Archive for June, 2012


Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance Impressions

Sunday, June 17th, 2012

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With our press-exclusive VIP stickers on our media badges at the Square Enix booth we were ready to… wait in line behind other people with stickers.  There were, however, several games of a more line-free persuasion and one of them was the upcoming Kingdom Hearts title for the 3DS, Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance (KH3D).  We were going to record a nice gameplay video, but were stopped by one of the booth employees after only getting around 30 seconds of footage of the demo’s opening cutscene. 

For a game that has been out in Japan since March, I was actually a little disappointed with what was on show for KH3D at E3.  While my previous experience with Kingdom Hearts has been fairly limited, I always appreciate it when companies go the action RPG route as opposed to the (in almost every case) archaic and out-dated turn-based route.  What I played of KH3D didn’t seem to stray too far from the classic Kingdom Hearts formula, but during the battle I did encounter something of concern.  The graphics were naturally quite superb and crisp, but even with only a mild amount of action happening on screen there was a noticeable drop in frame-rate.  Any lag of any description in a game on a system as capable as the 3DS is unacceptable, especially in games from respected publishers like Square Enix.  Normally, I would say that there was still hope for the game to be streamlined and mended before its release date, but seeing as how it’s basically only being localized before its July 31st North American release that would be wishful thinking indeed.  If you’re an avid follower of the Kingdom Hearts series, I’m sure you’ll still have a great time with this portable entry, but for people new to the series, I have a slight feeling that KH3D may end up being a less-than-superb introduction to the series if the lag I experienced is more than just a freak occurrence.  The good thing is that we only have around a month to wait to see just how good (or otherwise) the localized KH3D will be, and whether or not its warm reception in Japan translates into success across the pond.

 

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Game Usagi Staff Featured in Eurogamer E3 Gallery

Friday, June 15th, 2012

We were just browsing the E3 galleries of other websites and discovered that our Editor-in-chief (me) and Photographer (Sir Shiggy) were featured in the E3 2012 Photo Gallery on Eurogamer.net.  That’s us in the 6th picture there waiting in line for the Microsoft conference to open it’s doors.  I guess we’re even more internet-famous now than we already were, thanks for thinking we’re cool, Eurogamer!

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Planetside 2 Beta Giveaway [UPDATE 2]

Friday, June 15th, 2012

[UPDATE 1: The first 10 first-come-first-served beta keys have been claimed.  We will still be accepting entries into the draw for the last five until midnight (CST) on Monday, June 18th. No late entries will be accepted.]

[UPDATE 2: The contest is now closed, thanks to everyone for participating and we hope that if you started a Game Usagi account for this contest that you enjoy levelling up your account by earning GP.  The five people who won the final draw should receive their beta keys via email shortly.]

Hey, everyone.  There were a lot of codes flying around at E3 for various betas, apps, etc. and with three of us there, we usually obtained more than we could use.  With PlanetSide 2, the promising upcoming free-to-play MMOFPS, we were lucky enough to get our hands on 15 beta invitations that we are going to share with you!  The first 10 will be given away to the first 10 people to complete the giveaway requirements, and the last 5 will be distributed at random between the remaining entrants.  Would you like to be one of the first to try out this exciting new game?  This is what you need to do for your chance to get a beta key:

1. Create (or already have) a Game Usagi account by signing-up using either a social network account or just making a username/password using the links at the top of our sidebar.  We don’t send out newsletters or list/use your email in any way that would ever send you spam, it’s basically only asked for in case you forget your password.

2. Email admin@gameusagi.com with your Game Usagi username in the body and the subject “Planetside 2 Giveaway”.

3. Profit.

If you are one of the ones to “win” a beta key, it will be emailed to you along with instructions on how to redeem it. 

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Quantum Conundrum Impressions

Thursday, June 14th, 2012

Before we even arrived at E3, Quantum Conundrum was the game (for systems that are already out) that I wanted to play the most.  When we started our rounds of the Square Enix booth, out first stop was a presentation from the two-person art team of Quantum Conundrum (QC).  The brain-child of Portal lead Kim Swift and the 16-person elite dev team of Airtight Games, QC promises to once again revolutionize the first-person action puzzle genre. 

