FIFA 12 - Career Mode Preview

It's fair to say that we were a little underwhelmed by the Career mode in FIFA 11. EA's new feature combined the previously separate Manager and Be-A-Pro modes from FIFA 10, but effectively lost a lot of the details and nuances of each mode in the translation. In-depth stats from the Manager mode fell by the wayside, as did international call-ups from the Be-A-Pro mode; Backroom Staff were ripped out, as was the Player Form feature that debuted in FIFA 10. FIFA 11's career mode appeared to make two modes half as good, and then combine them together into a single offering. Not only did you feel like there was less content on offer, but that content felt shallower and less football-savvy too (who actually starts their career as an inexperienced, 18 year-old player manager of Man Utd anyway?).

At the very least though, EA Canada won't simply be re-boxing the same Career mode from FIFA 11 with all the relevant updates this year. There's clearly been a concerted effort to turn the mode into something resembling a more cohesive managerial experience this time around. "With the second year of Career mode, what we really wanted to get to was a more authentic way of being a manager in particular," FIFA's Producer, David Rutter told us. "It's been really focused on the manager experience this year, to try and experience some of the things that happen to real managers in the real-world based around real-world situations."

After a short stint of hands-on time with the mode, there's certainly some substance behind these claims. One significant addition comes in the form of Youth Scouts, which first have to be hired from a pool of hopefuls and can then be set to the task of recruiting decent young players for your side. "Send a scout away and they'll come back with some recommendations but they're vague," explains Rutter. "Send them again and they'll come back with a greater sense of accuracy but, the more times you do that, the more chance there is of another club stepping in and taking them."

Player Interactions are another step forward this year, where members of your team will express their disappointment at not getting enough games, a lack of achievement at the club, or a wage dispute. This all forms part of a new Player Morale system, although you'll receive similar interactions from players who've received injuries as well. During our play-through, a slightly dismayed Raul Meireles informed us that he'd received a knock during a previous game but hoped to be fit for the next match. It was little more than a text box that popped-up in the menu screen, but it's a neat little addition nonetheless so long as it doesn't get arduously repetitive.

Another area that's been highlighted for improvement is the transfer system. In addition to a new transfer deadline day that offers multiple advances in one day (allowing multiple rounds of negotiations to take place) rather than the previous system that treated deadline day like any other, EA has also promised a more believable system for transfer/contract negotiations with other players/clubs. "They're sometimes high-balling, sometimes low-balling. Sometimes they'll high-ball then low-ball; sometimes they'll low-ball then high-ball to try and interact with you in a slightly unpredictable but realistic way," said Rutter.

Our experience with this side of the mode was limited once again, but even the examples it did throw up were a little dubious. Teams such as Inter Milan, Chelsea, and Olympic Marseille all offered bids for Jamie Carragher, two of which showed examples of low-balling with Chelsea offering £3.5 million and Inter Milan offering £5.5 million against a £6.5 million valuation for the player. The new system does appear to throw up more realistic negotiations then, but the question you've really got to ask yourself is why two of Europe's biggest sides would be interested in spending big money on a 33 year-old central defender whose best years are long behind him.

The caveat at this point, of course, is that the build demoed to us by EA was a work in progress and not representative of the final game - many improvements are left to be made. But it's worth remembering that these kinds of shortcomings frequently sold FIFA 11's Career mode short and broke any sense of suspended disbelief that the game successfully built up elsewhere. One of our gripes with FIFA 11's mode was how CPU teams tended to loan out their experienced first-team regulars, and these sorts of shortcomings were still painfully apparent during our hands-on. When we booted up a game as a player manager in the FIFA 12 build, our board of directors suggested that we loan out a young hopeful for more match experience when that young hopeful just happened to be our Virtual Pro. Unfortunately there was no option to respond to their suggestion with the remark, 'Are you drunk or stupid?'.

Regardless of all of these additions for FIFA 12 though, perhaps our main concern is that so much of what made the previous Manager and Be-A-Pro modes so good still won't be coming to the Career mode in FIFA 12. "I know that international management in particular is one of the biggest questions that we get asked - it's not in this year," Rutter confirmed. "Ultimately it boils down to simple prioritisation issues - bang for buck, what do we think

 

matters most? Sometimes we put things in that benefit the game in a way that isn't immediately obvious to people; they might not see what the cool stuff was."

"Last year it was the underlying competition engine. Most people don't care about that kind of stuff but for us it was a really big accomplishment and we didn't make a big song and dance about it because we knew nobody would be interested in the technology that we're using to pump the tournaments round..." Rutter said.

