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UY ARION WORLDS IS NOT RELATED TO OR AFFILIATED WITH BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT OR AZEROTH. oe BUY NOW! RIFTGAME.COM _ ae TM % > Se SFin Ob O4 10 le LY lb e0 22 32 42 uy © Copyright 2011, EGM Media, LLC, all rights reserved. ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY (ISSN #1058-918X) is published monthly by EC add $10.00 US. International orders outside US and Canada, please add $30 per year for surface mail, US funds INSERT COIN cc THE EGM INTERVIEW LETTER FROM THE EDITOR LOGIN ELECTRONI i GRRE EMONTHLY PUBLISHER AND FOUNDER Steve B. Harris EDITORIAL EXECUTIVE EDITOR, EGM: Brady Fiechter EXECUTIVE EDITOR, EGMIi]: Andrew Pfister SENIOR EDITOR, EGMI[i): Patrick Klepek CONTENT EDITOR: Marc Camron PREVIEWS EDITOR: Paul Semel REVIEWS EDITOR: Sterling McGarvey CONTRIBUTORS: Dan “Shoe” Hsu, Dernian inder copyrights reserved herein, no part of this publication may be reproc , stored in, « notice of EGM Media, LLC, Electronic Gaming Monthly, EGMNOW, EGM, and EGMi: The I DONALD & GEREMY MUSTARD The leaders of Chair Entertainment talk of growing Linn, Aaron Thomas, Brett Bates, Aaron Boulding, James DeRosa, Harold Goldberg, Mike Griffin, Alexandra Hall, Andrew Hayward, Brandon Justice, Gus PRESS START GAMING HABITS GONE TOO FAR up as brothers and dreaming of the day they'd innit = THE RISE OF SOCIAL GAMING P g y Any Mastrapa, Mike Minotti, Alejandro Quan create the games they once played... 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PATTERSON REST OF THE CRAP electronic gaming monthly 24?.0 EDITORIAL A WHOLE NEW WORLD ON THE HORIZON WWW-egmnow-com oward the end of my conversa- tion with Shadow Complex and Infinity Blade creators Donald and Geremy Mustard for the EGM Interview, we started talking about our eternal love for the download space, and how games like Pac-Man Champion- ship Edition and Geometry Wars come along and remind us of how much fun it is to engage in basic, pure, mechanics- driven gaming experiences again. Games that take you back to the days before the epic, cinematic, story-driven worlds like Assassin’s Creed or Uncharted were even possible to make. It’s a big deal that | can power up my PlayStation 3 and play a smaller-scale, classically-spun game like Pac-Man CE, and without getting off the couch switch over to an Uncharted and get swept away in a world of fantasy that is truly beautiful at its best moments. It’s exciting for me to have Uncharted 3 as our cover feature, exciting as a gamer looking for the next step in the evolution of our medium. | look at Uncharted 2—for all the ways it can be so much better—as one of the most important examples of where games are heading. We need to continue to have games like Pac-Man, and we will, but it’s the Uncharteds of our gaming universe that are pushing us forward. When | asked Donald and Geremy if they felt capable of even making one of these purely mechanics-driven games like a Pac-Man, |’m glad they didn’t take it as an insult and throw me out of their office! They got what | was reaching for. “That’s just not where our passion is. We’ve certainly talked about game ideas that would be a purely Pac-Man-esque experience, but you can’t give your all to it if you’re not fully passionate about it. Infinity Blade is about as close as we'll probably ever get to that pure gaming experience.” “| think if we made Pac-Man,” adds Geremy, “it would have to be wrapped in a giant universe. It’s just part of us.” ’ll always be playing fun games—I’m obsessed with the new NBA Jam—but it’s the spirit and emotion behind those universes Geremy and Donald speak of that captivate me. Living in these virtual worlds and playing out their fiction is the real power | see in games. We’re not even close to achieving full potential. It’s another reason I’m excited to see what Naughty Dog has learned and where they take Uncharted 3. When | was at their studios for our cov- er story visit, the conversation spanned all sorts of topics, but it was the theory of architecture and its place in a game like Uncharted 3 that fired my imagination. “When elements like columns and windows repeat on the front of a build- ing, they set up a pattern—a kind of ‘visual rhythm’ —as your eye plays them,” explains the game’s co-lead designer Richard Lemarchand. “Architects use this interplay between different repeating elements to create varied kinds of visual rhythm, which in turn creates different im- pressions or moods for the person looking at or moving through the building.” Lemarchand goes on to point out how you can imagine this architectural tool carving out the gaming world you’re moving through. By employing various visual cues and beats within the design of a setpiece, you can “evoke different emotions, from solemnity to wonder to expressions of modesty or power. Archi- tects plan these rhythms very deliberately, and it made me think about game design and level layout in new ways.” Naughty Dog speaks passionately about building their own worlds, and feeding those worlds with narrative and character. My expectations are pretty sky high for Uncharted 3. Maybe unrealisti- cally so, but that’s part of the fun of being a gamer and watching the bar continually rise. EJ LOGIN HAS GAMING BECOME TOO REAL? HLNOW S3HL 40 Y3SLL3T WWwW-egmnow-com | am serious about gaming. | fell in love with videogames when | first played Atari’s Yar’s Revenge at age five. This letter is very important to me—it’s is the first time I’ve written to a magazine—| am from Mexico and | heard something about the governor of Juarez not being very happy about the release of Ubisoft’s Call of Juarez: The Cartel. The state is actually trying to ban the game and | wanted to share my opinion on this, specially as a Mexican gamer. | think that people from Juarez, includ- ing the governor, should back off and concentrate on REAL threats. Crime will not stop because they’re trying to ban a videogame. |’m sorry, but I’m not about to stop playing a game just because of their prejudice. They have the right to stay away and express their opinion if they don’t like the game. | believe in freedom of speech and it’s their right to express their disgust, but not at the expense of my right to watch an action film or play a shooter. It is MY RIGHT. You really want to see blood, violence, and death? Turn on the television and watch the news. Parents should raise their kids, not the television, and they should check the ESRB rating of a game before buying it. They should become RESPONSIBLE. So I’m all against banning the game. | played Ubisoft’s Ghost Recon 1&2 and it’s fright- ening to see soldiers throwing grenades around, but then again [gaming is] just fiction. It’s not about killing Mexicans in Red Dead, Americans in GTA IV or de- stroying Shanghai in Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days. It’s gaming. And if we start ban- ning games because they make us feel uncomfortable, then | guess we'll have to stop making movies and reporting news altogether? This is the first part of my letter, it might not be a letter of the month or anything but | would love to share my thoughts with all my gamer brothers and sisters. — Christian Leon ...AND A DISSENTING VIEW | just received the March issue of EGM in my mailbox and must say I’m disap- pointed by your choice of cover story. Do we really need to desensitize the world to the very real challenges going on along the southern border of the US by turning those events into fodder for a game? Seriously, is this really something that we needed to make a game about? Ubisoft would have been better served if Techland had focused on zombies instead of drug lords. Personally, | have no interest in buying another Call of Juarez game and think they made a big mistake in taking the series out of its old west setting. The success of Red Dead Redemption makes this move even more mystifying. - CH Lowry EGM_Response: Thanks to everyone who weighed in on the issue of the very real violence along the border between the US and Mexico and whether our Call of Juarez: The Cartel cover story was warranted. It created a lot of dis- cussion, including stories on Fox News as well as the aforementioned call for the game to be banned by politicians on both sides of the border. While it’s ultimately up to each per- son or parent buying games to make their own purchasing decisions, the creative and technological advantages that the industry has made in the past decade shouldn’t be held against it. To listen to some legislators and members of the media discuss the issue, you’d think the gaming audience was com- prised primarily of ten-year-olds. As the industry has matured, so have the consumers that play games (according to the Entertainment Software As- sociation, the gaming industry’s trade organization tasked with following such things, the average age of today’s gamer is now 34). It is understand- able that an older demographic would crave, if not demand, experiences that become more adult as they do. The comparisons with other media are too obvious to pass up and the hypocrisy of gaming detractors impos- sible to ignore. Imagine the outcry that would result from government action to curtail the freedoms of expression enjoyed by film or literature. People offended by the adult themes of games like Call of Juarez: The Cartel should spend their gaming dollars elsewhere. And they should applaud the fact that they have the right to make that decision— instead of having it made for them by a politician. THE DOWNSIDE OF XBOX DLC Here is a scenario some of you might be familiar with: You have just brought home your shiny BACKGROUND NOISI= new Xbox360 Slim. This is a very exciting moment! The first thing to do is transfer the data from your old 360 console to your new Slim’s hard drive. Ouch! When you go to play your favorite game, you discover that Plants vs Zombies is no longer located on your profile, nor is all of your expensive DLC that you purchased from Xbox Live. This is because you are essentially renting your content from Microsoft when you buy DLC. You CAN re-download all of your DLC, but unfortunately, since you cannot share the DLC between consoles, the DLC you purchased for your seven year old son’s Transformers game will not stay on the console you are giving to him even when you get the DLC switched. You will have to buy it again if the poor little tyke wants his extra autobots and multiplayer modes. But at least your DLC is once again yours, though the [transfer] tool can only be used once per year. | think it is high time that Microsoft re- viewed this issue. There is no reason that my DLC should not play on any console | attach my hard drive to, most especially the ones that | own. | bought it—it should be mine. The fact that it truly is not is something more gamers should voice their opinions about. —- Ron Sharkey EGM_Response: Change is always diffi- cult and, when it comes to technology, often painful as you described. Given the growing prevalence, even neces- sity, of some DLC, however, the need for such collateral content to remain accessible in a cloud environment is becoming vitally important. One could give console makers a pass given how the consumer demand for DLC and downloadable content has exploded, but given the emphasis placed on this market a better solution needs to be provided. HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE Patrick Klepek mentioned at least twice in the “The Gamification of Education” article that he learned all about “ancient Rome” from the Assassin’s Creed games. Okay, AC2 and AC:B are set in and around Rome, but when you refer to “ancient Rome,” most people are talking about the Rome of Antiquity, not the Renaissance, which is the actual time setting of the two latter games in the Assembling the May issue of EGM is always particularly challenging considering it starts to come together on a short month wedged in between must attend shows DICE and PAX East. Toss in a swell case of the geek flu that was handed out with the Prototype T-shirts at GDC and you have all the ingredients for an entertaining deadline experience. Not quite 400 pages in two weeks classic EGM kind of fun, but fun nonetheless. Now, time to go bleach the brain and start over... series. | wonder if Mr. Klepek knows the difference. — Grant Wagner EGM_ Response: Of course Patrick knows the difference. He also knows that the best way to score with a princess is to consume large quantities of fungus and that painting your car is the quickest way to elude a high-speed pursuit with the cops. NINTENDON’T GO THERE | just received the April 2011 Issue of EGM, but | have only one compiaint: Where's Nintendo? Yeah, | know you guys had an article about the 3DS region lock, and a few blurbs here and there, but | find that Nintendo has been overshadowed by the Xbox and PS3, which | don’t have. | purposely let my Gamestop membership expire just to get away from the biased nature of Game Informer and their preju- dice against Nintendo. | stopped watching X-Play for the same reason. Do you guys really want to go that route? Aren’t you better? If not, you’re losing subscribers to other magazines. — Patrick Finnigan EGM_ Response: We don’t hate Nin- tendo, Patrick—honest. We do our best to focus attention on high-profile games, regardless of system, as well as those titles that we believe deserve special attention. In this issue you'll find a detailed overview of the 3DS and many of the launch titles now out and you can expect to see more coverage on this system in the months ahead OUR MONTHLY iPAD APP’ QUESTION... | read EGMi and enjoy the extra cover- age, but | Know I’m not the only one who really wants to read it on the iPad. You’ve promised a couple of times that it should be ready by now but so far all | find is a Kane & Lynch 2 magazine. If the EGM app is anything like the K&L2 app | know I'll be happy but what’s the hold-up? —Buster P. EGM_ Response: We've been hard at work creating an interactive digital magazine platform for EGM that allows us to create and distribute digital ver- sions of both EGM and EGMi—with all the embedded video, audio, and other features we know you want on the iPad. If it’s not available by the time you read this you can check out www.screenpa- permedia.com for updates! & 371,326 Units of 3DS sold in the 48 hours after the new handheld launched in Japan April 2011 The point at which GameStop will offi- cially stop accepting GameBoy Advance hardware and/or games 9% ~ 10% Percent of space reserved on NGP cartridges for re- writable memory to store content such as game saves and DLC. 150MB amount of space Sony now gives to PlayStation Plus subscribers for backing up game saves to the “cloud” $60 The cost to get your Xbox Avatar made into a Figureprints statue, one of three new custom products based on Microsoft's virtual characters. $100,000 the cost of a camera that Professor Nikolaos Papaniko- lopoulos says can be replaced by the $150 Kinect in helping to diagnose mental disorders such as OCD and ADD LOGIN Shout Holy crap EGM—! didn’t real- ize you were back! | flipped on the tube ten minutes ago and watched Jimmy Fallon giving a shout out to my all-time favorite gaming mag on national televi- sion! Welcome back from the dead, zombie EGM, you were sorely missed! - James Raye A NOTE FROM THE EDITORS: It was with great sadness we watched the tragic events that recently unfold in Japan. For a hobby that owes so much of its spirit and creativity to a country so rich in both, it was heartening to see the resilience of a nation in the immediate aftermath of the disaster. As many of you may remember, EGM was originally produced by Sendai Publications in the 80s and 90s and that com- pany’s namesake city endured a direct hit from the tsunami that followed the March 11 earth- quake. We urge all EGM readers to visit the charitable organization of their choice to help our friends in Japan as they recover from this disaster. electronic gaming monthly 247.0 THE PROBLEM WITH PROBLEM GAMING HAVE YOUR GAMING HABITS GONE TOO FAR? by KYLE ORLAND wWwWW-eegmnow-com Is there such a thing as too much time spent playing videogames? Many dedicated gamers would doubtlessly say “no,” but extreme anecdotal evidence of players dying after multi-day gaming binges offers some powerful arguments to the contrary. Just look at the most recent example last month in China, when an obsessed player reportedly passed out at a Net café and died after 3 straight days of marathon sessions. Now, scientists are beginning to get a better handle on what is being referred to as pathological or “problem gaming” and how it may relate to other psychological issues. Unlike the stronger (and more loaded) term “gaming addiction,” problem gam- ing isn’t necessarily characterized by an overwhelming need to escape to virtual worlds, or even by an inordinate amount of play. Rather, problem gaming is simply play that causes stress or dysfunction in the player’s daily life. So someone who plays World of Warcraft for 40 hours a week isn’t a problem gamer unless that gaming time leads to things like issues sleeping, worsened performance at school or work, or a deterioration of real- world relationships. Multiple studies have estimated that anywhere from 8 to 12 percent of people who play games could be classified as some degree of pathological under this definition. So is there something inherent to videogames that causes these prob- lems? Or is problem gaming merely an outgrowth of other personality problems? A recent study published in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking was the latest to try to answer that question. Researchers from Eastern Michigan University took a group of just over 200 college students and surveyed the extent gaming had caused problems in their lives. They also measured the students’ time-management skills and levels of ADHD symptoms, to see if these problems were more common among problem gamers. The results found a surprising split between men and women in these asso- Ciations. For men, those with weak time- management skills were more likely to see problems stemming from time spent play- ing games. For women, however, ADHD symptoms better predicted whether game playing negatively impacted other aspects of their lives, regardless of their time- management skills. “These findings suggest that interven- tions to address problematic play may need to vary as a function of gender,” the researchers wrote. “Specifically, for men, time-management training may help alleviate problematic play, but for women, reducing ADHD symptoms may be more effective.” Of course, it’s hard to tell from a study like this whether problem gaming is the result of these outside problems or actually the cause. To determine that, we need a longer-term study, like the one lowa State University’s Dr. Douglas Gentile and his colleagues recently published in the journal Pediatrics. Gentile’s study tracked over 3,000 Singaporean students over a period of two years, looking for self-reported symptoms of pathological gaming as well as other traits like impulsiveness, social competence, emotional regulation and school performance. Gentile focused especially on two groups— those whose gaming became more pathological over the two years, and those who became less pathological over that time—to see if the incidence of other problems changed along with gaming problems. The results don’t paint a great picture PRESS START for pathological gamers. While some so- cial problems —like reclusiveness— tended to show up before students became problem gamers, many other problems began to worsen only after the gaming problems started. “The relationships between pathologi- cal gaming and other variables are not as simple as first imagined,” Gentile writes. “For example, although impulsivity is a risk factor for becoming a pathological gamer, impulsivity worsens after a youth becomes a pathological gamer. Further- more, depression, anxiety, and social phobias worsen after a youth becomes a pathological gamer and improves if an individual stops being a pathological gamer.” The Entertainment Software Associa- tion was not happy with this finding, to say the least. The trade group took the unusual step of criticizing the study and its authors publicly before it was even published, calling the effects shown “mainly trivial” and attacking the definition of pathological gaming as “neither scien- tifically nor medically accepted.” “We commend credible, independent, and verifiable research about computer and videogames. However, this research is just more of the same questionable findings by the same author in his cam- paign against videogames,” says Richard Taylor, ESA senior vice president for com- munications and industry affairs. Gentile defends himself, pointing out that he’s also authored studies show- ing the more positive effects of gaming, such as increased hand-eye coordination among laparoscopic surgeons. “My position is and always has been that games are powerful, and that they can have many effects,” he says. “Some effects are beneficial, others can be harmful. The various effects depend upon many different features, upon amount of time spent with the games, and possibly upon characteristics of the player. By being aware of both the potential benefits and potential problems, families can “MY POSITION IS AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN THAT GAMES ARE POWERFUL, AND THAT THEY CAN HAVE MANY EFFECTS.” maximize the benefits while minimizing the harms.” It's a debate that seems unlikely to be settled anytime soon, and all parties seem to agree that more research is needed to clarify the extent of problem gaming and what can be done about it. What the sci- ence is making increasingly clear, though, is that gaming isn’t always harmless fun. For some players, in fact, it can actually turn out to be harmful. WHAT WE NEED IS MORE GAMING While there are plenty of studies showing the poten- tial negative effects of too much gaming, at least one researcher is arguing vociferously that what we actually need is much more gaming, in aggregate, to solve some of the world’s largest problems. Jane McGonigal, director of game research and development at The Institute of the Future and author of the book Reality is Broken, argues that we as a species should be playing eight times as many games as we are now—up to 21 billion hours annually—”if we want to solve problems like hunger, poverty, climate change, global conflict, and obesity.” How can playing games help with these problems? Gamers, McGonigal argues, are used to the idea of “epic wins,” the kind of achievements where they had “no idea it was even possible until you achieved it.” By mak- ing the real-world more game-like, we can show these “super-empowered hopeful individuals” that they’re just as Capable of changing the real world as the virtual worid, she says. What’s more, McGonigal cites research showing that gamers are more likely to help people in the real world, less likely to have nightmares, and more likely to feel good about themselves after controlling a powerful avatar, proving that the side effects of gameplay aren’t entirely negative. “Games are absolutely not escapist,” she says. “We are not escaping our real lives when we play them, we are powering up our own lives.” electronic gaming monthly 24?.