea to participate in an invasion of the North. Next, we go back to Zalnasko's mission, which sees his squad having already dropped secretly into China, near where the spy is said to be issuing orders to launch an EMP strike to cripple North America's electrical grid and missile defense. Zalnasko is able to infiltrate the enemy base, and he eventually attempts to capture the spy, but the spy fights back and Zalnasko is forced to kill him. He then evacuates China with his squad, and is given a directive to head into North Korea to rendezvous with Hachimura's team. However, we then see that the EMP was partially successful, knocking out power in much of the Western United States and part of Canada. Stokes' squad battles in a darkened Vancouver to defend a NATO summit there, and manages to save the generals and heads of state from being killed by a Chinese strike force. This helps the NATO diplomats to negotiate a peace settlement with China, under the condition that Zalnasko's team take out the rogue elements remaining in North Korea, who plan to launch dozens of nukes into both the United States and China. Zalnasko and Hachimura battle their way into the North Korean leader's stronghold, and all seems lost for them, but they are saved by a timely intervention from a squad of Chinese army defectors whom Zalnasko helped earlier on. The team is able to defeat the North Korean leader and his guards and stop the nuclear launch, saving the United States and China and forging the way for a peace agreement to end the war. Unfortunately, Zalnasko himself was mortally wounded in the fighting, but Hachimura survives and promises to tell of Zalnasko's heroism. The ending sees peace and rebuilding, with Hachimura and Stokes receiving the Medal of Honor, along with Zalnasko who receives it posthumously. The game and trilogy end on a bittersweet note, paving the way for the next era of games in the series.

    Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is received highly positively amongst the gaming press, with strong reviews and a great reception for its multiplayer as well. Overall, opinion of the Call Of Duty series remains highly positive, despite the somewhat derivative nature of the games. The series remains one of Activision's most popular, and sales are around the same as they were for Modern Warfare 2. Overall, the game is the #2 selling title of the year in North America, just behind Pokemon Rise and Fall. It's released in November 2010 for the Sapphire, iTwin, Xbox 2, PC, and Macintosh, with versions of the game also coming to Supernova, iPod Play, and mobile (though they're not quite the same as the console versions). Meanwhile, the multiplayer version of the game becomes the hottest online console game of the year, with millions hopping on to play, buying millions of dollars worth of accessories and DLC. Just as IOTL, the Call Of Duty series remains an enormous cash cow for Activision and a pillar of gaming, and that doesn't look likely to change anytime soon.

    -

    Activision Finalizes Silver Sail Acquisition, Will Gain Quixsters IP

    Activision has completed its long-expected acquisition of the gaming software company Silver Sail. Founded in 1991, the company has been responsible for several long-time gaming franchises, most notably the fast-paced family-friendly action franchise Quixsters and the adventure game franchise Frederico. The company has also published numerous other games, most recently the mature Western title Honest Jack, which launched in 2008 to strong reviews but mediocre sales. The company has worked closely with Activision for the past decade, with the company publishing most of Silver Sail's games during the 2000s, and Activision has also promoted and pushed the Quixsters IP with a line of toys and tie-ins for other properties. Though Activision has long sought to acquire Silver Sail, the disappointing Honest Jack put a crimp in negotiations, and it was rumored that Activision was no longer willing to offer the price for Silver Sail that its owners wanted. The two companies have spent most of the last 18 months hashing out the details of the acquisition, and though most of those details have not been disclosed, it's rumored that Silver Sail was acquired for "just over $650 million", with most of that value coming from the strength of Quixsters. Silver Sail's 56 employees have either been hired on at Activision or will receive severance packages, which were reportedly one of the sticking points of the deal. Carlos Delgado, co-creator of the Frederico and Quixsters franchises and majority owner of Silver Sail, is said to have "personally funded" severance packages for the workers not hired on at Activision, and reports are that those workers will receive severance pay equivalent to five years of their previous salary, along with some Activision stock. Delgado himself is reported to have received around $300 million in the deal, and will continue to work at Activision in a "consulting capacity".

    -from an article on Games Over Matter, posted on December 1, 2010

    -

    December 3, 2010

    Inez Delgado's eyes were focused on the television screen, while a Sapphire controller rested in her hands. She was battling one of the bosses of Freedonia, a quick moving goat-like predator said to be based on the myth of the chupacabra. The creature moved quickly, but Inez's character, a magic wielding elf woman, moved even faster, and was bombarding the creature with powerful ice magic, avoiding its charges and using her huge health bar as a buffer when she did take damage.

    "Come on," said Inez quietly, her fingers skillfully hitting the buttons. It had been a long time since she'd suffered a death on this game, and she wasn't even close to suffering one now, but still she took nothing for granted, keeping her full attention on the game and using everything she had at her disposal to put the boss creature down quickly. "You're not so tough, you're not so tough!"

    Carlos stepped into the living room and was quiet as he watched his daughter play. He'd seen just how much she enjoyed Freedonia, which was probably her favorite game of the year, and was surprised (and also proud) at all the literary references she'd been able to pick up. Even though Inez's future was now absolutely secure, he was proud of just how hard a worker she was, even if she'd never have to if she didn't want to.

