NYCC 2013: Retro City Rampage 3DS

For four days, people came to the Javits Center in New York City to experience one of the largest conventions on the east coast: New York Comic Con 2013!  Fans of comics, movies, television shows, and toys came together to revel in their hobbies, and with them came video game companies to show off their wares for the upcoming holiday season and beyond.  We here at 3RM attended a few of those days, and we have impressions and video to provide from our experience!

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Alex:
Nintendo had a whole room dedicated to current and upcoming games on the Nintendo eShop, and among them was a new portable version of one of WiiWare's biggest final releases, VBlank Entertainment's Retro City Rampage.  I got to play a little bit of the demo, and it feels very much akin to its other versions, fit for the 3DS experience.

Retro City Rampage is a retro-style overhead action game akin to the older Grand Theft Auto games.  Players control The Player as he ends up sucked into the past and now must find a way to get himself back to the correct time.  Much like Grand Theft Auto, The Player can wander throughout the town and do oddjobs with a multitude of people, as well as complete a number of challenges in order to get money or medals and other achievements in the game.  Searching through the city might even give you new special weaponry or abilities that can be helpful in completing the game's Story Missions.  Once a mission or challenge is encountered and completed, players can choose to replay them from the game menu if they desire.  Other than the main and side missions, the game also has mini-games to play, starring other indie game heroes such as Commander Video and Meat Boy.

Whereas the previous games have all displayed the game with a zoomed-out look using the retro-style graphics, the 3DS iteration defaults the option to zoom-in, accounting for the system's smaller resolution screens.  Extraneous information such as money count, map, and weapon selection is stored on the bottom screen, although developer Brian Provinciano has noted on the game's site that he intends to check out possibilities of using the touch screen for more than just a display.  In the demo, there was no noticeable element to the bottom screen, and it was actually difficult with the zoomed-in view to glance at the map to see where I should have been going.  I was not exactly looking for anywhere specific anyways, so getting lost was expected, but I think some guides on the top screen would be beneficial, at least giving a general direction where a marked area might be.

The demo offered a free-roaming mode and a challenge mission to cause as much damage as possible in a short time.  The gameplay was as smooth as the original version, though I had to figure out how turning worked on the Circle Pad.  In my brief moments of gameplay, I found myself occasionally using the Circle Pad to point where the car should have gone, but the controls were set for steering instead.  That was probably more a fault of mine over the game's, though.  What I did notice, however, was that the graphics seemed to flicker on the menu screens.  I thought it was a style choice, but there was inconsistency with how the flicker appeared.  I suspect this would be fixed in the final release, and I hope other graphical glitches like that are ironed out in the completed game.

Overall, Retro City Rampage on 3DS played much like what you would expect on the other versions, with some adjustments to be put on the device.  Those who enjoyed the game in the previous releases or have been curious about playing the game on the go (and not on PSVita), then this is shaping up to fit the bill.

Retro City Rampage on 3DS is expected to release this holiday.  The game is currently available on PlayStation Network, Xbox Live Arcade, PC, and on WiiWare (also via Wii U).

NYCC 2013: Shantae and the Pirate's Curse

For four days, people came to the Javits Center in New York City to experience one of the largest conventions on the east coast: New York Comic Con 2013!  Fans of comics, movies, television shows, and toys came together to revel in their hobbies, and with them came video game companies to show off their wares for the upcoming holiday season and beyond.  We here at 3RM attended a few of those days, and we have impressions and video to provide from our experience!

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Alex:
Nintendo held a particularly large booth at New York Comic Con this year, but they also set up a room dedicated to games current on and coming soon to the Nintendo eShop.  Among those games was Wayforward's next game, Shantae and the Pirate's Curse.  From my experience, I can say that Shantae on 3DS is off to a good start to be a great continuation of the series.

Shantae and the Pirate's Curse is the third iteration in the Shantae franchise.  The game's predecessors starred Shantae as a half-genie, both on GameBoy Color and on DSiWare (and both currently accessible through the 3DS eShop).  However, after the events of Shantae: Risky's Revenge, our dancing heroine has lost her genie powers, and she has been trying to adjust ever since.  It is not long before she is encountered by her nemesis, the pirate Risky Boots, but she is there to ask for some help instead of a battle.  It turns out Shantae's genie powers have split into shards and made Risky's minions more powerful than she.  What is worse is that they plan to resurrect Risky's mentor, the Pirate Master, which would spell disaster for Sequin Land.  Forced into a truce, Risky and Shantae must work together (with whatever skills a pirate can use) to save the land and get Shantae her powers back.