-0 PRESS START TIME CAASULE on Rak= Samntnbe + PS pars PSY rebgay Benemtast+ YEARS AGO MAY 2001 METHOID FOR THE GAMECUBE; lf you loved Metroid Prime, the hallmark Nintendo series’ first foray into FPS-land, you might be surprised to learn that Shigeru Miyamoto hated it at first. In our feature on the game, we revealed that the company routinely came down to “rip on most of [Retro Studios’] games,” with an unnamed employee describing these sessions as “the Emperor visiting the Death Star.” Well, uncomfortable as they might have been, the Prime series was far more successful than Other M. As Samus herself said in that game, “confession time,” there probably isn’t a Metroid fan around who prefers the latest Metroid installment to the GameCube ones. THE ULTIMATE COMBO? VATUA RGHTER 4 YEARS AGO MAY 1991 Flipping through all these old dusty issues from our warehouse almost always unveils a treasure trove of forgotten titles and glowing press of titles today so ubiquitous they seem as omnipresent as air. (For example, it’s kinda funny to see such a long expose on Sonic...but a little less so with our preview of American Gladiators.) This month, we were reminded of little- known Game Boy sequels to cult NES hits Solomon’s Key and Snake Rattle ’n’ Roll—Solomon’s Club and Sneaky Sneaks respectively. But what really made us feel old was reading about the Lone Ranger game for the NES, due for release that coming summer. Summer is traditionally a pretty dry time for games, but making a NES game out of the Lone Ranger is a bit like making an Atari game about Calvin Coolidge. YEARS AGO MAY 1981 Details are sketchy on when the original Donkey Kong hit arcades, but our research suggests that one of its most popular knock-off “homages,” Crazy Kong, was released this month in time to scoop up all those hot summer quarters. (It’s also known as Monkey Donkey.) You’d have to be Steve Wiebe to pinpoint all the minute differences, but one of our favorites is the fact that when “Mario” jumps he lets out a mighty “hii-yah!” Even a cursory glance of game footage on YouTube reveals that Crazy Kong is, somehow, even tougher than the game it’s based on. That’s probably due to how crummy the collision detection is here: We saw Mario walk over pits without jumping, but also getting walloped by fireballs that were nowhere near him. Regardiess, it’s a good thing Donkey Kong prevailed with its fans—could you imagine hearing the faux- comedic phrase “It’s on like Monkey Donkey”? WWW-egmnow-Ccom A SOCIAL NETWORK OF ONE’S OWN THE NATURE OF GAMING IS CHANGING AS WE FIND NEW WAYS TO CONNECT ame designers have become massively preoccupied with social networks over the last several years, and the fast rise of Facebook shook the fundaments of game design. Yet social networks have been a part of gaming for years. Groups such as clans, guilds, and message board communities all show that social connection is a historical, indispensable part of all gaming, digital or otherwise. Is this new migration towards social net- works impoverishing the game industry or widening it, revealing something that had always been there? “We have different expectations for how we treat our friends on gaming systems versus other social networking sites,” says Ben Medler, a PhD candidate studying digital media at Georgia Institute of Technology. “Game networks allow you to connect to random people because you're all doing the same activity, where- as Facebook is much more broad.” On Facebook, people tend to behave defensively when encountering strangers, ignoring requests from people without an immediate connection to their social circle. Games offer the opposite experi- ence, and have throughout history. “Offline we immediately assess other people and are hardwired to assess them as like us or unlike us,” says Dmitri Williams, associate professor at USC’s Annenberg Schoo! for Communication. “It’s really all about genes. You recognize someone instinctively and say, ‘that person's a little safer,’ as opposed to ‘that person’s unlike me, they could be dangerous.’” Throughout history games have al- lowed people to role-play, act out, and transgress social taboo, from Greco-Ro- man wrestling to French flirtation games in the 17th and 18th centuries. Networks like Facebook and LinkedIn provide inter- actions that reinforce our tendencies to be mistrustful. The proliferation of social networks on game consoles offers a relief from this skepticism. By MICHAEL THOMSEN In a game setting, the rules enforce a uniformity of behavior that dramati- cally lessens the uncertainty of another person’s intentions and makes it easier to accept them in one’s own network. The goal is always clear and people not work- ing towards the goal are much easier to spot. In Facebook you have to interpret to a much greater degree, inferring motiva- tion, tone, and expected outcome—there are no obvious rules. Having social networks on game consoles is also changing the way we look at consoles themselves. “It places games on a more level playing field with films, television, other videos, and so on,” say Mia Consalvo, author of Cheating: Gaining Advantage in Videogames and associate professor at Ohio University’s School of Telecommunications. Because some consoles no longer boot directly into a game but first run users through an OS menu where they can stream movies and music, chat with friends, browse the Internet, and download demos, the nature of games is changing to embrace the new connec- tivity. Just consider the proliferation of game-expanding downloadable content. “Super Mario never changes from its origi- nal cartridge, but Dragon Age on the 360 is endlessly updateable,” says Consalvo. Console games are still experiment- ing with DLC, digital distribution, and incorporating player-made content. But some PC games have been very open to letting their users reshape the nature of the experience. When World of Warcraft launched in 2004 it was a much simpler and less social experience than it is today. Soon fans began filling in the social gaps with websites like wowhead.com, an online database that catalogs every item, quest, weapon, and character class in the game. Blizzard hadn't originally wanted the game to be viewed through a purely ency- clopedic lens, but the number of players who wanted to play for pure achievement grew. Blizzard responded by creating “WE HAVE DIFFERENT EXPECTATIONS FOR HOW WE TREAT OUR FRIENDS ON GAMING SYSTEMS VERSUS OTHER SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES.” the WoW Armory—which stores players’ avatars —and linking back to to database sites like Wowhead. On consoles, LittleBigPlanet 2, Halo: Reach (via Forge Mode), and Blast Works have already begun to allow players to affect their experiences. For Portal 2 Valve promises “more Steam features and functionality in DLC and future content releases.” The addition of social layers to vid- eogame design adds the difficulty of ac- counting for preferences among different social groups. Just as social habits differ across countries and cultures, so too do gameplay habits—from the importance placed on aggregated single-player achievements to players sharing user- generated content. “Think about Danish differences in the way they use Facebook— it’s a small country, people live very close to each other, even the odds of running into someone you know on the street are very sor at IT University of Copenhagen’s Center for Computer Games Research. “That changes the way in which people view social media and social networks here. It’s a much more neighborhood- GAMING’S GREATS GO SOCIAL high,” says Rilla Khaled, assistant profes- village feel.” In Denmark people tend to be much more open to strangers in their Facebook networks, but much more selective in playing games with strangers. Playing games !s a private entertainment space that offers relief from the friendly accep- tance one finds in normal social settings. In America the opposite often seems to be the norm. Skepticism defines normal social interactions, but anonymous play sessions offer a break from the socia separation. The last several years in the video- beer game industry nav 1 tumultuous. (40) Talking about social games and Face- book may be the easiest way to encap- sulate all of these changes. But games have always been about social networks, requiring two or more players to connect with one another. As game players know, t's not the connection that matters most but the nature of the rules. Now that Xbox 3, Wii, PS3, Nintendo 3DS, PSP, NGP, and iPhone a SOCial NetWwOrKS Duiit have game-specific nto their hardware for Tne the foundation has been laid where it won't be possible to ture—one ULUTE VINE think about games as separate from the people who play them. Facebook games are sometimes thought to be the work of outsiders who have no understanding of video game history. In many cases the opposite is true. Some of the biggest names in PC game design have migrated to social games in recent years. John Romero, the man behind DOOM and Quake, recently designed the Facebook title Ravenwood Fair, a settler game that has over 10 million players a month. Romero has also set up a new studio, Loot Drop, with a deal to make more social games for publisher RockYou. Zynga has also attracted a number of renowned game designers from gaming's early generations. Brian Reynolds, who worked on Civilization Il and Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri joined the company in 2009. He is Zynga's chief game designer and helped bring the hit FrontierVille to Facebook. Bruce Shelley is also an important designer at Zynga and helped create the Facebook sensation FarmVille. Shelley was previously a revered PC designer who worked on Railroad Tycoon, Civiliza- tion, and the Age of Empires series. PRESS START output » TECHLAND’S ASSOCIATE PRODUCER MACIEJ BINKOWSKI TALKS ABOUT THEIR ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE DEAD ISLAND... George Romero's zombie movies have always been mentioned as an impor- tant influence. Now that Dead Island is approaching the homestretch, are you proud of certain design or presentation elements that really celebrate that classic Hollywood zombie-survival experience? BINKOWSKI: We're very proud and happy to be able to make our vision come to life. Naturally the entire zombie genre owes Romero a debt of gratitude and we also draw inspiration from some of the iconic zombie encounters he created. Still it’s important to note that Dead Island isn’t a “wacky” game. We're treating the subject as seriously as its nature allows us to. This means that we cannot rely on the stupid- ity and carelessness which dooms so many characters in the classic zombie flicks, This time we have live gamers controlling the survivors. They won't walk into obvious traps or fall for any of those annoying horror clichés which Pablo Francisco sum- marized with his classic line, “I'm gonna get naked and get a shower.’ So while we want to keep some of the unreal contrasts from the legendary zombie films, we're faced with smart, adaptive, badass protagonists and this completely changes the equation. How important was it to feature zombies of every iconic variety in the game? We're very much in favor of undead diver- sity but in this case the design was based around gameplay. We knew that we didn’t want to limit ourselves to just slow and fast zombies. We came up with scenarios of possible battles incorporating factors like range, speed or damage into various enemy concepts. Even the ‘garden-variety’ slow zombies become much, much more dangerous when paired with one of the more advanced enemy types. Speaking of enemies in general, let's not forget that there are also humans on the island, many of them hostile for one reason or another. They offer unique challenges of their own. electronic gaming monthly 247.0 PRESS START PAX East 2011 was not only packed with games, but also unique products and pro- motional items. WWW-egmnow-CoOm % ess than three hours and a dozen business cards into the typical shake-and-shuffle that accompa- nies your average industry event, it’s readily apparent that PAX East 2011 is no ordinary con. Whether you're getting a hands-on demo from the lead dishwasher, tips on starting your own indie project from the master gentleman of design, or rubbing shoulders with the mayor of Behemothtown, it’s kind of hard to miss there’s something special here, and industry veterans like Revenge Labs’ lead designer Mike Zaimont aren’t afraid to try to put a finger on it. Says Zaimont, “It’s pretty awesome to come to a show where the consumer comes in and expects to be able to play all of the stuff without the need for booth babes and alcohol and all the PENNY ARCADE’S FAN-FRIENDLY FESTIVAL IS GROWING BY LEAPS AND BOUNDS, BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN IT’S GETTING TOO BIG FOR THE LITTLE GUY by BRANDON JUSTICE other trappings of a show like E3.” Despite an increased presence from major publishers during PAX’s second year in Boston, Zaimont is still bullish about PAX’s ability to help his studio’s first title, Skullgirls, make its mark, citing a lack of exclusivity as a key factor. “E3 tends to attract gamers who can wrangle a pass by pretending to be someone else,” he says. Those are the really, really hardcore people who have a particular interest in something, but it’s usually Sony or Nintendo or whatever the next big thing is. A show like this is really nice because anyone can come to it, and that means you get people who are interested in all kinds of genres, as opposed to just standing outside of the Duke Nukem booth all day.” But beyond providing easy access for fans, PAX East also provides an attractive outlet for cash-strapped developers attempting to fund their own projects a way to reach the gaming public. Moonshot Studios producer and co-founder Michel Bastien humbly admits his studio’s first title, Fallen Frontier, has already received an invaluable boost from its appearance at PAX. According to Bastien, Moonshot is very fortunate that Penny Arcade started this, because they make it accessible to developers like us, so getting a 10x10 booth is not prohibitively expensive. We can bring our own gear and put together the best display we can.” It’s this kind of affordable opportunity that opens up smaller projects to invaluable word-of-mouth from the legion of hardcore gamers in attendance, but more than this, it allows developers to gain valuable feedback direct from the source. “Showing the game to people that are actually potential players of that game is probably the most important feedback we’re going to get,” claims Retro Affect’s Kyle Pulver. For teams with a smaller budget, he notes that “[it’s] pretty hard to find a lot of playtesters who haven’t played your game before, so an event like this is perfect. We just sit back watching everyone play, take notes and record statistics and we use all that to directly affect the game’s design. It’s really awesome.” Pulver and his team are so appreciative of this fact that they even brought their own screen-printing setup to the show, allowing gamers to create free t-shirts for their upcoming title, Snapshot. It’s this sort of grassroots thinking that fuels many of the games at PAX, creating a vibe that not only attracts smaller projects like those featured in the Boston Indie Showcase, but also pulls in bigger games from developers who appreciate that personal touch. So much so, in fact, that The Behemoth’s Emil Ayoubkhan was almost offended by a comparison to “larger shows like E3 and GDC. “ls there a difference between this and the larger shows?” he asked. “Well, for us, this is the larger show because we get to interact with the fans. It’s not so much about foot traffic for us, but more about that ability [for fans] to play our games. Although it’s not quite as big, it’s very relevant.” Following a brief tour of The Behemoth’s hand-crafted booth, it’s evident that his entire team agrees. “We do everything in-house,” Ayoubkhan says. “We don’t have an ‘exhibition staff;’ these are all actual employees. In fact, when we’re here at the show, the majority of our work stops, because no one’s at the Office.” While their presence here doesn’t even iT] BIG GAMES NEED LOVE, TOO PAX East is a great opportunity for smaller developers to showcase their wares, but in addition to giving indies a leg up, the show also brought a number of big names out for some quality time with the kids. Sony came out guns blazing with a 16-player demo of SOCOM 4, baiting gamers with early access to the mul- tiplayer beta for giving the game a whirl. With its official launch mere weeks away, lead designer Travis Steiner sees PAX as an excellent opportunity to see which way fans are leaning. “We’ve obviously got a great community, and some of the hardcore guys can get pretty vocal on the forums,” he says. "Not everyone announces them- selves as a hardcore player [when they enter the booth], but we’ve got our smartphones out, constantly checking the forums to see who’s come through and what their thoughts are on the game.” But beyond pumping folks for information, Double Fine Productions president and CEO Tim Schafer feels that outlets like PAX are a great chance to give back to the gaming community. “Aside from the flu that gets passed around, it’s really fun to shake hands and to meet fans face-to-face,” Schafer says. “Double Fine fans are the nicest people in the world. They’re ai// big, enthusiastic players...