    "Got you!" Inez shouted, leaning back into her chair. "Whew... he was fast..."

    "Hey, nice job," said Carlos, walking over to Inez and sitting down on the couch next to her. Inez smiled and pressed pause on her controller. "No, no, you can keep playing, I like watching, this game is cool."

    "Heh, you know you guys didn't make this one," said Inez, starting the game back up and watching the cutscene that followed the boss.

    "Yeah but I wish we had, it looks like it's gonna be Game of the Year," Carlos replied. "Well, this or Call Of Duty..."

    "It better be this one," said Inez. "I know it'll make Uncle Bobby sad, but this game deserves to win way more than Call Of Duty does!"

    "I think whenever Uncle Bobby get sad, all he has to do is check his bank statements and his smile will come back faster than that chupacabra can run."

    Inez giggled.

    "Speaking of which..." said Carlos, looking over at his daughter. "Now that I've sold the company, I'll be able to spend more time with you and mom, I hope..."

    "I hope so too, dad," Inez replied, hitting pause again and setting down the controller. "Because mom really misses you."

    "I know, but from now on it'll be different."

    "Are you sure?" asked Inez, looking up at her dad's face. "Mom's sad, all the time. And when she's not sad, she's mad. She says, 'Carlos works too much', or 'I'm an office widow', or..."

    Carlos sighed, and Inez knew to stop, not wanting to make her dad any sadder. She knew her father knew just how much strain his work was putting on his marriage, and didn't need to repeat the things her mother told her when no one else was listening.

    "I know this money's not going to make things right with mom, or with you. The only thing that'll make things right is me being home, and I promise, that's what I'm gonna do."

    Inez smiled and hugged her father tightly.

    "Thanks for working so hard, dad..." said Inez softly. "I've missed you too, you know..."

    "Hey, you going to keep playing?" Carlos asked as his daughter released him from the hug. "I haven't been able to check this game out, I've been spending too much time looking at Call Of Duty."

    "Hehe, I think I've almost beaten it, next stop is Boston," said Inez, starting the game back up.

    "Whoa, spoilers!"

    Inez just laughed and shook her head, watching the rest of the cutscene and restarting her game. She kept playing, and her dad kept watching, and everything was right with the world. She had some idea of just how much money her dad had just acquired, but it didn't matter all that much to her. What was most important was that her dad had a lot more time to spend with her, and that she could show him all the new games she'd been playing and everything she'd been doing with her music and with her voice acting. And maybe, just maybe, her dad could fix things up with her mom.

    Also, she was glad that, according to her dad, Uncle Bobby had treated everyone at his old company fairly, and how much of a role her dad had played in that fair treatment. She was just starting to understand all the things people were saying about her dad's friend on the internet, and why people might not like him even though he had always been so kind to her and her dad.

    It's just business, her dad had always told her. One day you'll understand.

    Even though she was just ten, Inez was already starting to understand.

    The number of people who made video games who were as nice as her dad were few and far between, and with her dad gone, there was now one less of them.
     
    • Fall 2010 (Part 9) - A Smashing New Sapphire Hit

    • RySenkari

    Super Smash Bros. Unleashed

    Super Smash Bros. Unleashed is the fourth Super Smash Bros. title, the first and only title in the series for the Nintendo Sapphire, and the sequel to 2005's Super Smash Bros. Clash. Like previous games in the series, it's a party-based fighting game capable of supporting up to four players either locally or online, and in addition to its multiplayer fighting modes, it features a wide variety of single player modes and mini-games to keep players entertained while also serving up a healthy dose of Nintendo nostalgia. It features the biggest roster of all the Super Smash Bros. titles to date, building off the roster from Clash by adding 12 additional fighters, though it also sees the removal of three: Lucas, Morticloak, and Zero Suit Samus do not return for Unleashed, but the following legacy fighters do return:

    Ash Beckland
    Battletoads
    Bowser
    Captain Falcon
    Cloud
    Diddy Kong
    Donkey Kong
    Fox
    Ganondorf
    Ice Climbers
    Jade
    Joanna Dark
    King Dedede
    Kirby
    Lane
    Link
    Luigi
    Marcus
    Mario
    Marth
    Meta Knight
    Ness
    Peach
    Pikachu
    Pit
    Rebecca
    Ridley
    R.O.B.
    Samus
    Shad
    Shirei
    Simon Belmont
    Solid Snake
    Sora
    Vapor Snake
    Wario
    Woofle
    Yoshi
    Zelda

    In addition, 12 new fighters have been added to the game. All of them were revealed at various points before the game's release. Some of the new fighters are from OTL, while others are exclusive TTL:

    Nero (from Big Bad Hero)
    Villager (from Animal Crossing)
    Kamek (from the Mario and Yoshi series)
    Wolf (from Star Fox)
    Kairi (from Kingdom Hearts)
    Blizzeria
    Cindake (the legendary duo from Pokemon Black And White)
    Lady LeChique (from the 2008 F-Zero game)
    Luma and Lake (from Mystic)
    Fulgore (from Killer Instinct)
    Sweet Tooth (from Twisted Metal)
    Ahsoka Tano (from Star Wars: The Clone Wars, this was the final character reveal and was easily the most surprising and impactful of the new character announcements, announced at Star Wars Celebration 2010 alongside information about the upcoming Episode VII movie)

