GayGamer.net

Nintendo eShop Shelf: Gameloft Edition

2011-11-03T01:00:00Z

Nintendo has yet to fully get their act together when it comes to their online services. Their early attempts at digital download stores, the WiiWare and DSiWare shops, were really hard to navigate and very unintuitive, leaving many quality releases without an audience. With the 3DS eShop, they've made browsing a little more fun and a lot less tedious, and as a result I've found lots of cool, unique, inexpensive games that I would otherwise have never played.

For this edition, check out some games from Gameloft, everybody's favorite mobile developer! Hit the jump for more...

]]> Talking Shop With Gameloft

We chatted with Gameloft's SVP of Marketing Gonzague de Vallois about their experiences working on Nintendo platforms and their popular eShop game, Let's Golf 3D.

GayGamer: Gameloft's been one of the largest contributors to Nintendo's digital download services. What is the appeal of the service to the company?

Gameloft: We have been very strong supporters of WiiWare and DSiWare since they have been launched because we view those services as new digital distribution channels. While nobody has made a perfect downloadable service for consoles yet, we feel that Nintendo really knows how to make an easy, user-friendly online experience that reaches our target audience.

GG:Your games are polished, full experiences. What are some of the challenges and secrets of creating great content with Nintendo's size restrictions?

Nintendo has removed some restrictions on Nintendo 3DS games that were present in the past. On the 3DS, we can bring deep content and a very rich experience similar to the one you can get in retail games. So the downloadable product has the same quality as a retail one and at a much more affordable price. It's all for the best players' interests. While developing titles on DSiWare it was much more challenging as the size of games was limited, so we had to develop techniques to compress data to include the most data possible in the smallest space possible without compromising quality.

GG: Has Nintendo offered feedback and guidance to your development teams, or do they just offer the outlet of the eShop?

Nintendo has always offered us technical support and qualitative feedback on game design. Nintendo Europe even has the Mario Club service to accompany each developer during development. So it's been a pleasure to work with Nintendo and we even encourage new developers to launch products on this platform.

GG: What are some of the differences between developing games for the eShop and mobile phone platforms?

The 3DS and smartphones have both their own specificities and unique features. The stereoscopic screen on the 3DS is a great asset. It is also very challenging and exciting to work on so we had to learn step by step. The device also needs specific technology to maximize the performance of the CPU and the GPU. As opposed to smartphones, the 3DS also has analog pad plus stylus controls and Street Pass and Spot Pass. So it is great to be able to use all this in the same device to improve the gaming experience.

GG: Let's Golf! 3D was well received among gamers and critics. What else does Gameloft have planned for the 3DS eShop?

We have not officially announced our upcoming line-up. All we can say for the moment is that we hope our fans appreciate our latest game, Let's Golf! 3D and to expect more great things from Gameloft!

Download These Games!

The following DSiWare games are available to download on the 3DS eShop or on the DSiWare store on the DSi. Many of Gameloft's games best mobile games are available on the eShop, and here are just a few of the very best.

Castle of Magic
Price: $4.99/500 Points
Lowdown: Castle of Magic harkens back to old 16-bit (and some 32-bit) mascot platform games. Power-ups, themed levels and a silly story add up to a game that's short, sweet and fun.

Soul of Darkness
Price: $4.99/500 Points
Lowdown: It would be easy to mistake Soul of Darkness for a lost Castlevania game, and I mean that in the nicest possible way! Gameloft has really created a love letter to the beloved vampire-hunting series. Highly recommended.

Let's Golf! 3D
Price: $6.99
Lowdown: Gameloft's first game made exclusively for the eShop was also the first third-party 3D game released digitally (Nintendo had previously released a few 3D Classics). Let's Golf! 3D works a little bit like Mario Golf (nobody ever accused Gameloft of originality!), but like most of its other games, there's a nice amount of polish and panache to justify the purchase.

P.S. - For those who like a little gimmickry with their video games, most of Gameloft's DSiWare titles come with a photo booth feature that lets you attach your head to your character and sometimes use colored power-ups depending on the colors in the picture you take. It's not essential, but it's a fun little bonus.

