Frankenreview: Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 [Round Up]

Ah, the game of golf. Some consider the sport to be nothing more than badly dressed men walking through the park with sticks, but for hundreds of thousands of gamers it's actually about controlling badly dressed men walking through the park with sticks. I've actually always been attracted to the sport, but my particular build doesn't lend itself well to putting my hands together in front of my body and then moving them with any sort of grace, so video games are all I have. For years now EA's Tiger Woods series has been the go-to franchise for realistic golf, and now that the 2009 version of the game is upon us it's time for the critics to chime in on Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09. Is it a hole in one, or does it get lost in the deep rough? Softly whispered verdicts after the jump.

GameSpot
Tiger Woods 09's controls aren't vastly different from TW 08, but they're much more forgiving. You start your swing by pulling back on the analog stick and then strike the ball by moving the stick forward. A more traditional three-button-press option is available at any time by clicking the right analog stick. Last year, the slightest deviation left or right during your swing would result in a terrible shot, particularly if you were using a golfer with low skill attributes. This year, not only are you punished less severely if your swing isn't perfect, but you also get instant feedback via an onscreen meter that shows exactly how you moved the stick. By monitoring this feedback, you can learn how to straighten your swing or compensate for your natural swing by adjusting your aim or by adding a draw or fade to the ball with the press of a button.

GameCinemaHD
(The) Tour Pro setting, along with the new Presentation Camera, is something that hardcore golf fans will definitely appreciate. This difficulty setting disables the after-touch spin control, power boost, and the Putt-Preview, therefore leaving the golfer with only skill to rely on. The ball?s overall sweet spot is greatly reduced as well, and there?s much less forgiveness in the left analog stick, therefore resulting in more frequent hooks and slices. Combine this with the aforementioned Presentation Camera ? a television-style camera that offers multiple perspective changes ? and you?re left with a much more realistic game of golf.

TeamXbox
The Tiger Challenge mode, like in years past, gives you a series of minigames and situational scenarios that earn you points you then use to unlock challenges against other famous golfers. Stages that require things like, ?hit three balls at a pin and have the total distance from the hole add up to less than 45 yards.? Or win three skins off of this character. Or win a game of Bingo Bango Bongo. Things like that all help you improve your skills, especially when you follow them up with one of your coaching drills starring Tiger?s real life performance coach Hank Haney.

1UP
On the "most improved" front, I need to give a shout-out to one major change to multiplayer: simultaneous play, where all four players take shots at the same time, with opponents' shots indicated by colored trails. This works surprisingly well, making it possible to polish off a full 18-hole game without committing an entire evening to the enterprise, which magically turns work back into fun.

As consistent as the money rolling into Tiger's bank account.

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Come Mount My Blade, Baby [Interview]

Mount & Blade is like that quirky girl who sits behind you in art class ? you don?t talk to her because you?re afraid the much-hotter girl who sits next to her won?t talk to you if she sees you talking to the quirky girl. The much-hotter girl in this case is The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, with its uber-amazing graphics and wide-open story land of medieval fantasy fun. Mount & Blade, like that quirky girl, has very little to do with Oblivion beyond the fact that they?re the same gender. It too, is a wide-open adventure for PC, but the similarities stop there as Oblivion persists in creating epic fantasy while Mount & Blade focuses on recreating realistic 14th century life.

Scared off already, huh? Shame on you; the quirky girl always has a great personality.

Mount & Blade?s personality has had nearly eight years to grow into the in-depth medieval sim it?s become today (currently running on a near-final .9-something version). You might not get any of that if you were to look at the beta version currently online (using a way-older version); the chunky graphics might turn you off before you even gave the game a chance. But from its humble origins as a realistic sword fighting combat simulator, Mount & Blade has evolved into a deep game with a rich, dynamic setting tied to some very boss gameplay mechanics.