Pirate's Curse is much like its predecessors in that it is a side-scrolling action adventure title.  Players control Shantae, attacking enemies using her hair whip or whatever abilities she acquires throughout the adventure.  With her genie powers gone, she lacks the ability to transform into animals or use magic attacks against her enemies, but she replaces these skills with pirate abilities and other weaponry she obtains over the course of the game.  She also has an inventory of many items to use at her discretion; the demo particularly only had potions, though there are probably plenty more items from where those came.

The demo only had two areas to check out - a boss battle and a dungeon stage.  In my playthrough, I explored the dungeon exclusively.  Graphically, the game resembles its DSiWare prequel, but the graphics are much smoother and look much crisper and detailed, thanks to the 3DS's higher resolution screen.  The 3D depth is particularly sharp, and the game takes no performance hit when shifting between 2D and 3D.  It does appear that the game takes assets from Risky's Revenge, at least in the demo dungeon, but not only are these graphics improved, a number of additional, more detailed characters join them.  During cutscenes, the character art is completely redrawn with the help of Inti-Creates, which fits right into the franchise's general artstyle.

The dungeon was fairly straightforward, although it was probably designed to be among the earlier areas of the game.  There were a few locked doors, requiring Shantae to venture off the path and into darker sections of the dungeon to find a key.  In searching for the key, I encountered a mini-boss crustacean, and the battle was fast-paced but not too fast for me to get close for a few quick whips of hair.  New in this game is the display of damage counts when hitting an enemy (or getting hit yourself); I suspect the final game will show off more numerical stats for Shantae and a bestiary to reflect the need for a damage counter.  All the while, between the new effects, smooth animations, and crisp visuals, the gameplay was as fun as Shantae as ever been.

Deeper into the dungeon, I encountered switches which shifted cage platforms when activated, but there were some switches too far to reach.  Thankfully, Shantae would find a pistol in the dungeon, adding a projectile to her arsenal.  I do not know whether there will be any cost to using the pistol in the final game, but I did not see anything resembling a limit to its use in the demo itself.  Besides this new weapon, the game demonstrated a new charge attack that Shantae potentially learns earlier in the game.  While running forward, she starts to glow, and if you press the right button at that time, she dashes forward, ShineSpark-style, and destroys everything in her path with a sharp pirate's blade.

While I did have a good time with the game, there are some concerns I would like to address.  For one, with the game's reuse of assets or similarity to those in Risky's Revenge, I wonder how large the game will be when it is completed or how different the world will be compared to that of its predecessor.  Also, the inventory at the bottom screen remained fairly inactive throughout the demo, almost feeling like an empty placeholder above all else.  I suspect the bottom screen will allow a map display at some point, but the demo felt a touch too basic regardless.  Outside of these concerns, the game felt as good if not better than the previous Shantae games, especially with higher-resolution graphics and a widescreen display through which to admire the experience.

Shantae and the Pirate's Curse releases some time this year for the 3DS Nintendo eShop.  Meanwhile, the series' next big game, Half-Genie Hero, is slated for PC, PS3, PS4, PSVita, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Wii U sometime in 2014.

Tony:

Located in Nintendo’s separate eShop room, Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse was playable, and I got to get some brief moments with the game. The demo took place within a stone dungeon filled with a variety of enemies and hazards. The game’s controls were similar to that of the other Shantae games, full of jumping and hair swatting at baddies. During my playthrough, I not only had Shantae hair smacking shadowy pirates but also a crab mini-boss that I could only hit when its defenses were down, which was only when it was preparing to attack. There were also these flying bats that found pleasure in knocking me into pits constantly. Besides defeating the usually enemy, using the hair I was also able to find hidden areas filled with money-laden urns and activate switches that moved cages suspended from the ceiling. By standing in a cage when I hit the switches, Shantae would be carried with the cage around walls and over pits. However, further into the demo, these switches were too far away for Shantae’s hair to reach and required a new ability: Risky’s Gun. This not only worked as a projectile weapon but also as a puzzle-solving too; it could activate faraway switches allowing me access to parts deeper into the dungeon. It will be interesting to see what other pirate abilities you can acquire throughout her journey.