Stay tuned for our next installment, where we'll have some information about a new eShop exclusive!

Fanboy Rant: X-Men Games Need A Reboot

2011-10-30T13:50:00Z

X-Men: Destiny has been released to little fanfare, and early word is that the game is terrible. Given the short development time, the lukewarm press reaction to early builds of the game and the troubled Silicon Knights studio behind the game the game's apparent failure to launch is hardly a surprise. It's very disappointing to see such a rich and dynamic franchise not get its due. But even if the game wasn't rushed out of development and played decently, I truly think it'd still be missing the point. I've been reading X-Men for years, and I don't think it's a secret that the mutant struggle can be seen as a metaphor for any minority struggling to find a place in the world. I recently read X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills, a graphic novel about religious fundamentalists targeting the X-Men (The film X2 was based on this story) and I realized that the X-Men are NOT about the X-Men fighting the Brotherhood of Mutants. They're about a group of outsiders trying to find their place in a world that doesn't want, or understand them. An X-Men game that explored these themes could be brilliant.

Hit the jump for more.

]]> The plot of X-Men: Destiny is not in touch with the current tale the comic book is telling. Currently, Cyclops and Wolverine, two of the team leaders, are fighting over whether or not the mutant community should establish themselves as a militant, separate group from the rest of society or attempt to live in peace as normal human beings. These two notions have divided the mutants in half; Wolverine hates that Cyclops is turning young mutant kids into soldiers, while Cyclops thinks Wolverine is naive and that the mutants are fighting a war against the world for survival. There are no longer millions of mutants (a convoluted chain of events resulted in most mutants losing their powers); as a result, even longtime villain Magneto has joined Cyclops and the rest of the X-Men in their 'fight' for survival. The X-Men vs. the Brotherhood saga is long over. Like the LGBT community, the X-Men have a vision of being accepted, but not everyone agrees on how to gain that acceptance. There are LGBT people that want to live their lives as "normal" people whose sexual orientation and identity is just one aspect of their lives, and there are LGBT people that believe that being "queer" is a completely different lifestyle than that of the heteronormative world. Neither of these perspectives is wrong, but the conflict that can arise from the differing beliefs can make for fascinating storytelling - and in this case, for fascinating gaming.

X-Men: Destiny allows the player to choose between three new characters with different backstories who can then choose to be on the "good" X-Men side or the "bad" Brotherhood side. Imagine instead an X-Men game with two possible playable characters with predetermined scenarios and paths: one whose adventure begins on Utopia (Cyclops's mutant state) and one whose adventure begins in Westchester (where Wolverine just relocated in the new series Wolverine and the X-Men). If the player chooses to start the game on Utopia, the player is tasked with missions ordered by leader Cyclops that involve fighting anti-mutant sentiment with brute force, using the player character's mutant gene to fight with immense power. If the player chooses to start the game in Westchester, the player goes about the game differently, utilizing their mutant gene powers in more varied ways that may not be as strong but are more balanced and controlled.

Our hypothetical game could have the same villain in both scenarios. The mutants have always had common enemies; even X-Men: Destiny knows this, with the anti-mutant terrorist Purifiers being a typical enemy. But how the enemy is dealt with could vary wildly based on which character the player chose at the beginning of the game. If the player chose the Cyclops faction, the character may be a little more feared by NPCs and use intimidation tactics to achieve his or her goal. If the player chose the Wolverine faction, the lack of militant action and attitude could make the character be looked at as more of a hero to NPCs. The game's two scenarios would allow for a more engrossing storyline that actually invokes the same themes as the comics.

Like the best comic book games (think Batman: Arkham Asylum), this imaginary game would succeed because it drew from the source material. It's a novel concept, no? Well, I can keep dreaming. Right now, comic book games are where comic book movies were in the '90s, which is to say, bad. The X-Men films were some of the first comic book films to incorporate deeper themes and meaning into their narrative; there's no reason a game can't do the same.

Nintendo eShop Shelf: Wacky IP Edition

2011-09-26T17:00:00Z

Hit the jump for the first edition of eShop Shelf!

]]> Talking Shop With Tanukii Studios

For this first feature, I chatted with Keith Webb of Tanukii Studios on Nintendo's commitment to digital downloads and what he hopes to see happen with the Nintendo eShop.