    The complete roster has a total of 51 characters, and each of the 39 returners has at least one new move, making every character in Unleashed feel fresh and new. The fighting is a bit more fast paced than in previous games, though the basic gameplay remains unchanged and hardcore Clash players will have no problem transitioning to this new title. In addition to the 51 characters, the game features vastly more stages and music than Clash did, with twice as many songs and a total of 80 stages, with every franchise featured in the game getting at least one stage. The addition of Ahsoka means we get two Star Wars stages, including Ahsoka's training ground and a stage based on the Death Star, with numerous Star Wars music tracks also featured (Nintendo and Sakurai wanted John Williams to compose the game's theme song, but Williams was unavailable and instead, a hard-driving rock theme was instead composed for the game). The major new feature of Unleashed is the addition of the "Smash Coach", an optional AI trainer that studies the player's style of gameplay and then suggests characters and strategies best suited to that player. As the player logs hours with the game, the Smash Coach's "certainty" will increase, so people just starting out will only have a certainty percentage in the single digits, but someone with hundreds of hours played will have a 100% certainty level, allowing the Coach to provide that player's true best choice of main. Through use of the Smash Coach and updates downloaded over Nintendo's servers that constantly change the Coach's strategies based on the current meta, players will get the best possible idea of their best playstyle. Though the AI isn't flawless by any means, it does help millions of novice Smash players improve their gameplay and gravitate toward characters they might enjoy playing more.

    The game's big single player mode is called The Great Rescue, in which most of the game's roster has been kidnapped by an army of dark warriors, and the player has only a limited amount of smash fighters to battle through a series of worlds to save them. While it would be easy to compare this mode to "World Of Light" from OTL, it's more like an enhanced arcade mode, with ladders of fights that gradually increase in difficulty, and no shortcuts or distractions, just various Smash battles with some gimmicks and cutscenes (in a way, it's sort of like Event Mode from OTL Melee). While not as sprawling or as epic as Clash's adventure mode, it's still quite fun and allows for some interesting interactions. Rather than epic boss fights against large creatures, the game pits you in battle against more humanoid fighters, both polygon-esque and based on characters in the game, with a huge variety of gimmicks. Every few fights, you can unlock a character. From an initial roster of 25, it's possible to unlock all 26 other playable characters in this mode, though it's also possible to do that just by playing through vs. mode. There's also an interesting arcade variant called "Rivalry Battles", that only opens up once the player has unlocked all 51 characters. In this mode, every character in the game is paired off against a "rival". Sometimes these are no brainers: Mario and Bowser face each other, Link and Ganondorf, etc. Others are a bit deeper: Shad fights Marcus in a battle of heroes, for example. Meanwhile, Joanna Dark, the odd woman out, faces Velvet Dark, in the game as a costume swap for Joanna and serving as a sort of "echo fighter" for her. The Rivalry battles have some interesting dialogue but aren't too heavy on story, and are an interesting way to lengthen the player's time with the game's basic arcade mode while also providing some interesting interactions.

    The game has much more of an emphasis on multiplayer than on single player, and it's the first Super Smash Bros game to offer online gameplay. The servers are stable and reliable, with Sony in charge of the game's online multiplayer, and there are daily tournaments and leagues, in addition to random Smash battles and 1v1 pairings. There's no official "For Fun" and "For Glory" mode, but players can easily find item heavy servers for fun gameplay and tournament ladders for serious gameplay, and the game quickly becomes Nintendo's most popular online title. The game features excellent graphics, though it's not quite as detailed as some of Nintendo's other games that year, it's still very comparable to OTL's Ultimate in terms of graphical fidelity, with beautiful HD characters, animations, and backgrounds. Though Unleashed doesn't quite surpass Clash in long-term tournament popularity, it's still considered an excellent fighter with a robust metagame and a huge fandom, with real-life tournaments frequently available. It's released on November 2, 2010, and sales are extremely strong out of the gate, nearly as strong as sales of the latest Call Of Duty title. Reviews for the game are excellent as well, making it an overall Game of the Year contender. The one big knock against Unleashed is its lack of DLC: while Nintendo's motivations for no DLC are admirable (wanting to ship a complete game out of the gate), many players clamor for extra characters and stages to be added to the game. Nintendo's choice not to include DLC in Unleashed does leave some money on the table, and it's a mistake they're not likely to make again with the inevitable fifth game in the series.
     
