VentureBeat » Jasmine Maleficent Rea

GamesBeat weekly roundup: Google’s game service, EA axes online passes, and a look at The Last of Us

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Fri, 17 May 2013 17:31:32 +0000

If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, Google held its annual I/O conference in San Francisco, revealing plans for cross-platform Google Play support, Electronic Arts decides to kill its online pass initiative that forced used game players to pay for multiplayer access, and GamesBeat gets an early look at Naughty Dogs’ upcoming project The Last of Us.

You’ll also find a review for Metro Last light and previews for Scribblenauts Unmasked and The Bureau: XCOM Declassified.

News

Google I/O

Nintendo Direct

Earnings and funding

New content

Tech

Mobile news

Interviews

Previews

Reviews

Metro: Last Light refuses to let you go (review)

Strange happenings

Pieces of flair

Filed under: Games

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

‘Leveling up’ on Google Play Services means enhancing quality and utilizing social networks

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Thu, 16 May 2013 01:59:37 +0000

When you think of the Google Play store, it’s easy to conjure images of piracy, poorly performing apps, and clumsy microtransactions. Google is keenly aware of these faults and — with its new dedication to cross-platform Google Play support — wants to help developers get the most out of their products and allow players to share their successes with friends.

“Leveling up” your Android game seems ludicrously simple: Focus on quality, support various screen resolutions, and strive to give your users a hassle-free experience. This year’s developer talk focused on urging gamemakers to put more thought into their products and take advantage of the various services Google is rolling out in the coming months.

In an attempt to bolster app quality and developer support, Google now has an in-depth list dedicated to what it takes for a game to reach the vital “featured” status in the Play store. Unsurprisingly, having your game advertised across a multitude of Android devices requires you to thoroughly test your product on various versions of the Android OS, adequately implement common features across all devices, and simply make your creation usable. A large part of Google’s developer talk harped on the fact that the company does vet applications submitted to its service and that software found buggy, exploitative, or generally lacking in polish will not succeed.

Designers looking to polish their apps can use the company’s revised requirements. Developers can even provide a features checklist (found on the design website) to testers so they can focus on what does and doesn’t work with a title before they publish it. If an app launches on the store having overcome common problems with resolution and simple Android interface options, it has a higher chance of reaching “featured” status.

And getting featured can make or break apps on Google Play. In some instances, the week-long feature period can account for nearly 55 percent of a game’s total revenue. Ideally, products are strong enough to remain profitable after this advertising period, but it still behooves developers to play along with Google’s testing procedures and expedite the process. Paying attention to how in-app purchases work and incorporating social functionality can push a good title into the realm of greatness through player connectivity.

Additionally, localization is an increasingly vital force for making software more profitable. Developers like Gameloft, who localize and style its products for foreign markets, see much more installs than companies that simply release the same English app worldwide. Google is now actively trying to help gamemakers retool their products to succeed in non-English-speaking countries.

Beyond paying more attention to how games perform and global marketing, Google is also urging developers to take advantage of new social features coming to the Play store. Soon, whenever players create accounts, they will have direct access to Google Plus, the slowly growing social network. From here, they can create challenges for their friends and recommend content. They can even share certain moments in games online with others.

Google wants to fight the reputation that its game service is a scary, unregulated place. Through simple revenue incentives and opening up how it selects items for its weekly featured app services, Google wants to inspire developers to reach out to customers and improve the service’s image from within. Motivating developers to triple-check apps and giving dedicated Google users an easier way to share content with each other will do a great deal to present Google Play Services as a less foreboding and confusing store.

Filed under: Games

GamesBeat weekly roundup: WoW loses 1.3M subscribers, Amazon brings paid apps to China, Q1 earnings, and more

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Fri, 10 May 2013 17:49:13 +0000

If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, Activision reveals strong first quarter earnings while Blizzard loses 1.3 million World of Warcraft subscribers, EA lays off 1,000 but expects to develop Disney’s Star Wars games, indie charity drive Hunble Bundle now accepts the virtual currency Bitcoin, and the Amazon Appstore beats Google to distributing paid apps in China.

We’ve also got a lot of previews for you, including Splinter Cell: Blacklist, Deadpool, and Watch Dogs, and reviews of Star Trek and Mario and Donkey Kong: Minis on the Move.

News

Mobile news

Tech

Strange happenings

Fighting words

Developer Warren Spector slams Wolfenstein: The New Order

Fund it

Earnings

Safeguarding the future

Previews

Reviews

Interviews

Watch Dog creators bring the reality of “smart cities” to games (interview)

Pieces of flair

Filed under: Games

GamesBeat weekly roundup: Minecraft sells 10M on mobile, Call of Duty: Ghosts, Apple hits 50B apps, and more

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Fri, 03 May 2013 15:54:50 +0000

If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, Activision confirms Call of Duty: Ghosts is a real thing after British retailer Tesco leaked that information last week, Mojang sells 10 million copies of Minecraft on mobile devices, and Re-Mission 2 explores how games can help kids survive cancer.

You’ll also find interviews with Quantic Dream’s David Cage and Gree’s search for a billion-dollar game. Also, be sure to check out our feature on fighting game special attacks so long you could make a sandwich before they finish.