| don’t mean they’re all big—they come in various sizes, shapes and colors—but it’s great to talk to someone who enjoys the game you made. You work in an office and you see a forum post or comment where someone Says they like it, but having the opportunity to talk to them in person is really rewarding.” Based on the constant crowds around Schafer and his studio’s latest game, Trenched, we get the distinct impression that the feeling is mutual. come close to the multi-million dollar monstrosities we’ll encounter at E3 this summer, there’s something to be said for a show that spends less time taking itself So seriously. In that sense, Pulver seems to think that this lack of pretense makes all the difference. “I feel like PAX is the most honest of the events I’ve been to,” he says. “It’s all about the fans. It’s about the gamers. It’s about the players. It’s really for everybody. It’s awesome. It’s awesome for our games and it’s awesome for them.” Perhaps that’s the long and short of it all. In an industry ever-obsessed with finding new and unusual ways to play to the button-mashing masses, PAX doesn’t pander, it doesn’t overwhelm, and it doesn’t apologize for itself or its attendees. It just is. Considering the thousands of excited faces we crossed paths with over the three-day event, we’re awfully glad that’s the case. PRESS START Latinas ni The show floor at PAX East 2011 grew significantly from last year’s outing at Hynes Convention Center, with heavy-hitters like Portal 2, L.A. Noire, Uncharted 3 and Rage all making appearances. But for the bold gamers who opted out of the lengthy lines in favor of the road less travelled, there were a host of eye-opening indies worth evaluating, too. If you’re wondering what you may have missed when you dedicated two hours of your life to getting in on that free 3DS beanie from the Nintendo booth (or if you missed PAX altogether), here’s a look at some of the lesser-known gems you might want to toss on your radar. FALLEN FRONTIER DEVELOPER: Moonshot Studios A frenetic sci-fi shooter featuring revo- lutionary split-screen co-op, futuristic hand-drawn environments and gameplay that sits somewhere between Bionic Commando and Contra, Moonshot’s first title is the type of experience that will help keep 2D gaming on the map. BATTLEBLOCK THEATER DEVELOPER: The Behemoth Leave it to the folks who brought us Castle Crashers to come up with a multi- player experience that turns griefing into a finely tuned cooperative art. Tons of char- acter, tight controls and the Behemoth’s patented sense of humor had show-goers raving about this one. ORCS MUST DIE! DEVELOPER: Robot Entertainment While Orc activists may be alarmed at the amount of wanton violence towards their green brethren, OMD’s brilliant mix of tower defense and gallery shooting helped make the Robot booth one of the most crowded sections of the show floor. BASTION DEVELOPER: Supergiant Games Not every indie plans to stay that way, and considering the hype mounting behind this breathtaking action-RPG, it was no surprise that Warner Brothers hooked up with Supergiant just prior to the start of the show. Beautiful, clever, and more than a little mysterious, we can’t wait to see more. SNAPSHOT DEVELOPER: Retro Affect Part of the Boston Indie Showcase’s three-pronged attack on the PAX show floor, Snapshot is a puzzle-rich platformer in the spirit of Braid where gamers must take photos of their environment and use them later to solve puzzles and defeat enemies and the like. WARP DEVELOPER: Trapdoor, Inc. Tucked away in a small corner of the floor amidst merch and a small, screaming army of video card enthusiasts, this quirky stealth action game tells the tale of a des- perate alien looking for a way out, which apparently involves teleporting around, over and even inside the security force of a heavily guarded lab. DYAD DEVELOPER: || Games A unique racer that blends trippy visuals with progressively demanding combo- driven gameplay, this compelling title kept pulling us back in over the three days of PAX. Bonus points go out to developer Shawn McGrath, who built a homemade arcade cabinet for the show. FIREFALL DEVELOPER: Red 5 Studios A free-to-play shooter with slick cel- shaded graphics, an impressive upgrade system, and the promise of co-op and competitive multiplayer modes galore, Firefall was one of the more intriguing games at PAX. Did we mention it’s from the lead designer of Tribes? electronic gaming monthly 247-0 i PRESS START _ Founder and creative director, Irrational Games “Home of the Whopper.’ That's Burger King. 29999 Oh, Law and Order. 23992 _ Guess you can’t give me hint, huh? Uh... World of Warcraft? 9999 8 Mick Jagger? 9339209 False, it was feathers and wax. — 93900 FINAL SCORE: 3/5_ wa’ www-egmnow-com THE COST OF VALUE, AND THE VALUE OF COST PUTTING A PRICE ON QUALITY IN THE WAKE OF DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION s Nintendo President and CEO Satoru Iwata began wrapping up his GDC 2010 keynote address, he launched into a topic that has become something of a rallying cry for Nintendo as of late: the importance not only of the value of videogames, but also the maintaining of that value. “The objective of smart phones and social network platforms, and the reason these vehicles were created, are not at all like ours,” said lwata. “These platforms have no motivation to maintain the high value of videogame software. For them, content is something created by someone else. Their goal is just to gather as much software as possible, because quantity is what makes the money flow. Quantity is how they profit. The value of videogame software does not matter to them.” Though Nintendo’s chief never men- tioned the folks in Cupertino by name, lwata’s words were obviously targeted at Apple and its ever-increasing efforts in the gaming arena. Indeed, the only agreement that can be reached between experts as to the lasting effect Apple’s iOS devices will have on the videogame market is that there is no agreement. Some see the platform as a revolution, bringing about far more realistic gaming prices and an even greater opportunity to be a breakout hit; others see itas arace to the bottom in terms of both price and quality, the harbinger for the next great gaming crash. It is without question that Nintendo knows a thing or two about this crazy industry; its success at producing critically and financially successful videogames is unparalleled. The catch to its argument, however, is that “value” is a tough quantity to pin down, especially when that word often incorrectly gets swapped around for “price”. If consumers now find it harder to fully understand the value of videogame of- ferings, fault does not rest solely on their shoulders. Pricing for console gaming used to be simple: Most games fell into a very similar price range, with a few titles here and there coming in at higher prices due to being “premium” experiences or from mak- ing use of more specialized cartridge hard- ware. When most gaming platforms moved to CD-ROM, pricing initially swayed very little. However, publishers attempted new pricing tricks to increase their potential consumer base. They tried a broader range of prices for specific titles and genres, and “greatest hits” versions of previous hits saw re-release at lower price points. These days, game distribution methods and their pricing policies are so wide and varied (see sidebar) that it can be PRESS START 7%, “VALUE” IS A TOUGH QUANTITY TO PIN DOWN, ESPECIALLY WHEN THAT WORD OFTEN INCORRECTLY GETS SWAPPED AROUND FOR “PRICE.” extremely difficult to make a solid case for what the “true” price and value of a specific title should be. Take for example PopCap’s Plants vs. Zombies: The Nin- tendo DS version will cost you $20; the DSiWare version $8; the Xbox Live Arcade version $15; the iPad version $7; and the iPhone/iPod touch version $3. The value of that game—that is, the amount of content provided and overall experience—is nearly identical across all platforms, and yet the lowest-priced version comes in at 85% less than the highest. For some, the argument is that low in price doesn’t mean low in value; in fact, the opportunity for games to come in at a price where buying blind isn’t such a gamble is exactly what is giving us the next round of hit properties. “The race to $0.99 has been a great trend for gamers and a boon to iOS as a platform,” says Tracy Erickson, the iPhone editor at the mobile- and portable-gaming focused website Pocket Gamer. “Angry Birds wasn’t successful until it was low- ered to $0.99, motion-controlled arcade game Tilt to Live has thrived at $0.99, and new flavor of the month, Tiny Wings, shot up the charts because of its cheap price. It’s difficult to say that low prices hurt the market when so many games are selling well.” Lower prices can also help gamers discover older titles that got lost in the shuffle. When Steam offers games at ridiculously low sale prices, some may see that as a cheapening of the overall value of that particular title. Such sales, however, can bring in a whole new wave of interest to the game, and consumers who have a positive experience with a game purchased for $5 can influence others to purchase that same game after it’s gone back up to $20. Potential downfalls certainly exist. For example, such sales can train consumers to avoid purchasing the games they want until said games become part of highly discounted promotions. Indie darling Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale made big news earlier this year when Carpe Fulgur— publisher of the English-language version of Recettear— announced that the game had sold over 100,000 copies, thanks in large part to being part of a $5 bundle on Steam. While Andrew Dice from Carpe Fulgur can certainly appreciate what that sale did for his game, he also has some hesitation about the message it’s giving to potential customers. “This one’s a bit of an old chestnut among folks who sell mostly via downloads; I’ve had a few discussions about this,” he says. “Personally, | would say that deals happen often enough that yes, consumers are perhaps being con- ditioned a bit into waiting for deals. While big deals tend to attract a lot of press at- tention, it also means that you'll get a lot of people who don't buy at launch and simply wait for a deal, especially if it doesn’t take too long for a sale to happen. “On the other hand,” Andrew continues, “if they’re waiting for the deal, perhaps they think the sale price is what the game is actually worth? It’s a bit of a pickle, for Sure.” The biggest casualty in the war of price vs. value may actually be that “middle” segment of gaming: those titles that are far too expensive in cost and production to try to survive on what scraps they can make in the bargain-basement price tier, but which also don’t have the flash or notoriety of the true big-name titles. “We're moving towards an increasingly bipolar world, where the $60 retail price point belongs to blockbuster, tent-pole experiences, and value-added experi- ences— apps, downloadable offerings, budget software, etc.—priced between free and $20 command the other end of the spectrum, with little room in between,” states Scott Steinberg, an analyst at technology and videogame consulting firm TechSavvy Global. “Which is to say that $60 retail titles aren't going away anytime soon—they’re just increasingly becoming the domain of growingly impressive AAA titles that can justifiably command premium prices, whereas other titles will be forced to slash prices, vacate the space, or look for ways to offer discounts upfront and up-charge on the backend for DLC, micro-transac- tions, and add-ons.” A VARIETY OF PRICING STRATEGIES Even if the battle over game pricing often seems like one of $0.99 vs. $60, the truth is there are a whole host of strategies vid- eogame companies are currently using (or attempting to use) in order to determine what is best for them and their products. Here's a look at a few of the more inter- esting tactics. FREE-TO-PLAY No price is easier—or harder—to un- derstand than free. For a game (and its developer) to survive at a price tag of $0, there typically has to be a catch, such as items purchasable with real-world money, in-game ads, or sponsorship. And for a game to work as free-to-play, it has to offer enough to get you hooked; offer too much, however, and you may never open your wallet. Interestingly, the concept is giving new life to titles that weren't working under other strategies, such as Dungeons & Dragons Online and APB: Reloaded. EPISODIC Episodic gaming brings an interesting proposal in terms of price: For consumers too squeamish to commit $20+ to every potential purchase, $5 for a portion of the game could be the perfect balance of risk vs. reward. Get the player hooked on that slice and they’ll come back for the whole pie. Of course, there’s always the risk that not enough gamers will like the taste they get, or the developer will abandon the project before completion (as happened with Penny Arcade Adventures). SPECIAL EDITIONS Packing a game together with collectable items or bonus DLC is a now-common method for publishers to command higher prices while also giving gamers the feeling of getting more bang for their buck. They also provide another benefit, however: keeping retailers happy as more attractive physical versions of games counterbal- ance the sales lost to lower-priced digital downloadable versions. electronic gaming monthly 24?.-0 PRESS START Fun things to do when you're not playing games it the month in P “Ts = The Silent Hill games have been around since 1999, but apparently the titular town j has been scaring people even longer. iE i Written by Tom Waltz (who scripted the = " “ “i upcoming game, Silent Hill: Downpour, > m& Peay ce and previously penned the Silent Hill: d f te Hh Sinner’s Reward graphic novel) and drawn VA \ es by Menton J. Matthews III (Ars Memoria), ewe ee the Silent Hill: Past Life comic ($17.99; idwpublishing.com) sets this survival hor- by TRACEY JOHN, PAUL SEMEL, and PETER SUCIU cahietheslil naka GER Thenatunhalls interesting is how Waltz connects this tale to the one he tells in the modern day-set Downpour. St. Patrick’s Day is just around the corner, and you know what that means: marathon sessions of Cal/ O’ Duty: Black O’ps, Hal’o and Gears O’ War 2 (thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week). Good thing you got the new Intercooler STS from Nyko ($19.99: nyko.com), which has a fan that automatically kicks in to cool down your new Xbox 360 slim, aS well as their Charge Base 360 S ($24.99; nyko.com), which can charge its two included 360 controller batteries. Top o’ the leader- boards to ya. Darth Vader collectibles are a dime a dozen, but this year Gentle Giant are presenting the | MARQUEE MOON _ | Sith Lord in a way we’ve never seen before: a solid bronze bust as he was originally drawn With 3D TVs entering their second year, early adopters looking at the by Star Wars concept artist Ralph McQuarrie. newest models might think they should’ve waited. Take Panasonic’s This ultra-limited, 8” bronze bust weighs about new line of plasma TVs, which practically pull you into the picture. ten pounds, and will cost you a pretty penny Sizes range from 42” (TC-P42ST30: $1099.95; panasonic.com) to the at $1,500 (gentlegiantltd.com). Only a hundred massive 65” (TC-P64ST30; $3200.95), and they look just as good in of these will be made available worldwide, so 2D, with a richly detailed dynamic image that has excellent color satu- pre-order yours now to own a piece of Star ration and deep black levels virtually unmatched by any other TV. They Wars history before it ships in April. : also feature Panasonic’s VIERA Cast platform—with access to Twitter, Skype, and YouTube—and support USB keyboards for easy surfing. WwWwW-egmnow-com PRESS START } WY EGM HOT LIST THINGS With a manic mother and sniping siblings, the FE.A.R. games are almost YOU DIDN’T as much about family drama as they are about shooting people from the first-person perspective. And that’s especially true for the new installment, KNOW ABOUT F.E.A.R. 3, which Warner Brothers Interactive is releasing May 24th on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. But before you dig into this scary shooter, E. AR. 3 the game’s associate producer, Jason Frederick from Day 1 Studios, has some inside information that even this family’s shrink might not know. by PAUL SEMEL LONG DISTANCE RUN- AROUND According to Frederick, many of the names in FE.A.R. 3 are inside jokes. “The sniper rifle, for example, is called the Schuller LDR50 because ‘Schuller’ is the last name of our art director, Heinz Schuller,” Frederick explains. “And LDR stands for long distance relationship, since that’s what that gun has with its targets.” Where this all falls apart, however, is that Schuller is not actually in a long distance relationship. “No,” Frederick laughs, “he’s married.” SHE ASKS ME WHY, I’M JUST A HAIRY GUY Throughout FE.A.R. 3, you'll find newspapers and wanted signs scattered about, many with pictures of people who worked on the game. Though you might not recognize one of them. “We actually have a really old picture of our studio president, Denny Thorley, hidden in the game,” Frederick admits. “Everyone knows Denny now as a guy with a shaved head, but if you see the picture, you might do a double-take because in it he’s got a full head of hair.” DRINKING GAME Not all of the inside jokes in FE.A.R. 3 are personal, some are more con- ceptual. “We have beers in the games that ref- erence the uneasy alliance between Point Man and Paxton Fettel,” Frederick explains, adding that among the sibling rivalry suds are, “Lionheart & Lackland & which refers to Richard the Lionheart [and King John], and Kane & Abe Ale, which refers to the story from The Bible.” Oddly, The Kinks’ Sleepwalker 1s Stout is nowhere to be found. PRESS START PIGS IN ZEN Though you wouldn’t know it from this Hot List, not all of the inside jokes in FE.A.R. 3 made it into the game. “The city of Fairport has always kind of been mod- eled after Seattle [the home to original FE.A.R. developers Monolith],” Frederick admits, “and we continued that tradition by putting in this statue of a pig that they have in downtown Seattle. But our friends in the legal department didn’t like that idea. So, as a joke, one of our artists replaced the head with another butt.” DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS As everyone knows, trucker hats are not cool anymore (not that they ever were). Thankfully, the Day 1 guys figured this out before FE.A.R. 3 hit store shelves. “There are these cultists in the game,” Frederick explains, “and originally some of them were wearing orange vests and hats. But when we put them in the game, someone pointed out that it just made them all look like they shopped at a truck stop. So we had to come up with some new outfits for the cultists.” SQUIDWARD Guys dressed like your dad on a hunting trip aren't the only ugly things that got cut out of FE.A.R. 3. “Early on,” Frederick explains, “we had an enemy called The Harvester that was a link to the alternate universe we Call The Almaverse, which is where Alma’s mind is contained. The Harvester—or, as we nicknamed it, The Wall Squid—was an enemy that used tentacles to pull you into the Almaverse. It was actually pretty cool but there were some issues with it, so we had cut it. Though there is a lighter version in multiplayer.” The FE.A.R. games have obviously been inspired by a number of mov- ies, especially such Japanese horror films as Ringu and Ju-on: The Curse. But according to Frederick, “One of the influences on the charac- ter of Paxton Fettel is Hannibal Lecter from The Silence of the Lambs. When you watch that movie, it’s obvious that Dr. Lecter has his own motivations for Clarice, and we wanted to build up that sense of mistrust in the game.” 07 CINEFANTASTIQUE THE GRATEFUL DEAD The FE.A.R. games have obviously influenced other scary games over the years, most notably the Dead Space ones. But what’s interesting is that FE.A.R. 3 returns the favor. “Our audio department really took a good look at those games,” Frederick notes. “That’s probably the biggest influence that we took from Dead Space. But we always look at all the new games. We actually have a whole library of games at work.” ESCAPE FROM NEW F.E.A.R. Besides the talented people at Day 1 Studios, FE.A.R. 3 also features the input of writer/director John Carpenter (Hallow- een, The Thing). But what'’s interesting is that in 2005, when the first FE.A.R. was about to come out, Carpenter did a series of interviews to promote the game, even though he wasn’t involved in making it in any way. Why? “Be- cause it’s the scariest game I’ve ever played. Bar none,” he told some young whippersnapper from GameSpy.com at the time, adding that, “| even begged them to make me a character like | was in The Thing, but it was too late to make it happen.” F.E.A.R. R.E.D.U.X. F.E.A.R. 3 is not Day 1’s first foray into the series; in 2006 and 2007, respectfully, they made the Xbox 360 and PS3 ports of the original game. But while that game was just a duplicate of the PC version, Freder- ick admits they did come up with some inter- esting ideas back then that eventually made it into FE.A.R. 3. “The Harvesters was certainly something that came from our work on the first game,” he admits, “as were The Scavengers, who are these evil dog-like demons.” electronic gaming monthly 247.0 THE MUSTARD BROTH EGM INTERVIEW onald and Geremy Mustard dreamt of telling stories their entire lives. The two precocious brothers plot- ted their Hollywood dominance in their early teens, and before that waged Michael Bay-level scenes of war in their backyard, where homemade G.1|. Joe forts fed their burgeoning imaginations as they battled each other for supremacy. “We were always writing bold stories in everything we did, even before we knew how to read,” says Donald, creative direc- tor of Chair Entertainment, whose latest game, the action-RPG /nfinity Blade, just released to imprssive sales and stellar reviews. In college, the idea of filmmaker turned to gamemaker with the powerful indoctrination of Final Fantasy Vil. After cutting their teeth (and sacrificing their health) on the ambitious yet wobbly sci-fi opera that was Advent Rising for Xbox, Donald and Geremy started their own company and found success in the early days of the Xbox Live Arcade space with the underwater shooter Undertow, paving the road toward a return to those epic G.I. Joe aspirations they’d been incubating for years. ERS AND THE PURSUIT OF PERFECTION “We'd always loved G.