Graphically, the game was made up entirely of sprites, which is the norm for most WayForward titles. Whenever Shantae whipped her hair or an enemy moved in for the attack, the animations where both crisp and fluid. The game also looked good in 3d although it was not necessary to have on in order to enjoy the game. One neat 3D effect was whenever the cages moved, they would slide into the background with Shantae and then move back forward again into the new spot. Little things like that are neat touches that I hope fill this title.

Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse played smoothly just like the other titles in the series. Even though it was just a small taste, I already enjoy the subtle 3D effects as they come into play as well as the new pirate power-ups. Due out later this year on the Nintendo 3DS eShop, this well animated title is one to look out for.

NYCC 2013: Batman Arkham Origins Blackgate

For four days, people came to the Javits Center in New York City to experience one of the largest conventions on the east coast: New York Comic Con 2013!  Fans of comics, movies, television shows, and toys came together to revel in their hobbies, and with them came video game companies to show off their wares for the upcoming holiday season and beyond.  We here at 3RM attended a few of those days, and we have impressions and video to provide from our experience!

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Alex:
The Batman Arkham series has been seen as a brilliant revival of Batman games, and with Arkham Origins, the series is taking a look at the start of Batman and his interactions with the world's maniacal wrongdoers.  While the game was playable at DC's booth, we focused our time with the handheld rendition of the game, Batman Arkham Origins Blackgate, a sequel counterpart to the console adventure.  It was playable on 3DS at Nintendo's booth, and it while it did not impress graphically, the game shows promise for a solid Batman Arkham addition.

Batman Arkham Origins Blackgate takes place three months after Origins, but there are no spoilers involved in the storyline of the console version (other than Batman living through it, of course).  In the demo, Batman is scouring the cityscape of Gotham when he spots none other than Catwoman in the middle of one of her theft jobs.  There is some brief banter between the two, but soon both are encountered by armed guards and begin a chase of cat and mouse...cat and bat, more like it.  The chase ends with a short duel with Catwoman, and just as the story is set in motion, the demo ends.  Before and after gameplay, cutscenes were played out mostly using motion comics, animation cut back in favor of a hand-drawn comic artstyle to display more story-centric experiences.  Your enjoyment of these depends purely on your preference of full animation over moving comic visuals, but I did not mind these cutscenes being used for a handheld game.

Blackgate is a 2.5D action adventure with a focus on combat and exploration throughout the Batman world.  While the demo itself was wholly linear in nature, the actual game is said to be completely open, allowing villains to be taken out in whatever order the player desires.  Rather than gain power ups through any level system, Batman obtains upgrades scattered throughout the game world, akin to a Metroidvania title.  While that term seems to be thrown around plenty of times, one should note that Blackgate is being fully developed by Armature Studio, headed by the leads of the Metroid Prime series.  So, while the demo did not display any hint of open-world exploration, the pedigree of the developers should ease concerns a bit.

Batman has plenty of moves that he shares with his previous console counterparts.  There is no jumping in Blackgate, but there is still plenty of ascension through the use of a grappling hook.  Either way, descent is a much more important element for Batman; players can slow down their descent using the bat cape, and when spying on assailants from above, they can choose whom to attack first.  It is imperative to choose wisely when descending into harm's way, especially when some thugs are armed and not afraid to shoot you down.  In one particular scenario, I had to dive down and takeout enemies one at a time, ascending to the beams above to prevent being seen and shot.  Thankfully, the game has a Detective Mode which highlights grapple spots, enemy positions and their line of sight; with this data, I was able to coordinate my attack and make it out unscathed.  Seeing this, Blackgate promises to keep elements of stealth action in play, even in a 2.5D landscape.