"...In the meantime people are saying, 'Where is this? Where is that? I wanted my this, I wanted my that,' and everyone has every right to want exactly what they want, it's just sometimes we can't do it and we can't do it because it's not quite at the top of the priority list, or it's just that the amount of time and effort that would go into doing it would take away something far more important. Some people missed some things, some people loved over stuff. Ultimately we're trying to just make the best game we can."

We have no doubt that EA Canada is making the best game it can, or that this year's Career mode will be better than last year's. For us, it's looking like it still won't offer the depth that the previous Be-A-Pro and Manager modes had separately in FIFA 10, but at the very least it's building towards a more immersive managerial experience. The folks at Sports Interactive don't have anything to worry about quite yet though.

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GoldenEye 007: Reloaded - Interview Feature

While Eurocom's Goldeneye Wii-make was never in danger of threatening the classic status of the N64 original, it nonetheless proved to be a robust study of Rare's seminal shooter, re-cast in modern FPS conventions. With an HD port now confirmed for Xbox 360 and PS3, TVG spoke to Activision Producer, James Steer, to find out more about Bond, Stealth, and Goldeneye 007: Reloaded.

Why the decision to bring it over to the HD consoles?

When we were originally thinking about making a Goldeneye game it felt right to make that game for the Wii platform because of the N64 heritage, but when we were developing the game and we started showing it to the press, retailers, and then eventually to the public, it became clear that that wasn't enough, and that people wanted to be able to play the game on PlayStation 3 and  Xbox 360. The problem is that we needed to update the engine for that, and we wanted to be able to deliver 60 frames a second gameplay, 16-player online multiplayer, and photo-realistic graphics. We had the game team at Eurocom concentrate on making sure the Wii game was the best game they could

 

possibly make, while all

 

 

the technology team were able to develop an engine for us to deliver, so when the game team were finished making the Wii version they could roll off. Hence this year we'll see the release of the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions.

So when you were designing the original, the engine was designed with a port in mind straight away?

No it was totally separate. Eurocom work with a separate technology team, because that's the best way - those guys can go make the best tech possible - the gameplay guys are just concentrating on the game. So they can then go and push the graphics engine as far as they can, and the team can just make the best game. Then they come to merge at some point, but while they were making the Wii version we didn't really want to disturb them... so we were like, 'You make sure this game is the best, while the other team worries about the engine.'

What's changed for the port? Are there any new single-player levels in the campaign?

No. The storyline is the same as the story we had updated for the Wii - so we had Bruce Feirstein take the original movie and update it for 2010 to make it relevant. So rather than being about the Cold War it's more about the banking crisis so people recognise it. Because we're introducing Daniel Craig's Bond to the story, we needed to update the story as well. In terms of the actual levels you'll play through in the single-player campaign, they are the same. Obviously every level's been massively updated: new geometry, new textures, new animations, new effects, audio, and a completely new AI system - so the way that they'll play will be completely different to the Wii version. And obviously we've added the MI6 Ops which is an entirely new gameplay feature that wasn't on the Wii, so that's kind of adding over ten hours worth of gameplay - very different style, from Assault to Elimination, to Stealth, to Wave Defense - something for every type of player. For people that like to be defensive, they can challenge themselves by playing those missions and trying to post a really high score, whereas someone who likes to run and gun can go and play Elimination. Multiplayer has also been completely updated to support 16 players: new modes, new maps, new characters, new weapons. We really haven't left any of it alone; it's been completely updated.

So even new animations? Did you get Daniel Craig's body double back in the Mo-Cap studio?

Yeah, we have some more footage of that and we've updated all the animations in the game. Eurocom have their own motion capture studio on-site, so it's really handy for them because they can just get actors in, get them to perform the animations, and they have their pipeline that gets them into the game really quickly, so it's very handy really.

I see - so you brought him back and recorded new ones for the updated version as well?

Yeah.

So in terms of the MI6 Operations mode, where are the levels from - are they sort of sections of the single-player?

 

They're a combination of some of the single-player levels, some of the multiplayer levels, and some new; whichever worked well in the game. The level designers go and look at the levels and think 'Actually, that would make a nice kind of arena for say, Wave Defense'. So it's a combination. Some maps have been updated because they've needed to be made larger because they now hold 16 players, so there'll be some maps that people with the Wii game will recognise, some that will be updated entirely, and some that are completely new.

And there are four modes - are they going to be available on every map?

No. There are specific maps for specific challenges.

So each one has maybe one mode per map?

Yeah, well, there are ten different challenge missions within the MI6 Ops feature. Each one has a leaderboard attached to it so you can be the best at playing say, 'Memorial Defense', or maybe 'Jungle Elimination'.

But then there wouldn't be say a Jungle Assault, or a Jungle Stealth for example?

No, we've picked the environments and the maps specifically for that style.