|. Joe, and we always loved Super Metroid, so why not combine the two?” Donald asks enthusiastically, as he walks through the hall outside the Chair offices in Salt Lake City, Utah. That vision coalesced into the modern-day side-scrolling adventure Shadow Complex on XBLA. It’s fitting that Donald, Geremy and | are talking Shadow Complex as we cross over to the center atrium of their building, which hosts Eat Sleep Play’s Twisted Met- al project on the floor above. The lattice of support beams and open-air railings re- veal what could easily be a giant, vertical setpiece for the next Shadow Complex, inviting a perfect line for platforming and strategic head shots. “This has to be in Shadow Complex 2,” quips Geremy, who is always thinking as After almost not surviving endless 18-hour workdays on Advent Rising, the Mustard brothers have roared back with Shadow Complex, their own Super Metroid. Now, with a featured game in the latest iPad commercials, the duo are rea es Photos by BRANDON FLINT electronic gaming monthly 24?.0 EGM INTERVIEW MUSTARD BROS. a game designer and leading me along as | continue to bug them about a possible sequel to the game they always wanted to make. What exactly is next for Geremy and Donald’s continual aspirations as virtual storytellers? As they continue to reinforce throughout our conversation, they want to create expansive worlds that continue to build their lifelong fiction as brothers on a creative mission. “We have a firm foundation with our worlds that we’re just going to keep on building and building upon. /nfinity Blade was just the latest, small part of that,” says Donald. “I can’t imagine where games will be 20 years from now, but | know we'll still be playing them and hope- fully making them. And always learning.” DONALD and GEREMY MUSTARD A lot of top-level creatives in any field tend to be perfectionistic. | just had to say again, that steak you cooked last night was really good—you’re clearly too hard on yourself. Donald Mustard: [laughs] Yeah, no, you’re right, that’s why we named the company Chair. Chair comes from Plato’s theory of forms, which basically—to butcher it— everything exists in a perfect state some- where, and everything is trying to emulate that perfect state. He uses the example of a Chair, there’s that chair, and there’s this chair we're sitting on now, and they’re just trying to emulate that perfect chair that ex- ists out there somehow. That’s kind of what it means to us—this pursuit of perfection. Because the ideas we have in our head are just so perfect, and then trying to actually realize those ideas is laborious and hard and you can never quite get there. But we are definitely trying. And failing all the time, but trying. That reaches back to what you were saying last night, having this grandiose vision that is sometimes difficult to express outside of your team, because you know what you want it to be, and you leave yourself vulnerable when it becomes massaged with certain expectations. Donald: One of the most fun parts of game development for me is that initial design stage, those initial stages of the incubation of the idea, where we’re all sitting around a table and we’re talking about what this thing could be that we haven’t made yet. It’s just So much fun. You’re playing this game in your head and it’s just perfect. Then you have to do all this hard work of actually making it, and making something that comes close to what you were origi- nally thinking. It’s a magical thing to think of something in your head and then get that collective vision with a group of people and pull it all together. When you look back at your first game, Advent Rising, what was going through your head? New team, you’re young and maybe a little misguided, Majesco gives you the keys to this big adventure. Geremy Mustard: [laughs] Yes, we are definitely ambitious. Donald: Yeah, absolutely ambitious. We always want to be pushing our limits. We always want whatever we do next to be better than what we did before. With Aavent, | don’t even know where to start. It’s amazing someone said “yes” to us. We just bled on that game to try and do something that we’d never done before and something we thought hadn’t been done before. Geremy: The older we get, the longer we're in this industry, the more realistic we get about our own limits. But | think to some degree we don’t realize what our lim- its are, and that helps us to be as, | guess, ambitious as we seem to be? But the way | look at it, | don’t necessarily see it as ambition, | see it as pursuing our dreams. We dream big. We genuinely feel like we can accomplish our dreams. Ever since we were kids, we’ve both been like that. To us, if we think something’s cool, we do our best to make it happen. Wasn’t Advent Rising percolating as an idea even in your early childhood? Donald: Yeah, we were pretty young when we started to think about what our future would be. | mean, we really were, | was probably like 10 or 12, Geremy was a couple years behind me in age, we were like, more than anything, we’re going to work together some day. And more than anything we wanted to create cool stories together. And we did. Whether it was Geremy programming some game on the computer or me drawing some comic book, it was all telling stories. And it was all these ideas we had we wanted to express to people. | always had some project | was working on, drawing some comic or mak- ing a big story. Advent really sprung from there. It was one of the many stories that was percolating in our heads and really started to gain traction. Geremy: Just imagine this: As kids we would play all sorts of things, but G.I. Joe was one of our favorite things to play. When we were living in Denver, | was, maybe seven or eight, maybe a little older, we'd go into our backyard and tear up all the grass and build these huge bases for our G.|. Joes. We'd separate side of the lawn, I'd be on one side and Donald would be on the other, and we’d spend hours creating these bases. Donald: Yeah, what he means when he says we'd tear up the yard, we’d build these mounds that became walls and the shapes that created these fortresses. Geremy: They were really intricate! During those hours that were spent, you’d have to come up with, why is this base here, what is its purpose? What’s the backstory to these guys, why are they cool, why are they fighting against the other guys across the yard? What technology are they using, | had to come up with all these cool weapons. What is Donald thinking of? Inevitably it turns into this escalation war. Going through that process, we were really creating stories that whole time in Our imaginations. We knew we were going to do this our whole lives. And when we Say stories, it really is the larger franchises, it’s the world, what are the motivations for all these things? If you look at /nfinity EGM INTERVIEW Blade, the actual script for the game is very minimalistic, as far as a traditional story arc goes. But the world is compelling, it piques people’s imaginations. It’s telling that you’ve sat on these broader stories for so many years and continue to flesh them out throughout your Career arc. Geremy: When we sat down during Aa- vent Rising, | told Donald, “you know what, over the next ten years, here are the fran- chises we need to explore.” And he says, “| have that exact same list.” So | think our experiences as children really lead to this compendium of ideas. Donald: There was this one time when we were on a drive to our parents’ house in Colorado, it was like a six-hour drive, and the whole way down there we decided to outline our ideas. Okay, here’s our cool science-fiction franchise, his our cool fan- tasy franchise, here’s our cool more real- world, modern-day franchise. And those are Advent Rising, Shadow Complex, and Infinity Blade, which you've now started to see being realized. What is this larger sensibility that makes you guys tick so well together? Donald: | hear stories of family dynamics where you have siblings or whatever, and ~THE OLDER WE GET, THE LONGER WE'RE IN THIS INDUSTRY, THE MORE REALISTIC WE GET ABOUT OUR OWN LIMITS. "-GEREMY MUSTARD "Gaming monthly 247.0 EGM INTERVIEW MUSTARD BROS. wwwWw-egmnow-com you fight all the time, you’re competitive, you don’t like each other. That’s never been my experience in my life. We've certainly had arguments. Probably more in the last few years then ever [laughs]. Geremy: But no, the closest we’ve had to a real fight was probably over LEGO pieces as kids. Donald: Yeah, we’d have such huge argu- ments about LEGO pieces [laughs]. But we learned to work together and learned to share, it all goes back to that childhood. We really do share a lot of similar interests. We’re a couple years apart, I’m the oldest and he’s the second oldest in our family. I’ve never really analyzed our upbringing, but we did move quite a bit, our father was an environmental engineer for Amoco Oil. So we moved a lot, especially when TE] os ar | OSA est Mi na SEG8/ ih TITIES, | HT 408. 4. we were young. And we did have good friends, but we were certainly very close, real friends. We were the constant. And we were interested in the same stuff. We were pretty young when our mom introduced us to great books, really good science fiction, we were reading Edgar Rice Burroughs before we were 10. Jarzan and Princess of Mars. These amazing, definitive books shaped our lives, we just shared all this together. Geremy: We'd get each other excited about these various stories. Edgar Rice Burroughs, we both love him. Our parents had read some of those books, they col- lected the whole Princess of Mars series, which is fantastic. Pixar is making their new John Carter of Mars movie. We're ex- cited for it, we’re somewhat disappointed we didn’t get to make it, but... Donald: [laughs] Seriously, that’s one of the main reasons we wanted to work to- gether. We have to make John Carter into a movie, because it needs to be seen. When you were growing up, there was always that constant change. Was there a turning point where this creative part- nership became something more? Donald: It got to that point, that point of inevitability. We weren't really that much different than most children, obviously, but there was a point where we really believed it. We started planning for our future. Geremy: Yeah, we were going to make movies. We were ready to start turning these ideas into movies. It became clear that Donald was much better at art, and | was good at math and physics and science or whatever. But we both share each of those attributes. We just started developing our strong points. We started studying movies, anything with strong stories and special effects. Even at 13, we developed this master plan, we actually called it that for our lives. Donald: We didn’t have a ton of money growing up, and | remember for my 14th birthday, my mom asked me what | wanted, and | said, “| want this book by Will Eisner called Comics and Sequential art.” It was this book about how to cre- ate narrative pacing through sequential images. | had to learn this. | had to learn storytelling. Geremy: And that’s when | started teach- ing myself BASIC, my first programming language, and | made my first mod of Nibbles, remember that snake game? | learned how to change that and make it into my own game. |’m sure our parents thought we were weird. Donald’s request- ing that book, I’m requesting books like the C++ Standard Guide for Programming or whatever. Mom would always be like, “what the...what the heck?” But we'd sit in our closet at night, because we had to have the lights out at a certain time, but we’d be in our closet reading these books, these tomes on all these weird subjects. It paid off in the end | guess. Donald: When | was going through high school, |’d be in these art classes, and the teacher would want me to draw some still life, and | was like, I’m not going to spend one second doing something that isn’t sequential storytelling. There were art competitions we had to enter, and I’d say, “okay, fine, then I’m just going to make a one-page comic book that tells a story, has a beginning, a middle, and an end.” The art teacher was always, “you’re never going to be successful, you'll never make it like this!” But | was like, you guys just don’t get it. You won’t be doing this in 10 years. And | will absolutely be doing this in 10 years. So this powerful narrative foundation to your work, this defines you guys. Geremy: Yeah, that’s actually a really good point. We wanted to create these worlds. Absolutely. We thought movies were the way to do it. But when we got to college, our freshman year, that’s when the master plan was refined. We saw this convergence of our skills. It was at that point that Fina/ Fantasy Vil came out, we were always fans of the Final Fantasy franchise, and we had to play this game. We were poor college students, So we went out and rented a PlayStation, we rented Final Fantasy VII, but we didn’t have enough money to buy a memory card. We won’t be able to save our game, we won't be able to turn it off. But we said, “okay, it’s worth it, we’re going to sacrifice whatever school work we have for the next three days and finish this game.” Donald: We didn’t sleep, we didn’t do anything but play this game. Geremy: It got to a point, like 24 hours in, we Started taking turns taking two-hour naps, trading off playing. Grinding to get up levels and stuff. Donald: But that really was the definitive moment for us, when we finished that, we saw this... | mean, there were games before that, thought-provoking games for us, Super Metroid, Super Mario Bros., and Zelda. But [with] a lot of these games we were inserting our own stories. We were al- ways disappointed when there wasn’t this big, cinematic ending. And we’d make up Our own, we’d write them down. But that’s what we loved about the Final Fantasy series too, because with Final Fantasy III, you're singing in the opera, and the ending goes on and on through all the characters. With Final Fantasy VII, | think it was when Sephiroth kills Aeris, we were just, “oh my program that has become really unique within the curricular now. Donald: Well, honestly, the important thing here for us is that we knew we obviously needed a team for all this. And one of the skills we’d also have to learn was how to build that team. How do | convince other college students who are busy with classes and their lives to come, and for free, spend lots and lots of time working on my short film? Almost half the Chair employees worked with me on my student films at col- lege. At that point we were really starting to already recruit our team, our core guys. So you’re plowing head-on into this idea of creating your ultimate vision, when do you get to really make something that’s part of your career? Donald: Things really took shape when | graduated, and Geremy had about two years left, and | took a job at this company called Glyphx. | took the job because they worked in the games industry... | was hired by this company to direct the cinemat- ics for games. | ended up working on the cinematics for Sou! Reaver 2 and this “YOU WON'T BE DOING THIS IN 10 YEARS. AND | WILL ABSOLUTELY BE DOING THIS IN TEN YEARS.” -ponatp mustarp gosh, games can really tell stories.” There really can and will be this epic fusion of gameplay and stories. Geremy: And we felt it. We felt the emo- tion of it. And we saw where the graphics were heading. We knew we would be able to meet our artistic needs, and our story needs, have it all drive together. We de- cided games would be a path to power. So at this point you had that light snap on: We’re becoming gamemakers? You make it sound so definitive! Geremy: Well, yeah, we just felt it. Donald: We did make a key decision. Geremy: We laid out a three- to five-year plan of how we would accomplish our goals. We made this complete, step-by- step plan on what classes we’d take, things we’d study. Take over the industry [laughs]. You made quite a mark with some of your self-made projects. Geremy: Yeah, Donald can be pretty humble about this, he helped design and put together through that time period at Brigham Young University this animation Army Men game 3D0O was making called Portal Runner. | started to make all these important contacts; | was working with the director of Soul Reaver 2, which was [Uncharted 3 creative director] Amy Hen- nig. She was just so smart and so good to work with. And around that time | started to pretty quickly dig into this company, started to have the opportunity to start negotiating some more business. | saw a great opportunity there. And all this is hap- pening pretty quickly, and | end up getting Geremy hired. Geremy: Somehow | convinced them | could be an animator [laughs]. So the self-taught programmer became the animator? Geremy: And | animated. Yeah, and | ended up animating like 30 percent of Portal Runner's scenes. But very quickly, our plan was to turn this company into a game company. Donald: And that was one of the biggest breaks we got. Credit to Glyphx; they gave us that chance. They were open to us taking extra money we were negotiating 2005 ADVENT RISING 2007 UNDERTOW 2009 SHADOW COMPLEX 2010 INFINITY BLADE electronic gaming monthly 247.0 EGM INTERVIEW MUSTARD BROS. wwwWw-egmnow-com and make a prototype of a game. And [Eat Sleep Play’s co-founder] Scott Campbell, who’s in our building, at the time they were making a game called Downhill Domination for the PlayStation, and they contracted with GlyphX to create all the characters in the game. And it was my job to interface with Scott, and | told him, “look, | want to make games.” And Scott gave us such great advice. And again we were able to negotiate the contact and gather some extra money from that. Collectively we ended up rounding up enough money that we could make this game demo. And that’s when Geremy and | really thought, okay, here it is, here we are, we got it. As you were hiring and growing this company, is this where Advent Rising took form? Geremy: Yeah, while we were hiring these people, we are incubating Advert, pulling together all our ideas from our past. We kept building out the team and everyone came together to build on the ideas, GlyphX was excited, and we went from there. That was the first time | made contact with Epic, figuring out the Unreal Engine. That was way back before it even had a “one” on it. Donald: So we had the start of this game and just went around pitching the idea to publishers. Somehow it worked. So you were pretty boldly aggressive getting this off the ground, maybe a little naive? Donald: Oh yeah, | mean, we pitched everyboay. | just have to laugh, looking at the Geremy and Donald of 10 years ago, rolling into Activision, pitching this game [uses an enthusiastically sarcastic tone]: “Here’s what we’re gonna do! We’re gonna make Advent and it’s gonna be the best game ever! And we’ve got a team of like four people!” But seriously, we were defi- nitely bigger than that, but we had no idea what we were in for. “We’ve made cinemat- ics, we’ve never made a game, give us 10 million dollars!” And then Majesco agreed. Donald: But yeah, | think our ideas were really different for the time. We got some people really excited. So we would talk to Microsoft, we’d talk to Activision, they were interested in a lot of ways, but they looked at the experience of the team. It just wasn’t going to work yet. But we kept working on it, kept refining our demo. At the time, there were very few people using