It?s the 1300s in some parallel version of Europe called Calradia, and you?re a wandering rogue/disgraced noble/dirty peasant out to make your fortune the way people did back then: the sword. The overall game has a skeleton plot about something to do with war between two Calradian countries ? but the end ?goal? for the game is for you to gather your own army and create a fief. That, for me, is a check in the ?good? box ? Oblivion gave me some houses, but Mount & Blade gives me a freaking castle.

?If I can take it, that is. After some time spent in beta and an interview with developer Arma?an Yavuz, I got the idea that Mount & Blade won?t be holding my hand through each skirmish, siege and battle the game throws at you. You pick up a scant tutorial in the basics of fighting: blocking, swinging, shooting arrows and mounted combat. And after that, you?re on your own. You do level up as you go around completing missions given to you by the nobility and killing the odd vagabond who tries to jump you; but no amount of XP or gold will buy you superpowers or the most amazing weapon ever. You?ve got master combat through practice, earn the respect of your NPC posse so you can send them out to do battle, and pillage your way to that castle. So add another check to ?good? because this means it doesn?t matter how many levels I gain in the game; I?m only going to be as good as I learn to be. And I get to pillage ? big plus.

Yavuz talked a bit about his inspiration to create Mount & Blade. He and his wife both have a thing for history and there weren?t really any games out there that recreated the medieval period all that well (at least not without adding dragons and magic and stuff). Yavuz started out with just a basic combat sim ? tweaking the mechanics so you dealt more damage when moving during a strike, and having the AI counter your block if you held down the block button instead of waiting for it to attack you. From there, an online community sprung up like so many mushrooms and the developers reached out to them, giving them mod tools to make their own additions to the game. Turns out Yavuz liked some of the modders so much, he hired them on as writers and programmers ? and this is where the game began to evolve some kind of plot.

Creating your character is a lot like Oblivion ? moving sliders this way and that way, choosing a class and allotting skill points and so on. But instead of starting off at the center of an epic story in some dungeon that?s about to get attacked by red-robed ninjas, Mount & Blade drops you into the middle of Calradia with nothing but a weapon, a horse and a shield. The world map is huge, providing plenty of places for you to travel.

I found all that freedom almost overwhelming, but after I went into a town and talked to a lord to receive a quest, I was on familiar territory. I went where the lord told me to go and talked to some peasants to find the guy he wanted me to find. This guy didn?t want tobe found, so he took a few swings at me with his sword and I put a crossbow bolt in his chest ? but he still kept coming and I found out the hard way that you can?t reload a crossbow while you?re running away (no wonder France had trouble in The Hundred Years? War).

After getting ?knocked unconscious,? I wound up on my horses back, half-sliding out of the saddle somewhere on the edge of the town. Most my life bar was gone and some quest text told me I had failed. I?m pretty sure you can go back and re-try the quest if you talk to the lord again; but I got jumped by some bandits on my way back and died again. This is where that NPC posse would have come in handy ? I can make them do all the fighting and just hang out in the back, feathering the bad guys with crossbow bolts and healing my party with mad first aid skills (not magic spells).

The realism in Mount & Blade was inspired by Sid Meier?s Pirates! and by the novels of Bernard Cornwell. Sid Meier?s famous game did away with the normal type of adventure plot and let you carve your own fate out of the seven seas; which is pretty much the same thing you?ll be doing in Mount & Blade, only with horses instead of boats. Cornwell?s books (all bazillion of them), are gritty historical fiction pieces that cover everything from Napoleonic captains to Viking conquests. I?m actually a fan of Cornwell ? playing Mount & Blade reminded me so much of one of his books, that I brought it to the interview. I showed Yavuz my copy of The Archer?s Tale and was rewarded with an excited squeal more appropriate to an 8-year-old girl than a developer.

But cut Yavuz some slack; he?s living his dream. He wanted to make a game that was realistic and he won a fan base. His fan base expanded his game and he won Paradox Interactive as a publisher. He wants to bring the world Mount & Blade and thanks to Paradox, he will.