During my hands-on time with the PC version of what will eventually be the demo for the game, I first noted that the mouse/keyboard controls were a bit different from what I am used to.  Since there is no shooting in the game, the item carrying and interaction button as been delegated to the left mouse button and the two main dimension shifting keys are assigned to “Q” and “E”.  Standard Valve game controls have me used to using “E” to pick-up and drop things, so I had a pretty considerably difficult time wrapping my mind around “shooting” to pick things up/interact with levers and switching dimensions with my usual interaction key.  For games like Half-Life 2 and Portal I have always preferred the keyboard/mouse control combination to using a game controller, but I think that even though I have Quantum Conundrum preordered on Steam, I’m probably going to do most of my dimension-swapping using an Xbox 360 controller instead.  Since there are fewer buttons on the Xbox 360 controller, I’ve played games that have made different uses out of most of the buttons and even though the main dimension swapping buttons were LT and RT, it still felt a lot better than the keyboard controls in their demo configuration.

The E3 demo of Quantum Conundrum is apparently at some point going to be an actual demo available on the various systems that its releasing on, as at a couple points during my playthrough little messages popped up saying that I could have unlocked achievements, etc. had I not been playing the demo.  In the part of the demo that I played I was introduced to the Fluffy and Heavy dimensions through various simple puzzles as seen in most of the game’s trailers like throwing a safe in the fluffy dimension, then shifting to normal to break certain windows and alternating between the Normal and Heavy dimensions as a laser passed over four stacks of crates to make sure only certain ones were destroyed to form a line of ascending height so that they could be climbed.  In spite of my control issues using the PC controls as they were set-up on the showfloor, playing Quantum Conundrum was a blast and I’m very much looking forward to playing it in full when it comes out on June 21st.

The game’s two art directors were also holding presentations every half hour at the Square Enix booth to show off more in-depth features of Quantum Conundrum.  A level about three quarters of the way through the game was shown where all of the dimensions were used in tandem to solve really complex puzzles and it looked superb.  One interesting thing that they pointed out is that there is a method to cross gaps that made its way into the game through “emergent gameplay”, meaning that it hadn’t been part of the game’s original design, but came up incidentally during play tests and was so good that they worked it into the game proper.  This method involves using the fluffy dimention to throw a safe (or other object) in one direction, and then riding it across gaps by making it “porpoise” (moving up and down in a sine-like wave) by switching back and forth between the normal and reverse gravity dimensions.  Seeing all of the wonderful things that will be possible once the basics of the game are covered made me even more excited for the game’s release and I think that this is definitely a title that most gamers should have their eyes on.

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Assassin’s Creed III Multiplayer Impressions

Tuesday, June 12th, 2012

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The first thing we did as the first people in line for the South Hall at E3 this year was make a b-line to the Ubisoft booth to get our hands on Assassin’s Creed III.  I was a tad disappointed when all we could find was a playable demo of the multiplayer mode for the game, but was pleasantly surprised by the gaming experience that ensued.  The AC3 mode that we were able to play was called Domination, and worked basically the same as its namesake in Call of Duty games, only with the same mechanics as found in the multiplayer from Assassin’s Creed Revelations.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Manhunt mode from ACB/ACR, there are basically two teams of four players who each look like a specific kind of NPC.  The game area is then populated with NPCs of all kinds (including ones that look exactly like members of either team) and your mission if your team is the “Hunter” team is to pick out and assassinate the members of the “Hunted” team without accidentally killing NPCs.  The “Hunted” not only have to stay alive, but they also cannot kill the Hunters, only stun them and then book it to try and blend in with the NPCs once again.  This game-style is maintained in AC3’s Domination mode, but the Hunter/Hunted assignments are now tied to your location: if you’re capturing a point (or trying to steal one), you become “Hunted” and if you’re defending a point, you’re a “Hunter.” able to kill those trying to steal the point.

