It seems Rebellion’s Aliens vs Predator has spurred Sega’s interest in pursuing their other Aliens game, Aliens: Colonial Marines. After missing its planned 2009 release and being put on the backburner, the game is now reportedly once again on
Destructoid and GameStop have teamed up for three weeks of God of War III giveaways! GameStop is currently holding their own contest called “Be the Envy of the Gods” where over 2,000 prizes are being given away until March 15. Along with the daily prizes, they’re doing some weekly promotions and this week’s GameStop contest is a VIP Experience at a premier music festival.
Back here on Destructoid, we’re giving away God of War III, $50 GameStop gift cards and something big during the third week of this contest series thanks to GameStop. This week’s prizes are as follows:
- First place: God of War III and a $50 GameStop gift card.
- Second place: God of War Collection.
- Third place: $50 GameStop gift card.
Simply leave a comment below telling us about your best concert experience you’ve ever had or tell us what music festival you’re looking forward to the most this year. One entry per person and contest is open to US residents only. You have until Sunday, February 28th at 11:59PM CST to enter. Good luck!
[Update: Last call!]
If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again. Tony Hawk: Ride wasn’t the success Robomodo and Activision (and Tony Hawk) hoped it would be, but that doesn’t mean they’re done with it.
Sleep is Death is either going to be one of the coolest things I’ve ever played, or it’s going to reflect my own boringness in such a way that I’ll never be able to do anything remotely interesting with it.
Described as “a storytelling game for two players,” Jason Rohrer’s Sleep is Death will likely adhere to his New Gamist Manifesto — which, if you’re too lazy to click the link, means it’ll have less to do with scripted narrative, AI-driven characters and a definite endpoint and more to do with endless discovery and player-on-player interaction.
In lieu of a video trailer, the Sleep is Death site has a surprisingly exciting slide show/preview thing created entirely in the game engine. It’s interesting stuff, but, again, I worry I’m either too dumb to understand the interface, or too boring to create really interesting stories.
You can pre-order the game for $9 and get it a week early, or wait until April 16th and pay $14 for it. Since the game is two-player only, your $9 entry fee gets you two copies of the game.
As any fan knows it’s been quite a while since any game in the Front Mission franchise landed on English-speaking shores. So long, in fact that a few dedicated gamers went and did it themselves.
Now, the series is set for a return, albeit in a decidedly different form, as Front Mission Evolved is more of 3rd-person action game than a turn-based strategy title. Old fans and new players alike simply must know more about this latest, current-generation installment.
To that end we sent Square Enix a bunch of questions, and got a bunch of answers. Read on for Destructoid’s exclusive Front Mission Evolved Q&A with Square Enix producer Shinji Hashimoto. You can also check the gallery for some hot new screens they sent just for you!
Destructoid: Front Mission Evolved is certainly a departure from the previous games, which were turn-based titles. What was the creative drive behind the change of style?
Shinji Hashimoto: The genre for previous numbered Front Mission titles that we’ve released was turn-based strategy games. There were several spin-off titles, which were real-time simulations and side-scrollers, but I believe users have developed a strong recognition that Front Mission is a turn-based strategy game.
We feel that there are a lot of opportunities with the change of style because controlling the Wanzers seemed to have great compatibility with the shooter genre, making it a natural choice for this title.
Among its fans, the Front Mission series is known for having a very dense, involved backstory. Where does Front Mission Evolved stand in that canon? Will the game’s story be making any references to previous (or future) events?
This title is set farther in the future than any other game in the series. In 2171 AD, the human race, seeking supremacy on Earth, began to reach for the stars, racing to build orbital elevators.
Although it shares a common plot with the series, the story is not directly related to the previous renditions. Anyone playing this series for the first time will be able to enjoy it.
The game apparently offers on-foot action alongside the Wanzer-piloting. Just how much can the player do when he’s outside his Wanzer? Will he be able to get in and out of it at will? Can he hijack other Wanzers?
During the single player mode, there are several missions in which the player character will exit the Wanzer to explore surrounding buildings and areas. Due to the map design and story, however, the player cannot get in and out of the Wanzer nor hijack other Wanzers at will. The third-person action as the pilot is exciting for any shooter fan, though.