    • Fall 2010 (Part 10) - Starry Nights

    • RySenkari

    Star Siren: You And Me

    Star Siren: You And Me is a sidescrolling beat 'em up title similar to games like OTL's Viewtiful Joe (made by most of the same people). It's the first Apple-exclusive game in the series and the fourth mainline game, after the original, Nakama, and The Fateful Yandere. The series is inspired by shoujo anime and manga such as Sailor Moon, with Star Siren, AKA Saiyuki, being a transforming magical girl superheroine that fights alongside her friends and uses powerful attacks on her foes. In this game, Star Siren's four friends, the Star Souls, have been captured by an evil entity, along with her love interest Anthony and her frienemy Minamora, while Saiyuki has been transported to a strange and magical storybook world where the only person that can help her is you, the player. You And Me is by far the most "meta" game in the series, and possibly the most "meta" game ever created, shattering the fourth wall by having the player directly intervene in Saiyuki's journey, aiding her on her quest to rescue her friends and escape the magical dreamworld. Though the storybook/fourth wall mechanic does make You And Me radically different from any other game in the series, the core gameplay of beating up enemies, utilizing magical attacks, and earning high scores still remains, along with most of Star Siren's magical powers and attacks. However, the player now gets the chance to aid Star Siren utilizing either the game's motion controls or a traditional controller, by choosing powers for her, calling in allies, clearing obstacles, or aiding in the fighting of enemies. All the while, Saiyuki herself acknowledges the player and responds to their actions, complimenting them for a job well done, or scolding them when they do poorly. Though Saiyuki will ask for help and sometimes plead for it, she's proud and proactive and won't become subservient to the player, even if they try to impede or troll her through their actions. She'll remind the player that they're playing right along with her, and if she doesn't succeed, neither do they. The game thus combines elements of beat 'em up titles with a sort of "interactive friend" type of game, with Saiyuki complimenting and conversing with the player as she works to rescue her friends and battle enemies. Most of the time, Saiyuki will be a friend to the player, encouraging them whether or not they're performing well. If the player is losing but the game can tell that they're honestly trying, Saiyuki will be encouraging even in defeat, and sometimes, she'll activate a special power to push the player through a difficult boss fight (almost like the Mickey save feature in OTL Kingdom Hearts II). The level of difficulty in this game is slightly lower than in previous series titles, pushing a more thematic theme than a difficulty/gameplay theme. The graphical art style is a new cel-shaded anime/storybook hybrid style that takes full advantage of the iTwin's capabilities and looks even better than the Sapphire's Fateful Yandere, despite being on a less powerful console. Most of the main voice cast returns, with Cristina Pucelli once again returning as the voice of Star Siren/Saiyuki, who has more lines in this game than ever before. Cindy Robinson voices the game's main villainess, the Weaver of Sorrows, the one who has captured Saiyuki and her friends and has trapped them in the book. The game has seven chapters. Chapters 1 through 5 are each dedicated to rescuing one of Saiyuki's friends, the four Star Souls and Anthony. Each time Saiyuki rescues one, however, they are transformed into a more powerful being and are thralled into the Weaver's service, forced to battle Saiyuki at a later time. Chapter 6 is a more complex chapter that brings in Minamora, who still has hard feelings toward Saiyuki after the events of The Fateful Yandere. Saiyuki asks the player whether or not to trust Minamora, who she suspects is being thralled into a villain just like her other friends. Through a series of events, Saiyuki and Minamora's friendship is tested, and ultimately, the player will decide whether or not Saiyuki should trust her. If the player chooses to do so, Minamora becomes an ally to Saiyuki, making the events of the final chapter somewhat easier. If the player chooses not to trust her, Minamora willingly turns on Saiyuki, becoming an ally to the Weaver of Sorrows. Chapter 7 begins with Saiyuki battling her transformed friends to free their minds from the Weaver's thrall, and eventually battling the Weaver herself, or Minamora if Saiyuki chose not to trust her. If Minamora is battled and defeated, she and Saiyuki reconcile somewhat, but Minamora's feelings are still hurt, leading to a less satisfying ending. In the end, Saiyuki defeats the Weaver of Sorrows and escapes the storybook along with her friends. The game ends with a speech read by Saiyuki to the player, with its contents depending on how the player did throughout the game. There are thousands of different speeches possible (via the alteration of various sentences or small details), but the best case scenario is a happy Saiyuki reading a heartfelt thank you, ranging all the way to the worst case scenario of a sad/angry Saiyuki telling the player they could have done better.

    Star Siren: You And Me is released in October 2010 to excellent reviews, much better than the reviews for The Fateful Yandere and comparable to the reviews for the first two titles. The game's interactive storybook format is considered one of the most innovative in the history of the genre, and the player's interactions with Saiyuki over the course of the game are praised by most reviews for their heartwarming nature. Some criticism over the decreased difficulty and the lack of playable Star Souls does surface, but these concerns are mostly brushed aside, and the game is considered one of the iTwin's best exclusives of the year. Sales are also excellent in both Japan and North America, making the series one of Capcom's most lucrative current properties and a major exclusive property for Apple (after starting its life as a Nintendo exclusive). More Star Siren games are immediately put into production, and the game's success also kicks off a wave of merchandise sales as well.