the Unreal Engine. Epic had this thing in North Carolina, where like 30 people come in to get a tutorial on how to use the Unreal Engine. We showed them our prototype and they were blown away by it. I'll never forget how cool | thought these guys were, and after this thing, they invited us to go to Cliff Bleszinski’s house, so me and Geremy and one of the GlyphX owners and all the main Epic guys are there, and we just talked with them for hours about games and how we'd do it. | actually think was how we got to Majesco initially, they called [Epic vice president] Mark Rein and said they wanted to make some bigger games, and he pointed them our way. Majesco calls us up, come pitch us... So we fly out to New Jersey and showed them our game. They were willing to take a risk, and they said “yes.” We couldn’t believe it; we had a letter of intent, we’re gonna publish your game. | remember walking into your studio. Wasn’t it an apartment complex? Geremy: It was technically an office park. But yeah, it was really a three-bedroom condo. | thought it was pretty cool. You guys had that infectious enthusiasm in this intimate space. But I’ll assume things got crazy. Donald: Oh yeah, it was not smooth at all. We always say how we learned, but there were just So many lessons. Even though we were 30 or 40 people as a team, It was like six to eight people doing 80 percent of the work. And it wasn’t for lack of passion or skill. We just didn’t Know how to run a EGM INTERVIEW eq “L HAVE TO KNOW IF WHEN | GO AND DO IT ON MY N, WILL | BE SUCCESSFUL OR WILL | FAIL?” he MYNIATL PY AAPL ICTADYP a IE LRT oF PF PMVeb Gs GE Za eee LJ INAALW IYI ODO LAN a | m t team. | was working 18 hours a day for a good two years. | wouldn’t say | got divorced because of it, but | was going through a divorce, it was killing me. It was a crazy mess of a time. Geremy: Crazy hours. Just crazy hours. And | just wasn’t eating right. | developed an ulcer. I’m like, what the? I’m what, 23, and | have an ulcer? Donald: | lost so much weight. | was so unhealthy. But you got the game out the door. And some people really liked it, it got good reviews with the bad reviews. Donald: There was definitely a point in that process, like a year away from completion, Geremy and | realized that if we left, the entire thing would collapse. It was done, there would be no game. But we started it, and we finish what we start. And we want- ed to make games. There was not a single moment that changed. And we needed that experience, and we finished the game. I'm really proud that we were able to pull off what we did. | don’t even know if by today’s standards it’s even a good game, but it did do some really cool stuff. You impressed people with what you did accomplish. David Jaffe was intrigued enough by what you did that he wanted you to work on the next God of War at the time. Donald: Yeah, people saw the potential. That’s the game we should be making now. But the game did ship, we ended up leaving the company and forming Chair. But initially, I’m faced with this crossroads, yeah, | could go direct God of War III at one point. And at that time they were just getting into God of War II, and it would have been the big next-gen experience, But that would mean not working with Geremy. And | probably could have brought Geremy along, but it also would have meant not working with my core guys. | would have had to move to Santa Monica, CA. But of course | was still tempted. If | made God of War I//—|’d have the resources | needed and | believed | could make it amazing. Just thinking about it, the ideas that Jaffe had, the ideas we talked about, it was...what an opportunity. But really looking at everything involved, | had to step aside and think, this is what I've been dreaming about my whole life. | have to know, | have to know if when | go and do it on my own, will | be successful or will | fail? You were in a pretty critical place too when you took this step. Donald: | had no money, | had $12,000 on my credit card funding trips trying to drum up interest. But | was going to do it. | needed to know if | could do it. So | said no [to Sony Santa Monica]. And then we formed Chair. Throughout all this, we wanted to own our own IP, and to do that, we had to create value in our IP, and we were talking at the time about our Empire universe, which Shadow Complex would be a part of. It was our version of G.I. Joe. We’ve always loved Cobra, and we kept on asking, how do we get our big, awesome bad guy? What if we found a way in our story to make America the bad guy? We could basically have America get taken over by these bad guys, and then they have the resources in America to create this Cobra-like army with this big technology. So that’s where we came up with this idea of America basically collapsing into this civil war. The bad guys win and America becomes this super evil empire. So you built the foundation for this story, and Shadow Complex began to fall into place? Donald: Even though we talked about do- ing a next-gen, Metroid-like side-scroller, we figured no publisher was going to buy our prototype and turn it into a $60 game. So we started prototyping a Chair first- person shooter. And while we were doing that, we approached Orson Scott Card. We said, “we have these ideas, we have this stuff, would you be interested in licensing it for a novel?” And he was all over it. He called his publisher, and ended up licens- ing the rights to write this novel. So he wrote Hidden Empire while we were build- ing this prototype. We ended up taking all this to Warner Bros. and they optioned the rights to a movie. So we went to talk to our uncle, Ryan Holmes, who’s a very accomplished busi- ness man. And we went to Ryan, and we talked to him about everything we had done, we think we’re ready, we appraised him of the plan. One thing we really started noticing, a lot of game companies were run by people like us, a programmer or an artist, no business skills at all. And [we said], “Ryan, we’d like you to be our business partner. You know how to start up a company, you know how to manage people.” And he agreed to do it, and we formed Chair. Ryan was so instrumental to all this. He’d sit down and say, “Okay, so what’s your unique value proposition, what do you bring to the table?” Geremy: And we're like, “What’s a unique value proposition?” [laughs] Donald: Yeah, and he puts all these business books in front of us, all these foundational business school things. And we talked to him about the game side of things, about the games business. And that was our first milestone: Create a real business plan so we could hire the right people we wanted to really make this work. Geremy: Franchises that can reach out into Hollywood, into novels, into comic books, into toys. All these different op- portunities that we see out there. We want to create this Star Wars universe. Donald: So we were humming right along with all this. And publisher deals can take a long time, they might take a year to get through all the stuff you need to get through. So we finished the prototype, we have this team sitting there, and we had to work on something. The new savior known as the download space. Donald: Yeah, and as we’re doing this, there’s this new market emerging, some- thing called Xbox Live Arcade. There were these little games on it that were kind of cool. So what if we took our little core team, and took the time we had while we were waiting for publishers to strike up a deal for this big game, and make one of these little games? Let’s see what we can do. We'll fund it internally. So we had raised [enough money] to fund the game, but to do this, we’re all going to take a pay cut. So every person in the company went to like half their salary. Geremy: Also, part of the strategy for Undertow, one of the walls we were run- ning into with the publishers, even though each individual on the team had been on | various projects and shipped games...as a | team, Chair had never shipped a product. That was a big deal with the publishers. So what do we do that can come in at six months to a year, fit within a smaller bud- get, and actually fit within 50 megabytes... or at the time even 25? We have to make a game that can fit within that scope. And we did it. It was a blast. electronic gaming monthly 247.0 EGM INTERVIEW MUSTARD BROS. Donald: It got to this point where literally, Undertow was shipping, several publishers were saying, “yes, sign here, let’s make the first-person shooter.” And we’re in London at the time, Geremy, Ryan, [my wife] Laura and |, speaking with publishers and about to sign this deal, walking up the stairs of this 600-year-old hotel, talking about this, and we all came to the realization at the same time: We don’t want to sign a mul- tiyear deal with some publisher to make a first-person shooter. We want to make games like this. We want to make Shadow Complex. This side-scroller we’ve been dreaming of for years that no one would ever publish (at least at the time). And we walked away from these publishing deals, Undertow was successful, and our exit strategy that was three to five years away, became really apparent really fast. Shadow Complex immediately became the next target, then? Donald: We had been gestating Shadow Complex even during Undertow’s develop- They’ve fought to keep that. This is an alignment. With Epic in your corner, Shadow Com- plex was off and running. Donald: We never looked back. We won over 50 Game of the Year awards. We’re really proud of what we did with that game. Geremy: We were even nominated in some categories up against the big 360 console games, like Halo: ODST. We’re like, what, this is our small littlke game and we’re in that category going up against those guys? But anyhow, we were pleas- antly surprised. Shadow Complex was described as your Super Metroid. But what if you look at it as your Metroid and you’ve gota long ways to go to be “super”? How can you not follow this up with a sequel? Donald: [laughs] Well, yeah, exactly...we have more to accomplish. But who knows what’s next? Geremy: Inevitably you’re constantly “WE WANT TO MAKE GAMES LIKE THIS. WE WANT TO MAKE SHADOW COMPLEX.” ment, and by GDC early the next year, maybe a few months later, we already had a game going. We had the Undertow guy swimming around Shadow Complex levels. We had a quick, rough, but pretty cool- looking prototype of Shadow Complex and we put a Quicktime of it on an iPhone and took it to GDC with us. And we realized, to do the game how we wanted to do it, we couldn’t fund it ourselves. We need to bring in a publishing partner. But again, we'll do it on our terms. So we took it to GDC, and that’s when the acquisition interest started to go through the roof. We’re showing Gabe Newel and Mark Rein and these publishers we know Shadow Complex. It was a clearly defined, mapped-out idea? Donald: Oh yeah, absolutely, we had the entire thing mapped out, you could play through it on paper. That game was hap- pening. Epic saw it, they loved it, and it kind of took off from there. We were flying back and forth to Epic, they were flying here. But the more we talked, the things that were important to us, like owning your own IP, you can make the important creative decisions, were important to Epic. They own Gears of War, they own Unreal. thinking of new, cool ideas, new features while you’re in the development process, you’re thinking of different ways you could expand out the world. And we just couldn’t implement any of that. We probably varied, maybe 10 percent from our original design. Luckily we hit the target with what we had. But all the cool ideas we thought of along the way, we really didn’t touch any of that. We have tons of stuff just waiting to be implemented for a sequel. You created lofty expectations with Shadow Complex. The constant Metroid/Castlevania rhetoric drove people’s excitement and you delivered on that to a lot of them. Where did you go wrong, if you were to be self-critical? Donald: There’s always little refinements. But thinking on higher-level stuff: How do we go even deeper with the explora- tion? And the foam gun, it just changed the entire way you Could approach the world. How do we make that even more integrated into everything else in the game, and where can we take that next? What else can we do with those types of world- changing dynamics? We’re getting to a point where the idea of the “small little game” doesn’t carry the same meaning. What you did with Infinity Blade is an interesting stamp on that notion. Donald: Cliff has something he’s been saying recently that | think is really awe- seome. Triple A isn’t going away, it’s just going everywhere. Or whoever said it first, it’s true. | Know you have those people who say, well, /nfinity Blade is a console game on an iOS device. That’s certainly not the way we look at it. Well, is that a compliment or an insult? Donald: | think it’s a misnomer. What we were trying to do was bring console production values and design sensibilities but make a game that tried to understand the iOS marketplace. And make a game that was right for the way people play those kinds of games, and where they play them, and how they play them. Geremy: We designed it from the ground up to be right for the iOS platform. Donald: And that’s how we’d approach any game for any platform. | mean, if we’re making a Kinect game, how are we going to make it the absolute best it can be for that device? What do you say to someone like me who is kind of looking to reverse engi- neer and see that /nfinity Blade type of experience brought to console? Donald: | think we’re going to start actu- ally seeing more of that. Good ideas are good ideas. If you look at /nfinity Blade, it’s one of the IPs we’ve been wanting to create for a long time. There’s a lot of story...actually, story isn’t really the right word, there’s a lot of fiction and narrative that’s going into building that world that we've been dreaming of for years. But Infinity Blade is a slice of that. Because we have been talking about this and planning this and dreaming of this world for a while, it allowed us to understand... It might not be apparent to the player, but we know who built that castle, and why, and how long ago, and the level of tech- nology that they understood, and what the motivations are, so the world could feel more grounded and bigger than what we were initially letting on. We have a firm foundation to keep building on. | guess I’m looking for that world to be less mechanics-driven and more of a story. Like you said before, who’s gonna make that Mass Effect where we can get rid of the shooting bits or make those the cut-scenes? I’m sure the sensibilities of the gamer will shift somewhat within this growing landscape. Geremy: | think something that Chair as a company does fairly well is focus on certain mechanics and refine them to the point where they are standout mechanics within our games. | think that’s something we’ll always do in anything we do. Rather than just blowing everything out to be super huge, we’d rather refine a subset of them and make them super fun. Donald: And part of that discipline comes because of Advent. We were trying to think of every awesome idea we could have and drop it into one game. And while you can do that, there are just tons of bloaty, little things we choose to stay away from. There are definitely core mechanics we'd stick to. | really want to make Advent again. [laughs] Having made this Advent-style game, moved successfully to the console download space, and into this even newer territory on a portable device like a smartphone, what would moving into a full retail-box release look like now that Chair has come this far? Donald: [pauses] | don’t know how to answer this question in an honest way. Geremy: [laughs] Donald: No, look, it goes back to what defines Chair, how do we keep the magic of a small team but leverage the resources of a much larger team? | don’t know when that will express itself. We want to make sure Our ideas are not constrained by our ability to do them. If we have an idea for a game that would most appropriately ex- press itself as a $60 title, but let’s not even think of it as price, but as scope, that we’d be able to do that. And that’s the honest answer, that’s exactly how we think. And as you create these metauni- verses, you Carry through this story and mechanics arc that could conceivably fit into a number of spaces. That’s very interesting to me. Geremy: Yea, we had some of the me- chanics for a Metroid-style game mapped out, and then we said, “well, let’s put them into a particular IP that would work in multiple ways.” Donald: Before there was a first-person shooter or a Shadow Complex, there was the foam gun, and some of these other mechanics, [that] were central to our larger universe. That first-person shooter had a foam gun in it. And so does the Shadow Complex side-scroller. That’s a larger mechanic, but there were also larger narra- tive elements and things as well. We were always planning to do both, we just went with Shadow Complex first. When you’re knee-deep in making these various games at various levels, what games do you look at for global inspiration? Geremy: Shadow of the Colossus. That was a huge game for me. | loved seeing what went into that game. That’s probably the only game in the past five years I’ve played multiple times. Donald: Yeah, to me, Shadow of the Colossus too in a lot of ways. But if I’m just rating beats of, oh my gosh that game is important and changes the way | look at interactive entertainment, | would say Red Dead Redemption. | think you would agree with that too. That blew me away. Well come on, how can you not want to explore that yourself? There has to be an itch to get into that scope and scale? Donald: [laughs] Well look, | could unequivocally agree we'd love to...Look, there have been other open-worild games, EGM INTERVIEW SEE it’s not like Red Dead is the first Grand Theft Auto-style open-world game. | don’t know why, but I’ve never gotten into the GTA games. There’s something about be- ing that cowboy and riding into the sunset and looking over that ridge, the endless possibilities of what’s there, what’s on the other side of that mountain. Geremy: It invokes awe within you. It just had the right mix of the right world, the right fiction, the right characters, the right amount of freedom, and the right game mechanics. It certainly triggered some- thing in me that inspired me. We talked about our love for Pac- Man Championship Edition, there’s a spectrum of games out there right now. And | see where you guys are now, your games are obviously going for a differ- ent kind of emotion, there’s always a Red Dead to inspire you. Geremy: Yeah, of course. | guess now’s not the time to quit, eh? Donald: [laughs] Absolutely not. Yeah, we're in a good place. With games, we have so much to learn. We are pioneers in a way. We're all learning what | think is the ultimate entertainment medium, it’s the convergence of film, of music, of interac- tive sport, entertainment, it’s much closer to the stage, honestly. It goes all the way back to the idea of people sitting around the fire and interacting with their stories. There’s just new horizons to define and discover. Everyone in the game industry right now— whether you're a journalist or a game developer or a consumer of games, you're pioneering this ultimate form of entertainment. | don’t care what any film Critic says, this is it. It’s awesome stuff. me) — ad = — ‘ > 4 4 Y NEXT WAVE espite being around for almost 10 years, Demiurge Stu- dios has never made a game. Granted, as one of those unsung development shops hired for their technical ex- pertise and professional assistance, they ve worked on games... some of the industry’s biggest, even: Mass Effect, BioShock, Bor- derlands, Brothers in Arms. Since their inception, Demiurge has been trusted with port responsibilities and DLC creation, even as a truly original creation remained high on its wish list. “Through all that time, we never got to make a game of our own, because we were busy working on other people's ti- tles,” says studio director and co-founder Albert Reed. “We were learning our craft from the masters, basically. BioWare, Har- monix, Gearbox.” But two years ago ata regular lunchtime pitch session, designer Dan Chretien uttered three simple words that would turn the studio from translators into authors: Shoot Many Robots. An assembly of the classic run-’n’-gun framework and loot-based RPG concepts, Shoot Many Robots is what you'd get if Contra’s Bill and Lance formed a Phan- tasy Star Online party. “Game design has changed a lot since [Contra],” says senior designer Josh Glavine. “We didn’t want to make a Metal S/ug clone. We didn’t want to make a Contra clone. We were inspired by what [Shadow Complex] did for the Castlevania/Metroid genre gameplay; they kind of revitalized it. We wanted to try to do the same thing for the run-’n’-gun.” That revitalization lies in the hands of our hero, P. Walter Tugnut. Conceived as a mix of Woody Harrelson’s Tallahassee character from Zombieland and the Heavy from TeamFortress 2, Walter (the P. stands for “Pickles”) has bunkered down in his RV adjacent to a mysteriously defunct factory in anticipation of—and perhaps maybe hoping for—the apocalypse. When the factory suddenly springs back to life and starts producing massive quantities of deathbots, Walter answers the hero’s Call to action. And that’s essentially the extent of the plot. “The story’s not really that critical to us,” Glavine admits. “It’s called Shoot Many Robots, we just need to create impetus for the player to be pissed off at the robots.” But story isn’t really the source of player motivation; that would be the loot loop that’s so critical to so many RPG-style games. When a member of the robot horde is destroyed it yields a handful of nuts, which serve as the game's currency and high score counter. Nuts can purchase better equipment and weapons, which will lead to higher score multipliers, which will net more nuts, and better gear...you get the idea. Levels are structured as traditional 2D shooter landscapes, but they’re organized with an RPG dungeon mindset, with different missions driving players to make repeated runs in order to level up and improve their gear for challenges down the road. There’s even an endgame that only the best-equipped and highly skilled players will be able to handle. “One-third of the gear is going to be endgame gear for level 90 players,” Reed reveals. “But to get geared to the teeth, you’re going to have to actually get good at the game.” This becomes even more important when play- ing four-player co-op, as the game scales accordingly with more and tougher robot foes. You’re also going to have to make a lot of decisions, as Shoot Many Robots’ arsenal is stocked with over 80 weapons and 200 pieces of helpful gear that serve as ingredients for custom classes. To fur- ther convince you of the team’s affinity for RPGs, gear can even be parts of sets that grant further bonuses if fully equipped. Welding such complex elements to a be- loved but basic frame is ambitious, but after 10 years of practice and learning, Demiurge is running into its first original project with their guns already leveled up. Important facts about your foes: (1) they are robots (2) they need to be shot. electronic gaming monthly 24?. 