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GoldenEye 007: Reloaded Preview

Eurocom's Goldeneye 007 really stood out (for a Wii shooter). It had a solid single-player campaign (for a Wii shooter), compelling multiplayer action (for a Wii shooter), and top-drawer graphics (for a Wii shooter). Crucially, there was a sense that Eurocom had genuine respect for the N64 classic: they understood the importance of stealth in the single player level design, and knew that four-player split-screen was a multiplayer must-have. Naturally, it was never going to eclipse the lustre of its Rareware forbear, but (for a Wii Shooter) it was very good indeed.

It even fared far better (critically at least), than Activision's other high profile Bond game, Blood Stone. In fact, the failure of Blood Stone, and relative success of Goldeneye 007, proved if nothing else that releasing a Bond game without a strong license tie-in is a risky proposition, particularly if the gameplay isn't exceptionally solid.

And so we come to Goldeneye 007: Reloaded, a PS360 remake of Eurocom's 'Wii-imagining' of the N64 classic, remastered in 60fps HD. But can a game that was 'good for a Wii shooter' possibly hope to survive in the brutally competitive HD FPS market? And with Blood Stone apparently crashing the Bond market last year, does anyone even really want to play as 007 anymore, anyway?

Eurocom's entire single-player campaign has survived the port intact and without alteration - to the extent that, despite assurances from the team that all assets have been rebuilt for the HD remake ("from the ground up"), it's hard to initially discern much disparity with the Wii version. This is likely more a testament to the confident cinematic direction of the Wii original than an indication of any critical deficiency in the new HD textures and geometry, however. Camera sweeps and level layouts have been faithfully preserved, and the port seems to capture the essence of Eurocom's work - this is, after all, a remake rather than another 're-imagining'. A cursory play-through of the snowy Severnaya level reveals that the visceral melee take-downs of the Wii original are still intact, with the choice of carnage or subtle stealth largely left to player preference (on lower difficulty levels at least).

Nods to the N64 original abound; the camera still pans round into Bond's head at the start of each level, the sniper rifle is still in that first tower of the Dam section, and 007 even rolls off a few asides which reference dialogue from the original game and movie.

"Just like old times," he whispers to 006 as the pair silently subdue a pair of guards at the start of the Dam map (a line originally from the end of Facility in the N64 original - but we won't nitpick when a developer is tapping on the fourth wall).

It's not just like old times, of course. Pierce Brosnan is replaced by Daniel Craig, and Eurocom's Goldeneye has entirely new, Wii-made levels - with Bond writer Bruce Feirstein updating the story to focus on the banking crisis rather than Cold War fallout. Feirstein wasn't the only Bond talent to be drawn to the game; 007 composer Dave Arnold and Craig stunt double Ben Cooke were drafted in to supply music and motion-capture footage as well (for Goldeneye: Reloaded, Eurocom has apparently summoned Cooke back to their on-site motion-capture facility to record additional animations specifically for the port). Naturally Eurocom's gameplay reflects the advances in FPS mechanics that have occurred over the last decade, with grenade indicators, instant-kill melee attacks, regenerating health, and even the ability to aim and move concurrently all making it through to the port.

New to Goldeneye 007: Reloaded are a set of single-player challenges based on reworked sections of the campaign and multiplayer maps (with a few entirely new ones thrown in too). There are ten challenges in total, ranging from Assault and Elimination missions to more exotic Stealth and Wave Defense maps (which charge you with sneaking undetected through a level, or defending an array of computer terminals from waves of AI opponents). An editor is also planned to facilitate custom mission creation, with players selecting from a range of maps, victory conditions and A.I. to set their own challenges. Activision claims that these modes will add an additional 10 hours of play to the single-player experience.

But single-player action is only one half of any successful Goldeneye game. The port team are completely rebuilding the multiplayer portion of Reloaded to accommodate 16-player online matches (up from the Wii version's 8), with re-jigged maps, additional characters and a brand new selection of 'spy-based modes'.

"We just wanted to do some things that are not straight up deathmatch or team deathmatch," Activision Producer, James Steer, told us.

"We're using the fact that we are a 007 game to try and do some things that are maybe slightly different to what you might expect of a first-person shooter." Exactly what those things are is currently a mystery, but the prospect of spy-based multiplayer Bondage is an intriguing one. 4-player offline split-screen has been confirmed, and survives the transition to the HD consoles.

With only a few months until Reloaded's autumn release window, it's clear that substantial polishing remains to be done. Load times, draw-in and the occasional incongruous animation still need addressing, and the stick response on the Xbox 360 build we played felt curiously sluggish. However, such anomalies aren't unusual for pre-Alpha code, and the team are confident that all issues will be resolved in time for launch. No word yet on whether Reloaded will support motion controls ("stay tuned", hinted Steer), but given that the Wii version was built around the option it's not entirely inconceivable.

