Media Molecule’s first look at the downsized PSP version of its LittleBigPlanet seems to confirm that, for now at least (Media Molecule have previously said they’re investigating the possibility), there won’t be cross-platform content sharing between it and its big PlayStation 3 sister, but there’s still hope, at least, for it to be able to talk with the company’s planned web-based portal and level browser.

Hit the jump for ten screenshots of the game (unfortunately delivered in fairly low resolution).

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ONE MORE GO: INTELLIGENT QUBE, OR MURDERING STEVEN SPIELBERG

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6.3.2009

Margaret Robertson

9 Replies

I’m not playing it coy this time. The game I’ve gone back to this week has no truck with coy. It is Kurushi, the ‘Modern Times‘ of videogames. If you’re American you might know it as Intelligent Qube, which means you missed out on the oh-so-subtle ‘I krush u’ pun of the European title.

It will have crushed you, nonetheless. It’s a game that pits a tiny, fragile human against an implacable, advancing wall of giant, granite cubes. There is no winning, only surviving. There is no reward, only a fresh wall of furious, thundering monoliths. It is, in many respects, the most frightening game ever made.

Why go back to it? Because it remains one of the neatest strategy games ever conceived. Your job is to lay mines under the advancing wall to destroy the light grey blocks, while avoiding damaging any ‘forbidden’ black blocks. As the cubes roll forward, you detonate whatever mines you have laid under them. The only thing stacking the odds in your favour are the green blocks: hit one of these, and it will take out all the blocks around it.

That’s it. Destroy the grey blocks and get out of the path of the black ones. Failure comes either by being crushed, or by running out of ground to retreat along. You need excellent spatial skills and the ability to think three steps ahead, and you have to do it all fast.

It’s also one of the cleverest games ever conceived. I’m not entirely kidding with the ‘Modern Times’ reference. This is a game about how one apparently powerless person can take down the faceless system. It’s about our need to measure ourselves against machines, and machines against ourselves. And, if you ever make it all the way to the end, it’s about death. And not the St-Peter-meeting-you-at-the-gates-with-your-childhood-dog-and-a-mug-of-cocoa kind of death, either.

This week, though, I’ve been playing to lose. This week, I haven’t been the brave, battling human, the tiny spark of organic potential refusing to be ground in the gears of industrialised progress. This week, I have been the cubes. This week, I am become death. I am become rage. I am become unstoppable, howling fury, mashing the pathetic, scuttling bug of a human beneath my perfect planes and razored bevels. Because, this week, that tiny human hasn’t been man. He’s been a man. A very specific man. (more…)

ORIGINAL N64 PERFECT DARK BEING REVIVED FOR XBOX LIVE ARCADE

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6.3.2009

Brandon Boyer

2 Replies

Somewhat lost in the E3 shuffle last week was much-under-reported confirmation that 4J Studios — the same developer that helped bring the excellent conversions of Rare’s Nintendo 64 platformers Banjo Kazooie and Banjo Tooie to Xbox Live Arcade — would also be bringing spiritual GoldenEye 007 sequel Perfect Dark to Arcade this “winter.”

The sci-fi original IP to Bond’s GoldenEye, Perfect Dark was an underdog classic for the console, and marked by troubled development that saw a number of the original designers leave during the course of its development to start their own studios (Martin Hollis to Bonsai Barber developer Zoonami, and a number of others like David Doak to Free Radical, where they founded the TimeSplitters franchise). There definitely comes a shift at a certain point in the game where its taut and sober opening acts loosen to uneven comedy, but it’s still one of the finer first person shooters from the era.

The Xbox.com listing confirms that the game will be updated with online capabilities for its very densely packed multiplayer half — I’m certainly looking forward to returning to briefcase holding after all these years.