05.10.11 VIRTUA TENNIS 4 Bad news for clumsy people who own a lot of lamps: the latest version of Sega's tennis game embraces motion controls with this Kinect-, Move-, and Wiimote- ready edition. WWW-egmnow-com UPCOMING RELEASES OF NOTE as venta ete 05.17.11 LEGO: PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE VIDEO GAME ving up on the f their Star Wars, HarryPotterandIndianaJones theblockheadsfrom Ira friendly stab at the Pirates franchis @ 05.17.11 BRINK When civil war erupts on the suppos- edly utopian floating city of The Ark, it’s up to you—and your trigger finger, and your friends and their triggers fingers— to mop up. 05.17.11 THE WITCHER 2: ASSASSINS OF KINGS m6 The follow-up to the 2 adaptation of Andrzej Sapkowski's popular fantasy series promi Al and combat mechanics. a 4 PAP RO Ree eet x ¥ % AA eee orrcn ite: IES inn menor ROA ANAT A 2? Be LAUNCH POINT LEVI XBOX 360, PS3, PC - Electronic Arts had never expected to fall in love with a game like Mass Effect, but that was before | met Rachel Shepard, the confident yet compassion- ate heroine of the Mass Effect saga that was to unfold in my living room. Rachel's looks could never extend beyond the character creator BioWare had cooked up, nor could her decisions break the walls of the story that they had crafted; and yet, she was my Shepard. | gave her life, imagined her past and how she came to be who she was, and then watched as she took her first steps into the grand:adventure that we would take together. Mass Effect and its sequel were, for me, the marriage of the devotion to character creation and “real role playing” that Western developers hold so dear, and the love for big, grandiose, tightly written storylines that are the cor- nerstone of Japanese RPGs. | could go along for a wild and wonderful ride, but | could do it with a character that | had a legitimate emotional investment in. | eagerly await Mass Effect 3. Not just because | want to see how things turn out for this world and its vast array of characters, but because | want to see how things turn out for Rachel. 05.24.11 DIRT 3 Besidesrevampedcontrolsthatfeelmore arcade-likebutareactuallymoreaccurate, the latest installment of this rally race seriesalsoincludesalotmoretracksthan previous editions. wwwWw-egmnow-com 05.31.11 DUNGEON SIEGE Ill Square Made by Obsidian (Fallout: New Vegas, Alpha Protocol}, with advice from D.S. creator Chris Taylor, this action-RPG cast you as a legionnaire in the King- dom of Ehb. 05.TBA.11 DREAM TRIGGER 3D In this unique arcade-style top-down shooter, blasting colorful enemies doesnt splatter their brains every- where but instead causes them to explode in wild 3D patterns sure to elicit lots of “ooohs” and “aaahs.” 05.TBA.11 ROCHARD PS3 [PSN] The first offering from Finnish game studio Recoil Games, Rochard is car- toonish, side-scrolling sci-fi platformer with physics-based puzzles that looks like Bionic Commando Rearmed if you replaced Nathan's grappling hook with Half-Life 2's Gravity Gun. ae ae, / # 08.23.11 DEUX EX: HUMAN REVOLUTION XBOX 360, PS3, PC - Square Enix Inspired by the cyberpunk writings of Neal Stephenson ([Snowcrash) and Masamune Shirow (Ghost in the Shell), Deus Ex is an action-RPG set in a not-so-distant future where the line between man and machine has blurred. A prequel to the original Deus Ex—this takes place in 2027, twenty-five years before the first game—Revolution casts you as a private security officer who's injured when the medical technology company where you work is attacked, entangling your char- acter in a series of twist and turns in this sci-fi epic. 06.01.11 HUNTED: THE DEMON’S FORGE XBOX 360, PS3, PC - Bethesda This Tolkien-esque slasher stars a pair of familiar war- riors—including a beautiful bow-wielding lady and a stocky, sword-swinging dude—working together to fight an ancient evil. This rubber-stamp plot has helped Hunted earn the message board moniker “Gears of Warcraft.” It's a bit of a misnomer, though, as there's no grinding and you don't use cover all the time. Still, we expect plenty of magically- delicious gameplay from this action-RPG. 09.20.11 GEARS OF WAR 3 XBOX 360 - Microsoft The saga of Marcus Fenix and friends comes to a close (supposedly) in a third installment packed with tweaks to single-player and new online modes both competitive and co-operative. But if you can’t wait until September to chain- saw your friends, you can get into the multiplayer beta this month by either buying the “Epic Edition” of Bulletstorm or pre-ordering Gears 3. Best of all, playing during the beta will unlock some cool weapons you Il be able to use when the full game arrives this fall. 11.11.11 THE ELDER SCROLLS V: SKYRIM 360, PS3, PC = Bethesda Taking a break from the post-apocalyptic wastelands of Fallout, the good people at Bethesda Softworks return to the realm for another first-person fantasy RPG. It is two hundred years after the events of 2006's The Elder Scrolls IV- Oblivion, and the titular land of Skyrim is in the throes of civil war and under attack by a god in the form of a dragon. Thankfully, you are there to save the world before the housing market is so decimated that it effects the global economy. All dates subject to change. EGM is not responsible if you drive out to your local game store and they tell you, “Sorry, that’s not out until next week.” electronic gaming monthly 247-0 PUBLISHER SONY COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT ie AMERICA DEVELOPER EVOLUTION STUDIOS & PLATFORM PLAYSTATION 3 PLAYERS SINGLE-PLAYER, 2-16 MULTIPLAYER ESRB T - TEEN | on oe —— RELEASE DATE Chaotic madness has seldom looked so enticing 04.12.11 STERLING MCGARVEY 4 © BRETT BATES ELI HODAPP BRYAN STRATTON Cameras Ready, Prepare to Flash! . Red Carded Great Lake-Sized Carbon Footprint Wheel Squealing Masters Blaster By now, you've learned what Sterling learned during Brett's face is still red after his dog got off-leash and Eli’s recent surge in travel for conventions ensures he'll We wanted to replace Bryan's face with a Masters Flag his 3DS review time: Don’t crank up the 3D slider. Liking: Super Street Fighter IV 3D terrorized a kids soccer practice. have to plant Oregon to offset his carbon footprint. to convey the importance of his Tiger 12 review to Liking: Crysis 2 Not Liking: Bad dogs To Buy or Not to Buy: The iPad 2 sure looks snazzy, Liking: Meeting cool people and seeing awesome society, but design team wouldn't have any of it. Not Liking: MotorStorm: Apocalypse's cutscenes games all over the world. Not Liking: GDC and PAX East a week apart from Liking: Whackin’ balls and burnin’ rubber Reading Glasses: GDC’'s game design talks inspired Not Liking: Parallels between 3DS and Virtual Boy him to pick up a Kindle instead of reading “Reality Is but paying rent is probably more important...right? each other? Really? Pattern Detected: Golf and racing are Sunday TV Broken” on his phone. Travel Tip: Always, always ask for the exit row. staples. Time for Meet the Press: The Game? Www-egmnow-Com he MotorStorm series is well- known for providing loads of challenge and threatening the well-being of DualShock 3s worldwide. Since its 2007 bow, legions of gamers have experienced the thrill of narrow victories and the agony of being shunted into a wall and out of the last qualifying position. After a sound PS3 sequel and a handheld spin-off, the series returns to PS3 with MotorStorm: Apoca- lypse, a title that carries on the tradition of its predecessors, albeit with new bells and whistles. Since 2008’s Pacific Rift, we’ve seen two hugely action-driven and cinematic racers in Blur and Split/Second. Their influence is pronounced in Apocalypse. The scenario throws you into a massive faux-San Francisco city in the midst of a major disaster. The urban turmoil is a fine ANDREW PFISTER After DICE, GDC and PAX East, Andrew is ready to settle down on the couch and catch up on all the games he’s. ..OH CRAP E3. Liking: Jorchlight transmutations Not Liking: Skipping hills in Tiny Wings Donate: All you can to Japan Quake Relief diversion from the “Burning Man#as-race” And yes, it carries and “tropical paradise-as-race” motifs of | onthe tradition the first two PS3 games, and allows for more tension and peril. of wince-worthy ragdoll effects. People shouldn't contort like that. Ouch. MotorStorm games follow a few simple rules: They’re unforgiving and relent- less and favor judicious use of speed bursts and aggression to bypass your opponents. Additionally, the open tracks ensure that environmental elements are as perilous as the competing big rigs. The series’ signature hook is probably the engine management. As you boost, your engine risks overheating, which you’re always cognizant of as you shunt a rival driver to pass. Although Apocalypse touts its story and rapidly collapsing environments as its biggest new additions, one new tweak to engine management transforms the series dramatically. Pacific Rift introduced JASMINE MALEFICENT REA + PATRICK KLEPEK While setting out on a new Pokemon adventure, Jasmine was dismayed to find that she couldn't catch That explains all the “spilled” water. a Magickarp. Her childhood feels cheapened now. Liking: Pokemon White Not Liking: The deluge of shooters this early Not Liking: Mid-term exams Obsessively watching: All 13 seasons of King of the Hill Patrick's buying a 3DTV when his current one dies. Liking: Double Fine’ scattered new direction. Really Wishes: NGP was a more focused handheld. water-cooling, which allowed you to drive into puddles and temporarily slow down or remove all engine heat. Apocalypse introduces airborne cooling. Essentially, when you hit ramps and snag big airtime, letting off both boost and accelerate will cool your engine in-air, which gives you a significant advantage in maintaining your speed once you land. Make no mistake, it's a genuine game-changer. | tried to go back to Pacific Rift to refresh my memory after several hours on Apocalypse, and found it near-unplayable without the airborne cooling feature. The aforementioned campaign is an attempt to reinvigorate the typical system of “race, unlock, progress.” Not unlike Fight Night Champion’s recent attempt at dramatics, Apocalypse gives you three in- terweaving tales of racers participating in the three-day event, from a young rookie BRADY FIECHTER While GDC continues to be the most enjoyable games conference of the year, the GDC plaque will kill you. Liking: NBA Jam in 2011. Not Liking: Realizing that televisions don't last forever and it's time for an upgrade. Netflix: The best way to obsessively revisit every episode of the X-Files. electronic gaming monthly 247.0 REVIEW GREW (easy mode) to a prime-of-his-career racer (medium) to a grizzled champion (veteran), with the progression designed to help you with the series’ notoriously unforgiving difficulty. This makes for a gentler learning curve than in past games, though the hokey and forgettable cut-scenes feel more like an online Flash cartoon than an engaging tale. It also doesn’t help that you have to endure long loads between those cheesy cinematics and your next race. The environments, though at times too dazzling for their own good, feel like traditional MotorStorm stages fused with tidbits of the disaster-driven elements that made Split/Second a cult hit. You’ll race through some dazzling theme park-like setpieces of destruction. Within Campaign, the second day of each event brings more natural disasters, which you notice not only within the campaign cut-scenes, but in the gray skies and increased sense of peril. A few pulse- boosting moments include barreling around beach boardwalks as hurricanes threaten to blow you into the ocean and hitting the makeshift exit ramp of a dam- aged skyscraper, only to discover that the street has collapsed and you'll have to race through a subway station to hit an exit before it crumbles. WWW-egmnow-com The high cliffs and volcanoes of prior games provided intensity, but the combi- nation of tough difficulty and maintaining focus amidst chaos does wonders to boost the tension. If there’s a real setback to these big moments, it’s that some stages just feel too chaotic and Apoca- lypse lacks a certain visual coherence to distinguish between a light pole you can drive through and a telephone pole that will wreck you. Inevitably, you will be frustrated. The game effectively adapts the now-standard XP system into its online racing. You earn betting chips in every race that you participate in, and you can use those chips both to gamble on your chances of beating other racers and to unlock different perks, such as increased grip strength, faster engine cooldowns, or faster respawns. It can also be used to purchase vehicle upgrades, a slickly implemented feature that will ensure that people continue to participate, though | wish it also let you earn XP in campaign or time trials. Between its slick multi- player, finely tuned boosting tweaks and a single-player story that gradually reaches the series’ trademark difficulty, Motor- Storm: Apocalypse fortifies the concepts the series is known for. It draws the right elements from other racing games while refining those that make it stand out. De- spite some long loads, occasional hokey Campaign moments, and sporadic frustra- tions within its busy environments, it’s a fine sequel that’s well worth playing. MOTORSTORM: APOCALYPSE Implements meaningful improvements to the formula Campaign is hokey and forgettable The snack you microwaved waiting for a race to load A 1 t : ' 1 i U i i : : I I 1 I t i t © YOUR PASSPORT TO A WHOLE NEW WAY TO READ EGM Your Unique iPASS code: Electronic Gaming Monthly is the first gaming magazine to introduce a weekly digital companion to keep you up-to-date with the reviews, previews, and breaking events that matter most to you! PLUS, with the EGM iPASS, you can upgrade your interactive experience with more content, more video, and more downloacs. Enhancing your 4-issue subscription to EGMi is easy: |. REGISTER FOR FREE AT www.EGMNOW.com ce. CLICK ON iPASS AND INPUT THE UNIQUE CODE PRINTED ABOVE 3. ACCESS THE LATEST ISSUE OF EGMi FOR ADDITIONAL PAGES OF MAGAZINE-STYLE CONTENT PLUS SPECIAL DOWNLOAD EXTENSIONS! WWW. EQIMNOW.COM ® 1 t t ! i J : i i t i ! I I 1 ' : : 0 REVIEW CREW CRYSIS Now approved for console use he first Crysis earned plaudits for injecting a bit of superhero into the shooter genre, courtesy of the game’s speed-, strength-, armor- and stealth-enhancing Nanosult. It also generated plenty of flak for restricting its player base to PC gamers whose rigs wouldn’t melt under the heat of its intensive graphics requirements. For Crysis 2, developer Crytek figured out a way to cram all of its luscious high-def visuals onto the Xbox 360 and PS3, so console gamers can finally wrap their controllers around what is one of the most innovative shooters in recent memory. In asmart move that allows Crytek to reset the story for new players, Crysis 2 shifts the setting from a tropical island to a near-future (and stunningly rendered) Manhattan. The city is being ravaged by an alien assault and a virus that has citizens doubled over in alleyways and makeshift quarantines, coughing up black blood. As the wearer of the one-of-a-kind bioweapon known as the Nanosuit, you’re the only hope to save the island. That Nanosuit is also the key to Crysis 2’s success. Dubbed 2.0, its functions have been adapted for console use: You can now either beef up in armor mode or 2 go invisible in cloak mode with a quick tap of a shoulder button. Activating either of the powers (or running) drains the suit’s energy and leaves you vulnerable to attack, so dominating the enemy forces requires a constant strategic balance between taking advantage of suit abilities and finding cover. While the game allows you to favor one power over the other via an upgrade system (letting you, for example, silence your footsteps or reduce damage with bullet deflection), | found myself adapting to the circumstances of the moment, using cloak to flank groups of enemies PUBLISHER EA DEVELOPER CRYTEK PLATFORMS XBOX 360, PS3, PC PLAYERS SINGLE-PLAYER 2-12 MULTIPLAYER ESRB M - MATURE RELEASE DATE 03.22.11 and then switching over to armor as | opened fire on them from behind. Crysis 2 actively encourages this style of play by including a number of “tactical assessment” sections in each level. Whenever you reach one of these points, the game prompts you turn on your tactical visor to scope out flaking points, sniping positions, weapons caches and other points of interest before charging into battle. These moments really open up the potential for improvisation and strategy in what is otherwise a linear experience. The downside to allowing this sort of creativity is that you'll find ways to break the illusion of realism Crytek has so meticulously crafted, particularly when it comes to enemy behavior. In one area, | used a scoped assault rifle to down one soldier while his partner stood idly by whistling “Dixie” until | put a bullet in his head, too. Later, with cloak activated in a Cramped apartment building, | witnessed another soldier walking in place with his face pressed against an open door. Over the course of the game, | saw several other enemies doing the same thing behind cover. Thankfully, enemy pathing and awareness issues aren't relevant to the game's engaging multiplayer modes, which force you to take full advantage of your suit’s abilities to compete against some (hopefully) intelligent foes. You’re helped in that task by an XP system that allows you to customize your loadouts depending on the way you like REVIEW CREW craysis => to play. | found myself favoring stealth during Capture the Relay matches but selecting an armor-boosted gunner for the Domination-like Crash Site games. In addition to those more standard game types, Crysis 2 includes some interesting modes tied to the game’s fiction. One is Extraction, which tasks one team with locating two “bio ticks” and returning them to a waiting chopper while the other team defends the locations. The other is Assault, which pits one team of regular soldiers sporting heavy firepower against a group of Nanosuit soldiers packing nothing but pistols. The Nanosuit soldiers must infiltrate and download information from five data terminals while the other soldiers hunt them down. In all, there’s enough variation and customization in both the single-player and multiplayer to keep you engaged long after the game’s release. If you’re a console gamer or PC person with a lower- end machine who wistfully read reviews of the first Crysis, take the plunge with Crysis 2. |It’s worth the wait. CRYSIS 2 Works on consoles! Heavy-handed 9/11 imagery Occasionally clueless enemies electronic gaming monthly 24?.0 REVIEW CREW \. \e lf \\ \ ig AN \ i ; SAA \\ \ i) : . . ‘ {Ty BY: WY i fF ei , PY te iE io | 4 FLUE A } ‘vy / \ . # ; We ‘ t HARA a \ \ H i AS Ra UTD. ats iT ss \ ee Log xX Oy its, SoS ee NA Gee aa 4 (ok A ORI RG % FAAS ; iS d oe Sead NY i 4 ip Rh " et tae ; : Yi p i » ’ + x : ¥ , oa tae t s Suen é J RRA EES i Lis hi sal y v4 by ‘fg = a : ; ¥ ; | if nN é i 4 a Rs i } ry ~~) Wil f x .