GayGamer: DSiWare has a lot of great games, but too often they go completely unnoticed by most gamers. What do you think contributed to the apathy around DSiWare?

Keith Webb: I think it might be due to a series of unfortunate circumstances, to be honest, as well as a few other factors. As the DSi was not an entirely new system when it was released a few years back (merely an update from the DS), the extra features it bought, such as the DSiWare service, didn't get as much exposure as it would have had it been connected to a brand new console. There were a few decent initial DSiWare games coming from well-know developers, but after a while, that really slowed down, so newer, less well-known developers started cropping up, and maybe consumer were a bit dubious of this at first. Couple this with the fact that the iPhone apps and games had a great boom over the past couple of years, DSiWare couldn't really compete with that. It's interesting actually, I watch a lot of the online opinions when each DSiWare update is announced every week, and a lot of the comments are quite negative, mostly for games that people have had little exposure too ... it is only after more info, and reviews that the opinions seem to change, so it is almost as if consumers are expecting the games to disappoint them and so they keep away. Nintendo themselves have also mentioned time and time again that they are worried the iPhone method of gaming will saturate the market, and so I think they are reluctant to push a service that basically follows the same model a the iPhone stores, that is probably why they leave it to the developers themselves to push their own games out there. Nintendo know the standard retail market really well, and understandably they don't want to shift the focus to digital distribution just yet when they still have a firm hold of the other method [retail]. The other thing is probably the points system may be a little too complicated for consumers, and perhaps the DSiWare store itself could be a little more user friendly. But as an aside, I wpuldn't have been able to get my game released as a standard retail game, so I am thankful for DSiWare as it stands ... but it could be better!

GG: Has the eShop been a good first step in enhancing Nintendo's digital download services?

I think if you went back and looked at the buzz that was created when the eShop was announced, with its promise of Virtual Console games, 3DSWare and 3D Classics, you'll see that it does have the potential to capture the consumers' hearts. Perhaps the fact that the content has been spread out too thinly at the moment meant there wasn't a great, epic push for the service, which there could have been, and so that might have been a missed opportunity. The eShop is great for DSiWare developers (in fact 2/3's of sales of Kokopolo come from 3DS's rather than DSi's) so I'm glad Nintendo included DSiWare support. However, again it could be better laid out and more intuative ... and perhaps it will be in the long run, maybe there will be some big layout changes on the horizon. Personally, I would also like to see some cool 3DSWare games that take advantage of the new harware (but not just yet, as they might overshadow my DSiWare game!), so in short, it has the potential to enhance the service, but it isn't quite there yet.

Download These Games!

The following DSiWare games are available to download on the 3DS eShop or on the DSiWare store on the DSi. I have chosen three all-new IPs that are charming, different and deserve more attention than they're getting, including Tanukii's Go! Go! Kokopolo!

Go! Go! Kokopolo
Developer: Tanukii Studios/Room 4 Games
Price: $7.99/800 Points
Lowdown: A unique action game where you play as Kokopolo, a wildcat bent on revenge for the other animals interrupting his sleep. The gameplay is addictive: smack other animals, run as they chase you, and lure them into a killer plant for points. It's a game of cat-and-mouse that oozes polish, great art and awesome gameplay. Seriously, this game could have been a full-priced retail game.

Roller Angels
Developer: Agetec, Inc.
Price: $4.99/500 Points
Lowdown: An on-rails platformer where you play as Powerpuff Girl look-alikes on roller skates and spray paint color back into a monochromatic city. Lots of levels, easy controls and colorful visuals make this clone of everything really cute and engaging. It can be a bit frustrating at times, but when you're grinding, spraying paint and avoiding random alien enemies you won't notice the little hiccups in its design.

Zoonies: Escape From Makatu
Developer: Kiloo
Price: $4.99/500 Points
Lowdown: Leo the lion must escape from the clutches of Makatu and his minions after his airplane is shot down by Makatu's spear. This is another on-rails adventure, but the gameplay is much more puzzle-oriented. Rather than control Leo, you control the environment and have to manipulate the objects in the game world to guide Leo, who walks right until he comes to an obstacle, to safety. The difficulty ramps up significantly as the game progresses, which makes for a nice challenge.

