In 2004 I played what I consider to be one of the finest “serious” adventure games I’ve ever encountered: Kojima’s Snatcher on the Sega CD. Afterward I prayed along with many others for a sequel, which never came. I’m the last person that should be writing a story on one of Hideo Kojima’s games. After Snatcher, I tried to enjoy Metal Gear: Solid on several occasions, but the gameplay did not appeal to me, and I ended up passing on the rest of the series as a result. In that sense, I am thoroughly ignorant of the mass appeal to Kojima’s games.

In 2006, I found out that Kojima had made a spiritual sequel to Snatcher in the same genre of “hard” science-fiction: POLICENAUTS. And though the game had never been localized and released outside of Japan, a few dedicated folks had already been working on an English translation of it for years.

In August 2009, the Policenauts unofficial translation team announced that their long journey, begun in 2002, had come to an end and they were ready to release it to the public. As one of the many fans who waited anxiously for a Kojima game that followed in the spiritual footsteps of Snatcher, I dove right into Policenauts on the release date.

I wasn’t disappointed.

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Atlus has just released an launch trailer for 3D Dot Game Heroes, which is great, because as much as I’ve been following the title I really have had no idea about narrative details and the like. Along with catchy phrases from Atlus such as “pure retro sexy” and “ultimate retro love letter”, the trailer suggests something rather awesome, namely that the Kingdom of Dotnia willingly moved from 2D to 3D.

Realizing this, I said to Atlus, “Seriously? Because that’s kind of awesome.”

To which they said, “Yes, the King decreed it, and Dotnia moved to 3D and it is very awesome.”

Catch the trailer after the break.

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Acquire and Sony (C.A.M.P.!), the pairing that brought us Holy Invasion of Privacy Badman!, have another PSP title on the horizon - which I’m already semi in love with even though it could be forever before it reaches North America.

The game involves landing your team on a series of large invading airships, and moving over their surfaces while tearing holes in the hull and causing explosions that splinter the attackers into pieces before they can reach and bombard your village.

The visuals appear to merge Badman’s graphical nostalgia with an overall smoother artstyle that I find hard to resist.

Pay a visit to the game’s Japanese site, or catch some video after the break courtesy of AndriaSang.

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This morning we heard that Capcom intended to port the Phoenix Wright series to WiiWare in Japan, and the studio has now confirmed that this will indeed be happening in North America as well, beginning in January at a cost of 1,000 Wii Points per game.

As for motion controls, word is that players will be able to present evidence by swinging the WiiMote, and press suspicious testimonies by waving it.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (Episode 1 through 4) will be available in January, with the fifth bonus episode unique to the DS release made available in May for an additional 100 Wii Points.

Justice for All will release in March, and Trails and Tribulations will complete the trilogy’s move in May.

Realizing that the fifth episode in Ace Attorney was a bonus for the DS remake, and that Capcom is likely returning to the GBA releases for their porting source material, I still feel the urge to shout “Objection!” at the idea of it being separated and sold as additional content. Any good lawyer knows these sorts of things invite contempt from the jury.

For three consecutive nights, my girl and I have loaded our WiiMotes as if they were pistols, complete with nerdy sound effects, and found more multiplayer fun with The Darkside Chronicles than any other game we’ve played together this year. With a guilty weakness for light gun games, but a collection of titles that left plenty to be desired, we initially went into the game with a healthy amount of hesitation.

As stifled as the genre is, given that no amount of fancy words changes the fact that players are simply pointing at the screen and pulling a trigger, this release offers a reminder that there’s a genre to develop a game within, as with any other. And while the mechanics are straight-forward, that doesn’t rule out the possibility of creating a memorable experience, so long as developers accept that challenge rather than trying to shoehorn existing franchises into the setup.

Keep in mind I’ve largely ignored Dead Space Extraction for this very reason, simply because it’s burdened with the perception of providing a quick and easy means of moving the franchise onto the Wii.

When it came to The Darkside Chronicles, I did only expect to play long enough to get my Resident Evil fix. And yet for three nights in a row, we’ve played until our eyes were swollen red and our trigger fingers went from itchy to aching.

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Several sites are reporting a Famitsu reveal of a No More Heroes remake, with the extended title of Paradise, set to hit the PS3 and 360 in Japan this February. This would be the first of those HD remakes Marvelous expressed an interest in doing earlier this year, and we assume would drop all concern about motion controls, given that those systems won’t have any during that release window. This also has nothing to do with the upcoming Wii sequel, just to keep it straight.

Since I’m still not sure that I enjoyed the original Wii release as much as other people, it’ll be interesting to see how the game crosses over, assuming it’s heading our way as well. Will Suda51’s style work for the HD crowd?

Guess we’ll find out soon enough, but I’ll really miss the little nuances I did enjoy, such as holding the WiiMote to my ear like a cellphone.

Siliconera has the Famtisu scans.

I started writing a response to my chime in post yesterday, which has now gotten entirely too long and resulted in this second post - so, here’s my additional thoughts and the view gathered from the roundtable that got me started.

We had a university professor there with us, who has actually been researching the Wii and its audience - what makes it such an attractive system for the masses. And he’s come up with some interesting points that I want to add, specifically about how motion is used on the Wii.

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I impulsively checked the official Left 4 Dead 2 website yesterday(all those L4D2 ads plastered around the muni are super-effective) and came across these fantastic wallpaper-sized concept art drawings that have been uploaded generously by Valve to increase the awesomeness of our computer screens. My particular favorites were the black and white renderings of the new special infected accented with tiny splashes of gory color. Head on over to the official Left 4 Dead blog and check out the rest of this cool art yourself.

Wallpaper Art @ L4D2 Blog

And not to skimp out on love for the original game, check past the cut for a video of an NES demake of the game.

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I hadn’t quite settled in here when BlazBlue Calamity Trigger hit the shelves this year. I’ve earnestly meant to revisit the series since then, and odds are I’ll still make good on that intention. Better yet, there’s plenty of more for the series in the works, which means more chances to talk about the fighting game that seduced so many of us.

At the core of what I love about the series is the way the fluidity of characters extends naturally from their designs. With that in mind, I’ve got an opportunity to giveaway some of the artbooks that accompanied the game as a pre-order bonus, courtesy of Aksys Games. Hopefully we can get these into the hands of some fans who missed a chance at picking one up.

So here’s the deal. Leave us a comment on this post about which BlazBlue character is your favorite and why, for a chance to win. Everyone will have an equal chance to win regardless of where they live, and has until Sunday morning (November 22, 2009) to leave a comment - at which point I’ll randomly draw five winners.

Good Luck!

While EA hasn’t made it official quite yet, there’s enough reaction and word emerging to conclude that the rumors circulating earlier this morning are true, and that Pandemic Studios is being closed.

My first reaction was to revisit a piece written by Chris Lepine when EA originally sought to purchase Pandemic and Bioware, which has unfortunately managed to hold fairly true, insofar as Pandemic is concerned. Sadder still that I never doubted that it would.

But this became a cynical viewpoint during EA’s public image overhaul, when plenty of people were happy to proliferate the idea that “hating EA is so last year,” and the company was portrayed as an important player in the development of new IPs. Which produced one legitimately important title, that was immediately recoiled from in favor of safer roads.

Turns out some trends never go out of style, and what was hot in previous years is free to resurface again.

There are no signs that this will affect the release of Pandemic’s new IP, The Saboteur, which is slated to hit shelves on December 8.

At MIGS yesterday, I attended a roundtable led by Sebastian Grinke, lead designer at EA Montreal, where the topic covered;

- Why are first party games dominating Wii Sales?
- What can 3rd party developers do differently to make their games successful on the Wii?

This brought up a discussion about a few 3rd party titles that did well on the Wii, some of which certainly surprised me.

Carnival Games was a title that exceeded sale expectations - taking the 13th spot (I think that’s what he said) among the top selling Wii titles. Then we have Shaun White, which kind of flopped on the next gen systems, but did really well on the Wii with the added Balance Board option, along with EA Sports Active, which followed in the Wii Fit footsteps, bringing a more western workout to the Wii audience.

The biggest surprise for me was, Disney High School Musical 3: Senior Year which did quite well on the Wii.

Why were those 3rd party games successful, and not games like Madworld, The Conduit, and other mature titles gamers have been asking for on our under-loved console? Of course this is by no means a new question, but certainly one still searching for an answer.

I’m not overwhelmingly familiar with most of From Softwares oeuvre, never been much of a mech person. Still, I’ve been following 3d Dot Game Heroes quite closely. This loving tribute to the games of yore may be a complete Zelda ripoff, but I really do think that I love it all the more for that.

A cryptic tweet from Sony a little while back reassured us that it was coming to the US. We just didn’t know who would be bringing it over. Well, that mystery has been solved. Atlus, who also published From Software’s unexpectedly successful Demons Souls, will be bringing ths lovely 3D tribute to the days of 2D out in the United States on May 11, 2010 for the sweet, sweet price of $39.99.

Stay tuned, we’ll be bringing you a lot more on this game as it gets closer to its official release.

Official Webpage

… has a really sexy cover. Look at that thing! That is a beautiful piece of work, and will look pretty phenomenal in its tin case.

The rest of the set is pretty standard - an art book, behind the scenes DVD, and a comic book. Nothing too special, but I’d be willing to spend the extra ten bucks for that cover. The collector’s edition will launch on on January 26th, the same day as the standard edition.

See the full cover art
Preorder the CE (Amazon affiliate link) - PC, 360

I’ve been meaning to write about Machinarium for about a month now. My problem is finding the words to say. Sure, I could talk about the gameplay for paragraph upon paragraph, but I think that’s missing the point. All that you really need to know is that Machinarium is a point-and-click in the most traditional sense. It opens up a little later on, but for the most part, each screen is self-contained. You need to solve a few puzzles to move on and every item that you need is right there. Figuring out how to use those items is the hard part. And, well, that’s it.

I don’t mean to downplay the gameplay, it is challenging and it is satisfying as hell when you take down a tough puzzle. Again, that is completely missing the point. Dozens of games released this year have functionally the same gameplay. The entire reason that I love Machinarium, and the entire reason that I want to talk about it is the artwork.

Machinarium is one of the most beautiful games that I’ve ever played.

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So today I spent my day at the Montreal International Game Summit, attending different panels about game development, and a roundtable on Wii’s 1st party success - more on that later.

The first panel that I attended this morning was with Square-Enix’s president and CEO, Yoichi Wada. With their recent purchase of Eidos, Wada San kind of confirmed that Eidos Montreal was working on a 3rd game in collaboration with Square-Enix. As you all know, Eidos Montreal is currently working on Thi4f and Deus Ex 3. They weren’t ready to talk about it, but it’s always fun to speculate. Will it be a new IP, or an old Square-Enix franchise?