While stealth is all part of Batman's itinerary, combat is still a heavy element in Blackgate, for better or for worse.  In the demo, I encountered a number of setpieces in which I was expected to face-off against a crowd of thugs, and much of the series' combat elements were still present.  There were buttons for a hard punch or quick, successive jabs, and given the right moment, players can dodge and counter attacks to put their combatants in their place.  I did less than stellar in these segments, but I suspect it was more me than the game that was messing things up.  I did notice that taking down certain enemies seemed longer in these segments compared to others, and it does leave me with some concern that the game could be overwrought with combat segments over the like of exploration and stealth.  That does not mean the game has bad combat, no.  In fact, the sequences were animated well and had a good level of fluidity about them, but it will take a balance of these combat segments with the rest of the game to create a truly solid experience. 

Graphics do not appear to be the game's strong suit, at least from certain standpoints.  The characters are made with lower-polygon models, and the textures across these models are not high resolution.  Unfortunately, in the demo, the game would pull close to these models in certain cutscenes or when battle sequences ended, showcasing the game's limitations on the 3DS.  On the other hand, the game did not suffer much with framerate, and when the 3D display was set on, the depth was strong and effective in showing the dark and intense world of Gotham City's rooftops.  Animations flowed well, making for more competent battle segments and in-game cutscenes.  As for the environment, it was fine, even though the game lacked AA something fierce.  I found the draw distance to be quite good, especially in at least one scene where I crossed a wire across a long expanse of the city, a number of guards in the distance but still visible in Detective Mode.  I suspect there was a trade-off of polygon count with draw distance, and if there are more scenic views like that in the full game, I am welcome to take such a trade-off.

Overall, the demo left me with a much better understanding of what Blackgate is going to be like.  The game takes elements from the console games and places them into a handheld 2.5D world, and while the demo did not particularly impress me on a visual level, there are elements that I feel will edge it up to an overall enjoyable adventure through Gotham.  Batman Arkham Origins Blackgate is set to release late October for Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita.

NYCC 2013: Sonic: Lost World

For four days, people came to the Javits Center in New York City to experience one of the largest conventions on the east coast: New York Comic Con 2013!  Fans of comics, movies, television shows, and toys came together to revel in their hobbies, and with them came video game companies to show off their wares for the upcoming holiday season and beyond.  We here at 3RM attended a few of those days, and we have impressions and video to provide from our experience!

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Tony:

Recently, Sega has been on a roll when it comes to Sonic games. Both Sonic Colors and Sonic Generations did a great job being visually appealing and enjoyable to play. Now Sega hopes to continue its winning streak with Sonic Lost World exclusively for the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS (or 2DS).  Both versions of the game were playable at Nintendo's Booth this year at New York Comic Con, and I managed to fight the crowds to give each version a spin.

The Wii U version of Sonic Lost World had four playable levels: Windy Hills, Desert Ruins 1+2, and Frozen Factory. With my hands-on, I got to play the Windy Hills and Frozen Factory stages. The first stage’s theme resembled the usual grassy hills stages that tend to start every classic Sonic game, with checkered terrain, totem poles, wooden bridges, and waterfalls. Even the stage’s enemies came from a variety of classic Sonic titles such as the Moto Bug from Sonic 1 and Snail Blaster from Sonic 3. However, where Lost World differed from classic Sonic was the outrageous level design that some may find similar to Super Mario Galaxy. The stage took place high in the air on top of a long cylinder of land; on this planetoid, Sonic could either run straight across or take a multitude of other pathways to get to the next area. At one point, I decided to run under the stage to tackle an area filled with spike balls and moving ground. While one can take an easier path to reach the finish, they will miss out on the hidden Red Rings and Captured Animals, which I was told would help unlock content in the game. With this new freedom to design crazy level layouts, I am interested to see how far Sega takes it. My only concern with this experimental stage design is with the game’s camera, which felt rigid and was forced looking forward. This made going backwards or side to side a little jarring, especially considering Sega is touting the game's ability to explore the levels instead of just rushing through the adventure.

However, not all the stages will be designed that way. Desert Ruins 2 is played as a side-scroller among a lot of candy and Desert Ruins 3 is an auto run stage taking place inside a tree log. The second stage I played, Frozen Factory 2, did not take place in a snow level but rather a casino-themed stage with Poker chip towers and massive dice. This stage was full of Casino Night references, from Sonic’s name in neon lights, to the Crawl badnick from Sonic 2. Even the old slot reels are back, except now they are trying to reel over Sonic. Unlike the first stage, this level didn’t let you rotate underneath but it still kept a curved design. Throughout the level, it continuously offered three different paths to choose from, some filled with bumpers and others filled with painful laser mazes. There were also a lot of silver coins to collect, which at certain parts of the casino could be cashed in to earn Sonic a chance to play some Pinball, just like in the old days.

