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Here is the classical chicken and egg puzzle, but with a twist. What came first, the name or the idea? By naming a game, “Plants vs. Zombies” (PvZ from hereon), Popcap Games got us wondering. Did the name crop up in one of their brainstorming sessions and then they decided to go ahead and make a game around it? Or was it the other way round? No matter what the answer might be, Popcap games sure have sprung a surprise upon us with PvZ. Tower defense games have been here for ages now but we never expected one to look like this, pitting the unlikeliest of the enemies against each other. The result is just the right combination of cuteness and addictiveness, all hallmarks of Popcap games.
“Think someone could spend half their life in a slam with a horse bit in their mouth and not believe? Think he could start out in some liquor store trash bin with an umbilical cord wrapped around his neck and not believe? Got it all wrong, holy man. I absolutely believe in God… And I absolutely hate the fucker.”
If you had watched the 2000 sci-fi film Pitch Black, you may remember this line. It gives you a small peek into the harsh upbringing and violent streak of one of the best anti-heroes in the gaming world – Richard B. Riddick. This was also the first time that the character of Riddick was introduced to the world. Four years after Pitch Black a second movie called “The Chronicles of Riddick” was released and this time it was accompanied by a game based on the lead protagonist of the movie – Riddick. The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay released on the Xbox and a little later on the PC. The game turned out to be sleeper hit on the Xbox and even though it was highly acclaimed on the PC, the sales were pretty low. The lack of any kind of promotion for the PC version, save for an odd trailer probably was one of the reasons for the low sales. I wasn’t even aware of the game and happened to pick up the game on an impulse. I came to know it was a movie-based game and I was initially skeptical considering how movie based games always turned out to be mediocre efforts and were mere cash-ins, but I was absolutely blown away when I started playing the game. The game turned out to be a lot of fun and had a great blend and balance of various gameplay elements supported by a good story, amazing voice acting, a great atmosphere and superb visuals. To date it remains one of my favorite PC games of all time.
DICE delighted us by releasing a trailer of the upcoming game featuring the multiplayer aspect of Battlefield: Bad Company 2, a direct sequel to the previous game in the series.
Featuring a snow laden level, the trailer showed off in-game vehicles, lots of shooting, trucks falling of cliffs, buildings being blown up, air strikes and the new shock pads which the medics will be carrying this time around. Everything is supposedly done in-game.
Damn the skeptics. The fan boy in us loved every moment of it!
Here at The ANGRY Pixel, Bionic Commando has already swung it’s way into our hearts. For the fence-sitters, Bionic Commando is now available for a test-swing in Chennai and Bangalore.
Gamers from Chennai can flock to Blur to try out the game for themselves. Bangloreans on the other hand will have to make a beeline for Consoul.
The game will be launched in India on May 22nd for the Xbox 360 and the PS3 at a price point of INR 3499.
All I can say here is just – “WOW!!. Just when you thought Chris Kline had created his masterpiece with the Contra Jungle Jam, he goes and pulls a new one out of the hat!
Check out the latest in video game music wizardry on his newest video. This one’s him performing the Castlevania Rock live at Games Live in Loveland Colorado.
The performance is an arrangement of Beginning – Castlevania 3 Dracula’s Curse, Wicked Child – Castlevania, Vampire Killer – Castlevania, Moonlight Nocturne – Symphony of the Night. And boy does it rock your socks off!
I really enjoyed the first Call of Juarez game when it was released in 2006. The game was set in 19th century Wild West, a setting rarely used in shooters which seem to be content with sticking to generic themes where you are either fighting aliens or shooting Nazi’s for the umpteenth time or gunning down mutants and zombies. Call of Juarez on the contrary, was a refreshing change. It helped that it was my first foray in this type of a genre as well. Needless to say, I was impressed.
While we have had our fair share of sandbox based games in recent times, they mostly stayed true to reality; yes, you can actually drive around in a septic truck spraying hapless citizens with its contents. Wheelman stepped in with a promise of a game with a more Hollywoodish approach. Having Vin Diesel on board as the lead character helped confirm its Hollywood roots that much more. With the Wheelman, you get to be the undercover cop in the crime infested underbelly of Barcelona as you systematically take out three gangs. Along the way, you get to drive cars and bikes and while you are at it, get involved in some chases and some rather cool looking stunts. All in a day’s work for Mr. Diesel. But does the game delivers on all the promises that it made to us jaded gamers? We found out when we got to be the wheelman.
Whenever a conversation on videogame genres veers towards survival horror, one name invariably jumps to everyone’s mind: the Resident Evil series. For more than a decade, Resident Evil has been getting us to wet our pants with embarrassing frequency. Even after taking a surprisingly action oriented approach with the fourth game in the series, Capcom still managed to get us to soil our pants again. However, is Resident Evil’s first foray into hi-definition going to make us buy a new pair of trousers again? It did not take us long to find the answer as we popped in the disc in our Xbox 360 on a chilly, rainy evening.
I remember my childhood obsession with airplanes very well – spending hours in a large wardrobe where I’d painstakingly “recreated” the cockpit of a fighter aircraft as realistically as I could at the age of 12 – exquisitely detailed HB-pencil and Crayola renditions of flight instruments, avionics and multiple bogeys, twelve o’clock high – where I’d sit for hours with a motorcycle helmet and a cricket bat serving as my HUD and my control stick, engaged in vivid imaginations of life-and-death dogfights at twenty five thousand feet. My poor parents assumed their kid was probably going to grow up to become an ace fighter pilot (or at the least, fly for an international carrier), that is, until television, videogames and an insatiable lust for pastry made sure my vision nosedived while my midriff went in the opposite direction.
With my flying career aborted before take-off, I found my lust for taking to the skies satisfied by the likes of Dale Brown’s tales of aerial derring-do and games such as Falcon 4.0, Jane’s Combat Simulations, Crimson Skies and Blazing Angels before being welcomed into the experienced embrace of Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator, IL-2 Sturmovik, Ace Combat and the unparalleled Lock On: Modern Air Combat, incidentally another Ubisoft IP. After having suckled at these teats for the better part of a decade now, Ubisoft dangles a brand new pacifier in the form of Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. – a game that challenges Ace Combat to a 1:1 dogfight in its own airspace – toting an all new graphics engine, pick-up-and-play mechanics and a roster of aircraft that puts Fires of Liberation out to pasture. The real question is – can it deliver?
What do you get when you thrust a controller into the hands of an FPS veteran and push him into the ring to square off against some of the world’s deadliest fighters, both real and virtual?
A palpitating heart?
Cold sweat?
Numb fingers?
I would say all of these and much more, for that is exactly how I ended up once our Editor-in-Chief thrust the latest addition to the Street Fighter franchise into my hands and barked out an order to review it. Now saying I am a newbie to the genre would be putting it very mildly. Having been a PC gamer for the better part of my life, I have always given fighting games a wide pass. So when Street Fighter IV was announced a while back, I wasn’t one among the hordes of fans cheering, fainting or singing hallelujah in the streets, accompanied by frenzied high-pitched screams of “Shoryuken!”, “Tiger Fist” and other guttural noises. Which kinda neatly explains how I’ve remained untouched by all the hype surrounding the game, until the review copy landed in my lap one fine morning.