With upscaled visuals, revamped multiplayer, and improved online support, Goldeneye 007: Reloaded could prove to be the definitive version of Eurocom's likeable Bond FPS. The game will be up against stiff competition in the latter half of the year, and it remains to be seen whether the promised 'spy-based' multiplayer modes and new single-player challenges will prove to be substantive additions to the core offering. Nevertheless, if Activision invest enough in the remake, it might just turn out to be the second best Bond game of all time - not bad for a Wii shooter.

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Heroes of Ruin - Hands-on Preview

“All the character of a corned beef sandwich, with none of the taste.”

“More interesting than an accountancy lecture. Barely.”

And these are some of the nicer comments I've had about my writing. People just don't seem to appreciate generic twaddle. It's as though basic competency isn't enough, as though people expect something original or interesting as well. Something moving or beautiful. Something approaching art. Of course, it's hard to produce art when your subject matter is so consistently unoriginal, when publishers insist that 'design by marketing committee'

 

is a reasonable substitute for artistic vision. It's not surprising that the bearded and obtuse dismiss games as a serious medium when so many titles are so clean-cut and obvious.

Heroes of Ruin seems clean-cut and obvious, at least superficially. The result of a “merging of ideas” between Square-Enix and developer n-Space, you can't help but suspect it's been dreamt up to scratch a marketing itch rather than a creative one. The art style was designed to have “a broad range of appeal” and largely determined by “focus groups” according to Squeenix producer George Wright, and despite being a multiplayer hack-n-slash dungeon-crawler with randomly generated levels and loot, the official line is that it's an Action-Adventure, rather than an Action-RPG.

“I think we’ve got a lot more mainstream appeal than just another RPG would or just another action game would have.” n-Space Producer Tim Schwalk has previously bragged (thanks, Siliconera).

“If I had a copy of this, and I really wanted to play with magic, I could choose an appropriate character. But my buddy who always plays Call of Duty and Madden, he can jump in as a Gunslinger. He’s got bombs and guns, and he’s going to ‘get it,’ you know?”     

You might not expect a great deal from the story of such a game. Let's see:

“War raged for over a hundred years until strong, powerful Lords emerged from the fighting to bring a fragile peace to the land. This peace is threatened when one of the Lords, Ataraxis, ruler of the city of Nexus, is taken ill by a deadly curse. A call is sent out, promising rewards beyond measure for anyone who finds a cure.” (From the game's official website.)

Still, once you scratch the surface, there are a few interesting (if not strictly original) ideas running through Heroes of Ruin. Additional players can drop-in and out at any time; you can choose to let strangers jump in at random, Demon's Souls-style, or simply limit the privilege to selected friends. The difficulty rebalances at each checkpoint to reflect the average level of your current team, and enemies gain new abilities as the difficulty increases, rather than simply getting stronger. Loners can elect to play solo if they prefer (which presumably, they would), but risk losing certain multiplayer-related bonuses. The game's randomised loot is also handled intelligently; walking over dropped armour displays its stats compared with your current equipment, and a simple tap of the d-pad can either equip it or sell it off straight away. Take that, fiddly RPG menus. Cleverly, all the loot you've sold is transmitted via Streetpass so that anyone can potentially buy your old +10 Pants of Destruction.

Playing as the 'Vindicator' (a paladdin-archetype) reveals a competent if familiar battle system: sword combos can be strung together with a magic-draining (but powerful) dash attack, R blocks, and a quick tap sends you rolling away from danger. Enemies in the demo didn't display any ground-breaking attack patterns or AI, but they're serviceable cannon-fodder, and the Tibur (Shark-men) stand-out against some other fairly drab fantasy staples. Four character classes will be available in the final game, including a mage-like Alchitect, a  melee-focused Savage, and a Gunslinger that attacks from afar with bullets and bombs. According to Community Manager Kevin Eva, each character has “their own reasons” for embarking on the quest, some of which, he hinted, might not be entirely above board.

We encountered two mini-bosses during our brief play-through: a skeletal pirate captain with the power to make players (literally) run away in fear, and a conch-wielding Tibur that summoned two horrifying sea mutants, all dark and mangled with extraneous, pincer-like limbs. The final boss, an amiable-looking pink leviathan, could only be summoned once certain key items had been wrenched from the cold, dead hands (fins?) of the mini-bosses – a sensible fail-safe given the randomly-generated layout of the levels. After hacking at his tentacles for a bit, and dodging some hot, salty spume, our pink friend soon came to a sticky end, marking the end of the demo.