There were three points to capture/defend and the longer you held them, the more points your team would accrue, just like in any other Domination mode.  I found the combination of the Domination game type with the unique stealth features of the Manhunt modes from previous AC games to be refreshing and fun.  There are now all kinds of items, like a disguise I accidentally activate in the video above, that I didn’t have enough time to learn how to use, but even with all of the new layers of complexity, the fun-ness at this multiplayer mode’s core is still very evident.  I didn’t play multiplayer too much in past AC games, but with all of the ranks, customizations, and modes available in AC3, I may have to give it a proper chance.  Regardless of how good multiplayer is this time around, the meat of the AC series is always in the single-player campaigns, though, so we look forward to seeing more of that side of AC3 too as the game approaches its Oct. 3o, 2012 release.  What we saw of the single-player campaign being played on the Wii U, as you can see in our Wii U video compilation post, was also promising and AC3 is quickly becoming one of our most anticipated games for the fall.  We’ll keep you posted as more AC3 news arises in the coming months.

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E3 2012 Wii U Video Roundup

Monday, June 11th, 2012

We were finally able to finish uploading all of the videos that we took at E3 this year.  You can see the all of the videos on the Game Usagi Youtube page, but we know that you want Game Usagi Points for your video watching efforts too.  So, here at 15 GP a pop is our E3 gift to you, the entire collection of 9 Wii U videos that we took at E3:

New Super Mario Bros. U

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Pikmin 3

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(more…)

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LittleBigPlanet Karting Impressions

Monday, June 11th, 2012

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We were able to play through an entire competitive race in the upcoming LittleBigPlanet Karting (LBPK) at E3, placing first (of course) and winning a small Sackboy plush identical to those found in the Collector’s Edition of LBP2.  The demo started off with everyone in a kind of practice mode where you could zoom about the track getting used to the controls while all of the other players connected.  I mixed up my L1 and R1 and ended up in the bottom of the track — a place where you would normally fall and just be respawned onto the track, but since it was practice mode I was allowed to drive around there.  This is when I ran into the only bugs I experienced with LBPK, as I accidentally bumped into a giant soda can and was immediately swallowed into it while my screen glitched out (you can check it out in the video of our time with the game above).  This area obviously wasn’t meant to be raced upon, I guess they should have just turned on the spawn warping in practice mode too.  The only other glitch I encountered was a hallway that I went down on every lap and always instantly died for no apparent reason, you respawn quickly when this happens by jumping out of one of the classic LBP spawn gates in the ground (plus I ended up winning), so it wasn’t as big of a hindrance as it might have been.

I was so busy concentrating on winning the race that I never figured out which button allows you to drift around corners, but I was otherwise in command of the fairly standard kart-racing controls in LBPK.  The race we played covered three laps around a winding track with pleasant if somewhat pedestrian LBP style.  Interesting spins on the classic kart-racing formula introduced in this LBPK demo included: using the LBP grappling hook to go across large expanses, the ability to melee nearby drivers, and a “speed-up” item that overlays a VHS-like fast-forwarding effect while catching you up.  Pretty much every other item I encountered had a direct equivalent in most other kart-racing games including the standard blue/green/red shell Mario Kart equivalents and standard speed boost items.  Speaking of items, item-balance felt quite a bit off during my play session with the game, and this imbalance is one of the main things I have to thank for my racing victory.  The items are available in standard places like in many kart games (Mario Kart, Joy Ride), but unlike those two games, you can see which item you’re going to get before you get it (like in Blur) instead of activating a roulette.  These pre-defined item locations make it impossible for the developers to balance the items, like giving speed boosts and blue shell equivalents only to those further back, and make it so that people in third (as I was) can get blue shell equivalents (as I did) and essentially destroy the people right in front of them to steal the lead.  Opting for the roulette-like random item assignments would go a long way to making LBPK feel more fair and balanced than it does in its current state.

Overall, I had not a bad time with LBPK, but just the racing mode alone can’t really hold a candle in its current form even to more generic kart racers like Joy Ride Turbo.  Luckily for everyone, there are a ton of other modes announced for the game including a Battle Mode, Waypoint Races, Treasure Hunts, Score Attacks and more in addition to the adoption of the traditional LBP motto “Play, Create, Share” allowing players to customize/share their characters, weapons, and levels.  Even if the racing mode were to be included in the final game in its current form, most gamers will probably be to busy fooling around on custom tracks with custom weapons/karts to notice anyways. With so much content announced for the game and a while before its release, things are overall looking positive for the future of LBPK.

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