    -

    NiGHTS And The Seeker Of Lost Visions

    The fourth game in the NiGHTS series and the first for the Apple iTwin, NiGHTS And The Seeker Of Lost Visions focuses on the titular character as he explores the dream realm in pursuit of a powerful woman named Violet who has the same powers as him, only instead of using those powers to grant wishes and pleasant dreams to children, she uses them to search for her lost childhood friend Marcel, causing havoc and nightmares in her wake. Like previous games in the series, NiGHTS has the power to fly through the air, building up his Dream Meter to unleash powerful combination attacks on foes and soar to even greater heights. However, NiGHTS can now use his power to alter the dreamscape around him, creating things out of thin air or destroying certain stage hazards. Combat is now a bit of a juggle between using NiGHTS' powers for creation or for destruction, taking a more defensive (or even fully pacifistic) approach to combat or going all out aggressive. As for Violet, she simply wishes to be left alone. She's far more powerful than NiGHTS, but won't fight him unprovoked. However, her powers leave nightmare beasts everywhere she goes, and they can be followed to track Violet through the various worlds she invades. The game's combat and exploration, apart from the dream alteration mechanic, are much simpler than in previous games, with only one meter to worry about and more freedom of exploration. The player's only task in the ten worlds that NiGHTS visits is to find Violet. This can be done very quickly or quite slowly, and only needs to be done once, with the challenge along the way coming from the various obstacles that the player must find a way to traverse and the clues and puzzles they have to solve. Once the player reaches Violet, there's always some kind of confrontation and some kind of challenge, either a battle, a chase, or sometimes a combination of both, while sometimes it can depend on where exactly Violet is found. With each passing world NiGHTS visits, more and more of the dream world is being torn up by Violet's activities, leading to some truly surreal visuals and powerful enemies in later levels, which the game's outstanding, high definition 3-D graphics do an excellent job of depicting. As the player travels through the game, they learn more and more about Violet and Marcel's relationship and how the two of them became separated. Eventually, NiGHTS learns that the boy was trapped in the nightmare realm and succumbed to its terrors, while Violet refuses to accept that he is gone. Finally, in the ninth of ten worlds, the nightmares all vanish and NiGHTS enters a paradise in which Violet and Marcel lived their lives and have grown up and had a family. Violet doesn't want to leave this dream world, but its energy is absorbing all the dreams from all other worlds, turning them into nightmares. Once NiGHTS forcibly severs Violet's connection to this world, she goes insane and uses her powers to create a paradise where everyone is eternally dreaming, but in which their minds refuse to accept this, causing nightmares to appear (sort of like the failed original "paradise" Matrix of the Matrix series). NiGHTS battles his way through this disturbing paradise realm to find Violet ruling it as a queen. She tells NiGHTS that he can use his powers to make everyone accept this dream and have paradise forever, but NiGHTS tries to tell Violet that even the sweetest dreams can't last forever. Violet begs NiGHTS to help her, and when he refuses, she attacks him and a boss battle begins. The battle between NiGHTS and Violet is a callback to the last three games of the series, with visual and gameplay elements from all three of them. NiGHTS is able to turn the nightmare creatures against Violet in order to defeat her, and Violet uses her powers to trap herself in an eternal dream. NiGHTS could wake her, but decides against it, having freed everyone else from Violet's dream realm, he leaves her dreaming eternally, living the life she and Marcel dreamed of as children.

    NiGHTS And The Seeker Of Lost Visions is quite positively reviewed, coming exclusively to the iTwin in December 2010. More well received than Dream's End, but only slightly, it's praised for its outstanding graphics and poignant story, though the gameplay is criticized as being a bit too repetitive, and the worlds for not being as creative as those in previous games. The world creation mechanic is also positively received, but the traditional controls are considered quite clunky compared to the motion controls which allow the player to control NiGHTS and manipulate the world at the same time more easily. Ultimately, The Seeker Of Lost Visions is seen as a success for the iTwin, but not quite as big a blockbuster as Star Siren: You And Me, and it's clear that the franchise's status as a triple-A one has passed, though the series would still continue on both consoles and handhelds, perhaps returning more to the series' roots rather than attempting to make the world and the gameplay more complex.
     