News

Mobile News

Strange News

Fighting Words

LaunchPad toys is making educational games, not Angry Birds-like ‘digital pacifiers’

Going Online

Tech

Indies

Indie developer invites everyone to learn bathroom etiquette in Men’s Room Mayhem for PS Vita

Interviews

Pieces of Flair

Filed under: Games

GamesBeat weekly roundup: A new social gaming King, big Xbox announcement May 21, and more

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 16:23:27 +0000

If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, Microsoft announced that it will unveil the new Xbox console on May 21, Nordic Games Licensing acquires both Darksiders and Red Faction from the THQ bankruptcy auction, and Candy Crush developer King overtakes Zynga as the largest social gaming company.

You’ll also find reviews of Monaco, Dead Island: Riptide, Injustice: Gods Among Us, and Defiance, as well as previews for Call of Juarez: Gunslinger and Kingdom Rush: Frontiers.

News

Mobile News

Earnings and Acquisitions

Tech

Woops

Nintendo’s new plan

Nextbox

Microsoft officially revealing next-generation Xbox on May 21

All This Funding

Reviews

Previews

Interviews

Pieces of Flair

Filed under: Games

Injustice: Gods Among Us is superpowered insanity (review)

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 17:13:50 +0000

Injustice: Gods Among Us is a silly name for a game focused on one of the most disastrous “What Ifs” in DC Comics: What would happen if Superman lost his mind? The answer is create a menacing one-world government fueled by his descent into madness. Built in a similar style to NetherRealm Studio’s successful Mortal Kombat games, Injustice scales down the gratuitous violence just a tad and replaces it with sheer superhuman spectacle.

I’m the biggest fan of Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, but Injustice redeems itself with a touching and well-executed story mode that makes you feel like you’re doing more than playing one arena fight after another. Most of all, NetherRealm manages to make the audience care about Superman — a feat rarely achieved thanks to the character’s seemingly impervious moral code.

Good, dynamic Superman stories are possible. Legendary comic book writer Alan Moore proved that in For the Man Who Has Everything, a story arc in which Mongul (the ruler of the weapon-planet Warworld) imprisons the Man of Steel in his mind, and the only means of escape is to destroy what he cherishes most. Injustice takes that sentiment and makes it a thousand times worse, and sprinkles in a touch of interdimensional travel.

What you’ll like

Over-the-top but totally accessible combat

Characters in Injustice build individual fighting styles off of the same basic set of controls. One quick combo for Superman has the same controls as a similar attack for Batman, but only the speed of the strike differs. Heroes (and villains) that use special powers, like Green Lantern and his ring, also have switchable fighting stances. Injustice introduces these mechanics with Batman and Superman. Once you master those two, you can control anyone. The real difference between “tech” and “super-powered” characters is just how fast they are.

Where the combat really shines is Injustice’s clever take on the classic Mortal Kombat fatality. Rather than splattering ridiculous amounts of blood everywhere, these special supermoves highlight the excesses of a character’s power. When you use Hawk Girl’s special attack, she grabs her opponent by the collar and hurls them into the sky, where she repeatedly beats them with her mace before hurling back toward the ground. You get a light amount of blood splatter from this, but you’re more overwhelmed by the sheer spectacle than by the gore. She didn’t have to repeatedly bash your face in while falling through the air, but it sure looked cool.

The best thing about Injustice’s design is that it works well with a normal controller. A lot of fighting games feel stunted when you use a standard directional pad or analog stick instead of a fighting stick, but Injustice keeps up. I’m sure I would have had an easier time besting the A.I. if I were using a stick, though.

Intriguing story mode

I love Injustice’s story. It’s rare that I find myself caring about Superman. He’s too good, too shiny, and that generally leads to flat stories about triumphing over evil. But when his stories truly captivate me, Superman is struggling with himself to do the right thing for mankind. Without giving too much away, this tale utilizes many of the same elements found in Greek mythology, primarily Hercules’ stories. Hercules and Superman are very similar – both are powerful figures but are often blinded by their naïve hope that the world isn’t full of corruption.

Injustice preys on Superman’s worst fear: that he is unknowingly used as a weapon. This has direct ties to a Hercules myth where he commits terrible acts of violence thanks to Hera’s manipulation. In Injustice, the Joker assumes the role of Hera as he pushes Superman beyond his breaking point.

Mostly, I really like being able to draw mythical connections in popular culture.

Smashing through walls and throwing missiles

One of the most iconic things about superheroes is how most of them use their environment to do the fighting. Throwing cars and crashing through buildings is an everyday occurrence in most comics, and brought to life in the interactive stages in Injustice. Each arena has two segments that fighters can bash through. If you’re unlucky enough to get thrown from one part of the stage to the other, you’ll see your character crash through walls, planes, and giant fans as they tumble to the next area.

Beyond throwing people around, each stage also has usable items like discarded missiles and cars. Correctly timing your attack near one of these objects will cause your character to pick up or smash someone into them with all their might. My particular favorite moment was repeatedly smacking the Flash with missles as he tried to throw me.

What you won’t like

Online multiplayer

The trouble with playing fighting games online is that a lot of players will focus on easily exploitable tricks and moves to dominate the rankings. From my admittedly brief experience with this, I saw a lot of ranged characters crouching in the corner of the screen just spamming their long-distance attacks. I’ve even seen two of the same character repeatedly shoot at each other in the most boring fight, ever.

Rather than risk attacking up close and deal with the quagmire of blocking and throws, a lot of people playing online right now focus on such exploitative tricks. I didn’t particularly enjoy how gruff assassin Deathstroke moved while playing through the story mode, but every other person I encountered online used him. Deathstroke as a relatively simple long-range attack and is the main offender in crouching on one side of the level and just unleashing hell.

Hopefully, as more people start playing Injustice, this experience will change. Right now, I am so sick of seeing Deathstroke fight himself.