Review: Another World For iOS

2011-09-24T00:51:20Z

Eric Chahi's classic game Another World (also known as Out of this World) has been released as a universal app for iOS, and it's fantastic. Many gamers are familiar with the frequently released title, but this was my first experience with it. For the uninitiated, Another World is a cinematic platformer originally released for Amiga that focuses on the adventure of Lester, a young scientist accidentally transported to a hostile alien planet. Lester meets a friendly alien and the two struggle to survive and escape. The game is told without dialogue, which gives the story a very atmospheric, ethereal tone.

Another World's gameplay is brilliant ... and difficult. Very, very difficult. Cinematic platformers don't work like Mario or Sonic, which gamers are well-accustomed to. In a cinematic platformer, the player needs to time every movement correctly. A great example of this occurs about halfway through Another World. Lester must move from the right side of a cave to the left, but there are carnivorous plants in the ground that can't be killed, and deadly tentacles hanging from the ceiling waiting to kill Lester. The player must jump over each plant, run past each tentacle and keep running so that Lester jumps a little further over two plants that are next to each other. This sequence took me the greater part of my 90-minute morning commute. Even for a veteran gamer, this kind of sequence is so far-removed from today's type of video game that anyone will find this game a challenge. The trial-and-error gameplay could be considered frustrating, but the game is very addictive and highly rewarding. For every seemingly insurmountable trial Chahi puts the player through, there is a great chase scene, change in setting or cool cutscene.

The presentation helps the game shine. Both the original Amiga and remastered graphics are available, both of which use rotoscoping to create a fluid, smooth game world. As this is an iOS release, controls have been tweaked to optimize the experience. There is the virtual touchpad, which many iOS games use, and there is a new touch-based control system. Both are very intuitive and never get in the way of the game experience. I mostly used the virtual touchpad, but I have a feeling that I'm in the minority there. The music and sound design is also top-notch, with a minimalist style that adds a lot to the experience.

Another World is not a long game. For someone who can perfectly navigate each scene and not die, the game could probably be finished in a little over an hour. But mark my words: it will take you a lot longer than an hour on your first play-through. There are several different difficulty settings, including a 'Normal' setting for the less-familiar gamer.

As someone who is tired of five-minute iOS gaming experiences, this game couldn't have been more satisfying. With a captivating atmosphere, thrilling and satisfying gameplay and simple and tight storytelling, Another World needs to be on your radar next time you log on to the App Store. Hopefully Eric Chahi's spiritual successor, Heart of Darkness, will surface on the App Store someday too!

Professor Layton vs. Ace Attorney Trailer

2011-09-20T16:19:24Z

Capcom and Level-5 have released a Japanese trailer for their upcoming crossover game between Professor Layton and Phoenix Wright, and it looks suitably awesome. While everyone else freaks out over Monster Hunter 4, I'm freaking out about this. It looks positively delightful.

Now, can we PLEASE get a localization confirmation?!

Leaked Avengers Game Trailer: What Could Have Been

2011-09-18T12:10:08Z

In the wee hours of the morning, a leaked trailer for a canceled game adaptation of the upcoming Avengers film leaked online. Unlike the ~~masterpiece~~ mediocre tie-ins from Sega, this game was being developed by one of THQ's many now-defunct internal studios. It's a shame, really, because what you're about to see looks pretty cool.

Note: This game trailer may reveal some stuff about the upcoming movie, so don't watch if you don't want to be spoiled.

Level-5 Sets Up Shop In US, Gauges Player Interest

2011-07-28T00:16:57Z

Level-5, known for the Professor Layton, White Knight Chronicles and other series have officially opened a US headquarters. To celebrate, they've released a snazzy new website and established a presence on Twitter and Facebook to communicate with fans. Until now, all Level-5 games were released through other companies in the US, such as Sony and Nintendo, but Level-5 seems to want to become a big presence in North America.

If you head over to Level-5 International America's Facebook page, you can vote for which unreleased game you're most excited about. Level-5 is quick to point out that none of these titles are confirmed, but I'd say there's a pretty good chance of some of those games making it over here. They also welcome comments on their Twitter page.