Overall the game’s visual approach had a Sonic Colors vibe to it but tuned up thanks to the Wii U’s HD power. The vibrant colors, varied environments, and smooth animations where pleasing to look at and had me wanting to see what other environments and worlds Sonic Lost World had to offer.

While visuals get my attention, gameplay keeps me playing, and Sonic Lost World for the Wii U has a bit of a learning curve. First off, Sonic’s double jump as well as the Wisp powers from Sonic Colors return in Lost World. While the jumps felt similar to how they felt in Colors, the only Wisp power I got to use was the Cyan Laser, which had me shoot through a number of crystals to bypass one section of the stage. What differs here from Colors is that the power ups are now used via the Wii U gamepad. I had to touch the screen, angle my direction, and than flick the screen to send Laser Sonic away. As each wisp uses the gamepad differently, I’ll have to play the game more to get a better grasp of these new powers.

There were a few major changes to Sonic himself, this time around. Besides his usual jumping and homing attacks, Sega has added a new kick mechanic where Sonic kicks larger enemies into smaller enemies. While designed to add a new level of strategy to defeating enemies, I felt the homing reticule wasn’t always appearing when I needed to use the kick power. Plus, it wasn’t as fast or as affective as the homing attack, which made it feel very situational. The biggest changes to Sonic were how to control his speed and the new parkour system. In the past Sonic would accelerate quickly and speed through stages, making it rather hard to perform platforming segments. Lost World attempts to fix this by making Sonic’s initial speed a moderately fast run that is easy to maneuver during the crazy platforming segments found within each of the levels. In order to speed Sonic up to the much faster pace that Sonic fans are accustomed to, I had to hold down the RZ button on the gamepad. Not only did this speed Sonic up, it also enabled his new parkour abilities. In previous games when Sonic hit an object running, he stopped dead in his tracks. With this new set up, when Sonic ran into a ledge, a tree, or along a wall, he would pull himself over the ledge, run up the tree, and run along the wall. The whole purpose of this was to keep Sonic moving as well as add some interesting platforming sections. In Windy Hills, I collected hidden items in the trees while climbing and in the casino level, I used wall-running techniques to collect rings and to avoid enemies below. And if that wasn’t fast enough, pressing the LZ preformed a spin dash that sent Sonic zooming even faster. The trick to getting the best time and score is to get well acquainted with this new setup. For someone who has played a lot of Sonic titles, it was definitely a learning curve that will take some time to get a complete grasp of it.  Being able to slow down for platforming has me intrigued; I hope the parkour mechanic is used in interesting ways throughout the game's final product.

With all the hype of the Wii U version, one might forget that the 3DS version of Sonic Lost World was also playable at Nintendo's booth, and I am glad I didn’t miss it! Before playing it, I was not sure about it since I had just played the Wii U game. The stages playable were: Windy Hills 1, Desert Ruins 1, and Desert Ruins 2. For comparison, I played the Windy Hill stage. Much like the Wii U counterpart, the game took place on a floating landmass that Sonic could transverse in 3D for the first time on a handheld. However, unlike the Wii U game, Sonic couldn’t go underneath the stage and was limited to the top half. Graphically, it was definitely not HD and had a really low-resolution backdrop image. Besides that, it still ran smoothly, and the character models looked good for the most part. In order to handle the larger stages, whenever Sonic reached a large spring, he was launched into the air as the game loaded the next area. This was a touch jarring but nothing too harrowing.

The 3DS version of the game seemed to have a more fluid camera compared to its console counterpart, and the controls were much easier to get into initially.  However, there were a number more pits than what I encountered in the Wii U demo, which could be a problem knowing DIMPS' level design in previous Sonic DS titles.  Regardless, I found that the simplicity evoked in the 3DS version made it easier to grab-and-go compared to the Wii U version's demo.  The Wii U version, despite looking better, had a much greater learning curve.