So even if the game looks ugly to you and you?d rather be off screwing the hot girl playing Oblivion, I defy you to say there isn?t depth in this game after completing just one mission. Go check out the official site for more details and maybe hit up Wikipedia for some background on the factions (because there are a lot). Mount & Blade will be on shelves September 16 ? and keep your eyes peeled for an announcement about digital downloads?

And for the record, quirky girls are always dynamite in the sack.

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Survivor: Gabon Contestant Is One Of Us

I'm not a fan of reality television shows. I believe that they take away precious time and resources from interesting television productions. In fact, it's come to the point that every time I see a new reality show upstart knock...

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Spore Penis Monsters Impress Will Wright [Spore]

So how does a legendary game designer react when his creation is used to manufacturer forms of life that resemble sexual organs and even dual-bodied creatures forever locked in the act of mating? Outrage? Horror? Not Will Wright. Color him impressed.

"When you give players creative control, you have to expect they're going to do the unexpected," the prolific video game designer said. "Some of it's really good for what they were shooting for. It's amazingly explicit, especially when those creations are animated. We just have to make sure those people aren't messing up the experience for others."

This is from a post on the Seattle Post-Intelligencer website, which aims to educate readers about the game, but not before touching on simulated genitalia first. See? The mainstream press isn't all that different from video game bloggers after all!

'Spore' designer spills on explicit creatures [SeattlePI.com]

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Probably Like The Best Spore Article There Is

Okay, I'm possibly biased because the journo's my friend, but up at Rock Paper Shotgun now is Brandon Boyer's in-depth Spore feature that originally ran in Edge Magazine. It's a really well-written and in-depth account of his 2006 visit to the "Spore Group" -- which we all promptly have returned to calling "Maxis" -- to hang a little with Will Wright and find out what makes the game tick.

Funnily, he refers to the game's "ever-nearing" release date -- which, you know, in 2006 we all thought it was "nearing." But there are reasons we've stayed interested in Spore for so long, and you get a feel for some of them through Boyer's impressions of the studio and his talk with Wright about the vision and the team behind it. Real quality stuff, so if you like yourself a properly highbrow game article, you should check it out.

Oh, please digg it if you like it, would you? I'd like more people to see it. Thank you!

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Final Web Of Shadows Box Art Decided [Spider-Man:
Web Of Shadows]

The votes have been tallied, and to my great surprise and dismay, the Spider-Man: Web of Shadows box art has been chosen by the fans themselves, and they chose...poorly. I suppose in all fairness the two choices we were presented weren't all that great in the first place - it was either Spider-Man holding a dome-less snow globe or Spider-Man with concept art for arms. I was leaning towards the snow globe myself, but Wolverine and Venom together on one cover is kind of hard to resist.

Besides, when you've got as good of a game inside as I played at the Games Convention in Leipzig, you could ship it in a plain cardboard sleeve and I'd still be there on launch day to pick up the special corrugated edition.

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Back from Gen Con

I have worked something like the last 9 or 10 Gen Cons. Each one had a story, memory, or event that made it special, but this year really set itself apart from previous shows. Never before in all my years of making and selling games have I been able to say that I was a part of THE GAME at Gen Con.

For almost all of the show, I was tucked away in the events hall showing people the ins and outs of Monsterpocalypse, but from what I hear, the line to the Privateer Press booth was something like 300 people long! By 11am on Saturday we had sold out of every single starter set that we brought to Gen Con. For the rest of the show, we had people asking to buy more Monsterpocalypse.

The few times I was able to sneak away from the events hall I saw numerous people squatting on the floor examining, trading, and playing Monsterpocalypse. IT WAS EVERYWHERE! Seeing people enjoy a game that you worked on is always something special. Seeing it take place everywhere you go is freaking fantastic! It makes those late nights playtesting and revising rules all worth it.

A lot of work went into refining this product for publication, and it was rewarding to see our effort appreciated. Numerous people commented on how easy the rules were to understand, and I noticed quite a few expressions of enlightenment as people looked over their figures and discovered their abilities on the reference sheet.

One of my favorite things about running the event room for Monsterpocalypse was watching faces light up when I would explain some of the more in depth strategy of the game. For instance, when I explained to a player how he could slowly bleed his Monster Dice Pool in order to take multiple back-to-back monster activations, I noticed a series of reactions. First a puzzled look came over his face as the new revelation sank in. Then the look turned to joy as he realized there is another level of strategy beyond simply smashing his opponent upside the head with a building. Finally a look I could only describe as PURE EVIL washed over him as he planned for competitive play against his friends back home. It was a scenario that played out over and over again, and it was quite a thing to see.

By the end of the show I turned in over 400 event tickets ? more than I have ever turned in before for one game. In addition to the starters, we sold nearly every booster we brought. On top of all those great things, I also met a bunch of great people that I am sure I will see when we run the Monsterpocalypse events next year!

Gen Con ?08 was one of those experiences that made me feel bigger than Gorghadra after ?snackin? down? on a major metropolitan city.

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Screw Comic Book Movies, Where Are Our Comic Book
Games [Feature]

So last week, I was taking a crap. Bear with me! And often as I do while taking said crap, I was reading, in this instance a comic. It was the latest trade paperback of DMZ, a series by Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli, which tells the story of a near-future US Civil War, where the red states rise up against the blue ones, and the war?s frontline sees New York City split in two.

It?s a great series, made great not only by the characters and storylines, but the world itself. The bullet-point summary I just gave doesn?t do it justice. It?s a believable world filled with real, fallible people, who are caught in the middle of a war that nobody really understands and nobody really wants to be a part of.

Anyway, the whole time I?ve been reading this series, and thinking of the world that Wood and Burchielli have crafted, all I can think of is: there would be a great videogame in this.

Not a direct adaptation of the comic, mind you. The protagonist ? photojournalist Matty ? sees his fair share of action, but you couldn?t really make a game of it. But there?s a game somewhere in it. Amidst the rubble of Manhattan, amidst an America torn apart by its political identity crisis. A game that?s able to explore not only the literal world of DMZ, but its themes as well.

It's not just DMZ that gets me thinking like this. There are dozens, if not hundreds of top-shelf, well-written, good-looking comic book properties, many of which would make outstanding (foundations for) video games. Fables, Bone, Blame!, Planetary, Global Frequency, Deus Ex Machina, The Goon, The Walking Dead, Hellboy, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (the Alan Moore variety, not the Sean Connery one), Tom Strong...the list could go on (and in your mind, comic book reader, probably is). Point being, there are plenty of great comic books out there that could be turned into great video games.

(Note that, from here on, when I'm talking comic book properties, I'm not talking Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, etc. They're not "comic book" heroes anymore. They've moved well beyond that. They're more "pop culture" heroes. I'm mostly going to be talking about series and characters that don't have Happy Meal toys and Nickelodeon cartoon series named after them.)

Consider this: If taking some of the strengths of a comic book - the characters, the fantasy, the world, the look - and dropping them in another medium has worked for Hollywood, there's no reason it can?t work for games. Indeed, no reason it can?t work better in games, as some genres and styles of games (RPGs, adventure, episodic titles) would allow players to explore the depth and diversity of a comics universe to a degree movies could only dream of.

Let's look at Hollywood. They have to crunch years, sometimes decades worth of a comic's character and story development into a two hour movie. And yet they?re often (at least lately) able to not only make a good movie out of a comic, but also a ton of money. Four of the top-ten opening weekends of all time are for comic book movies (Dark Knight, Spider-Man 3, Spider-Man & X-Men Last Stand), while a string of other series ? Superman, Hellboy, Wanted, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, V For Vendetta, Constantine, Daredevil, Catwoman, Iron Man, Hulk and Watchmen, to name just a few ? have either or are about to be turned into major motion pictures in recent years.