    • Fall 2010 (Part 11) - A Trio Of Super RPGs For The Supernova

    • RySenkari

    Elvenfall II: Ladies In Waiting

    Elvenfall II: Ladies In Waiting is the sequel to 2008's Elvenfall and, like its predecessor, is published and localized by Ubisoft in North America, though it was developed and published by a different company in Japan, the same company that made the first game. This game, like the last Elvenfall, features female elves as protagonists, and in this game, there are eight total playable characters comprised of two groups of four: a group of beautiful princesses, and their noble ladies in waiting. The ladies in waiting are in fact the first four characters that the player will use over the course of the game, with the princesses having been captured before the events of the game and the four ladies in waiting uniting to save them. The quests to save the princesses take up about the first third of the game, and after all four princesses have been rescued, they get their own short quest before joining the party to make eight total playable characters. In battle, the player can switch between the princess or their lady in waiting, but both of them can't be in the same fighting party at once. The Elvenlink system returns and is now augmented by Elvenswap, special abilities that the princess and their lady in waiting can use while one of them is on the "bench", combining the powers and abilities of both women into one powerful attack or spell or offense/defense buff. Mastering the best party combinations and the Elvenlink/Elvenswap system is the best way to maximise the party's efficiency and succeed against the game's tough bosses. The overall plot of the game sees the four princesses captured in order to use their powers to bring about another Elvenfall, this time on purpose, by an evil elven wizard who seeks to end the world as revenge for the destruction of his civilization. After the princesses are rescued from the wizard's various minions, his first plan is foiled and he starts to conjure a more complex plan as the princesses and their ladies in waiting adventure around the world together for a way to stop him. The plot of the game is a bit less complex than that of the original Elvenfall, but the game makes up for it with more rewarding and challenging gameplay. The world itself isn't quite as big, and there are a few more fetch quests that have less bearing on the story, but the overall experience is similar in pacing and length to the original Elvenfall, and fans of the first game aren't disappointed with the second. Like the previous title, Elvenfall II's localization was done in Toronto, with Toronto-area voice actors, including Tajja Isen as the voice of Kanae, a young lady in waiting to the elegant and somewhat haughty princess Staria (voiced by Emilie-Claire Barlow), and Emily Hampshire as the voice of Varna, the stoic and chivalrous lady in waiting to the demure princess Isna (voiced by Stephanie Anne Mills). The relationships between the princesses and their ladies vary, from BFFs to somewhat antagonistic, and the journey tests not only the bonds between them, but the bonds between all eight heroines brought together by the ties of fate. The game features slightly improved graphics and sound over the beautiful Elvenfall, with a lovely anime aesthetic and excellent animation, and another fantastic soundtrack from Daisuke Amaya. Elvenfall II is released in North America in November 2010, with strong first week sales thanks mostly to Gamestop preorders, though obviously the game's sales were utterly dwarfed by Pokemon Rise And Fall. A critical and commercial success on the same level as the original, Elvenfall has quickly become one of the more popular handheld JRPG franchises.

    -

    NeoXanadu

    NeoXanadu is the latest game in Nihon Falcom's Dragon Slayer series. It's an action-RPG quite similar in gameplay and tone to OTL's Tokyo Xanadu, though with entirely different characters and a different plot as well. The game features a modern day setting, though rather than taking place in Tokyo, it takes place in a fictional world and metropolis called Harazanda, a city plagued by mysterious beasts commanded by silent hooded figures. The protagonist Totaka must assemble a team of heroes, most of them students at his high school, to chase down these beasts, cleanse the portals from which they emerged, and get to the bottom of the mystery before Harazanda and its citizens are slaughtered. The game has somewhat of a dark tone, but between dungeon crawling and chasing down beasts, there's a somewhat decent high school sim game in which Totaka and his fellow heroes can level up and earn treasure by succeeding in solving problems for their classmates, their teachers, and the citizens of the city. The dungeons and battles themselves carry over a lot of elements from the old Xanadu and Dragon Slayer games, including the Karma meter and puzzle filled dungeons, in sort of a throwback to classic dungeon crawling titles, though navigation through dungeons is much easier and similar to a modern role playing game, with all battles taking place in real time. Players can switch between which party members they control and are also able to program the game's AI for their companion members, making battles in dungeons more manageable. As the player progresses through the game, they learn more and more about the identities of the mysterious hooded figures, who are serving a master they call Phantom. Phantom is seeking to abduct people from Harazanda and flood their minds with fears in order to control them, and may have gotten to one of Totaka's friends as well, creating tension within his group. Phantom turns out to be an ancient evil entity responsible for destroying numerous ancient cities by sowing seeds of fear and distrust, and as the game progresses, Harazanda is falling more and more under his spell, forcing the heroes to fight with everything they have to gain victory. NeoXanadu is a fairly average Supernova game in terms of graphics, though it still looks impressive to see such an RPG on a handheld console. The real joy of the game is in its battle system and sim aspects, both of which players find quite fun. There's also a decent postgame with some strong superbosses for expert players to try their luck taking out. NeoXanadu is released in North America in December 2010, about a year after the original's release in Japan. While it doesn't become more than a cult classic in the West, it does manage to carve out a decent niche, and is one of Nihon Falcom's most popular seventh generation localizations.