Hit the jump for more screenshots of the game in its new full-res HD skin. (more…)

Hideo Kojima’s full sequel to Metal Gear Solid 3 will also follow the events of its PSP debut Portable Ops, again focused on Liquid Snake/Big Boss’s storyline up to the establishment of Outer Heaven (if I’m understanding Kojima’s labyrinthine storyline correctly): the location you infiltrated as Solid Snake in the NES original.

More interestingly, with Kojima promising to take full advantage of the PSP’s capabilities during Tuesday’s Sony press conference, four player simultaneous play seems all but assured, both with the lineup of four near-identical Snakes at the end, and the double-box gag at the end of the trailer.

You can see a double-set of boxed Love-Pack’d legs, too, in the screenshots included after the jump. (more…)

In case you still haven’t made your way through video of yesterday’s Sony conference, video of one of its most pleasant surprises: United Front demoing their “race, create, share” game ModNation Racers, specifically their honestly quite impressive and intuitive paint-brush track editor.

I’ll be interested to see how the community really can exploit the system more than just cosmetically and create tracks that truly set themselves apart: Front hasn’t fully demonstrated verticality or suspended tracks, and my gut reaction is to wonder how varied they can ultimately otherwise be (though I have, just now, started mentally designing elaborate offroad shortcut side-tracks).

Two additional screenshots showing a bit more of their vinyl-toy-inspired customizable characters are embedded after the jump. (more…)

Nicalis’s other upcoming WiiWare game — its original Night Game, from Knytt creator Nifflas — continues to shape up with previously unseen new… is vehicles the right word? The video also shows off more of the game’s fantastic ambient score from Asthmatic Kitty’s Chris Schlarb. Nintendo has listed the game as a fall 2009 release.

Part of me wishes the game would procedurally generate new levels for me to roll through every day, no matter how aimless — gaming needs its own version of the bedtime story, and this seems as close as anything’s ever come to fitting the bill.

One of the many exclusive PlayStation Network downloadables not specifically called out by Sony in its Tuesday conference: Gravity Crash, a new shooter from UK dev Just Add Water that mashes Geometry Wars-esque retro-vector style with twitchy dual stick shooting, and, more importantly, includes a full level editor to let players create and share their own twisted neon worlds.

One of the most experimental concepts shown at E3 thus far, and yet another game quietly announced but not explicitly mentioned by Sony: a PSP followup to Jun Fujiki’s Echochome, the Escher-esque PS3/PSN downloadable in which wireframe artist models traversed impossible constructions using tricks of perspective to bridge gaps and open paths.

This time, as the name implies, the trick isn’t visual but temporal: like Braid and Yoshio Ishi’s Cursor*10 web games, players will have to — as seen above — use versions of previous rewound playthroughs to advance characters in later playthroughs.

Icarian: Kindred Spirits — the WiiWare debut from Madrid based studio Over The Top — certainly borrows more than a little (however coincidentally) from original WiiWare game LostWinds, but, given the trailer above, extends the idea of solely creating drafts with the WiiMote to more direct control of its broken Greek landscape.

Over The Top say the game concerns the search for the fallen Icarus by main character Nyx, who, like LostWinds‘ Toku, needs to be protected and guided on her journey, as you slowly gain the “powers that gods such as Zeus or Eolus will grant.”

At very least, it should tide over the throngs still holding out desperate hope for Nintendo to revive its Kid Icarus franchise. Find a few sharper screenshots below the jump. (more…)

As I wrapped up many of the Sony games not mentioned during their E3 press conference on Wednesday, today I’ll bring word of a number of DS and Wii games that went unmentioned by Nintendo, starting with the latest look at Nicalis’s overhaul of Pixel’s oft-mentioned and still gold-standard indie platformer Cave Story.

Despite appearances, and dashing hopes, that bit from 0:18-0:25 that looks like the first appearance of co-op multiplayer is, unfortunately, an AI-controlled plot point. Nintendo lists Cave Story as a summer 2009 game.

Hit the jump for a fantastic portrait of main character Quote.

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