One of the conflicts that came out of the original design concept was balancing the flow of the game and difficulty. It is difficult to keep consistency in the story when you can leave your Wanzer at a moment’s notice, while at the same time possibly creating impossible situations if, say, you were to lose your Wanzer in a boss fight because you decided to jump out. Additionally, retaining the graphical scale of both “worlds” – on-foot action and battles with huge mechs – would have been very difficult. We decided on a design that allowed both game types to be optimized graphically without sacrificing the fidelity of the game’s next-gen aesthetic.
Will there be a strategic or tactical element in Front Mission Evolved’s gameplay? Will the player be able to control a squad or be part of a larger operation?
The players will be able to enjoy tactical battles in the online multiplayer mode, where players can customize the allocation of roles such as snipers, assaults, and medics in each team. We’ll be sharing more information on multiplayer in the future.
Front Mission games have traditionally featured a fair amount of customization, with players able to choose from a variety of weapons and body parts to use in combat. Will Front Mission Evolved also have this sort of feature?
Yes, there’s an incredible amount of customization elements you can look forward to! The title offers a variety of stages, as well as vast choices to customize your Wanzers for the online PtoP mode to fully express your unique designs. I’m excited to see all of your Wanzers!
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That concludes our exclusive Q&A with Square Enix’s Shinji Hashimoto. We would like to thank him for his time. I for one am quite excited, and can’t wait until new gamers get to know just what a “Pile Bunker” is when related to robot weaponry.
Front Mission Evolved is in development for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and is due for a Spring 2010 release.
[Editor's Note: We're not just a (rad) news site -- we also publish opinions/editorials from our community & employees like this one, though be aware that it may not jive with the opinions of Destructoid as a whole, or how our moms raised us. Want to post your own article in response? Publish it now on our community blogs.]
Not only is Grand Theft Auto the most realistic life simulator ever released on any system, it also teaches you several very important legal and economical life lessons. Do you not believe me? Then you are funny talking foreign guy. Through the magic of even more mediocre artistic excrement, I will share with you the important law abiding lessons I have learned from Grand Theft Auto.
Sit down, turn around, and clean off your waterpanties, I’m about to take you on another learning adventure. Remember what color the background is — there will be a test.
Do you lock your vehicle when exiting it? Stupid. Pointless. Idiotic. The people of Liberty City don’t bother locking their cars. Hell, they don’t even bother taking the keys out of the ignition. You just need to learn to trust people, especially the fun loving residents of GTA. They would never steal your car, and it’s pretty insulting that you would suspect them in the first place. Jerk.
But of course, there is no worry about breaking the law. In fact, paragraph A, section 56, article C states that no man or woman shall be convicted or accused of a crime unless a pedestrian is hit during the ordeal. Police are ordered not to pursue individuals involved in such acts as car stealing unless they accidentally hit another car or person. Why would they bother otherwise? Duh.
But with all this raw, disgusting, freedom, you’re likely to get hurt. Propelled from a car, blown up by a tank, beaten to death by a baseball bat, or even just a simple shotgun blast to the head. These things can present a real problem for the resident. Worry not! Hospitals are right around the corner.
In fact, these hospitals are run by magical wizards who can heal even the most fatal of wounds with only a few minutes of time. Running short on cash? Don’t worry about that either, these guys work for tips.
So let’s say you are poor after your hospital visit. Looking for a way to make money? Tired of working for it? Are you homicidal? Then we have the solution for you. As widely known, people void their bowels when dying. Little did you know, people in the future have come to distrust banks, instead storing money directly in their bum. So you’re not really killing them, you’re just making a withdrawal! From someone else’s ass. But hey, they weren’t your friend, right? That’s because …
Friends are just another word for “annoying pieces of crap who never leave you the fuck alone.” It’s true; look it up. Not only do friends constantly eat your food, ask for gas money, use up all the toilet paper and order all the crappy movies off Netflix, they also don’t shut the hell up. I hope to god you don’t have a cell phone. Oh? You do? Then prepare to drive your car off a cliff.