Some of Level-5's games in development include the beautiful RPG Ni No Kuni for PS3, epic crossover Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright and several Inazuma Eleven games which have never been released in the states. So head on over to their website and start looking around, because I have a feeling we're going to be hearing a lot from them in the future.

PopCap Games Makes Wish Come True With Allied Star Police

2011-07-24T16:08:15Z

Earlier this year, PopCap Games launched 4th and Battery a new banner for their designers to release experimental, "risky" and quirky games in between their big releases. So far, three games have been released: Unpleasant Horse, Candy Train and Allied Star Police for iOS. While all three games are fun and show their PopCap pedigree, Allied Star Police has a very special story behind it.

When the Make-A-Wish Foundation set out to grant ten-year-old Owain Weinert's wish to meet real game designers, PopCap invited Owain, who is fighting Leukemia, to participate in their annual PopCamp event in which designers work on new ideas and share them with everyone at the end of the week. Owain surprised everyone when he came to PopCamp prepared with a full game design document for what would become Allied Star Police!

The game, which can be downloaded for free on iPhone and iPad, is a tower defense game in which the player deploys offensive units by spending money accrued by defeating the opposition's units. Units move from the player's base to the enemy's base on one of four tracks with the goal of defeating the enemy base. It's a short, simple game with three increasingly difficult levels with loud, fun music and cartoony graphics and it all came from the mind of a talented and awesome fourth grader.

While the game is free, I was compelled to donate to the Make-A-Wish Foundation after playing this special creation, which you can do from PopCap's website. For more on Owain Weinert and Allied Star Police, click here. Now, go download the game!

The Bright Side: Wii Edition

2011-07-23T02:17:35Z

There's a ton of apathy among gamers today. Everyone's tired of shooters, nobody's interested in anything that's releasing from the major developers, there's sequel-itis everywhere and life sucks. You know what I think sucks? Saying that everything sucks. I am tired of all the negativity, so I'm going to be doing a little miniseries that looks on "The Bright Side" of gaming. Hit the break to begin the end of your misery!

]]>

The Wii's not dead. True, North American gamers aren't getting three of the system's most high-profile games, but there is still a lot to look forward to on the system. Take a look at some of the games coming out for Wii this year that have me totally psyched, and maybe you'll realize that your Wii deserves to be dusted with the rest of your ~~doorstops~~ furniture.

Kirby Returns to Dreamland
Just a year after the lovely and fun Kirby's Epic Yarn, Nintendo is doing the unthinkable and giving gamers yet another helping of Kirby in Kirby Returns to Dreamland (formerly Kirby Wii). Unlike last year's entry, this game features more traditional Kirby gameplay in the vein of Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards. Inhaling enemies to mimic their powers, shooting energy stars and drop-in multiplayer (King Dedede, Meta Knight and others) make this a really promising, classic Nintendo experience.

Rhythm Heaven
Um, guys? It's Rhythm Heaven! For Wii! Anyone who's played the original on the DS should instantly be excited to know that there's a new edition coming out for the Wii. From the zany and incredibly colorful graphics to the addictive gameplay and the brilliant music, this is a game that needs to be on your radar if you're looking for something offbeat and new.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Obviously, this is the biggest Nintendo game of 2011 and deserves to be in everyone's Wii when it releases later this year. The newest entry in the legendary series follows Link and Zelda in an adventure that takes place before The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and features the forging of the Master Sword. It's also MotionPlus exclusive and has gorgeous graphics that make up for the generic Twilight Princess... *ducks as tomatoes and bombs are thrown*

In this gamer's opinion, these games alone would be enough for me to enjoy my Wii for months to come, but there's also some great third-party games coming too!

Rune Factory: Tides of Destiny
Published by Natsume, the latest entry in the Harvest Moon spinoff series looks to be yet another deep RPG/farming sim with beautiful graphics and fun, creative gameplay.

Fishing Resort
Okay, SonicDream, quit the trolling - a FISHING GAME? Yes, sweethearts, a fishing game. By YUJI NAKA. The man who made Sonic. Ever since starting his development company, Prope, Naka has been releasing deceptive games - Let's Catch, for example - that are much, much deeper than they seem. This game promises to let the player join a community of characters who love to fish and explore the island freely. XSEED Games is publishing this title in the Fall.

The Adventures of Tintin: The Game
Before you all storm the GayGamer castle demanding I be fired, hear me out. This movie tie-in is being created by Ubisoft Montpellier, led by amazing game designer Michel Ancel. Ancel has already proven to be capable of making something special out of movie licenses with his King Kong adaptation a few years ago, and this 2.5D platform adventure looks to continue the trend of quality titles coming from Ubisoft's best division.

That's not all, Wii owners! Other games in the pipeline for the Wii include Fortune Street, Rayman Origins, X-Men: Destiny, Spider-Man: Edge of Time and Bit.Trip Complete are all shaping up to be worthy of your time. I know we're ignoring the rainbow elephant in the room (sigh, Xenoblade) but I really think that the Wii still has some life in it. Color this gamer excited.

What other topics do you think deserve a walk on The Bright Side? Let me know! In the meantime, hit the gallery to see some of the upcoming stuff you can look forward to:

Nintendo Video Released, Features Dinosaurs And Hunks

2011-07-22T03:47:17Z

Nintendo has finally released its Nintendo Video application! There are currently four videos available for your viewing pleasure (and one of them will bring you pleasure):

Sunday Jog by PassmoreLab
A leisurely Sunday jog turns into an apocalyptic disaster for a pixelated town in this hilarious short film.

Dinosaur Office by Kevin, Caldwell and Murph
Witness some water-cooler talk between two dinosaurs and their passive agressive boss in this really nifty 3D short.

Captain America: The First Avenger Trailer by Marvel Studios
An eye-popping trailer for the upcoming Summer blockbuster featuring the titular hottie running and sweating, both clothed and shirtless!

What Is Nintendo Video? by Nintendo
This one's pretty self-explanatory...

Assassin's Creed: Lost Legacy Is Lost Forever

2011-07-21T00:20:28Z

The 3DS has been dealt another blow with the cancellation of Assassin's Creed: Lost Legacy, first announced back in 2010 with the announcement of the 3DS. According to Ubisoft, ideas from the game eventually found their way into Assassin's Creed: Revelations. Not to worry, though - Ubisoft has confirmed that in place of Lost Legacy, gamers can look forward to Imagine and Petz games.

I don't know about you guys, but I'm starting to lose hope in my shiny, promising 3DS. I know Nintendo's claiming to have a great offering ready for the holidays, but without great third-party support, things are going to get old fast.

Source

Interview: The Hidden

2011-07-16T14:42:37Z

Coming just in time for Halloween, Majesco Entertainment's The Hidden is a ghost hunting game with an AR twist. Not unlike Face Raiders, the game uses the real-life environment you're playing in as an in-game level where you use your 3DS to seek out and capture ghosts. I caught up with 1st Playable Productions Producer Elizabeth McLaren to talk about the game.

Hit the break for the full scoop and for some screenshots!

]]> GayGamer:Tell us about the gameplay in The Hidden. AR games are becoming popular, especially on the 3DS.

Elizabeth McLaren: The idea of blending the real and virtual worlds brings a new level of game customization, as each player gets a unique and personal experience. The Hidden takes the AR technique of adding characters into your real-world surroundings, and adds location awareness to map game locations onto real-world locations in your everyday travels. Other than making that trip to the grocery store a whole lot more interesting, this encourages the player to take another look at the locations they encounter every day in search of malicious entities that have infested their geographic area. As field agents, depending on what they find, they may need to clear an area or to explore deeper by using the tool set that they have been assigned - the 3DS itself. As they look more and more around their territory, the game warns them when places they know may be under attack and need to be cleared again.

GG: What's the story in The Hidden? Early information has indicated that the story unfolds as the player explores new real-world environments.

EM:: The main story premise is that there are malevolent spirits hidden in your everyday familiar surroundings, which can only be seen and eliminated by using the special capabilities of your 3DS. The player finds themselves recruited as a field agent for an organization (GEIST), whose mission it is to investigate encounters with these supernatural creatures. With your team's backing, you learn how to clean up your own patrol area, and together you will all help to uncover what is going on and why.

GG: What's the target audience for the game? Is this a straightforward horror title, or more akin to something like the Ghostbusters?

EM: This game is intended for active people that want an adventure, and want to explore a new genre that uses technology to create an entirely new experience. It's not a game you can play from your chair!

We decided to not focus on the 'horror' genre specifically because of the realities of AR gameplay: we just couldn't count on creating a true horror experience and frightening people when they might be waiting at a bus stop, surrounded by other passengers or at an airport or walking around their neighborhood. Because of that, it's actually more adrenalin-oriented, intended to be played in smaller exciting 'missions' over days, rather than to be tackled at a lengthy sitting. Though it does have some humor, it's darker than people would expect from Ghostbusters.

GG: Aside from the AR capabilities, what other features of the 3DS does the The Hidden take advantage of?

EM: Aside from using the camera video feed to create the environment you see the entities in, The Hidden also uses the gyroscope and accelerometer to track player movements, and photo-taking to help the player log their conquests (and know where to return). The most novel feature is how it uses the Wi-Fi scanner input as a signal "fingerprint" to recognize locations without the need for GPS.

GG: How challenging has it been to develop a new IP in this gaming climate?

EM: The Hidden isn't just a new IP; it's a new genre. Platform transitions are an exciting time as new features become available to game designers, the status quo is disrupted, and the opportunity arises to do something truly new. There is a window of opportunity where innovation can be more important than a proven brand. The big challenge with a new genre is that much of what you're trying to do hasn't necessarily been done before, so players are going to come into the game with extremely diverse expectations - and the game has to handle them all. An AR game takes this one step further because as a designer you have given control of the environment entirely to the player, so need to have an adaptable design that can deal with where the player goes with it. This Hidden is a third iteration on the original idea.

Overall, we're really glad everyone was willing to take the risks and believed in the game enough to see it get to this point.

Thanks to Majesco and Elizabeth for this interview! The Hidden is set for release this October.

Flipper 2: Flush the Goldfish - Interview

2011-07-14T10:37:00Z

It's okay if you don't remember the first Flipper. The fun little puzzle platformer by indie developer Goodbye Galaxy Games was released last year for DSiWare, a platform many gamers have ignored in the past due to the borderline-unusable DSi Shop. Now that most DSiWare titles are available through the 3DS eShop, though, Flipper should be high on the list of downloadable games to catch up on, because Goodbye Galaxy Games is hard at work on a creative, ambitious sequel. I caught up with creator Hugo Smits to talk about the promising Flipper 2: Flush the Goldfish.

Hit the break for the full interview!

]]> GayGamer: How did the idea for Flipper 2: Flush the Goldfish come about?

Hugo Smits: A lot of people really seemed to like Flipper in Flipper 1. So I wanted him to be the star in the next game. This was a pretty hard task, since he was a goldfish and couldn't really do anything. That's why I gave him the robot suit. Now I can basically make him do whatever I want!

GG: Tell us about the game. What's the premise of the game? Is it a similar design to your first DSiWare game, Flipper?

HS: It's a totally different game; instead of a puzzle-adventure game, it more like a platform-WarioWare kind of game. You control the game by only one button. In each room/level Flush will have a different action (example, push the button to make him jump, in the next room push the button to make him shoot).

It's up to the player to quickly figure out how to use the action to get Flush safely across the room.

GG: How was the reaction to your first DSiWare title, Flipper?

HS: Very good, I'm really happy with all the reviews and praise it got. It even won the Dutch Game Award for 'Best Handheld game 2010'. So I don't think I could have asked for more!

GG: As an independent developer, what challenges have you come across in developing for DSiWare?

HS: There are so many little things that you need to deal with yourself when coding for consoles. It really a lot of different from PC coding where you have a OS and APIs taking care of most basic things.

Things that take maybe one line of code on the PC can be very tedious on the DS.

Want to put "Hello World" on your DS screen ? Go and write a font loader, than write some code that translates your text-string into corresponding positions.