Heroes of Ruin still has several months of development time left. Many of the place-holder NPCs are yet to have their dialogue implemented, and various improvements await the interface and AI (that Tibur mini-boss just glitched nervously from side to side as we hacked him to death). The team is certainly exploiting all 3DS connectivity features to the full, and plans for downloadable daily challenges promise to extend the game's appeal post-release. Although we didn't experience anything particularly original or compelling during our play-through, there's no doubt that n-Space has implemented a number of zeitgeisty features, and the current dearth of original 3DS titles means they're potentially well-placed to find some fans for the game. Nevertheless, questions remain about the originality of the setting, mechanics and design choices on display, and it's unclear whether Heroes of Ruin will prove inventive enough to be of real interest to fans of the genre.

There's a sense that, despite the clever connectivity options, n-Space might be playing it a little too safe with the rest of the design; there's little evidence of nuance in the combat, and developer comments suggest that puzzles will be perfunctory at best. Balancing such a dynamic difficulty system is going to prove a real challenge, and currently the only real penalty for dying is an annoying trek back to your team-mates caused by some inconsistent check-pointing. Hopefully n-Space will implement some mechanism for players to manually tweak the difficulty, as it seems unlikely that any purely automated system could offer a consistently tense and challenging experience given the varied team-configurations that can arise.

n-Space may still have time to address these issues if they're willing to take some creative gambles (Bastion, as a recent example, managed to integrate difficulty choices within a compelling risk/reward framework extremely successfully) but unfortunately, it's precisely a lack of creative-risk taking that currently poses the biggest threat to the project. By playing it safe, n-Space may be missing an opportunity here, and if there's one thing worse than failure, it's mediocrity.

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Lollipop Chainsaw Coming To The West In 2012 News

 

Warner Bros. Interactive has announced that it will be bringing Lollipop Chainsaw (the next game from Suda51's Grasshopper Manufacture studio) to the West next year on Xbox 360 and PS3.

The game was announced in Japan last month via Famitsu, although details of a Western launch and publishing partner had remained unclear until now.

In what's shaping up to be a typically bonkers Suda51 affair, Lollipop Chainsaw sees high-school cheerleader, Juliet Starling take on a horde of the undead armed with a chainsaw.

Gore is being toned down with a more saccharine-sweet aesthetic where pink love hearts replace fountains of zombie blood from the raging chainsaw of a butter-wouldn't-melt protagonist.

It's an interesting change in direction for the studio that brought us Shadows of the Damned in June, which scored 7/10 in our review and debuted at No.31 in its first week on the UK charts before dropping out of the top 40 altogether.

As with Shadows, famed Silent Hill composer, Akira Yamaoka will handle the musical score on Lollipop Chainsaw, while Hollywood director and writer, James Gunn (Tromeo and Juliet, Dawn of the Dead) has been drafted in to handle the script.

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Max Payne 3 To Surface Next March News

 

It was originally announced at the tail-end of 2009 before descending into a media blackout, suffering numerous delays, and subsequently being removed from Take-Two Interactive's financial reports (prompting some press outlets to raise concerns that it'd been canned), but now Rockstar's Max Payne 3 has been placed back on the release schedules for a March 2012 launch.

A new press release has effectively re-announced the game, doling out some new screens and story details while it's at it. True to the initial promotion that emerged on the game a couple of years back, this sequel depicts an older, more unkempt Max Payne who's fallen into disrepute somewhat following the events of the last game and is now a private security guard for a rich family in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

When a gang starts to target the family, Max is forced to re-engage in his classic tricks of bullet-time aided shoot-outs (yes, there will be bullet-time) as he struggles to clear his name and save the family under his protection.

Rockstar makes mention of Max Payne 3 as a "cross-studio" collaboration in this latest announcement, and TVG can confirm that Rockstar London has been brought on-board the project alongside the Rockstar Toronto studio that was initially commissioned to work on the game. As it did with GTA IV and Red Dead Redemption, Rockstar will also be making use of Natural Motion's expertise with its Euphoria engine for Max Payne 3.

Despite the long periods of doubt over Max Payne 3's future throughout the last couple of years, a cover article in EDGE earlier this year and a trickle of screens left in its wake confirmed that there was still life in the first Max Payne game to be developed outside of Remedy Entertainment.

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NeXtBox Graphics To Rival James Cameron's Avatar News

 

Despite the fact that it's yet to confirm whether it's developing the GPU for the next Xbox, graphics chip manufacturer, AMD has pointed towards the kind of visual detail we can expect from Microsoft's unannounced next-gen console.

According to an OXM US article (via Examiner), AMD says that the NeXtBox will be able to deliver visual detail on a par with the CGI in James Cameron's Avatar, which is certainly a lofty benchmark to aim for but the headline grabbing claims don't end there.