    -

    Radiant Historia

    Radiant Historia is a traditional JRPG developed by Atlus for the Game Boy Supernova. Like the OTL title, it features as its main gameplay element the ability to travel back and forth between branching timelines, though in TTL's game, there are three different timelines rather than two, and the main plot has significant differences from OTL's, with only the concept of sacrifices and the two main characters being brother and sister remaining in the game. TTL's Radiant Historia has similar gameplay to its OTL counterpart, with battles taking place on a grid and characters able to target spots on that grid to be able to strike multiple enemies, or one enemy multiple times, or a combination of the two. The game's graphics are similar to OTL's Perfect Chronology 3DS remake of the game, due to the Supernova's superior technical capabilities compared to OTL's DS, and the TTL game features full voice acting in both Japanese and (in the localization) English. Yoko Shimamura composes the game's score, just like IOTL. The game takes place in a time of great technological upheaval, in which society is transitioning into an industrial age. A soldier named Clavis is assigned to protect a young diplomat named Martin as the two travel through disputed enemy territory. However, the mission goes awry, leading to Marin being killed and Clavis caught between timelines. At first, there are only two different timelines, but a major story revelation later in the game leads to the discovery of another timeline, and how Clavis and his allies navigate these three timelines will determine the course of the game and the fate of a world. Clavis' sister is the assassin Shara, who at first does not know she has a brother (indeed, at the start of the game she tries to kill him). However, like Eruca in OTL's Radiant Historia, Shara's destiny is tied to her brother's, and her choices can also shape how the game plays out. Clavis will begin to navigate between three timelines: a timeline of peace, a timeline of war, and a timeline focused on technological progress caught somewhere inbetween. In the original timeline, Martin's death starts a war between three nations, forcing Clavis and Shara into a cycle of violence as they seek to overthrow a genocidal leader. In the second timeline, the timeline of peace, Martin makes it to the city safely, and though things are ostensibly peaceful, Martin's scheming leads to an increasingly sinister series of events. In the third timeline, the timeline of technological progress, Clavis meets a scientist named Nora whose inventions turn the world upside down, leading to war but also saving certain lives that are snuffed out in the other two timelines. All three timelines lead to the need for a sacrifice, either Clavis or Shara, in order to keep the world from being torn apart by an ancient evil force. Martin's scheming is actually aimed at finding and stopping this evil force, while Nora can use her technology to suppress it. In the end, there's a climactic boss battle which differs between the three timelines. In the peace timeline, Clavis sacrifices himself. In the war timeline, Shara sacrifices herself. And in the technological progress timeline, Clavis and Shara are able to both survive, but Nora's invention to stop the sacrifices leaves the world precariously fractured. Only in the true ending, which, like the OTL game, is achieved through viewing and completing all events in all three timelines, is the player able to defeat the true final boss and save the world without the need for any sacrifices. Radiant Historia is released in Japan in early 2010 and in North America in December 2010, and is quite well received by both critics and fans. Like IOTL, the game is seen as an outstanding cult classic with a small but devoted fanbase, but unlike in OTL, there aren't any shortages of the physical version of the game, and a digital version is freely available from launch day. Radiant Historia caps off a holiday season of excellent JRPGs for the Supernova, with games to appeal to just about any type of player, from young to old, from fans of the traditional to fans of the weird, and in a year that saw a JRPG resurgence, it was probably the Supernova that had the best lineup in the genre.

    -

    *A battle video shows Princess Peach extending her hand toward a giant dragon-like enemy and shooting beams of lightning at it, doing three consecutive hits and causing the dragon to take on the paralysis status effect.*

    Super Peach RPG is coming to the Game Boy Supernova in February, and this RPG adventure is Peach's first ever solo outing.

    *Peach is shown walking through a town, talking to various Goombas and Koopas who share information with her.*

    As Princess Peach, you turn the damsel in distress role upside down, journeying across the realm to rescue... Bowser?

    *An angry Bowser is roaring as he is carried off in a giant cage made of bone. Peach is then shown hitting an item box to collect treasure, equipping accessories which appear visually on her body on the field and in battle, and then hitting an enemy with an umbrella timed hit.*

    But you won't be fighting alone. You'll team up with new allies, including a beautiful and glamorous ghost, a homesick Piranha Plant, and even the Koopaling Wendy to rescue Bowser from his captors.

    *Peach and Wendy glare angrily at each other as a Magikoopa tries to get between them. Wendy is then shown in battle, getting into her shell and smacking an enemy.*

    Learn special new fighting techniques to really put the hurt on foes.

    *Peach is shown using her umbrella to bat hearts into a crowd of enemies, dealing damage to all of them. She's then shown growing to giant size, sucking in air, and then blowing it out as a huge tornado.*

    And find the magical Heartstones to increase Peach's magical power.

    *Peach poses happily as she holds a pink Heartstone high.*

    This time, the princess is the hero, and with skills like these, who needs Mario?

    *A quick battle montage is shown of Peach's various powers, followed by some overworld dungeon and puzzle solving scenes, and finally, Peach blowing a kiss at the screen.*

    Super Peach RPG will launch on February 22, 2011, and is available for pre-order now at Gamestop. Pre-orders will receive a collectible pink Game Boy Supernova carrying case while supplies last.

