Tuesday 17 October 2006
Ah, bosses! How we love your meter-long life bars, cheap super-attacks and exposed weak points. It's The Rules that games have to have them, so in this roll-call we look at eight titans that really threw their weights around.
These are some of the biggest of the big, deserving of their boss status by barely fitting on the screen, let alone playing unfair.
The Hydra, God of War
In a game that does everything big, you expect some mighty bosses, but what you don't expect
Stealing the story
Vaan is both like and unlike FF heroes from the past. He's an orphan - a troubled teen who still seems to find the time to quest for perfect hair. But he's not the disturbed lead of previous games - more a normal kid with problems than one overcome by them. Though he can be a bit bitchy, you can understand it: his brother died under the command of General Basch and he's been alone ever since. He functions as a sort of leader to the street kids in Rabanastre, but his dream is
Regardless of your upbringing, financial situation or age, there's at least one pop culture war that you've chosen an unflinching side on. Coke or Pepsi? GI Joe or Transformers? Marvel or DC? The latter rivalry has almost lasted 80 years, gaining more steam as the decades go by. Now we've got the two comic companies fighting it out in movie theaters, toy aisles and even across every gaming console on the planet.
X-Men Legends is the superhero RPG by which all others are judged, so when
Yesterday we peered into the extraordinary powers of Superman, Batman and the Flash - today we're shacking up with a backwards-talking magician and three other marquee members of the Justice League. Their combined abilities should be more than a match for any villains action RPG Justice League Heroes throws your way when it's released next
Last week, we heard from Producer Shara Miller from LucasArts. This week, we'll be hearing the cotton candy-laced words of Senior Producer Jonny Watts, about how it feels to see someone play the game you've created - and how it makes you feel when they don't play it the way you intended.
Jonny Watts, Senior Producer at Frontier Developments
Weaving all of the elements of Thrillville together into one cohesive experience has at times been one of the most nerve-wracking processes in developing
Producer Shara Miller already has her hands in some of the biggest franchises you love - Mercenaries and Star Wars Battlefront II should get a million or so gamer's hearts pumping. Now she's handling Thrillville, a video theme park that enables you to build whatever attractions you like - and then ride the crap out of them. Miller chimes in for part one of our six-part series, which should shed a little more light on why this isn't another wannabe simulator.
Shara Miller - Producer
So far,
Monday 02 October 2006
Even the most unsellably weird games tend to spin off a sequel - or five - so putting our heads together to come up with a list of one-offs that deserve a reappearance was harder than we'd thought. Still, here are our 12 picks that either changed the gaming world too quietly for anyone to notice, had a heart of gold buried under a ton of faults, or are just plain teasing us by not going for that magic '2'.
Manhunt
PS2, Xbox, PC (2003/2004)
It might be certifiable under
Japanese developer Level-5 is all over the map these days. After finishing work on Dragon Quest VIII, the company is getting renewed attention from fans, partly thanks to its upcoming PS2 space-pirate epic Rogue Galaxy. But a lot of the interest is coming from the just-unveiled White Knight Story for PS3, which debuted in a stunning trailer at the Tokyo Game Show.
During TGS, we had an opportunity to sit down with Akihiro Hino, Level-5's CEO and president, and pick his brain about
At this year's Tokyo Game Show, we had the luck to sit down with a very talented man. Atsushi Inaba is a maverick game creator who's had his hand in a number of off the wall game titles. He first became known for the one-two-punch of Viewtiful Joe and the incomparably complex and obscure Steel Battalion (that Xbox game that required a $200 cockpit controller.) Now, he's back with two big hits: Okami and Phoenix Wright, and topping it all off with the absolutely off-the-wall God Hand. We've
The bold princess, Ashe
Married at a young age, she swiftly lost her husband in the wars her country is embroiled in. This princess doesn't wilt in a tower, waiting for a savior, though - when Dalmasca is invaded, she uses the battle for cover to launch her escape and counterattack. During this time, she meets up with Vaan, the game's lead character... but you'll find out more about her later on, when they cross paths again. Though she is just one person, she strives to right the wrongs