¢ J I iy ¥ rio ber. \ vt f ¥ a eat at 4! o] : Y } ; % Another dimension of phenomenal fighting by STERLING MCGARVEY apcom’s attempts to translate its fantastic fighters to portable DLA devices have been spotty. NIN NDO 3DS Although a well-adapted Street oS PLAYERS Fighter Alpha 3 did wonders pushing the 5 SINGLE-PLAYER limits of the Game Boy Advance, sub- 2 OFELINE ne sequent handheld games haven't fared AN : as well. But if you’re approaching Super Street Fighter IV 3D with trepidation, fear not: It’s an amazing showcase of the 3DS’s technological capabilities wrapped i) around one of the best fighting games of ae ae — at “se a Ma Pay) Ui recent memory. SSF43D works so well because it trims the fat from the console games with sleight-of-hand touches (you prob- é : 7 acacia ably won’t notice the minor animation a excisions) while maintaining the core experience from gameplay to online multiplayer. Yet it still manages to imple- ment hardware-exclusive features that go beyond just depth of field. One big gameplay change is the implementation of Easy Mode. If you’re too lapsed at Street Fighter to remem- ber a simple Hadoken, you can use the touch screen to choose up to four preset attacks, from specials to supers and ultras. It seems cheap at first glance, but from an aesthetic standpoint, it’s great to see that you can pull off ridiculous ultra WWW-egmnow-com finishers that you’d otherwise never be able to see with your own eyes during a match. Also, Capcom has seen fit to balance the one-touch attacks with a cooling-off function that prevents spam. The depth of field works to great mea- sure. HUD and characters feel livelier and more independent of their backgrounds than what I’ve seen in other 3DS titles. SSF43D is subtle instead of gimmicky with its approach to the new medium, though the over-the-shoulder camera perspective is a bit gratuitous, even if largely functional. Multiplayer is largely similar to the console experience; the main concession is spectator mode, which is restricted to six-person local Wi-Fi. But the remain- Super Street Fighter IV's already over-the- top special moves and supers get that extra oomph in 3D. So Ae, eee = der—online multiplayer with the ability to allow anyone to interrupt your run of Arcade Mode for head-to-head brawls — is remarkably similar to what everyone’s used to on 360 or PS3. Another handheld-exclusive mode delves into Nintendo’s new Street Pass feature. In this mode, you can collect figurines of the numerous fighters in dif- ferent poses and outfits. They’re ranked according to levels, and while you can only collect up to 500 of them, there are more than that number available. You can use them to simulate tag-team Street Pass battles against other players, which earns you points to unlock more figurines. Or you can use Nintendo's Play Coin system to convert your hardware points into these points. This should be appealing not only to completists but to anyone who's looking to gain points for doing next to nothing. Super Street Fighter IV 3D is among the finest 3DS launch titles by virtue of its strength in adaptation. It’s a tight rendi- tion of one of the best fighting games to grace consoles in years and transitions beautifully to Nintendo’s nascent plat- form. Whether you’ve mastered the “Fo- cus Attack Dash Cancel” or you’re still stacking up touch-screen Sonic Booms and Flash Kicks, this is a must-have title for 3DS fight fans. & SUPER STREET FIGHTER IV 3D 93.0 zi THE GOOD A wonderful adaptation of the console hit THE BAD Over-the-shoulder mode feels forced THE UGLY Hakan’s dude-grease in three dimensions electronic gaming monthly 24?.-.0 REVIEW CREW SHIFT 2: The much-anticipated sequel to EA’s stellar sim racer is a finely tuned upgrade in every sense of the word on’t let the de-emphasized franchise name fool you. Shift 2: Unleashed is the sequel to 2009’s Need For Speed: Shift, the game that took the wheel of the series that practically defined arcade-style console racing, drove it into a chop shop, and stripped it down to a lean, mean, sim- style touring racer. It’s the sort of move that would have outraged the franchise faithful, had the franchise itself not already been driving them away with lackluster installments. WwWwwWw-egmnow-com With NFS: Shift a resounding success, there was no need for EA to reinvent the wheel. Instead, it just added a whole lot more of them. Shift 2: Unleashed takes the solid chassis of its predecessor and tricks it out with more than twice as many Cars, over a dozen more tracks, robust online play, and lots more that will make gamers’ tires squeal with delight. Shift 2 supports up to 12 players simul- taneously online. You can race with the cars that you purchased and upgraded in the game during the blessedly story- free Career Mode. If you don’t have one that qualifies for the race, it spots you a loaner; there’s no barrier to jumping straight into an online game. Even when you’re not in an online race against friends, however, you can’t escape the competition thanks to the Autolog. It’s a social gaming feature that first appeared in 2010’s NFS: Hot Pursuit, but there are some tweaks for Shift 2. Autolog is designed to weave single- player and online play into a seamless whole. It persistently records your best times on each track, the car you used to set them, and the performance index of the vehicle, which sets a benchmark value for how upgraded the car is. It’s a powerful incentive to race tracks over and over, and it’s likely going to lead to a lot of missed bedtimes and too-early mornings. PUBLISHER EA DEVELOPER SLIGHTLY MAD STUDIOS PLATFORMS X360, PS3, PC PLAYERS SINGLE-PLAYER, 2-12 MULTIPLAYER ESRB E - EVERYONE RELEASE DATE 03.29.11 Shift 2: Unleashed takes the solid chassis of its predecessor and tricks it out witha virtually endless series of upgrades. That’s not to say that, without Autolog, there’s any lack of incentive to revisit tracks again and again. Every positive action you take during any race earns XP to level up your driver, unlocking new features from rims to circuits. At the most basic level, finishing in the top three places earns you XP, as well as cash to upgrade your ride. But that’s just the beginning. Tracks also reward you for mastering each corner, or achieving other secondary goals, like leading for a lap, beating a target time or racing a clean lap. You even pick up a few XP every time you do those little things that shave sec- onds off your lap time, like drafting behind rivals, sticking to the best line as you ap- proach corners, or getting a perfect launch off of the starting line. So even if you’re coming in last 10 times in a row, you’re still making some progress as you learn, which takes the edge off of the frustration. Ultimately, wnat makes Shift 2 so much fun—and what's likely to earn a dismissive sniff from the hardcore sim racer snobs — is that it wants to teach you how to become a great racer. Formula D Cham- pion Vaughn Gittin Jr. is effusive in his voiceover encouragement, and the game makes sure that there’s always another goal just within your reach. It doesn’t pun- ish you for not having elite racing skills; it tricks you into developing them. If you’re already a champion racer, you're in for a treat. There’s so much to love about the pure rush of the racing sen- sation that Shift 2 delivers, from the impec- cable physics modeling to the tiny chunks of asphalt that spray your windscreen as you tail a drifting rival. With the new helmet electronic gaming monthly 245.0 REVIEW CREW cam view, you literally see what the driver sees, right down to how he turns his head to look through the next corner. Shift 2: Unleashed is about as good as a realistic racer gets and a very worthy se- que! to its honored predecessor. Gentle- men and women, restart your engines. SHIFT 2: UNLEASHED Retains everything that worked about 2009%s NFS: Shift, then doubles it There will always be people who complain it’s not hardcore enough The Autolog humiliation of seeing just how much better your friends are than you a REVIEW CREW ince the first title launched in early 2008, the Patapon series has been a quirky standout among the PSP’s many unique titles. That’s partly thanks to its shadow- puppet-like aesthetic from Japanese artist Rolito, and also its fusion of strategy and rhythm games. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a game like Patapon anywhere else, and after a successful sequel, the fran- chise returns for another round. Patapon 3 is asound update that addresses many elements that needed attention. The core fundamentals are largely unchanged. You take on the role of The Mighty One (and like the previous game, if you’ve got legacy save data, it’ll import your information into this one) who leads armies of Patapon—small cycloptic creatures who are battle-ready. In this case, they’re attempting to capture evil spirits that have turned most of their tribe into stone. You lead the armies by tapping different face buttons to represent war PAIA Give the drummer some! by STERLING MCGARVEY wWwW-egmnow-com drum patterns, prompting your charges to march or attack. Patapon 3 offers riffs on the familiar formula, and they’re largely effective. Patapon 2 offered the Heropon, a special character with adaptable abilities and distinctive attacks. In the new game, there are Superhero Patapon, which advance that gameplay concept. With Superhe- roes, the class you choose will determine your difficulty leveyand play style. Tater- azay is a shield-bearing class that fights up close, so it’s tougher to get your strat- egies down if you’re not intimately familiar with the Patapon formula. On the other end of the spectrum, the spear-throwing Yarida has precise accuracy, but isn’t particularly challenging. The Superhero system allows for a great deal of flexibility in how you customize your warriors for battle, and in the levels of lethality you can dole out. It’s an effective addition. There are also new gameplay types that build on the series’ basic ideas. In addition to the default linear mission types, there are stages inspired by tower defense games in which you must go on the offensive to break down opposition before they can encroach on you for points. Also, there are sections that allow you to take your army on a loot quest in multi-tiered dungeons for plenty of goodies, while risking losing them all if you can’t endure. They’re sound additions that effectively utilize Patapon’s traditional mechanics for new experiences. The only drawback is that | wish there were even more varied game types to choose from. Aesthetically, Patapon 3 evolves the series, all for the better. Rolito’s art has evolved a bit after two games. The silhouette motif is the same, but it seems as though many familiar characters have spikes and wings and the sorts of flour- ishes that speak of a “heavy metal album cover” influence. It’s a nice flourish that accentuates the changes afoot. Arguably the most important improvement to the player experience is the addition of a HUD ® PUBLISHER at the bottom of the screen for drum marks the culmination of sound core SONY COMPUTER commands. While it’s easy to remember — mechanics that have been battle-tested ENTERTAINMENT the basic commands as you play, it’s over two excellent iterations and fused AMERICA =a sound addition for newcomers and with real improvements, such as online DEVELOPER |apsed players. co-op, customizable hero characters, PYRAMID/JAPAN For the many iterative changes that and new campaign modes. It’s acces- STUDIO come with any good sequel, the most sible enough for anyone to hop in, even if PLATFORM = important improvement that Patapon 3 you’ve missed the first two. If you’re a vet PSP presents is in its multiplayer implemen- who hasn't tired of banging the war drum, PLAYERS tation. You can jump into four-on-four this sequel provides enough variety to SINGLE-PLAYER competitive battles, or you can jump into —_ keep you enthralled. 2-8 MULTIPLAYER/ _ its solid co-op. You can link up with other CO-OP players online to form clans, where you PATAPON 3 ESRB can share the spoils of your missions E as well as use their blacksmith shop to RELEASE DATE perform upgrades that might be restricted 04.12.11 in your personal campaign. Since the gameplay is asynchronous, both of you A great sequel that capitaliz coordinate your squads, but you don’t foundation need to have all your drum patterns set together. It’s a great way to play through You li wish there were even mor the game and gain extra XP while bulking than the two provic up your army. Like so many games that have come late in the PSP’s lifecycle, Patapon 3 Taking on a fire-breathing dragon w mn ky, ™“). aula ay f\ “ DISSIDIA 012 [duodec- im]: FINAL FANTASY Lots of FF73 fan service here, but not much else going on in the handheld action RPG sequel. JASMINE REA: 5.0 POKEMON BLACK/WHITE Game Freak’s latest versions of the series are absolutely the best Pokemon games on Nintendo DS. MIKE MINOTTI: 9.5 PIXELJUNK SHOOTER 2 Q Games’ sequel revamps the shooter formula of the prior game for more white-knuckle tension and precision . BRADY FIECHTER: © 5 FIGHT NIGHT CHAMPION EA's latest boxing game adds a fun but short story mode and lots of tweaks to make The Science sweeter. STERLING MCGARVEY: © — BULLETSTORM Underneath the layers of profanity and hyperviolence lies a polished, well-designed and very fun shooter. BRETT BATES: ©.0 MLB 11: THE SHOW It doesn’t implement anything you haven't seen before, but it’s still a solid core baseball game. AARON THOMAS: 7.5 RIFT This fantasy title combines good gameplay, truly random encounters and (almost too) deep lore for a great MMO. JASMINE REA: 3.9 KILLZONE 3 It doesn’t provide characters to care much about, but Guerilla Games gets the ugliness of war just right. ANDREW PFISTER: &.0 MARVEL VS. CAPCOM 3 The long-awaited fighting game sequel is dazzling, fast- paced, and easily one of 2011's best titles. STERLING MCGARVEY: 9.0 DE BLOB 2 Even some fidgety camera problems can't keep down this colorful and family-friendly sequel. BRETT BATES: 7.0 DRAGON QUEST VI Although the 15 year-old SNES JRPG finally comes to North America, it’s not nearly as stellar as the prior DQ remakes on DS. CHAS GUIDRY: 5.5 TACTICS OGRE: LET US CLING TOGETHER The PSP remake of the PlaySta- tion tactics classic brings back everything you loved about the original. JASMINE REA: 9 STACKING Double Fine combines nesting dolls, puzzles, and Victorian-era styling to produce one of the best downloadable games yet. BRETT BATES: 9.5 TEST DRIVE UNLIMITED 2 Not a huge leap over the first game, but it should provide a few weeks or even months of fun for racing enthusiasts. AARON THOMAS: 7.0 DEAD SPACE 2 While it’s not as epic or varied as the original, this scary sequel has everything that made the first one so frighteningly good. PAUL SEMEL: 9.5 YOU DON’T KNOW JACK The return of Jellyvision’s snarky game show is as fun as you remember it from 1997, but with some great updates. BRETT BATES: ©.0 TWO WORLDS I! Thankfully, the sequel to one of the worst RPGs of recent memory is a pleasant but flawed surprise. NATHAN MEUNIER: 7.5 LORD OF ARCANA You can skip this mediocre Monster Hunter rip-off, since it offers few improvements on Capcom's formula. MIKE MINOTTI: 5.0 LITTLEBIGPLANET 2 The sequel manages to re- capture the magic and provides more potential for millions of ways to play. AARON THOMAS: ©. 5 WORLD OF WARCRAFT: CATACLYSM Blizzard destroys Azeroth only to rebuild it as a new play- ground to lose yourself in. JOHN KEEFER: SUPER STREET FIGHTER II (SNES/GENESIS) In light of our review of Super Street Fighter IV 3D, we decided to wind the wayback machine to another Super Street Fighter, in this case, 1994's 16-bit port of the arcade hit. Note the fatigue toward SF2 at this point... = — — ws ) - poe TH) GS I'm getting a little tired of having to buy a new SF game every year. Sure this game has four new characters andaniftydournament Mode, but why get this one when you can wait a year for the next one? SuperSF/iplays the same as before, but the voices are horrible and the graphics need afew touch-ups. Capcom needs to totally redo this game to get my interest back. It’s just more of the same. As much as | hate to do this, | cannot give this game an outstanding score.Why? It’s simple. It's not worth buying SF2 again, just for new characters and a couple of options. Oh sure, the game plays as goog) Hf mot better than SF2 Turbo and the four additional characters add a bit more challeng@, Butc’mon already, enough is enough. Alright class, let’s see if we can count to three! 1...2...sorry! YES! Another game continuing the SF series. The graphics are the.best.they’ve.ever been and the sound is near-perfect! The addition of mucho playing modes makes thegameeven cooler! Too bad it’s not #3, though ders face it—although | like SSF2, | have to adimitit’s a bit frustrating to have to upgrade toanother SF game every year and it’s not the third game. C'mon Capcom! Let's get #3 out next year...please! As the fighting aficionado, | have to admit that this is the best fighting.cartso far. Still, | can’t help but long fora mew challenge, not just four new challengers. The.additional guys are fun to try, but |'amwaiting for Capcom to go all the way and release number 3. Fighting fans who are familiar with the series will love it. It plays and looks as good as you would expect. Is there enough good stuff to go buy it? Well, you decide... electronic gaming monthly 247.0 REVIEW CREW =DOWNLOAD by EL! HODAPP DEVELOPER ANDREAS ILLIGER Tiny Wings came out of nowhere and finally booted Angry Birds off the top of the App Store sales charts. Featuring simple, single- button gameplay, you are responsible for flying as far as you can along the lovely, hilly landscape before night falls. Touching the screen makes your little bird dive, while releas- ing makes it flap its wings. You build up momentum by diving down one hill and then flying up the next. The levels are procedurally generated on a daily basis, creating a great randomized feel, while still keeping things the same for long enough to perfect a day’s landscape. Replay value skyrock- ets through the implementation of various tasks that require picking up coins, performing certain jumps, and more. Don't miss Tiny Wings for any reason. wwwWweegmnow-com DOUBLE DRAGON DEVELOPER BOW MOBILE CORP. The Double Dragon series hardly needs an introduction, as it’s difficult to find a more classic side-scrolling beat ‘em up. The virtual controls on the iOS version actually work quite well, and gameplay remains surprisingly true to the original. Double Dragon comes packed with four levels that resemble the arcade originals, as well as two levels unique to this remake. Like other iterations of the game, it won’t take long to beat, but a hefty system of unlockables will Keep you coming back for more. The reworked graphics of the iOS port look great, and my only real criticism is that the on-screen controls aren’t as transparent as I’d like. This sometimes leads to problems where your fingers obscure enemies, but it isn’t much of an issue most of the time. SPEEDBALL 2 EVOLUTION DEVELOPER TOWER STUDIOS The Bitmap Brothers’ classic Speedball 2 Evolution re- cently popped up in the App Store as a universal app for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. The basis of the game is a futuristic sport that’s something of a mix between handball and ice hockey. Two teams of nine players duke it out in a metal arena filled with power-ups, warp portals, and score-enhancing mechanisms. Points are awarded when the ball makes it into the opposing team’s goal. Brutality and violence are encouraged, creating a fun and ruthless experience. Speedball 2 for iOS is an enhanced version