AMD went on to say that the AI and physics capabilities of NeXtBox hardware will be able to give every pedestrian in games like GTA and Saints Row an individual character, mentality, and pool of animations.

Although AMD isn't confirmed as the graphics chip supplier for Microsoft's next-gen console, it does provide the chip-sets for the Xbox 360 so a continued deal is likely. Whether or not that deal has been done already is the real question.

With claims like those above, AMD might simply be performing a Peacock-like display to Microsoft in the hope that the existing deal will be renewed for the NeXtBox. On the other hand, that deal may already be done and AMD might simply be so excited that it wants to shout from the rooftops.

Whatever the case, it's quite a gauntlet that AMD has laid down here and if next-gen visuals don't reach that level of fidelity then we all know who to address our angry e-mails to.

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Nintendo's Tokyo 3DS Event Wrap-up News

Nintendo gave detractors to its 3DS handheld some food for thought at its scheduled pre-TGS press event today, revealing a strong line-up of games for next year's slate as well as a healthy dose of juicy hardware announcements.

First-up, some news on the 3DS thumbpad attachment that was leaked last week: Nintendo announced that it will be coming to Japan in December for the modest price of 1500 yen (that's just over £12 in the UK) – the add-on will be powered by a single AAA battery.

There's no word on a Western release date for the thumbpad add-on at the moment, although Nintendo did confirm a bunch of games that will be compatible with the device. We already knew that Monster Hunter Tri-G would be a focus for the attachment's launch, but it's now clear that incoming titles Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D and Resident Evil: Revelations will support it.

Having sampled those last two games with the current 3DS console, it's abundantly clear that both are in dire need of a second analogue pad (particularly MGS: Snake Eater 3D, which utilises the old trick of placing aim controls on the face buttons). Ace Combat 3D: Cross Rumble, Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop, and Dynasty Warriors VS will also be compatible with the attachment.

In other hardware news, Nintendo has scheduled a November update for the 3DS that will bring 3D video capture to the console for the first time (the handheld is currently limited to 3D photo capture). A new metallic red 3DS will also launch in Europe on September 30th to celebrate one million sales of the console in the territory (Japan will get a pink 3DS in October).

European release dates for Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7 have been shared – they'll drop on November 18th and December 2nd respectively. Nintendo also confirmed that Kid Icarus: Uprising and Luigi's Mansion 2 will miss 2011 and are now due to land next year.

New Paper Mario and Animal Crossing instalments for 3DS will arrive in 2012 too, as will a new Mario Tennis game that Nintendo announced at today's event. On the third-party side of things, Nintendo was able to announce that Monster Hunter 4 from Capcom is coming to the 3DS. This is a huge deal in Japan where the phenomenally successful series has traditionally found its handheld home on the PSP.

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No Smarties? Only Video Games Have The Answer - Opinion Feature

 

Jon Roberts has spent two years teaching children with special needs and educational problems in Warwick, England. During that time he's also developed music education workshops for the Armonico Consort, a music company from the same area. He is currently finishing a master's degree in Genetic Counselling at Cardiff University, alongside which he has taught at Lindamood-Bell learning process, a centre that helps children with language, comprehension and maths by developing their understanding of visual and pictorial imagery. In the remaining time he has aside from all this, Jon writes articles about video games for TVG like this one...

Yesterday morning, a small news story appeared that unsurprisingly got lost amongst all the song and dance over News of the World phone hacking, Rupert Murdoch's subsequently unsuccessful bid to take over BskyB, and the attempts to stop him from creating a giant death star that will orbit the world and cause everyone’s face to melt so we will all look like him and Harry Redknapp, presumably. Underneath the story about Murdoch, phones, and newspapers was a report which showed that, in UK schools, poorer students are falling further behind their more wealthy peers in the education process. According to the BBC, a Sutton Trust study found pupils eligible for free meals in schools below national standards were a third less likely to reach GCSE targets than better-off students elsewhere. This follows on from a study in May of this year, conducted by the Confederation of British Industry, which raised concerns over the standard of the basic skills that pupils were leaving school with. Specifically, the organisation's annual education and skills survey also suggested that many employers (44%) have had to invest in remedial training for school and college leavers.

The trust is launching an Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) targeting this group of children, using £125m of government money and income from other sources. The Sutton Trust says it will aim to focus support on "innovative projects and on scaling-up projects which are cost effective and have the potential to be replicated in other schools."

