Taken at PAX08. I’m not sure if the alien was a man or woman in costume, but it had the best walk/swagger/dance going on that I’ve ever seen.
EA had a massive presence at this year’s Penny Arcade Expo with a giant booth showing off upcoming titles as well as satellite booths for Dead Space and Rock Band 2. As part of their swag grab, they were giving away EA passports that featured a page for each game at the show. After playing a certain game, you could get that page stamped, and people with a fully stamped passport could redeem them for an EA shirt.
Considering the line-ups to play just about anything there, I decided I would only play games that had no lineups at all. Though this might indicate that I played no games there, it’s actually quite the opposite. Sometimes it’s all about the timing. One game that I did get to play a little bit was Facebreaker, EA’s cartoony and over-the-top boxing title. They were even giving out demo discs for this title.
Sadly, I must admit I knew nothing about this game prior to last weekend. I tend to not pay attention to EA titles because in the past, most of them have held no interest for me. This year is looking to be different, with Lord of the Rings Conquest, Mirror’s Edge, Dead Space, and Mercenaries 2 all looking and playing very promising.
Since play time at the actual expo can feel a little rushed at the best of times, I spent a some quality time with the Facebreaker demo last night. It’s not a game I’d actually buy because I’m waiting on the announcement and release of the next Punch-Out!! title. But it is a hilarious game nonetheless. I created a dead-eyes version of myself using the Xbox Live Vision camera but couldn’t get the body build or hairstyle to look quite right, and then squared off against none other than Kim Kardashian (a woman famous for having a big ass and a sex tape - so says Joel McHale on The Soup).
What followed was a mess of a training round that featured a tonne of ridiculous boxing action and ended with me feeling no more confident in my ability to actually play the game. Perhaps it’s just the fault of the demo or the particular mode I was in. I will say, however, that the punches and hits in the game are very intense. The demo disc says for me to not be cheap and to share it with friends, so that’s what I intend on doing.
Well, one more sleep and I’m off to Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle. My bags are packed and sadly my carry-on is heavier than my actual luggage of clothing. How can this be? I blame the giant Lenovo laptop I borrowed from work for it. The thing is huge! But it looks friggin’ sweet as well.
It’ll be a long day of travelling, and I’m not expecting to be out on the town every night, so I’ve taken lots of cartoon DVDs to watch, including Gundam 0083, which is awesome.
I was a latecomer to the world that is Square Enix. For the longest time, FFVII was the only game I played, before I discovered the world of Nintendo. But then I got a GBA, and one of the first games I bought for it was Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. I was immediately hooked. So when FFTA2 came out for the DS, it seemed like a no brainer.
For those not familiar with the series, the Final Fantasy Tactics games are role playing games with many elements familiar to seasoned RPG gamers. The combat system is a turn-based strategy style reminiscent of more traditional table-top games. Characters not only get stronger by gaining experience in combat, but through the use of the Jobs system, gain more and more abilities that give more options in combat as the game progresses.
FFTA2 feels like a system upgrade in a lot of respects. Just like moving from XP to Vista, (or Panther to Tiger, or Gutsy Gibbon to Hardy Heron, I’m not trying to be exclusive here,) FFTA2 is a noticeable improvement over FFTA. The look and feel got some fine-tuning. Some of the more annoying play elements got rebalanced, replaced or just outright removed. And along with those changes, new classes, new abilities and new styles of gameplay have all been added.
One of the most overarching changes was the acquisition of Loot, which are used to unlock more and more weapons, armour and accessories in the shops. Initially only a very small subset of the weapons and armour are availble, but instead of arbitrarily being awarded a broader selection when the story reaches a certain milestone, as was the case in FFTA, in the sequel you have to try to mix and match loot that will make all sorts of equiment available for purchasing. Loot is given out as rewards for completing missions, and for following the laws laid down by judges.
The Internet really seems to have a hate on for Too Human and Denis Dyack, director of Silicon Knights (the studio that developed the game). I’ve been following the development of this game somewhat closely over the last few years – in fact since the launch of the Xbox 360. Why was I so interested? Mostly because it was actually being made right here, in Canada, and on top of that not too far from where I live. In fact, in a town I spent much time in visiting family and friends.
The game’s development had been a slow process, and admittedly one that probably had its fair share of setbacks which other games have not faced. The earliest screenshots I’ve seen from Too Human were from a GameCube version and I gotta tell you, I’m glad it wasn’t released on that console. But Silicon Knights’ game that was released for it, Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem, was heralded as a breath of fresh air and many to this day still feel it’s one of the best games available for that system.
Me, I couldn’t see it at the time. At the time I was still dizzy from the flash-bang that was the jaw-dropping Resident Evil remake for the ‘Cube. While I had a review copy of Eternal Darkness, I ended up shelving it and eventually trading it in for god-knows-what. It’s a decision I sometimes regret, though I could always go out and buy a used copy.
Now, we’re on the eve of the release of Too Human (as of this writing), and it’s looking a whole lot better that the GameCube screenshots did. In fact, it’s looking a lot better than early 360 screenshots showed.
