Keiji Inafune, creator of Mega Man, recently left Capcom and the gaming world has been awaiting his plans for the future. In a grand display of entrepeneurship, he has not only opened his own gaming company (Intercept) but also opened a more general media and entertainment company (Comcept). The Comcept brand’s wide-ranging goals include planning for events, consumer gaming, and online gaming – as well as videos, music, books, and mobile content. Intercept, on the other hand, is all about consumer game development, based on three key tenets: Originality, Gravity, and “Beyond the Age.” Inafune has always been a strong creative influence on Capcom and I’m interested to see where he takes these news companies.
When I see a story about the Australian games classification board I can’t help but shudder. It always seems to be a story about censorship and which games Australians will now have to import because they’ve been banned or neutered in their country. Today’s a little different. Their site was recently updated with a PG (mild violence) rating for Burnout Crash from Electronic Arts. It’s not listed on the site, but the game is presumably developed by Criterion Games like the others in the Burnout series. No further details or release dates are available at the moment.
New details on Max Payne 3 are emerging. Rockstar Vancouver has tapped help from additional Rockstar studios in Toronto, London, and New England. It will be using the Euphoria engine, making bullet physics and the “Max Payne dive” even better and more realistic. The story takes place 8 years after Max Payne 2, beginning with him as a security contractor in Brazil. Because the emphasis is on set piece moments, the game will be strictly linear. The level of graphical detail is on par with Red Dead Redemption, but slowed down and more focused. There will be a multiplayer element, but there’s been no explanation yet as to what that will be.
Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters has a few details available. The movie tie-in has been confirmed for release on June 7th in the US. The game will come with 3D glasses for those who want the effect but don’t have the nice equipment for it. It will also display in sterescopic 3D if you do have the stuff. With drop in/out co-op, featuring Hal Jordan (voiced by and likeness of Ryan Reynolds) and Sinestro, the player will be tasked with defending the Corps from an assault by the android Manhunters. The player will need to master the power ring and learn to create hard light constructs. I have serious misgivings about this game. It sounds like great fun on the surface (playing as Sinestro?, Hell Yeah!), but movie tie-ins have a long and storied history of crap. Not to mention that I don’t think GL’s powers can be translated very well into game. Controlling Spider-Man or Batman’s limited movesets is one thing. Controlling a man whose abilities are limited only by his knowledge and will power is something else entirely.
An intriguing “pioneering step in transmedia” is coming as the result of THQ and Random House joining forces. I can’t say I fully understand the specifics, but I think this goes beyond just novel tie-ins to video games, or vice versa. Although that will certainly be an element of it, as THQ wants all of their video game IP brought to “all book formats.” I can’t help but think of the “choose your own adventure” books I had as a kid. If you could tie those stories into games, so the player/reader might make a decision in one format that makes a difference in the experience in the companion format, my mind would be officially blown.
Square Enix has been revitalizing many of the older Final Fantasy titles on newer consoles. The latest is Final Fantasy V for PSP and PS3 through the Playstation Network. The game was originally released on Super Famicom in Japan in 1992. It was released for the original Playstation in 1998. It’s coming to PSN as a PSOne classic, so it likely won’t be an HD upgrade, but Square Enix has mentioned new cut scenes. I’ve always been a passive fan of Final Fantasy so there are a few I’ve missed over the years, and this is one of them. The big news for me is this likely means the next one will be FFVI (FFIII in the US on Super Nintendo), one of my favorites.
If you’re reading Big Shiny Robot! it probably goes without saying that you know May 7th is this year’s Free Comic Book Day. But why am I talking about that in the video game news? 2K Games and Top Cow will be producing The Darkness II: Confession for distribution as a free comic that day. The comic will be a 32 page prequel to the upcoming game, bridging the gap between the first game, and chronicling Jackie’s rise to the position of Don. As if I didn’t already have a good reason to hit up Dr. Volt’s….
That seems to be it for the weekend news. Come back Friday for more updates from the rest of the week.