I put forward the idea that some of this dosh could be spent on developing video games to help those from poorer backgrounds who are falling behind. If we want to turn kids from dummies into smarties then video games could have the answer. Let me explain why:

Contrary to the idea that video games are merely violent bloodfests aimed at adolescent piss weasels, there is good evidence to show that they can be used effectively in education, and this is an idea that is becoming more mainstream. In a recent speech to the Royal Society, the Minister for Education, Michael Gove encouraged educators to experiment with using video games to help teach maths and science. This seems like a sensible idea given video games’ rich history of being used in new and imaginative ways.
Take, for example, a study published by the American Medical Association in 2007 which found that video game skill correlates with Laparoscopic surgical skills, concluding that “Video games may be a practical teaching tool to help train surgeons.” Going back to 1996, research printed in the Perceptual & Motor Skills journal suggested that reaction times could be improved in children through computer game use. And as far back as 1986 a study in the same journal showed that spatial visualisation test scores can be improved by video game playing.

Video games are often cited as causes for reduction in concentration levels in children, leaving their attention spans shorter than a hermit’s address book. However, while there is evidence that certain video games can correlate with reduced attention spans, there’s also plentiful evidence to suggest that the opposite is true. For example, Alan Pope of the NASA Langley Research Centre used video games with a ‘Biofeedback’ process (originally used to improve the attention span of astronauts) to reduce the impulsiveness and hyperactivity of children with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). Video games have also been used in health care settings. ‘Packy and Marlon’ were characters created for the SNES to help children and adolescents with their diabetes treatments. They were so successful that two new characters have been created: ‘Bronkie the Brachiosaurus’ (for asthma self-management) and Rex Ronan for smoking prevention. Presumably Penisy Pete will soon follow for those with erectile dysfunction. Go to clickhealth.org if you want to know more, although prepare to be disappointed if you expect to find Mr. Pete.

For me, the evidence that strongly supports the idea that video games can be used to help struggling students from poorer backgrounds is that they are great motivators. Take, for example, Kandie Demarest’s account of her autistic 7 year-old son (found at lessontutor.com/kd3.html). Demarest testifies that, although her son had serious deficiencies in language and understanding, and social and emotional difficulties, video game playing was one activity where he was able to excel. This was ego-boosting for him and also had a self calming effect. Anecdotally my experience of teaching challenging children is that if you find something they are good at you can use it as a hook with which to hang other positive beliefs about themselves.  I used sports and music, and I see no reason why video games should not be the same.  

Other than providing an arena where young people can have successes, and therefore a sense of achievement crucial to all successful learning, video games have that great motivating factor: they are often good, honest fun. An article in the British Journal of Clinical Psychology points out, “Curiosity, fun and the nature of the challenge appear to add to a game’s education potential.” The value of the joy found in video games – which is so often forgotten – has been demonstrated in the arena of medical rehabilitation. In one case study a video game was used to improve arm control in a 13 year-old boy with Erb’s palsy.  The authors concluded that the game format capitalized on the child’s motivation to succeed and focused attention away from potential discomfort. Pamela Kato writes a good article outlining different ways video games can be used in health care settings - they are divisive and imaginative, ranging from anxiety reduction to helping with chemotherapy symptoms, and physiotherapy. All the applications rest on the assumption that video games can be real, genuine fun and that people want to play them. Fun, educational and confidence boosting. Sounds like they’re worth at least of some that £125 million to me.

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Shadows of the Damned Review

 

There are some things in life which you know you shouldn't like. Michael Bay films, Elton John's back catalogue, and Jersey Shore, to name a few. And yet, every now and again something comes along which leaves you conflicted. It may well go against the strongest of your principles but, somewhere within it, you see hope. And, infuriatingly, that hope plants a seed in your mind which grows into a type of dysfunctional affection. And that's exactly how I came to like Shadows of the Damned, against all my better judgement.  

The bone of contention here (and the word "bone" is especially appropriate) is the tone of the game. This collaboration between No More Heroes' Suda 51 and Resi 4's Shinji Mikami somehow manages to be both intensely, controller-bitingly annoying and yet wonderfully puerile, often at the same time. It's absolutely bizarre. You shouldn't like it. It's the kind of tits, gore and curse-fest that traditionally gets the anti-gaming lobby all worked up like a drunk Mel Gibson in a synagogue. It's the kind of game the doubters will turn to when trying to convince the nation that games can never compete on an aesthetic level with films and television. And so, at least initially, I felt a little snobby about it. But, by the time I got a few hours into the game, something strange happened. I became anaesthetised to all of Shadows' irritating foibles (and there are many) and began to enjoy it for what it is; a solid, if basic, third-person action title which demands that you jettison your brain for the duration.