You know how the DS goes into sleep mode when you close the lit ? That's something you have to program! I always assumed the OS would do that for you, didn't know it until one time I closed the lit and the music for Flipper kept playing!

It's not like any of those problems are super hard to overcome or to deal with. But if you add all those little things up, it can really increase your dev cycle in a tedious way.

GG: What's next for Goodbye Galaxy Games? Any chance of a 3DS title somewhere down the line?

HS: I have some stuff in the works, and I also have plans for the 3DS. But for now, for this year, it's still very much about the DS. All the big publishers moved on to the 3DS, but for many little publishers the risk involved with 3DS games and development is too big. So they rather choose stick with DS development until the 3DS market proves itself. And this leads to some interesting deals for me as a developer.

For more information on Flipper 2: Flush the Goldfish, check out Hugo Smits's dev blog.

MiniReview: Captain America: Shield Of Justice

2011-07-12T05:06:19Z

To celebrate the release of ~~Sex on a Stick: The First Avenger~~ Captain America: The First Avenger, Marvel has released a fun little flash game called Captain America: Shield of Justice. The game is not unlike Thor: Bring the Thunder, which Super Swede reviewed back in May; in fact, it's basically the same game with Thor sprites replaced with Cap sprites. This is fine with me, though, because it's a cute, fun little game. Captain America is on a generic mission to take down Hydra, and he does so using his shield with three different types of moves: melee, long-range and a special power-up move. The whole campaign can be played in about 30 minutes, which is appropriate for a Flash game. The levels are divided into three sub-levels, with the third concluding with a boss battle. It's fun, mindless and wisely gives the player unlimited lives and mid-level checkpoints. The game is nothing special, but it doesn't have to be.

Personally, I'm looking forward to the film and will gladly gobble up any fun stuff to hype me up. I mean, who isn't looking forward to watching a sweaty, beefy Chris Evans kicking ass and taking names?

Captain America: Shield of Justice can be played on Marvel's site. Thanks to Marvel for the screenshot.

Will U Wii U?

2011-07-09T01:09:27Z

I remember how stoked I was when I first played the Wii back in 2006. The excitement of motion controls and new gameplay experiences seemed so much more appealing than HD graphics paired with conventional gameplay. Unfortunately, in 2011, it's clear that the Wii didn't live up to its amazing potential. Plagued with on-rails shooters, mini-game collections and so-called "ground-up" ports that offered shallow gameplay in comparison to their HD cousins, the Wii offered a few magical games (Super Mario Galaxy, Punch-Out!! and other Nintendo games) and a whole lot of junk. Nintendo's hoping to rectify that with the Wii U, an HD console with motion capability ... and a second, tablet screen. Hit the jump to see why I think this console has the potential to turn around the Wii brand.

]]>

Nintendo has already announced some strong third-party support for the Wii U, including Darksiders II, Batman: Arkham City, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Online and more. But there's a catch here: many of the announced games are ports of games that are slated for release this year, well before the Wii U's mid-2012 launch. Still, there's something that the Wii U offers that the Sony and Microsoft don't yet have. With the addition of the tablet controller, these games could end up offering entirely new experiences on the Wii U.

The tablet controller has endless potential. It could function as an interface, eliminating the need for an on-screen HUD, a map screen, a talking, fictional companion, and much, much more. The most exciting use of the controller so far for me was the Chase Mii demo, in which four players use the Wii Remote to control their Mii while one player uses the controller to run around the level avoiding the other players. It becomes a sort of virtual hide-and-seek, and gives each player something different to do. I find it so exciting that one game could offer two totally different play styles for different players at the same time.

There's still some need for concern. Nintendo has not been too forthcoming about the Wii U's online service and functionality, which could really make or break certain games. There's also the inevitability of some developers slapping a map screen on the tablet controller and calling it a day. Too many rushed ports do not a successful system make. I'm also concerned that some developers will see the Wii U as more of a companion piece to the the Xbox 360 and PS3, which could result in another shallow library. At the same time, with companies like Ubisoft and EA promising strong support for the Wii U, it's clear that Nintendo is aiming for a more "hardcore" audience.

What do you guys think? Will you be buying a Wii U next year? I know I will.