Both games are now out in Europe and should be out in America within the next few weeks.  I enjoyed my time with both demos, even though I can see where the games could be divisive for certain people.  We will have to see when it finally releases stateside how the game progresses, but it has a promising start.

NYCC 2013: Skylanders: SWAP Force

For four days, people came to the Javits Center in New York City to experience one of the largest conventions on the east coast: New York Comic Con 2013!  Fans of comics, movies, television shows, and toys came together to revel in their hobbies, and with them came video game companies to show off their wares for the upcoming holiday season and beyond.  We here at 3RM attended a few of those days, and we have impressions and video to provide from our experience!

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In Nintendo's booth, Activision was present to show off the latest portable adventure in the Skylanders franchise, Skylanders SWAP Force.  Playable only on the Nintendo 2DS at the show, I got to try out a bit of the demo's swamp forest level while discussing the game with a representative from the company.  From my brief experiences, I can see that Skylanders on handhelds is faithful to the series, even with a few rough edges noticeable from my playtime.

Skylanders: SWAP Force is the third iteration of the Skylanders franchise, a series of games in which players place figurines of Skylander warriors onto a physical portal device to bring the character to life in a humorous, epic adventure.  Introduced in 2011 by Toys for Bob, the series has since added giant and glowing (lightcore) Skylander figurines with its sequel Skylanders Giants.  SWAP Force changes the gameplay up even more this time around, with Vicarious Visions now at the helm of the series.  The handheld iterations started with Vicarious Visions, but since Giants the 3DS versions have been handled by N-Space.

In SWAP Force, the series introduces swappable characters.  At the hip, these sixteen new Skylanders can be separated and reattached, allowing characters to share types and swap special moves between one another.  For instance, I was able to use Wash Buckler (a pirate octopus) and swap out his tentacle legs for the rolling lower-half of Magna Charge (a robotic magnet being).  The resulting Skylander had the attack powers of Wash Buckler but the speed of Magna Charge, which would help out in particular scenarios I encountered in the demo.  These swappable Skylanders help create even more character variety than before (and that is saying something with over forty other Skylanders already present in the series).

Unlike the console versions of the series, Skylanders on the 3DS could not use the portal in real-time, instead "absorbing" the Skylanders into the game and redepositing them when necessary, with a maximum of two at a time.  SWAP Force, however, allows up to four Skylanders per type to be stored, including swappable Skylanders.  With the touch screen I was able to quickly switch into a different Skylander with relative ease, although there was some additional loading involved when using the swappable Skylanders, for good reason.

Graphically, the game resembled the first iteration of the game on handhelds, with slightly lower polygon counts and a lower-than-optimal framerate compared to the console versions.  The framerate did not falter too much from the norm, however, and there was a good amount of activity going on the screen at once.  The camera is panned out, much like Giants and the console iterations of all of the games, and that allows for more exploration to be possible.  Even so, the camera started to play games with me, panning around the character for no reason.  This ended up causing me to lose track of where I was going, and it delayed my progress more than I would have liked.  It felt awkward having to make near leaps-of-faith toward the camera with my character, when it would have been easier for the camera to just say behind me.

Meanwhile, the gameplay was as standard as the series goes.  Characters fight enemies to gain experience, and at first, the attacks are fairly basic, but as you progress, the Skylander gains more abilities to assist.  The special challenge areas are still present in the game, requiring specific types of Skylanders to open specific doorways in order to obtain gifts to be used in-game.  There will be additional requirements for certain doorways in this game, specific to powers held be particular swappable Skylanders.  This adds another layer of character requirements for the challenge areas, so do not expect to just get away with just one Skylander per type this time around!

Regardless of the little issues, Skylanders SWAP Force felt pretty much like a handheld edition of the console titles, especially now that the console games introduce jumping mechanics that the handheld games have had since the beginning.  The ability to swap between so many Skylanders now sounds like a welcome change, even if it still requires "absorbing" Skylanders and redepositing them when desiring to play the console versions.  It did have some little issues here and there, but nothing that should deter the audience away if they were looking for a decent Skylander experience on the go.

Skylanders SWAP Force is out now for 3DS/2DS, Wii U, PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii.