Back in April, an Italian company called Siliconera announced “Wii Relax,” a product complete with web pages and press info. That info has since disappeared, and Nintendo has now officially trademarked the name, though it removes the space to form WiiRelax, in Europe.
As Destructoid reports, the trademark is good for PAL territories. I hate to say I think this will be a real game, but I do. The question remains, why? Is Nintendo trying to encourage the already pervasive drug culture that comes along with a lot of games. And how do you determine who wins? Will it always be the guy with the Volcano?
My curiosity pretty much stops with theory, though. I have absolutely zero interest in playing a game associated with the Vitality Sensor. Sure, motion control is fun, but even then it’s more of a mental exercise in timing, control, and trouncing the competition. I don’t need a video game to help me fall asleep.
Good to its word, Bungie showed off the last game will make under the Halo franchise at the VGAs last night, a game we all know as Halo: Reach. The trailer was a mashup of pre-battle scenes. A warthog driving across some open terrain. A bunch of Spartans back at barracks. A bunch more Spartans at their barracks. A bunch of Spartans leaving their barracks.
Sounds kinda boring, doesn’t it? Well that’s because it is. I embedded the video below so you can see just how boring for yourself. Granted, this all about setting up the conflict that started Halo, so there’s a lot of dialogue. It’s strange, though, that Bungie is investing so much in establishing stock characters in a short trailer. You have the chick trying to prove herself in command. The psycho sharpening a knife with a skull painted on his visor. The dutiful lieutenant reporting for duty. I’m not sure what about this was supposed to excite me, and there was virtually nothing to make me say, “yeah, this will be the biggest game of 2010,” other than the word Halo in the title.
Microsoft had a great November. The Modern Warfare 2 launch pushed through 4.2 million units, nearly a million more than Halo 3 did at launch. Among other things, the 360 outsold the PS3, even though overall sales were down year on year. Microsoft’s product management director, Aaron Greenberg, had a lot to say on the matter, but the most notable was his prediction for Halo: Reach.
“I feel confident that there’s nothing that will compare in size. Halo: Reach will be the biggest game of 2010.”
So what else releases in 2010? Here’s a short list:
-StarCraft II
-Mass Effect 2
-God of War III
-Final Fantasy XIII
-Gran Turismo 5
Greenberg thinks the Master Chief can beat every one of those. A few on the list, sure, but GT5? Final Fantasy XIII for the West? I have my doubts.
I know the Japanese release date set some of the GT5 fans out there to drooling. And why not? March is just around the corner. Unfortunately, the western release date for the game isn’t set, and the only approximation is “Summer 2010.” As you know all too well, that could mean virtually anything.
If you think you’ll get the game in June, think again. Chris Hinojosa-Miranda told Destructoid that Polyphony Digital hasn’t even started thinking about DLC yet. That might not seem like a big deal, but that’s one of the primary ways developers have been monetizing games today. The fact that Sony isn’t even talking about it yet says to me that they have to focus 100% on just getting the game out the door.
The good news is that when the game finally releases there will be plenty to do. The roster includes something on the order of 1000 cars. Then again, it’s tough to look at that number without wondering just how long until we get to see any of them.
There’s another firmware update coming to the PS3, build 3.15, that will allow the system to finally play those PSP Minis. Yes, at long last you can make just one purchase of those overpriced little one-hitters and play them on your console.
It looks like the update works with titles you’ve already purchased as well. Just head to your download list and you can pick up the game on your console. The update also makes it a little easier to transfer data from one PS3 to another, a nice little bonus for those of you who picked up the PS3 Slim. The new data transfer is a simple LAN connection that dumps everything over to your new rig.
The BioWare forums have been a treasure trove of Mass Effect 2 information over the weekend. This latest tidbit concerns the ubiquitous elevator loading sequence we saw in the original game. That’s going away, replaced by a classic loading screen with extra information and visuals. Oh boy!
The elevators were made in ME1 so we didn’t have to show boring loading screens. However there were a lot of complaints, so we’ve gone back to loading screens and movies. We still have elevators in ME2, but you don’t wait inside them. We’ll cut to a loading screen instead.
We’ve tried to make the loading screen more interesting this time by adding interesting visuals and information.
The elevator conversations had some funny moments, but hopefully people will enjoy this new system better than the old one!
Any way you slice it, loading screens are lame, but I think I prefer games that don’t try to mask the fact that there’s some behind the scenes work going on with occasionally funny moments.