of the original Atari ST game, in all of its 2D glory. There’s a ton of content, with 336 players spread across 16 classic teams and 12 new teams, along with a career mode, 10 single-player modes, and local multiplayer via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. RRL AEE RB. P 10 ¥ BIN OPS eS a i. E ae! as } Py 7 Cpe ee > 3 > FIGHT NIGHT CHAMPION DEVELOPER ELECTRONIC ARTS Since the advent of hand- held gaming, titles that originated on full-fledged consoles have always felt watered down when they finally made their way to mobile devices. Fight Night Champion is one of those rare instances where the portable version feels just as good as the console version (if not better) thanks to great touchscreen controls. Tapping, swiping, and performing various gestures on different parts of the screen cause your fighter to fire off different types of punches and maneuvers. It all feels incredibly intuitive. The game comes with 20 boxing legends to play as, and it even lets you create your own ridiculous-look- ing boxer in Legacy Mode. | would prefer it if the parrying and blocking system were a little more forgiving, as matches tend to lean towards full-on brawls rather than efforts in calculated blocking and punching. Regardless, this isn’t a game boxing fans should ignore. INTUITIVE TOUCH CONTROLS HOT SPRINGS STORY DEVELOPER KAIROSOFT From the makers of Game Dev Story comes an oddly similar and equally addictive game where you’re in charge of managing and building the ultimate Japanese hot springs inn. Hot Springs Story revolves around selecting which rooms you want in your inn, and placing them on the landscape along with various decorations. Everything can be tweaked to satisfy your guests, and setting up an ideal inn will lure in celebrities, VIPs, and other high-end cli- entele, while your inn gets talked up in the in-game magazines. I’d start with Game Dev Story if you haven’t tried it yet, but Hot Springs Story is a worthy addition to the Kairosoft library. ~~ ¥6,083,950 ’m not the first to observe that the annual Game Developers Conference, as the name emphati- Cally states, isn’t really for us press yahoos. But this year | skipped the usual PR-wrangled events and game demos we’re supposed to attend and just sat in on the talks and sessions. | probably won't do that again, even though | now possess working knowledge about the pros/cons of various biofeedback mea- surement techniques for gameplay tuning (galvanic skin response is way cheaper than eye-tracking; definitely the way to go for the mad-scientist game developer on a budget). | was clearly in the target demo for one session, though: “The Failure Workshop.” They say you’re supposed to learn from failure, but the unarticulated theme of this roundtable was that if you aren’t laughing at failure, you’re doing it wrong. “In 2001 | almost quit making games forever,” was Plants vs. Zombies creator George Fan’s ominous line, as he de- scribed the Chu Chu Rocket-made-horri- ble project that almost preemptively ter- minated one of the best games of 2009. Fan likened it to cat/mouse foosball — mice and cats marched down the screen from top to bottom, and the player had to keep the cats from catching and eating the mice via a series of sliding barriers. Fan actually had to remake the prototype for his presentation, as he’d lost the Original code: “| was a little worried that after 10 years of game design experience I'd make it and it wouldn’t suck.” But he had nothing to fear—judging from a few seconds of gameplay, it was a complete- ly terrible, awww-inspiringly adorable failure. Luckily, Fan figured that out for himself and spiked the project. Spy Party creator Chris Hecker, formerly of Spore and a programmer of some legend, then took the stage to pick over the bones of his abandoned wall- climbing game—a concept that seems immediately, fundamentally flawed, right? Well it was, but rather than throw together a gameplay demo and try to find the fun as a first step, Hecker dove under the hood and began building the game's complex physics engine, which included not one but six different ways to model fatigue. As page after page after page of hardcore math and code flashed by, Hecker deadpanned, “I kind of redis- covered chaos theory...So what went wrong, as if it wasn’t totally obvious?” The lesson: “Technology rat-holing...a lack of ass-in-chair.” Make sure your fundamentals are right before you focus on the one part of the project that really appeals to you. Then Stardock’s Brad Wardell got up to bat, and the tone changed. Up until that point, every speaker had ejected from the death spiral or radically changed direc- tion—but not Wardell. He talked about ramping up his studio from a handful of do-everything staff to a large team, but without evolving the culture and bringing in strong project management. No one was in charge of QA, or really any other aspect of the game. The saddest part was that Wardell was supposed to be that guy, but he didn’t execute or find someone IT'S ONE THING TO LEARN FROM FAILURE, BUT WHAT WE REALLY NEED TQ DO IS SPOT FAILURE AS IT UNFOLDS, THEN EITHER FIX IT OR RUN THE HELL AWAY. ING ROGUE AT GDC e long, slow death of game publishers who could. Elemental: War of Magic came out two days early and was riddled with problems. “I don’t even know what a [Metacritic score of] 56 means. A 56 means it gives you cancer,” said Wardell. It’s one thing to learn from failure, but what we really need to do is spot failure as it unfolds, then either fix it or run the hell away. Wardell, unfortunately, didn’t—and that’s when mere, we'll- laugh-at-this-one-day failure becomes multimillion-dollar disaster... The other thing that got me thinking at GDC was Cliff Bleszinski’s talk on “The Power Creative,” which was really about how to be Cliff Bleszinski: a creative force as a game designer, branding/marketing/ PR-savvy, looks good wielding a replica Lancer...humble. And then he said, “I’ve talked to developers—[they say,] ‘We don’t own our IP; we don’t really care’ — are you f**king high?” And that made me realize how something seemingly small in the eyes of consumers — developers owning their own |IP—has really changed the industry. It started about seven years ago, when Xbox co-creator Seamus Blackley became an agent at Creative Artists Agency. Now almost every major and mi- nor developer is rep’d by CAA or another Hollywood firm: Tetsuya Mizuguchi, Tim Schafer, and Bleszinski, sure, but even The Odd Gentlemen (The Adventures of PB. Winterbottom). “Overall developer compensation has gone up a lot,” Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter told me. “So far, only a few have really benefited (the former Infinity Ward guys, the Bungie folks, and Rockstar), but the trend is definitely in favor of the talent, and that means more for the creators and less for the publish- ers.” | firmly believe that talent deserves the highest reward, but the ripple effects on publishers are just beginning. Hey EA, maybe it’s time to start working on your own new IP again? Play us out, Pachter: “Publishers are a slowly dying model; the power is slowly shifting to developers.” El electronic gaming COMMENTARY epuno 4-04 qowiyg 4 NNIT NVIASG monthly 24b-O COMMENTARY OPEN YOUR MIND TKTKT uas IDS Joup® Jolt MAdja WM MIldLVd Www-egmnow-com on’t design ina vacuum,” proclaimed independent game creator Jake Kazdal, man of many hats—founder, director, artist, father—at Seattle-based Haunted Temple Studios. Kazdal was on a panel at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, discussing his experience contributing to Rez. Gamers, myself included, could learn something from this, though I'll have to tweak the statement: “Don’t play ina vacuum.” It’s easy to continue playing exactly what you like. Based on the blockbuster sales for Cail of Duty and its ilk, a great many are happy to continue paying for the Next Big Shooter. Hey, me too! And that’s fine. You should play games that make you happy, but if your interest in interactive entertainment lies deeper than simply where to aim the crosshair next, consider venturing outside of your comfort zone. Try booting up something that’d make you nervous, even if it’s as simple as swapping the setpiece-heavy Black Ops for the decidedly anti-hand-holding of the Croatian-made S.7.A.L.K.E.R. |f you’re feeling uncomfortable when the game begins, guess what—that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Change is hard. You’re not alone. | largely refused to engage in open-world videogames prior to the release of Fallout 3. I’m someone who spends 20 minutes stressing over which weapon to purchase in Dead Space. | played Resident Evil games so conservatively that I'd have 30 save ribbons by the end. If given the option to head down one corridor, within moments, |’ll have a change of heart and pursue the other. Fallout 3’s handy guide arrows and extraordinary world pulled me in, though, and gently said, “Hey, you can do this, and there’s no wrong answer (except dying). Have fun.” Eventually, | did. Between the main quests, side adventures, and downloadable content, | spent more than 80 hours exploring the nuked wastelands of Fallout 3. |’ll always treasure that time, even the moments where | got stuck in a piece of scenery, forced to revert to an earlier save. I’m more willing to engage in a slew of other games because of Fallout 3, and I’m thankful for that. I’m a more well- rounded gamer, but it took a compelling videogame, an open mind, and the willingness to engage with an experience that didn’t feel right. It’s not always easy, but | can assure you that you'll feel better for it by the end. But I’m still guilty of digging my head into the sand. Even though World of Warcraft has been around since 2004, I’ve never played it. As someone who takes the description of “journalist” rather seriously, it’s entirely inexcusable that | haven’t even attempted to play one of the most influential games of the last decade. And yet, | still haven’t played World of Warcraft. | might not. I’ve rationalized that it’s because | tend to enjoy shorter experiences (which is true) and would rather spend 40 hours playing a dozen short games than one mammoth game. But honestly, that’s not why I’ve avoided Azeroth. I’m just scared; | don’t get it. MMOs are complicated beasts, full of stats and spells and crafting and and and. Let’s make a deal, readers. |’ll promise to play World of Warcraft this year (giving me time to hope Star Wars: The Old Republic drops first, naturally) if you spend a few moments examining what genres you’re unnecessarily prejudiced against and give one a shot. You don’t have to like it, and maybe the experience will validate everything you feared, but rather than dismissing something for what it might be, you can move onto more productive experiences because you actually know what it is. EJ IF YOU'RE FEELING UNCOMFORTABLE WHEN THE GAME BEGINS, GUESS WHAT— THATS NOT NECESSARILY A BAD THING. FALLOUT 3 THE LIMIT OF UNLIMITED ” GAMING: US lee! Da ~ pul aT | - nf ry — +r @ilala Ge) a / iar Tear | HT ale y Ol Ul Villu rot i ice ~/ 4 COMMENTARY Ky —_——_—_— uring a recent conversation with a friend concerning our personal opinions of Dragon Quest IX, said friend mentioned the fact that any time one of his characters died in battle, he would instantly turn the game off and restart from his last save. His feeling, best as | understand it, is a dislike for the idea of playing through an RPG knowing that one of his characters has died along the way. This is, of course, a gameplay element that so many of us never give a second thought: A character dies, we resurrect them, and life goes on. For him, however, an emotional attachment is there, and the concept of one of his characters having died as part of a game save he con- tinues on with is simply unacceptable. While checking out the demo for the PS3 version of Mass Effect 2 a few days later, | decided to do something I’ve never done before: follow the “renegade” line of answers and actions, contrary to my usual “paragon” preference. My excitement was immense! | imagined my new, alternate Shepard to be a crass, uncaring scoundrel of a Spectre, kicking ass and taking names with consideration only for her own personal interests. As my thumb hovered over the button that would lead to my first nefarious decision, | felt like | was back in high school, standing before the doors to the outside world, ready to taste the sinful sweetness of unauthorized truancy. Ten minutes later | turned the demo off, all signs of my giddiness at being naughty long gone. Not only did | fail to savor help- ing Commander Shepard be good at being bad, but | actually had a negative emo- tional reaction to doing so. But why? These were mere choices in a videogame, and it isn't like | haven’t loved random games in the past for allowing me to eschew my morals and take part in rampant chaos. This was different, though; | felt a responsibility for the actions of this world’s hero. Even if these beings | was interacting with were nothing more than digital cre- ations, | still couldn’t feel comfortable with myself knowing that | wasn’t trying my best to help them. It reminded me of other times I’ve felt like that before, in different ways and from different games. Though /co’s Yorda wasn’t actually a fragile young girl, when | took her hand in mine, | was always careful to never jerk her around or lead her at a pace that she couldn't keep up with. Even though the game never required me to be delicate with her, | still was, because that’s how | would really treat her. Playing Uncharted 2, | constantly found myself giving up on hunting for hidden treasures the moment my Al-controlled partners made some quip about Drake taking too long. | knew the game would wait for me, the player, and yet | felt a sense of shame at constantly making it do so. In Persona 4, | avoided becoming romantically involved with more than one of my charming gal pals out of determination not to hurt any of their feel- ings—even though | knew the game would never provide serious consequences if | did so. Or, you know, the fact that they had no actual hearts to break. My friend’s dedication to his team- mates may seem a bizarre practice—one that goes directly against the way DQ/X was intended to be played — but it makes sense to me after thinking about my own subconscious quirks. As game develop- ers Strive to allow us more freedom in the choices we can make, we players will often set limits on how much of that freedom we allow ourselves to exercise —even when we know the mental and emotional consequences of our actions will only exist within ourselves. Maybe that’s one of the interesting aspects such games can bring to the table, however: the ability to find out more about who we are when given that chance to be someone or something we typically aren't. GJ THIS WAS DIFFERENT, THOUGH; | FELT ARESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ACTIONS OF THIS WORLD'S HERO. electronic gam idl ] NOSdsaL1Vd “1 Olds ing monthly 24?.0 ouve hla dWd0 IHL 10 LSI MM —www-egmnow-com THE 6 WORST PLAGIARISTS IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY THE OTHER KIND OF GAME PIRACY ome say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but that’s not always true. It’s not flattering if you’re a duck being lured to your death by a whistle that sounds like you. It’s not flattering if you’re Batman watching a XXX parody of your life. And it’s certainly not flattering if you’re a game designer watching your original work get remade by an unethical, uncreative copycat. Let your outrage burn at these six rip-offs: RIP-OFF OF: MEGA MAN ae ee WE he: He She te eS ae ie a The Krion Conquest blatantly steals the character design, the animation, the inter- face, and the gameplay from Mega Man. If you don’t count the little hat they added to the main character, this is almost a pixel- for-pixel duplicate. Hot dog meat is more respectful to its source material than The Krion Conquest. The developers made a sad effort of doing their own thing by giving you non-Mega Man abilities like ducking, but this only made them look cocky, as if the morons thought they might be improv- ing Mega Man. They weren’t. Calling this game Mega Man is like calling a cooling fan accident a sex change. The Krion Conquest is such a beastly abomination that they still show the game to young Mega Mothers to warn them of the dan- gers of drinking during pregnancy. RIP-OFF OF: SUPER MARIO BROS. A lot of games borrow heavily from Super Mario Bros., but The Great Giana Sisters was a shameless knock-off. Every enemy, brick, pipe, and power-up was such a slightly jarbled copy of the original that it just looked like someone didn’t blow hard enough on the cartridge. They actually seem to think they improved things and shipped the game with the tagline, “The brothers are history.” To be clear: The Great Giana Sisters improves on Super Mario Bros. a lot like a disturbed spider nest improves on lovemaking. The Great Giana Sisters ruined every aspect it tried to imitate. Their female Mario moved like a passive-aggressive hate letter to physics, and the sloppy graphics looked like LEGO childbirth videos. | guess they thought if they screwed up hard enough, they’d get a hug instead of a legal injunction. They were wrong. The sisters were retail history almost immediately. RIP-OFF OF: THE ELDER SCROLLS IV: OBLIVION Two Worlds set out to capture each of the things that was great about Oblivion, and missed all of them. The combat has the variety and fun of a cremated loved one. The voice actors sound like they all really hate their first time at a Renais- sance Faire, and the plot has only ever been told to take a nap. And this might be the first fantasy game coded entirely in Elvish. There are so many glitches that it’s hard to tell which characters are broken and which ones are so suicidally bored they are pulling themselves inside-out on purpose. | think Two Worlds named itself out of a possible 10. RIP-OFF OF: THE LEGEND OF ZELDA Le beset 3 —s you. ve € und the Pear! Zt ©) r et Te Eu? of ane ‘ pire _ the ut ta! por : to throw : exo 8) A 8 atone! FARE THis. Kal : z * A. * 2 Spiritual Warfare is a religious game eerily similar to Zelda in all but one dramatic way: Instead of a sword, you throw fruit at your enemies...and this fruit makes them pray. In the secular world, we call this kind of decision “a failure” and greet it with mockery. Among religious thinkers, flying fruit is celebrated as genius. A pear to the | face is a fun, non-violent way to spread God’s love and a great way to get Jesus to return to Earth if only to ask, “Are you guys making fun of Me?” Now obviously, this game was made by thieves and idiots, but they must have had wonderfully huge hearts. After all, they didn’t fire the guy who suggested the fruit thing. That idea was so embarrassing that God's lawyers called the studio and asked to get Him an Alan Smithee credit. RIP-OFF OF: GEARS OF WAR If videogames had their own hobbies, Quantum Theory would be at home glu- ing pictures of itself onto Gears of War’s wife. This clumsy remake feels like the developers spent less time working on the gameplay and more time researching exactly how much they could steal with- out being sued for intellectual property infringement. Plus, if words mean anything to you, Quantum Theory has so little to do with actual quantum theory that they might as well have named it “Earth Sci- ence” or “Cursive.” They probably stole the Quantum Theory title from the back cover of a Stephen Hawking book just like they stole the Quantum Theory dialogue from a drunken argument between two first-semester English students. RIP-OFF OF: STREET FIGHTER Il Before | begin, let me say that the dental drills in Hell squeal licensed Phil Collins » music. Moving on, Capcom famously sued Data East over Fighter’s History, a game that was such a faithful character- for-character remake of Street Fighter II that one might argue it was a pointless endeavor. Strangely, Capcom lost. It was decided that since Street Fighter copied its characters from folklore and the movie Master of the Flying Guillotine, it was okay for Data East to copy those characters a second time in a knock-off game. Karma eventually made things right, though. The people at Capcom are making huge games like Resident Evil and Dead Rising. And the people at Data East are remaking industrial dairy-milking machines with their mouths. Face. If you were wondering why | sucker- punched Phil Collins at the start of the last paragraph, it’s because | figured the only way Data East could ever feel insulted is if it saw it happen to someone else first. Double Face. prrvedantvernnanecaas # i ! 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