Week o Games, 1/11: LOTR:Conquest, Mirror's Edge (PC)

slash000

Another week, another 7 days of new game releases!

Welcome to the 46 edition of G&T's newly traditional "Weekly Games Release Thread!" - Week 1/11 - 1/17!

Where we discuss what we're looking forward to, what we're going to buy, and what we're just now realizing is being released this week that we had forgotten about!

NDS

The Lord of the Rings: Conquest

In this exciting, action strategy game, players fight on the side of both Good and Evil in all the biggest battles from The Lord of the Rings movies. The Battlefront format allows them to switch between characters at will, to suit the circumstance or their style, reliving – and even reinventing – the chaotic and engrossing conflicts from the films as they choose how best to tackle their objectives and defeat their enemies. In online multiplayer, gamers can choose to be Evil from the outset.

Moon

Developed by Renegade Kid, Moon is an intense sci-fi, action-adventure title for Nintendo DS. Moon places gamers on the cold lunar surface in the year 2058. Researchers of the newly established Lunar Base Alpha are shocked when they discover a sealed, alien hatch during construction of a new lunar base, but it's a shock that soon pales in comparison to what they find beyond the hatch.

Personal Trainer: Math

Jumble Madness

PC

Mirror's Edge

In a city where information is heavily monitored, agile couriers called Runners transport sensitive data away from prying eyes. In this seemingly utopian paradise, a crime has been committed and now you are being hunted. You are a Runner called Faith - and this innovative first-person action-adventure is your story. Mirror’s Edge™ delivers you straight into the shoes of this unique heroine as she traverses the vertigo-inducing cityscape, engaging in intense combat and fast paced chases. With a never before seen sense of movement and perspective, you will be drawn into Faith’s world. A world that is visceral, immediate, and very dangerous. Live or die? Soar or plummet? One thing is certain, in this city, you will learn how to run.

The Lord of the Rings: Conquest

In this exciting, action strategy game, players fight on the side of both Good and Evil in all the biggest battles from The Lord of the Rings movies. The Battlefront format allows them to switch between characters at will, to suit the circumstance or their style, reliving – and even reinventing – the chaotic and engrossing conflicts from the films as they choose how best to tackle their objectives and defeat their enemies. In online multiplayer, gamers can choose to be Evil from the outset.

Cartoon Network Universe: FusionFall

PS2

nothing

PS3

The Lord of the Rings: Conquest

In this exciting, action strategy game, players fight on the side of both Good and Evil in all the biggest battles from The Lord of the Rings movies. The Battlefront format allows them to switch between characters at will, to suit the circumstance or their style, reliving – and even reinventing – the chaotic and engrossing conflicts from the films as they choose how best to tackle their objectives and defeat their enemies. In online multiplayer, gamers can choose to be Evil from the outset.

PSP

nothing

Wii

* some of these may be WiiWare, not sure

Jungle Speed
Neighborhood Games
Planet Pachinko
Deal or No Deal
The Clumsey's

Xbox360

The Lord of the Rings: Conquest

In this exciting, action strategy game, players fight on the side of both Good and Evil in all the biggest battles from The Lord of the Rings movies. The Battlefront format allows them to switch between characters at will, to suit the circumstance or their style, reliving – and even reinventing – the chaotic and engrossing conflicts from the films as they choose how best to tackle their objectives and defeat their enemies. In online multiplayer, gamers can choose to be Evil from the outset.

WiiWare/VC

dunno yet

XBLA/XNA Community

Groov (i think)

dunno yet

PSN

dunno yet

So, LOTR: Conquest comes out on PC, XB360, PS3, and Nintendo DS. It's supposed to be a game a lot like Star Wars: Battlefront. It's by the same developer, too; Pandemic. The NDS version looks pretty good too from what little I've seen.


The PC finally gets Mirror's Edge this week too; the platformy-actiony first person game from EA.

Dr.Funkenstein

Hell yes Fusion Fall finally comes out

slash000

Oh, I forgot, I also want to draw a little attention to Moon for Nintendo DS.

Nobody's probably heard of it, but it's kind of like a horror-ish First Person Shooter set in space, and you fight off aliens/monsters/machines and whatnot with futuristic weapons; there are even vehicle driving sequences. It looks pretty good in my book. But I'm a fan of portable FPS games.