The premise of Shadows of the Damned is a gaming classic: rescue the damsel from the demon. We've seen it many, many times. Only Paula is not your average damsel - the game's Latin hero, Garcia Hotspur (yeah, I know) found her in a bin, she dresses like she's auditioning for a sluttier version of The Only Way is Essex and she apparently likes to indulge in the occasional domestic knife attack. The game's triple foreheaded villain, Fleming - king of the demons, has kidnapped Paula and dragged her into the Underworld where he intends to have his mucky way with her for all eternity. Which leaves Garcia and his trusty floating skull sidekick Johnson to follow them to Hell and battle their way to Fleming.

The dialogue between Hotspur and his rehabilitated demon pal, Johnson, tries hard to keep the mood light throughout. I mean, it tries really hard. You'll hear more dick jokes than a Kevin Smith convention and, for the most part, they fall flat with the writing frequently leaping head first over the taste line and into toilet cubicle graffiti territory. But then, just as you're about to indignantly switch it off and read some Oscar Wilde instead, the game spits out a line like "warn me if I have to f*** a horse to open a door" and you find yourself giving it just a few more minutes. It undoubtedly lacks the satire and wit of Suda 51's previous efforts and at times seems to go out of its way to irritate you, but it's hard to argue that it's not in keeping with the game; the game which at one point has you jump through a tastefully-placed portal between a billboard model's legs; the game which features a gun called the Boner. Which later becomes the Hot Boner. It's overwhelmingly silly, frequently ridiculous, but also self-aware. At least I hope it is.

But, of course, Shadows is a collaboration and while the dialogue and storyline have a distinctly OTT Suda feel to them, the gameplay, or rather the gunplay, unsurprisingly recalls Mikami's Resident Evil 4. The over-the-shoulder, laser targeting will be instantly familiar to fans of Capcom's survival-horror classic, although Shadows plays like a juiced-up version. Aiming feels a little smoother, and movement a little quicker which is handy because, once you've made it beyond the rather forgiving earlier sections of the game, you'll frequently be faced with multiple types of enemies, each with different strengths and attack speeds. Aiming for the head is pretty essential for many of the enemies and, thanks to the fluid aiming and nice headshot animations, it feels pretty satisfying to dispatch a series of nasties with successive shots to the noggin. Other foes will sport armour which you can chip away at, while some will require you to think about another of Shadows' core game mechanics, the light/dark system.

Demons, it would seem, are not fond of light and so, throughout the game, you'll find yourself shrouded in the darkness, which causes your health to deplete. So, you'll need to find a way out of it quickly, lest you use up all your booze (yes, booze means health) trying to stay alive. Luckily, each of your weapons has a secondary "light shot" function which, if you fire it at the wall-mounted goat's head nearby, will light up the area. Look, I never promised this was going to make sense. The light shot can also be used to get rid of the darkness that shrouds some enemies, making them invincible to regular ammo. The light/dark mechanic generally works pretty well, adding a puzzle dimension to the balls-out shooter action, but it's hard not to feel like the developer could have made more of it. All too often, you'll find yourself wading into to the darkness simply to shoot a switch that isn't visible in the light, or to find a new enemy's weak spot.

That said, the level design in Shadows isn't bad. Sure, the environments aren't exactly pretty to look at (it's Hell after all), but they are generally well laid-out. Most are smallish, self-contained dungeons with a couple of locked door puzzles and an array of nasties waiting to pop out and rip you to bits. It never feels particularly demanding to find your way out of a level and their modest size makes it feel like you're progressing satisfyingly through the game. The gun upgrade system has a similar effect. Collect red gems and you can upgrade aspects of each gun such as damage, reload speed and capacity, and the game gives you complete freedom to pick and choose. So if you want to completely soup-up the Boner pistol (yeah, I know) early on in the game you can, or you might prefer to spread out your upgrade gems between all other weapons (you also have a shotgun and a machine gun at your disposal).

Bigger weapon upgrades can also be gained by collecting blue gems, which can add new functions to your existing shooters, like a sticky bomb fired from the Hot Boner (still laughing?). These blue gems are generally found once you've taken down one of the game's small roster of bosses. While there aren't a huge amount of major bosses, each is provided a decent back-story through fairy tale books dotted around the levels and boss battles themselves are predictably multi-stage affairs. And you won't have any problem working out what to do, as the conveniently glowing red sections on the bosses means you always know what you're aiming at. Sure, it's a hackneyed game mechanic, but the boss battles are pretty enjoyable if a little undemanding.

And this is probably an appropriate judgement on the game in general: enjoyable if a little undemanding. Seasoned gamers will tear through the regular difficulty level with relative ease and there's not much to compel you into a second play-through. By the end of the somewhat modest campaign, you'll have seen everything Shadows has to offer. And, if you're like me, you'll have had enough of the dick jokes.There are some things in life which you know you shouldn't like.

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