Repetitive computer behavior

Fighting titles are notorious for imbalanced challenge in their later stages, and Injustice definitely suffers from that. But the challenge I faced while finishing up the story and battle modes was the A.I.’s overreliance on a small set of moves — most of which are virtually unblockable throws. You can counter a throw in Injustice, but the timing is difficult, and I’ve honestly not pulled it off outside of the slower-paced training sessions.

Did this color my opinion of the A.I.’s behavior? Absolutely. I do not enjoy the feeling that I’m punching at a brick wall that seems to get priority over every combo I pull. You can do some amazing, and devastating, things in Injustice, but the artificial intelligence is right behind you. My strategy against this was spamming a quick set of moves in turn so I would move in fast and do a simple three button sequence to keep the A.I. at bey.

I don’t like playing that way, but I was beating the computer at its own move-spamming game. Hopefully you have better luck countering throws.

Touchy interactive items

I really love the interactivity found in Injustice, but sometimes it simply doesn’t work. Using items against your opponent is the same as executing a throw, only when you input the move in front of an interactive set piece, you will use that rather than the scripted throw animation. This requires you to position yourself with care or time your jumps so you can bring ceiling elements down on your enemy’s head.

The trouble is that when you’re rushing back and forth across a stage, this is often cumbersome. I rarely used the ceiling attacks, largely because the A.I. seemed to always lock onto them perfectly despite my repeated attempts to use the action previously. Stage transitions also seemed very tricky to use correctly, and most of the time I had to wait for my opponent to throw me before I could see the rest of a stage.

These are really cool elements in theory, but the often hectic pace in the average fight makes using items and transitions tricky.

Conclusion

Injustice’s greatest strength is that it makes you feel powerful regardless of your skill level. Even when you are struggling to overcome a series of grueling attacks, breaking through that with a well-placed combo or ridiculous supermove brings out the wonder in controlling an iconic hero or villain. NetherRealm was very clever with how they brought out the Mortal Kombat in Injustice. You get just enough MK for the fighting system to feel familiar, but not enough that you’re constantly suffering at the hands of other players who are much more experienced.

I wish Injustice felt more balanced. Maybe it’s the unpredictable nature of the interactive environments, or the frustrating move-spamming, but I frequently felt I was beating my head against a wall. Injustice really wants to bring in inexperienced players, and it is very approachable at first. But playing online or slogging through the various challenge modes becomes infuriating as you pick up on how your opponents exploit the game in ways you likely won’t understand at first.

Score: 85/100

Injustice: Gods Among Us is a fighting game released April 16, 2013 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii U. Warner Brothers provided an Xbox 360 copy of the game for this review.

Filed under: Games

GamesBeat weekly roundup: Supercell raises $130M, BioShock Infinite tops March sales, and more …

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 16:25:19 +0000

If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, Clash of Clans developer Supercell is now valued at $770 million and raised $130 million in February, Bethesda wraps up major Skyrim updates, and Disney fully embraces transmedia integration in Disney Infinity.

You’ll also find reviews for ShootMania, Cut the Rope: Time Travel, and a Threeview for BioShock Infinite, as well as our early impressions for Defiance.

News

Mobile news

Tech news

Benchmark reveals Ouya’s aging Tegra 3 can’t keep up with newest Android phones

NPDs and future plans

Exciting announcements

Interviews

Reviews

Previews

Disney Infinity takes shape as a huge investment in transmedia (hands-on preview)

Pieces of flair

Filed under: Games

GamesBeat weekly roundup: Next Xbox rumors, BioShock Infinite talk, and more …

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 17:33:08 +0000

If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, Electronic Arts is named the worst company in America yet again, Microsoft executive Adam Orth is no longer employed after disastrous new Xbox tweets, and a Saints Row movie might be in the works.

You’ll also find previews for Civilization V’s Brave New World expansion, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, and Leisure Suit Larry: Reloaded.

News

EA Troubles

Mobile

Multimedia

Tech

Previews

Interviews

Pieces of flair

Filed under: Games

GamesBeat giveaways: Kung-fu fighting in Age of Wushu MMO

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 16:00:22 +0000

If the Matrix Online left a hole in your heart for multiplayer martial-arts gameplay, free-to-play MMO Age of Wushu might help. GamesBeat has 100 early access codes to give away between April 8-9, and winning one is easy:

Follow @GamesBeat on Twitter. We’ll direct message the code to you, but we can’t if you don’t follow us!
Comment on this giveaway with your Twitter handle, like, @vitiosuslepos.
In the comment, tell us what you like about martial arts games.

If you do all of that, you’ll get a chance to check of Age of Wushu before it fully launches on April 10. You can redeem your code here. You will need to create an account first.

Filed under: Games

GamesBeat weekly roundup: Disney shutters LucasArts, Zynga tries to reinvigorate OMGPOP, and more

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 17:44:50 +0000

If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, Disney shuttered its LucasArts game studio, OMGPOP (Draw Something) chief executive Dan Porter leaves Zynga, and Trion Worlds launched massively multiplayer shooter Defiance.

You’ll also find previews for Lego Marvel Super Heroes, Thief, and Heavy Gear Assault as well as the March edition of Required Listening with an interview with BioShock Infinite composer Garry Schyman.