I wonder if CORE DS ever came out?

mystic_knight

I may get Mirror's Edge. Or I might just wait until the price drops.

rocky62

slash000 wrote: »

Oh, I forgot, I also want to draw a little attention to Moon for Nintendo DS.

Nobody's probably heard of it, but it's kind of like a horror-ish First Person Shooter set in space, and you fight off aliens/monsters/machines and whatnot with futuristic weapons; there are even vehicle driving sequences. It looks pretty good in my book. But I'm a fan of portable FPS games.

I wonder if CORE DS ever came out?

Sounds interesting, I may have to look into getting it.

RainbowDespair

Actually Groov's an XNA Community game that came out this week, not an XBLA game. It's decent - a blatant Geometry Wars clone that does the whole Lumines/Rez music-synching thing and doesn't break the bank at a mere 200 points.

slash000

RainbowDespair wrote: »

Actually Groov's an XNA Community game that came out this week, not an XBLA game. It's decent - a blatant Geometry Wars clone that does the whole Lumines/Rez music-synching thing and doesn't break the bank at a mere 200 points.

Cool. I'm going to label that section of the OP as "XBLA/XNA" or "XBLA/XNA Community" from now on.




So.. I wonder if there is/will be a demo for the PC version of Mirror's Edge? I'd like to try it out on my specs before potentially buying the game.

Masume

I'm looking forward to LOTR: Conquest, the 360 demo had me playing it for hours nightly for a few days there, if not more. Lots of fun!

Chance

I downloaded that LOTR Conquest demo the other day, I really should give it a spin. Though to be honest, I don't really want to want another game. Sonic Ultimate Collection, then Killzone 2 and Resident Evil 5 comin' up - and I still haven't got all the '08 releases I want >.<

Also - thanks for makin' these threads Slash. Good on 'ya :^:

mntorankusu

Man, when I saw someone mention a game called Moon for the DS I hoped it was a port of the Japan-only PlayStation RPG of the same name.

I'm sad, now.

slash000

IGN really loved this Moon game for NDS; it's by the same people that did Dementium, but this time it seems they've taken all the complaints made about Dementium (which was a fairly decent game to begin with) and addressed all of them.

It's an adventure game with shooting elements intertwined, and while Nintendo fans reading this will of course instantly think of Metroid, I'd put this as more of an adventure game over Metroid Prime: Hunters for DS. You'll get a few new weapons as the game progresses, but more than that Moon is about its story, the cinematic presentation, and the mood.

It only takes one quick look at Moon to see just how much of a technical masterpiece this game is on DS. It runs at a silky smooth 60 frames per second, makes use of some gigantic level architecture, lots of animated panels and wall geometry rather than flat textures, and makes a great use of color and light to depict different modes within the game's dungeon-like hatches. During your frequent trips to the surface, stars light the sky, lens flares dance across the screen when looking directly at the sun, and the Earth looms off in the distance. It's a sight to be seen, and hands-down one of the most immersive games on the platform.

And while there's a lot to tell about the game, the single most important aspect to touch on is the flow and progression of the package. Yes it plays well, the guns are great, the story is well told, but you need to know what type of game it is before jumping in, or some players could get seriously turned off on this one. First of all, we've established that this isn't Halo, Doom, or Quake. It's an adventure game, and that means isolation, less of an emphasis on shooting (which some players will dig, after the enemy respawns and hectic Dementium in 2007), and exploration.

On the flipside though, weapons are really well balanced, and the game seems to know what you're shooting with at all times, so if you dig the Muon Pistol like I did (one shot, one kill on most of those flying robots) you'll have the ammo you need to put it to good use. The team was also kind enough to add save points, chapter breaks, and ammo kits right before boss fights, so if you ever end up losing a few minutes of exploration, it's because you got your butt kicked in corridor combat, and not because you happened upon a boss you had no idea was there.

Outside of the weapon balancing and general tech achievements, Moon really delivers in both puzzle elements and story. On the puzzling side of things, Kane's RAD (Remote Access Droid) allows players to driver though smaller vents and tunnels, working a sort of Resident Evil Zero "lock and key" mechanic where you're constantly switching between the RAD and Kane to leapfrog through areas. It bring out this great element of puzzling, since the RAD has s small stun gun but no real offense, and both players are active at the same time in a level. Later RAD sections have you driving next to the ankles of huge alien brutes while trying to activate a switch, and then hiding the RAD in a far off corner so you can run into the room guns blazing with Kane's rocket launcher equivalent. For players that want to work a bit more finesse into the experience, the RAD can also be used as a team-up weapon for Kane, driving quickly around a corner, stunning enemies, and the letting Kane rush in with the shotgun-like Lepton Spread gun, or fire from across the world with the Fermion Sniper rifle. For as much vulnerability as there is while playing as the RAD, you feel like a total badass paying the enemies back as Kane.

The final aspect of the game I wanted to touch on was the main story presentation overall, as it's a big accomplishment for the team, and one of the highlights of the adventure for me. The main quest will have players talking constantly with their allies via a com-link, but more interesting than that were the data logs found throughout the worlds. These terminals contain multiple mini-stories as the game moves on, taking the form of log entries by multiple points of view, both human, and otherwise. It's one thing to walk past a tank with a human body floating in it, but it's a whole other to get a step-by-step account of the abduction process, explaining why and how these humans are taken and "processed" in this strange, lunar facility. These moments are simple (just a paragraph of text each), but they help break up the monotony of doing puzzles, shooting a few baddies, and hitting up a boss. In addition, other little aspects of the game give it some legs, such as the ability to replay any level in quick play once finished (on easy, medium, or hard difficulty), lots of upgrades for health and weapon magazine size, and the artifact system, which rewards players for searching out three items in each of the game's main levels, which in turn open up bonus VR training missions similar to the ones found in Metal Gear Solid. Each has a different theme, set of available weapons, and strategy. Good fun.

The negatives cited by this review were some repetitive corridors and enemies, and so they suggest taking a break from the game after a chapter or two so you don't get a 'deja vu' feeling or something. There's supposedly a bad bug in the game that has been addressed but that only a minority of copies published have the bug.



Anyway, it sounds like a good adventure-style game with shooting elements and interesting story/presentation, and a pretty cool mechanic going on with the RAD. I think this team probably took some inspiration from the Metroid Prime series, or thats what it sounds like, since it's less action-focused and more puzzle/progression focused, with a lot of story tidbits found in logs and such. It's also neat that this game was developed by a team of 6 guys.


Well anyway I thought I'd post that since it sounds promising.


There's a pretty concise to-the-point video review here.

Cherrn

Wow. I never thought I'd see a new Kileak game.

slash000

Cherrn wrote: »

Wow. I never thought I'd see a new Kileak game.

Yeah, like that, except, apparently this game is fun and interesting!

RainbowDespair

This week's XBLA game is nothing. Well, there's some DLC for Castle Crashers (a couple new characters/weapons/spells for 160 MS points), but that's it.

However, next week, we're getting The Maw for 800 points. The Maw is a 3D sci-fi platformer/puzzle game that apparently won some award at PAX. I checked out the video at the website (http://mawgame.com/) and it looks rather promising.

mastrius

Whens the Mirrors Edge DLC coming out dangit....its hard holding on to these 800 points with all this stuff out...

brynstar

I am going to pick up a copy of Mirror's Edge PC tomorrow. I absolutely love that game, and I can't wait to see it with all the delightfully superfluous Physx effects. Moon also looks really cool.

EDIT: The Mirror's Edge DLC is out the end of the month.

EskimoDave

RainbowDespair wrote: »

This week's XBLA game is nothing. Well, there's some DLC for Castle Crashers (a couple new characters/weapons/spells for 160 MS points), but that's it.

However, next week, we're getting The Maw for 800 points. The Maw is a 3D sci-fi platformer/puzzle game that apparently won some award at PAX. I checked out the video at the website (http://mawgame.com/) and it looks rather promising.

The Maw looks kinda deep from the quick preview I saw a month ago.

Can't wait to try it.

Jubeh

Lord of the Rings yesssssssssss.

METAzraeL

oh sweet, I've been waiting for Moon to come out. Not sure when I'll get it, though.