    -from an advertisement on Gamestop TV, which began showing in stores chainwide in November 2010
     
    • Fall 2010 (Part 12) - The End Of One Story

    • RySenkari

    Rogue's Story IV

    The fourth game in the Rogue's Story series and the second for the Xbox 2, Rogue's Story IV tells a much more traditional RPG story than its predecessor. Like in Rogue's Story III, the game lets you choose between a male or female protagonist and fully customize them, but rather than start at a busy port city like in the last title, the game starts your character out in a small village as a young but ordinary peasant who must find their destiny as one of a number of different classes and professions. Magic plays a somewhat less prominent role in Rogue's Story IV, which has more of an emphasis on melee combat and ranged weaponry, though you can learn magic fairly early in the game if you go out of your way to do so. Rogue's Story IV has a more open-ended story, giving only hints and snippets of the main questline to the player, even once they're a significant way through the game. The game does encourage the player to take on a more morally ambiguous character path early on, staying true to its "rogue"-ish title, and emphasizing stealth with a revamped sneaking system, though stealth is never completely mandatory. The game does stick to a fairly light-hearted tone, though it is a bit heavier handed than in Rogue's Story III, especially with how cruel some NPCs treat your character early on. There's less opportunities to join guilds or parties in this game, with the protagonist mostly their own person for the most part, though it is possible to take on one of 15 different companions throughout the game. The main quest itself has to do with a dragon that has been plaguing the realm, slaughtering people and stealing treasure, though as it turns out, the dragon has been awakened by a long-forgotten king who was overthrown long ago and seeks to reclaim his birthright by destroying everything and starting over. It may take some time to complete this main questline, as the dragon is extremely powerful and being able to defeat it will take excellent equipment and a lot of grinding for skills, stats, and XP. Fortunately, the main quest, which branches out numerous times, also takes a good bit to complete, and doing so will help your character get powerful enough to battle the dragon. Of course, you don't have to participate in the main storyline, it's just as fun to go roaming around the realm, performing heists and sneaking into places, and the game's world itself is huge, even bigger than the world of Rogue's Story III. Graphically, the game takes a more minimalistic approach, though this does enable the graphical detail and polish to be greatly enhanced, so overall, the game looks significantly better than Rogue's Story III, appropriate for a late-generation Xbox 2 title.

    Rogue's Story IV is released on October 19, 2010. The franchise has always been a popular one for Microsoft, especially coming off the well-received third installment, and this game is no exception, becoming one of the most hyped releases of the year for the console. Reviews are quite good, about on par with those of Rogue's Story III, with critics and fans split about 50-50 on which game is better. Some aspects of the game are received better than Rogue's Story III, while others are criticized, particularly the lack of guilds and the game's slightly darker tone. The game's sales are quite good, becoming one of 2010's best selling Xbox 2 exclusives, but, unlike The Covenant 4, it doesn't move Xbox 2 consoles and was never meant to. In many ways, Rogue's Story IV is somewhat bittersweet, as the game would end up being the Xbox 2's last significant exclusive title. Every major release of 2011 for the Xbox 2 would be a multiplatform game, with the system itself seeing major releases significantly slowed during 2011. The Xbox 2's sales had entered a sharp decline after The Covenant 4, and with no new major games in sight, those sales numbers had gone into an almost unstoppable freefall. Despite the Xbox 2's failing fortunes, Rogue's Story IV is a good seller, and would turn a healthy profit, remaining one of the few bright spots in an overall depressing year for the console.

    -

    Numerous game publishers have now confirmed a rumor that we first reported several months ago, a rumor that bodes very poorly for the future of Microsoft as a hardware producer. Though we've heard whispers of an Xbox 3 system being in the works, we can now confirm that the "Xbox 3" development kits that have been getting sent out over the past 12 months are intended for PC game development and not, as we once believed, a new Microsoft console. While Microsoft intends to remain an active company in the game development arena, and while Windows 7 has been getting a strong push as a game platform, we don't appear to be seeing any movement from the company toward the development of a new console, and this latest news all but confirms that the company has suspended its home gaming hardware plans indefinitely.

    Rogue's Story IV was announced as the last exclusive of any significance for the Xbox 2 earlier this year. Software companies have mostly shied away from the console, particularly on exclusivity deals, with Nintendo's Sapphire proving too powerful and too popular for companies not to port games to. While a few digital releases and indie games are planned as Xbox 2 exclusives in 2011, we've heard nothing on any major AAA titles, with the last rumored exclusive, a shooter based on the Warhammer 40,000 franchise, announcing a Sapphire port when it's released next spring. Memory Hole 2, a timed exclusive for the Xbox 2, will be coming to the Sapphire next year, and we've also learned that Psygnosis' upcoming Cyberwar Trilogy will be coming to the Sapphire and the iTwin but not the Xbox 2, denying owners of that system an opportunity to purchase a compilation of all three games together.

    This comes amidst news that the Microsoft Phone, intended to be a potential bridge between the Xbox 2 and a possible Xbox 3, is now being pushed strictly to compete with the iPhone and high-end Android devices, and while it will play Xbox titles, it won't have any connectivity with the Xbox 2 console itself. The Microsoft Phone has remained fairly popular, and is poised to be the second most popular phone model in the United States and Canada, behind the iPhone. However, while Microsoft has seen its fortunes turn for the better with its software and mobile sectors, that success has not translated over to the Xbox 2, which has become a source of significant financial loss for Microsoft. To quote one industry analyst, "Microsoft would do well to discontinue the Xbox line, cutting off the finger to save the hand, as it were." We've yet to hear any announcements from Microsoft on the fate of the Xbox 2, and it's likely that the company may let that console fade into obscurity, and perhaps announce a new PC gaming initiative in place of any future Xbox 3 announcement.

    -from a December 1, 2010 article on Games Over Matter
     
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