Sadly, Predator missiles are strangely absent in GTA. After their starring role in MW2, otherwise known as the best game evar, you would assume GTA would have them too. Even worse, GTA came out before MW2, but is clearly inspired by it. They both have guns, right? It’s totally the same. It’s pretty bullshit that Rockstar didn’t include this feature, and I think they did it just to piss me off.
What a bunch of dicks.
Wave goodbye to the rest of your weekend.
Infectonator: World Dominator is a game about destroying the world with a zombie apocalypse. It’s less of a thinky-thinky kind of apocalypse, though, and more of a clicky-clicky one: you start an infection in a group of people, watch it spread, and spend the cash you get from killing humans to upgrade your zombies. It’s classic upgrade-based empowerment fantasy, executed superbly. Once you get about halfway through the game, you won’t even need to strategize anymore. You also won’t care, because holy sh*t I’m god of the zombies.
Watch in supervillain-esque glee as with the click of a single button, you create a smaller crowd of zombies that creates a larger crowd of zombies that eventually takes over an entire town, leaving it a smoldering ruin of its former self. Then, destroy the next town. Then, the entire country. Eventually, cackle with maniacal glee as the entire world falls under your zombie-spawning might.
I’m usually opposed to any games where you’re meant to sympathize with the undead — Stubbs the Zombie personally offends me — but you really can’t fault a game where Venom and Colonel Sanders are unlockable characters.
[via RockPaperShotgun]
Damn you, Giant Bomb! How dare you hurt Dale North’s hair!
On Destructoid, Anthony tells us why he thinks Ebert was right about videogames. On Japanator, Gene Simmons’ son rips off Bleach. And on Tomopop, check out the Final Fantasy XIII jewelry review.
DESTRUCTOID
- Why Heavy Rain proves Ebert right
- Ah, my hair! Watch me fight in Photo Dojo on the DSi
- Xbox 360 is the best girlfriend you’ll ever have
- Destructoid vs. P.B. Winterbottom in a pie eating contest
- Contest: Strike a pose, win rare Muscle March-themed Wii + God of War III contest series — Week 1 + Win an-all-expense-paid trip to PAX East thanks to Two Worlds II
JAPANATOR
- Cooking Otaku: Daifuku (with Red Bean Paste)
- Japanator (Can’t) Recommend (But Enjoyed): Last Rebellion
- Oh lordy: Gene Simmons’ son plagarizes Bleach artwork
- Japanator Radio 123
- Japanator AM Episode 6: Pondering and Units of Moe
TOMOPOP
It’s not often that “amazing” and “DsiWare” can be said in the same sentence, unless that sentence is, “It’s amazing that DSiWare games make any money at all.” However, a brand new title could change all that, because it is legitimately mindblowing.
Rittai Kakushi e Attakoreda (Hidden 3D Image: There It Is!) uses the DSi’s camera in a wholly unique and astounding way, turning your DSi screens into windows with a stunning illusion of depth. The idea of the game is to tilt your DSi around to look in every nook and cranny of the various environments displayed on the screens. The camera creates the necessary feedback to make the screen respond to your movements.
It’s hard to describe, but the footage explains everything. Check it out and prepare to be amazed. Right now it’s only available in Japan, but I truly hope it comes Stateside. It’s one of the first truly innovative DSi titles out there.
For those of you out there who are looking forward to Blur and all its real racing/kart racing action there’s something to look forward to now. Dan Amrich, Activision writing news guru guy, has finally cleared up when the beta will be starting. There seemed to be some confusion so here it is.
“Several websites will be launching contests and giving away beta tokens starting on Tuesday, March 2. The gameplay sessions that those tokens unlock does not begin until Monday, March 8. This March 1 date that some media sites are reporting is not the right date for the public beta,” he stated on his blog, One of Swords.
Gee, I wonder what websites will be giving away those tokens? Does anyone know a popular gaming blog that runs awesome contests and might do something like that at some point? Who could one of those sites be, I ask? I have no clue, really.
Blur multiplayer beta – fact check [One of Swords]