Sure, this is partly due to the popularity of the franchises. Batman and Superman movies sell themselves. But how, then, do you account for films like Frank Miller's Sin City & 300? Both critically-acclaimed graphic novels, yes, but you can?t tell me every single one of the millions of people who saw both movies also already knew about, and owned, the comics. Yet the films were a hit. Because the comics were awesome.

So would it hurt a publisher or two to start doing the same thing with games? Swallow their pride, realise that an adaptation of an existing work can bring not only great results, but great amounts of cash money as well? I know, there?s a fascination with creating in-house IP at the moment, particularly from guys like EA and Ubisoft, but surely some of the smaller guys ? who don?t have plans to turn their games into lines of action figures or cartoon shows ? could take an interest in basing a game on a comic series? Especially one that, as I said before, isn't as well-known as an Iron Man or Hulk, and is thus a lot cheaper to license.

Indeed, only a handful of comic-to-adaptations spring to mind. Ubisoft?s XIII was a brave attempt at adapting Jean Van Hamme?s series, which had a unique look but failed because it was...well, a rubbish game. There have been a few Hellboy games ? most recently Hellboy: The Science of Evil ? but all have sucked, and none have bothered retaining either the comic?s trademark visual style or mood. And Telltale took a crack at crafting an episodic series based on Jeff Smith?s classic Bone series, before leaving it in the lurch to go make more money from Sam & Max.

Which is a shame. I mean, look at the pros involved. The vast majority of ?original? IP in gaming is derivative garbage, both visually and in terms of structure. If you're a studio with a great game idea but a generic setting to drop it in, why bother spending all that time creating the year's 117th brown/grey world when you can just license a truly unique one from a good comic series? It?ll come pre-packaged with not just a world and a storyline, but a visual style and overall tone as well.

That's a big pro for a developer. It can not only help a game stand out from the crowd, but can bring an instant fanbase along with it (the notion that a gamer can also be a comic fan, and vice versa, being more common sense than radical relevation). But the pros can be just as great for a comics publisher. Games are a high profile industry, much more so than comics. A game tie-in can, from a business standpoint, help get your property some exposure.

And the creative team? I bet it's great seeing your comic brought to life on the big screen, or even in a cartoon, but comics don't create linear storylines. They create worlds. Depending on the genre, a game could allow the player to roll up their sleeves and really get the most of the universe that the comic creators have laboured over. Let them have deep discussions with minor characters, let them explore areas only mentioned in the comic storyline, etc.

Anyway, enough of the question-asking. Let's look at some examples of what I'm talking about. Or possibilities. Or wild fantasies, as I sometimes refer to them. Developers, next time you think an RTS set in a sci-fi world full of men, guns and tanks, why not think of something a little different. Like Jeff Smith's Bone universe. Scoff if you want, but the comic has factions, it has locations, it has battles - both in the main storyline and in the backstory - heck, it even has an art style to help you stand out from the crowd, its green trees and blue skies being more Sonic the Hedgehog than Supreme Commander.

Hellboy's another good example. Yeah, he's got a shitty movie out, and is about to get a second (OK, second is already out, just not out down here, my bad), but a game - any kind of game - that could capture Mike Mignola's art style from the comic in three dimensions would surely be able to sell itself. Plus, few games can match its setting. Fighting aliens in a metallic corridor is boring when you compare it to fighting a world-devouring worm in an Austrian castle. While you punch cyborg monkeys. In the face.

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E.L.A. in Love at 1st Byte

I’ve got no idea as to the history of this clip, where it comes from or what. I suppose it’s possible it’s a foreign series from the late 70’s/80’s (the open and theme certainly seem to invoke that feeling). But something tell’s me this is much newer and just emulates the feel of that time.Either [...]

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Peggle Nights looks an awful lot like Peggle

Not that that’s a bad thing. As anyone who was reading our site late last year will attest, Peggle ran through this place like crack. Like — good crack. Peggle was the single most important thing to happen to the casual games industry since Bejeweled, so it was hard to not stand [...]

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