News

Mobile News

Previews

Interviews

Pieces of Flair

Filed under: Games

Required listening: SimCity, Tomb Raider, and BioShock Infinite composer Garry Schyman

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 15:00:25 +0000

Music is just as important as visuals in setting the mood for BioShock games. Consider the moment in which you first look at Rapture: The orchestra swell that plays as you gaze on this Randian utopia-gone-wrong is powerful. It isn’t soothing — it fills us with dread and wonder. We wouldn’t have seen Rapture as such a broken paradise without the score helping to guide our emotions.

Video game music is a powerful tool, but it doesn’t always have to burst from our speakers or overpower events. Required Listening takes a look at three soundtracks from March that specialize in sedate music that keeps us playing or quietly creates a living world in our imaginations. I also spoke with BioShock Infinite composer Garry Schyman about capturing a character’s personality.

BioShock Infinite
Composer: Garry Schyman

BioShock Infinite’s soundtrack is a decadent swirl of haunting melodies. Schyman’s work on focused on the incidental and orchestral part of the score. Using a small number of string instruments and bursts of percussion, Schyman creates a ragtime feel for the floating city Colombia while still startling us to attention whenever an enemy appears. Infinite’s soundtrack proves that restraint matters when you’re hoping to create a wispy-yet-adventurous sound.

The tinny piano melody used in “Welcome to Columbia” invokes images of rural Southern churches and ancient upright pianos. I love the unpolished and traditional feel of Schyman’s music. It works well with other musical oddities scattered through BioShock Infinite, but I am not going to mention those directly because I don’t want to spoil all the clever incidentals hidden in the game.

SimCity
Composer: Chris Tilton

Music in the Sims games always has a sparkly and industrious quality to it. It’s never overstated, and it’s melodic enough that we can listen to it for hours on end without going insane. Chris Tilton’s spin on a classic simulation game score is full of bright brass instruments and energetic strings. I like turning this on when I’m cleaning or writing because it motivates me to make progress, just like it should drive you to make your city the best in its region.

Tomb Raider
Composer: Jason Graves

You can tell when Jason Graves works on a game. His love of dissonance and primitive percussion gives Tomb Raider’s wild island a savage character, one sprinkled with classical Japanese undertones but consumed by fear and survival. The grating sound of a cello bow on chicken wire and the sparkling clink of glass bells somehow blend together into a dynamic soundtrack. You won’t be able to stop listening to Tomb Raider, no matter how unsettling the dissonance becomes.

Gears of War: Judgment
Composers: Steve Jablonsky, Jacob Shea, with the “Gears of War Reprise” by Kevin Riepl

Gears of War: Judgment’s score walks a fine line between gritty orchestral tones and over-the-top synthetic noise. Combining the two creates a soundtrack fit for any blockbuster action film. Where games like BioShock Infinite focus on the emotional depth of its characters, Judgment urges you along on the battlefield. While the score does have a few quiet melodies, you won’t be able to savor them because Gears of War is too busy shooting them.

Click on page 2 for the interview with BioShock Infinite composer Garry Schyman

Filed under: Business, Games

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Modern games re-imagined as Atari 2600 cartridges (gallery)

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 21:43:19 +0000

In a freaky alternative dimension, Atari not only won the first console war with the Colecovision and the Intellivision, it also managed to keep up market dominance for over 30 years. Alright, that might be a little too BioShock Infinite-ish, but we can imagine divergent history with the help of these beautiful images of modern games imagined as Atari 2600 cartridges.

Artist StarRovias captures that dazzling but less-than-informative art style found on real Atari 2600 cartridges while invoking our memories of the final products, but I can’t help but wonder what Persona 4, Diablo III, and the Sims would look like as simplistic retro games.

Be sure to check StarRovias’ DeviantArt gallery for more images. Some of the pictures are decidedly not safe for work and aren’t included in the gallery.

Filed under: Games

GamesBeat weekly roundup: GDC 2013, BioShock Infinite, Battlefield 4, and women in games

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 17:30:27 +0000

If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, GamesBeat was at the 2013 Game Developer’s Conference, bringing you previews and interviews. Harmonix announced that it is working on three new games. And legendary developer Brenda Romero (formerly Brathwaite) quits the International Games Development Association after the organization threw a party with hired female dancers.

You’ll also find reviews for BioShock Infinite and The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct as well as previews for the Ouya console, Dive Kick, Battlefield 4, Infinite Crisis, and Space Hulk.

Game Developer’s Conference 2013

News

Mobile news

Previews

Reviews

Interviews

Pieces of Flair

Filed under: Business, Games

GamesBeat weekly roundup: EA CEO out, SimCity could have been offline, StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm review

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 17:04:15 +0000

If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, John Riccitiello steps down as Electronic Art’s CEO, Pixar employees start their own game studio on the side, and Valve opens an early-access game portal on Steam.

You’ll also find reviews for Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon, StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, and Gears of War: Judgment as well as a preview for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows.

News:

Mobile News:

Reviews:

Previews:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows fights like Devil May Cry (preview)

Pieces of Flair:

Filed under: Games

Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon rebels against portability (review)

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 17:00:15 +0000

Luigi has the worst luck imaginable. Twelve years after he escaped from a ghost-filled mansion, he finds himself stuck in a fog-covered valley full of haunted houses! To make things worse, all the spirits in the area are way more aggressive than they’ve ever been, and only Luigi can locate the five shattered pieces of the magical Dark Moon that keeps them at bay. Well, the odd Professor E. Gadd insists Luigi is the only one who can help, anyway.

Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon is the first Luigi-centric game since the original came out on the GameCube in 2001. It carries on some of the best aspects of its predecessor while dedicating itself to more puzzle-driven level design and far fewer references to the Super Mario Bros. Mushroom Kingdom. The writing is just as irreverently clever, and the world so much more personalized for Luigi, that Dark Moon feels more like a fresh take on the franchise and not a sequel to the first game.