More Mass Effect 2 news today, and who can complain? It’s a game I’ve been looking forward to for a while, even if it’s missing that MMO feature I would really love. I still think it’s going to be awesome, and so does Bioware community coordinator Chris Priestly, who said one the Bioware forums, “You cannot fit this much awesome on one disc.”
Yes, sadly Mass Effect 2 will span discs. That’s a great stat for content hounds, but kind of annoying for everyone. Priestly promises it won’t mess up your mojo, though. He claims the disc swap happens at an appropriate time so as not to ruin your experience.
“Even though there is a disc swap, it occurs at a carefully planned place in the game (that does not interfere with gameplay) and is done once. You do not swap back and forth. 1 swap and then done.”
I’m not sure how they managed to pull that one off, other than duplicating serious amounts of content on each disc. Maybe it’s just that we get the opening credits, cinematics, and the first few quests on a shorter disc, and everything else is packed onto that second one. In any case, I’ll be interested to see if this really doesn’t interfere. I mean, really, who wants to get up from the couch?
Mass Effect 2 producer Adrien Cho thinks games have gotten too easy, requiring less problem solving skills than ability to best a game’s cheap mechanics.
“Just recently, a game like Demon’s Souls is fantastic because when you die, and you fail, it’s not because the game was cheap it’s usually because you didn’t do something properly,” Cho told Video Games Daily.
“It goes back to that learning mechanism of ‘Well, I tried this – it didn’t work. I’m going to try something different.’ And I think that’s going to be something in Mass Effect 2, we don’t want it to be a cakewalk, you want a challenge.”
I like the attitude, and if anyone can pull off a decent challenge it’s Bioware, but I’ll definitely wait to see the game before singing Cho’s praises.
Today, Sony said we’ll get a look at their next-gen racer before year’s end. There’s just one small hang up: it’s not really GT5. Not by name anyway. Well, not in the US, anyway. The new content, available as a download on December 17th, will be called “Gran Turismo 5 Time Trial Challenge” in the US and “GT Academy 2010″ in Europe.
So why not just a demo? Why not a racetrack from the game, like we saw for Forza 3? As things are, it seems like Sony is just trying to tease us along, reminding us that GT5 exists. The whole thing feels like some really poorly done GT5 marketing, where no one goes home happy and everyone wonders what the hell happened last night.
The worst part is…this is GT5! Come the hell on, Sony! This is the game that pioneered serious racing for console gamers. The game that created the Forza franchise. The be-all-end-all of racing sims on any console. Looks like we’ll be waiting a few weeks to see anything remotely inspiring about the franchise.
Three-dimensional imaging has come a long way since the days of cardboard glasses. Now we can get incredible depth out of images that could previously only come out of the screen, not recede into it. When it releases on December 18th, James Cameron’s Avatar is set to become the pinnacle of 3D achievement to date, a milestone Ubisoft hopes can make some money.
Ubisoft created the video game version of Cameron’s vision. Avatar: The Game, which releases today, puts the player in the same 3D world, with one major restriction. You need a 3D TV. Otherwise you’ll just get two-dimensional version like every other game. I’m going to go ahead and guess the game is terrible in terms of play, but probably pretty cool if you’ve got the 3D rig to support it. Ubisoft, like many others, is banking on that cool factor to make 3D games the next big thing.
“3D is to pictures what Dolby Stereo was to sound. No one wants to go back to mono.” That’s from the head of Ubisoft Montreal, Yannis Mallat. In a sense, I think he’s right, but there is a glaring difference between the progression from mono to stereo and 2D to 3D: the glasses. I’m not trying to be a luddite here, but I think 3D has a ways to go before I’ll be enticed to put on the glasses to watch or play something in my home. It just isn’t practical yet. Where Dolby Stereo could almost immediately be appreciated, I would guess 3D still has a decade before serious adoption, from both consumers and film-makers/developers. There just isn’t enough hardware to support the medium.
According to the Financial Post, Ubisoft wouldn’t have made Avatar if it didn’t think people would someday purchase 3D TV sets. So let me get that straight – you developed a 3D game that next to no one will see because someday people will own 3D TVs? And they’ll still want to be playing Avatar when that day comes? Huh. The movie must be a whole lot better than I expect.
Back in April, an Italian company called Siliconera announced “Wii Relax,” a product complete with web pages and press info. That info has since disappeared, and Nintendo has now officially trademarked the name, though it removes the space to form WiiRelax, in Europe. 