While Dark Moon definitely succeeds in setting itself apart from the original Luigi’s Mansion, its gameplay cries out for a dual-analog control scheme that it sadly doesn’t get on the 3DS. The result is a sometimes frustrating ghost-hunting experience made more complicated if you try to play with 3D enabled.

What you’ll like

All about Luigi

Even though Dark Moon is the second Luigi’s Mansion, it is the first where the protagonist really feels like he’s standing on his own. This time, Luigi isn’t searching for Mario, he isn’t constantly bombarded with poison mushrooms, and he’s practically kidnapped by E. Gadd to fight ghosts. Terrified and mostly alone, he sets out to pacify a entire valley full of haunted houses.

It’s wonderful seeing Luigi fall so easily into a storyline that doesn’t need Mario or Princess Peach to motivate it. In Dark Moon, Luigi is fighting for himself and has to power through his fear of ghosts to succeed. While trying to save himself, he’s also inadvertently saving the world from aggressive spirits, so he still ends up a hero.

Puzzle-solving

Ghosts sure do like to make things complicated for Luigi as he searches for pieces of the shattered Dark Moon. You’ll have to search every rug, painting, and web-covered ball to make your way through the five spooky locations in the game. You learn puzzle mechanics through simple, straightforward scenarios, but solving later puzzles requires you to remember every sneaky solution you’ve ever discovered in order to progress.

Because of that, Dark Moon is a satisfying brainteaser that pushes you to try crazy combinations in the hope that maybe setting a stretchy piece of spiderweb over to an open flame just might clear the path. The game won’t penalize you for trying, so why not run with it?

Streamlined ghost-busting

The original Luigi’s Mansion had a lot of great ideas, but it suffered from trying to merge too many elements at once. Dark Moon takes the best concepts from the first game (like vacuum-based ghost trapping and oodles of hidden money) and sprinkles in better weapons and tools. Luigi now has the Poltergust 5000 at his disposal, an even stronger capture unit that can find objects ghosts that are trying to hide and delicately pluck cobwebs off suits of armor.

Luigi no longer has to worry about mushrooms slowing him down. Dark Moon puts more emphasis on skillfully dodging ghosts and timing your attacks than limiting Luigi’s power to fight back.

Dark Moon also supports local and online multiplayer. Now you can play through several ghost-busting challenges in the “Scare Scraper” with your friends, like fighting floor after floor of baddies or running around trying to find hidden ghost dogs. Setting up multiplayer matches is relatively easy, but you’ll need to play through part of the first mansion before you can use it.

What you won’t like

Tilt aiming and uncomfortable controls

Nothing pairs better with a touchy 3D screen like tilt controls, am I right? You don’t have to move your 3DS to aim Luigi’s Poltergust 5000, but you’ll definitely want to after trying to trying to look up and down with the X and B buttons while holding down the right bumper to suck in ghosts. Dark Moon is simply begging for Circle Pad Pro support, something Nintendo did not include. It’s not like that would have helped me anyway; I played this game on a 3DS XL.

You cannot turn off the tilt action, nor can you remap the 3DS buttons to make combat less painful.

Claustrophobic combat

Dark Moon means well by putting more emphasis on player skill than restricting Luigi through status-effect items, but levels sometimes feel too cluttered or too precariously constructed for you to avoid ghost attacks efficiently. Since the game rates your level performance based on how much damage you take as you fight, the tricky combat often leaves you very wounded as you fumble with the Poltergust.

While I like that many of the boss fights in Dark Moon require you to think on your feet and solve puzzles while you’re avoiding obstacles, it is incredibly frustrating to find yourself stuck in a corner or pinned by a fallen piece of flooring thanks to the limited screen real estate on the 3DS. Much of the claustrophobic feeling definitely comes from the fact that level designs are much smaller in scope than the original game thanks to hardware limitations.

It’s still very playable, but you are frustratingly aware that you’re playing a handheld sequel to a console game. I think canning the 3DS idea and moving Dark Moon to Wii U would have addressed practically all my complaints.

Conclusion

Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon is a puzzle-rich wonderland full of irreverent humor and clever level design, but it cannot overcome the 3DS’s limitations. Tilt controls and the lack of a second analog stick really tarnishes an otherwise amazing game. I really, truly wanted to love Dark Moon unconditionally as it freshens up the Luigi’s Mansion concept and depicts its protagonist as truly acting on his own for the first time, but playing it is extremely frustrating at times.

Dark Moon is still incredibly fun, but you have to approach it realizing that the controls aren’t what they should be. I’d almost take aiming the Poltergust with the stylus over the awkward way Nintendo implemented aiming here, but that would make the game just as unwieldy as Kid Icarus: Uprising’s use of the touchscreen for movement. Uprising’s biggest problem, though, was that it did support the extra circle pad but only to change which thumb used the 3DS’ built-in analog nub.

What saves Luigi’s Mansion is that it isn’t Kid Icarus: Uprising, but it’s still a bit disappointing.

Score: 80/100

Luigi’s Mansion is a 3DS exclusive that released on March 24, 2013. Nintendo provided an eShop code for this review.

Filed under: Games

GamesBeat weekly roundup: Whales of social gaming, Starcraft II guide, Saints Row IV, and family Minecraft servers

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 17:14:08 +0000

If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, EA admits it handled SimCity problems poorly and offers players a free game, Angry Birds gets its own arcade machine, and Mojang ventures into family-oriented Minecraft world rentals.

You’ll also find reviews for Lego City: Undercover, MLB 13: The Show, and SimCity as well as previews for Guacamelee and Payday 2.

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Lego City: Undercover is Grand Theft Auto for kids (review)

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 16:00:49 +0000

It’s sad how many open-world/sandbox titles almost exclusively target adults. Kids are probably more inclined to chase down pigeons in Grand Theft Auto IV than I ever will be, but I can’t justify handing that game over to a child. Luckily, Lego City: Undercover provides younger players with all the manic, open-world adventure found in the Grand Theft Auto and Saint’s Row series without the innuendo and violence.

You control detective Chase McCain as he returns to Lego City after a disastrous case that caused him to leave town and ended with his girlfriend going into witness protection. It’s up to Chase to track down the dastardly Rex Fury even if it means infiltrating various street gangs in the process. Putting Fury in prison was the whole reason Chase left Lego City on bad terms, so he’s out to make up for past mistakes.

Lego City: Undercover is the first game in the Lego franchise built for the Wii U. While a 3DS version is in the works, Lego City’s use of the GamePad blends so seamlessly into the action that it’s hard to imagine playing without a tablet in your hand.

What you’ll like

Collectibles and building

I make a habit of finding all the collectables I can in a Lego game, but that feels almost impossible in Undercover (in the best way, though). With several disguises, hundreds of blocks, and even more vehicles to build and find, you’ll easily put 10-20 hours into gathering everything you can.

Undercover also introduces a much more involved item-building mechanic than previous games had. As you explore, you’ll find numerous “super build” points that cost anywhere from 8,000–100,000 blocks. Now, whenever you break things, you’ll collect little Lego pieces that help you make bigger items as well as the typical “stud” currency used to unlock cheats and special gear.

Now you have twice as many reasons to break everything you can in Lego City, including other cars while driving around.

Clever references

I’m not sure how many people younger than me will be able to spot the Colombo reference in the first hour of Lego City, but I love that it exists. Lego City gleefully and unapologetically embraces references from film and TV that children likely won’t understand, but their parents will. Dirty Harry, The Shawshank Redemption, and even The Matrix show up in various and obvious ways.

Clever references aren’t just reserved for characters, however. As you explore, you’ll uncover several international landmarks re-created in Lego form. A few of my favorites are definitely Times Square, Mt. Rushmore, and the Golden Gate bridge. Of course, a mountain with massive Lego faces carved in it overlooks a sprawling Chinese-inspired castle! That kind of whimsical absurdity fuels most of Undercover and makes the various winks and nods to real-world things that much funnier.

Sensible use of the Wii U GamePad

Using the GamePad as a scanner or map isn’t anything new, but implementing that functionality into a sandbox game is surprisingly fluid. You’ll use the GamePad to talk with other characters as well as search for hidden items and covertly listen in on conversations. Chase McCain spends most of his time operating just outside the law and uses any technological advantage he can to get the drop on the various crime syndicates he’s investigating.

It’s surprisingly natural to lift up the controller to search for clues and doesn’t require a lot of movement on the player’s part. But if you’re really into spinning around your living room, any way you turn can reveal new parts of the map immediately around Chase.

Mostly non-violent

Chase McCain is a police officer. Whenever criminals approach him to fight, he deftly dodges or redirects their attacks until he can slap a pair of cuffs on them. I absolutely love that developer TT Fusion embraced the tried-but-true concept of a kung fu hero while subtly suggesting that the police should behave with a bit more decorum than, say, Batman. You aren’t breaking baddies into bits in Lego City, but that’s alright. Chase’s silly floating crane kicks and dramatic cuffing animations are equally as rewarding as shattering villains into their core components. This is also a great message that heroes don’t have to go on the offensive to ultimately win a fight.

If you can’t help but inflict a bit of harm on poor Lego minifigures, you can flatten unlucky pedestrians as you race through the streets. Since you do get studs and blocks for smashing items on sidewalks, I’m pretty sure running down innocent passers-by was totally intended. Anyone you hit will eventually get back up, but they’re pretty surly about being trampled.

What you won’t like

Hurry up and wait

From the moment you boot up Lego City: Undercover, you’ll find yourself idling at various loading screens. It’s no secret that Wii U software takes awhile to start, but you’ll sit through three separate loading sequences before you even access your save data. A little waiting isn’t bad, but those long progress bars start to feel very tedious as Lego City’s generic ’70s cop show theme music perpetually plays in the background.

Mocking dialogue

If your game has frustrating timers, poor load times, and drawn-out action sequences, it’s usually not the best idea to repeatedly point them out in the dialogue. Throughout Lego City, Chase often comments on various environmental things that annoy him and likely the player as well. Self-aware humor is funny, but not when it points out real and frustrating flaws within a game.

I know progress bars are terrible; I sat through several of them just to watch Chase sit through one of his own.

Clumsy platforming

Free-running in an open environment is instantly less fun the moment you feel confined by camera controls. Lego City often falls victim to odd camera angles that can obscure jumps and alter the game’s perspective. Many rooft0p sequences end in disaster as Chase narrowly misses a ledge he probably would have made if you could have lined up the action before following through with it.

I feel most of the Undercover’s platforming hazards are directly caused by the camera occasionally freezing into an awkward position, but Lego minifigures aren’t exactly the most dexterously animated characters, either.

Conclusion

Lego City: Undercover is a very silly but rewarding romp that proves how well the Wii U’s GamePad functions as a tool as well as a controller. Despite the predictable loading hiccups and the inevitable technical pitfalls of an open world, Undercover delivers a sanitized sandbox experience that doesn’t require violence or explicit dialogue to make its point.

Children deserve massive, explorable worlds just as much as adults. It’s wonderful that TT Fusion took that concept and made a fully functioning and largely non-violent world without sacrificing action. You won’t miss firing guns or swinging lightsabers in Lego City — not when you’re scouring the landscape for super builds and smashing everything in sight.

Score: 90/100

Lego City: Undercover is a Wii U title that released March 19, 2013. A 3DS version is scheduled for April. Nintendo provided a retail copy of the game for this review.

Filed under: Games

GamesBeat weekly roundup: SimCity plagued by server issues, Ubisoft does not condone whaling

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 17:41:08 +0000

If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, SimCity launches but suffers catastrophic sever issues, PETA claims Ubisoft is glorifying whaling in Assassin’s Creed IV, and Boy Scouts can now earn badges for game design.

You’ll also find reviews for SimCity, God of War: Ascension, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow — Mirror of Fate, and Dollar Dash, as well as previews for Dead Space 3 Awakened and Gears of War: Judgment.

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Castlevania: Lords of Shadow — Mirror of Fate can’t quite translate 3D gameplay into 2D (review)

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 08:00:40 +0000

Sometimes, I like to imagine what video games would be like if God of War hadn’t been so popular. We would have far fewer hulked-out heroes smashing their way to victory while drinking precious health water from the various “fonts” scattered through the levels. These are the core things I’ve taken away from God of War, and apparently, these are also the only things Konami learned when it was developing the first Castlevania: Lords of Shadow.

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow — Mirror of Fate is a Nintendo 3DS-exclusive midstep in the re-imagined Castlevania series that ties the first game directly to the next console release. While it definitely tries to do that, it also points out the weakness in Konami’s new direction for the series. Prolonged, multistage bossfights from hell and abysmal platforming don’t rekindle my dying love for the franchise. Combine all that with 2D quick-time events and comically awful half-animated cutscenes, Mirror of Fate tarnishes the reputation of all the Castlevanias before it.

The problem is that Mirror of Fate feels like the developers really, truly wanted to make a 21st century Symphony of the Night but the clunky inclusion of the first Lords of Shadow’s gameplay simply doesn’t work. It wants to capture all the exploration and wonder of the pre-Kojima Productions games but falls short because Castlevania’s classic style doesn’t mix well with Lord of Shadow’s over-the-top design.

What you’ll like

Dracula’s Castle
Mirror of Fate definitely wins points for returning to the old-school romp through Dracula’s carnival of terrors. Unlike Lords of Shadow, you navigate the cavernous castle by filling out a basic map that pinpoints warp points and places you should go back to. Perhaps the greatest innovation is that you can mark important locations manually to make backtracking less of a pain.

Various locations within the castle are also very distinctive, much like strolling into the library in Symphony of the Night or the bedrooms in Harmony of Dissonance. Sometimes the level transitions are subtle, but you get just enough variance that really harks back to that over-the-top design found in previous games.

Puzzles
Clever puzzle-solving is almost a different world inside Mirror of Fate. Everything slows down as you enter a massive network of moving blocks or light beams. You can zoom in on certain points to aid in finding the best solution or let your characters run around inside what looks like a giant machine. Sure, you can opt out of solving a puzzle at any point in the process, but doing that really isn’t in the spirit of Mirror of Fate. It’s worth slowing down and fiddling with electrified and magnetized blocks and burning giant puppet hands.

What you won’t like

Quick-time events
Perhaps I’m weird for thinking monotonous button prompts ruin rather than enhance action scenes. You’ll find unnecessary quick-time events all through Mirror of Fate. Whenever you discover a chest with upgrade goodies inside you’ll furiously pound the B button until it slides open. Need to ride an elevator up a tower? More often than not, you’ll manually crank the 3DS Circle Pad around until you get to the top.

I just don’t get it. In my mind, Castlevania’s action sequences are about elegance and player skill, not this industry infatuation with making you tap a button until your finger bleeds. A lack of elegance is my major complaint about the Lords of Shadow universe. Quick-time events are not graceful, and they never will be.

Combat
That lack of grace is a definite problem in Mirror of Fate. Perhaps it is the rocky transition from 3D to 2D, but something is amiss with how you fend off foes. No matter how conservative you are with special powers and health, you’ll often find yourself pinned in impossible situations. Enemies love to trap you in the corner of a stage and do so continuously. Bosses are the worst about this and have the added bonus of ensnaring you in perpetual animation loops that knock you back down the moment you can get your character off the ground.

The only way out of the corner, or constantly hitting the floor, is to die. And you will die a lot in Mirror of Fate. But it isn’t the sort of forehead slapping clumsy death you get in Symphony of the Night, Portrait of Ruin, or even good-ol’ original Castlevania. You feel trapped by how your character interacts with the world and the brutish way it’s animated.

Cutscenes
I don’t understand what’s happening in some of the cutscenes in Mirror of Fate. Some are well-shot in-engine sequences full of flashy combat and the occasional sultry succubus. They match the overall tone and are not that jarring. But every so often, another kind of movie appears.

Randomly, characters in Mirror of Fate fall into odd, cell-shaded sequences where they’re still talking but their characters barely move. Their mouths are largely static, so all emotion comes across in exaggerated arm flailing or permanent snarls.

It’s almost as if two different groups of animators worked on cutscenes and couldn’t agree on which was more appropriate. The change has almost no pattern to it, unless the cell-shaded effect should invoke a “mirrored” quality to some moments. But if that’s the case, I don’t understand why Simon Belmont yelling at a floating mask is much more emotionally charged than him yelling at Alucard.

Simon does a lot of yelling, so it’s difficult to get a feel for his emotional depth.

Conclusion

Castlevania: Mirror of Fate is thoroughly disappointing because it’s trying to marry two unwilling elements. The core experience in a 2D Castlevania (most notably Symphony of the Night, since that was clearly an influence on this game) is in direct opposition to the power-fantasy styling found in Lords of Shadow. I’ve used the word brutish in this review, and that’s really the best way to describe what Konami got out of the God of War revolution. Castlevania isn’t brutish — it is a test of your agility and your willingness to overcome nearly impossible odds. Mirror of Fate really wants to dazzle you with clever puzzles and name dropping fan-favorite characters, but it can’t emulate the soul of the series.

Score: 25/100

Castlevania:Lords of Shadow — Mirror of Fate was released March 5, 2013, for the Nintendo 3DS. The publisher provided GamesBeat with a copy of the game for the purpose of this review.

Filed under: Games

GamesBeat weekly roundup: Zynga shuts studio, top exec leaves EA, and Ouya ships March 28

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 18:12:31 +0000

If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, Zynga shuts down its Baltimore studio while consolidating three others, THQ will sell off Homeworld, Darksiders, and Red Faction in its last auction, and the Android-based Ouya console will ship March 28.

You’ll also find reviews of Star Wars Pinball and Tomb Raider, as well as previews for Lego City: Undercover, Warface, Time and Eternity, and Throw Trucks with Your Mind.

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Required Listening: Fire Emblem, Crysis 3, and interview with Tomb Raider composer Jason Graves

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 17:00:04 +0000

Without music, many modern video games would not resonate with us on such an emotional level. It’s possible we would not feel a pang of dread as we rounded a blind corner in Dead Space 3, and we likely wouldn’t feel such urgency to hack our way through baddies in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. The sometimes abrasive yet compelling quality to even dissonant tones can change how we perceive virtual worlds.

This month we take a look at Fire Emblem: Awakening, Aliens: Colonial Marines, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, and Dead Space 3, and we discuss creating music out of non-musical items and the Tomb Raider soundtrack with composer Jason Graves.

Fire Emblem: Awakening
Composer: Yuka Tsujiyoko

Yuka Tsujiyoko’s music is the backbone of the Fire Emblem franchise. She’s the main composer for the series, which explains how organically music flows from one Fire Emblem to the next. Awakening’s score follows its predecessors with sometimes dreamy, often powerful orchestral melodies poised to elevate victorious highs and make us cry every time we lose a solider in battle.

Aliens: Colonial Marines
Composer: Kevin Riepl
Unlike the poorly received game housing it, Kevin Riepl’s score for Aliens: Colonial Marines is a true love letter to the film series. It plays with tonal similarities to both James Horner’s (Aliens) and Jerry Goldsmith’s (Alien) work on the film series while striking out on its own with gritty industrial sounds. You can feel the passion and dedication in every unsettling note and anvil strike Riepl uses. If you close your eyes and listen to the tracks linked to the picture above, you can imagine the much more frightening and generally more enjoyable game that Colonial Marines should have been.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance
Composer: Jamie Christopherson
In fine Platinum Games tradition, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance’s soundtrack is very unconventional. When Platinum hired Jamie Christopherson to compose, they already had a pumping, heavy-metal sound in mind. The result is a very energetic album full of well-crafted guitar rifts and a successful hybridization of metal and electronic tones. It’s hard to imagine that Christopherson hadn’t written heavy metal on this scale before this project, but as he says in a supplemental interview to this article, it was all new to him.

Dead Space 3
Composer: Jason Graves, James Hannigan
Echoing, overwhelming percussion and spine-tingling dissonance is a hallmark of all three Dead Space scores, but Dead Space 3 combines those signature tones with more enjoyable orchestral movements. The result is a creepy soundtrack that is actually pleasant to listen to when removed from its game. The music is definitely much less claustrophobic, much like its inspiration.

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The peculiar origin of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance’s heavy-metal sound (interview)

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 22:14:40 +0000

Despite switching creative teams at a crucial point in its development, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is finally a real and playable thing. Thanks to Platinum Games’ quirky stylings, Metal Gear Solid cybernetic ninja Raiden’s untold action-adventure lives on, but in a slightly different form than when Konami first showed the game in 2010.

One of the more noticeable elements in Revengeance’s design is a clangy, semi-electronic heavy-metal soundtrack complete with Raiden-centric lyrics. Previous Platinum projects such as Bayonetta and Anarchy Reigns incorporated similar highly stylized music with a great deal of success. Such prominent, thematic composing is as much a part of the studio’s identity as its commitment to splashy fight scenes.

But, the soundtrack is a peculiar chapter in the Revengeance story because Platinum didn’t hire a heavy metal musician to craft such a rocking score. No, they enlisted the help of American film and gaming composer Jamie Christopherson.

Jamie Christopherson is a composer for films, television, and games. He loves compiling “hybrid” scores that sometimes take samples from ethnic world music and blends it with orchestral or synthy tones. Most recently, he provided additional music for the NBC show Revolution and the score to Ubisoft’s free-to-play adventure Mighty Quest for Epic Loot.

GamesBeat: Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance had a very tumultuous development cycle. When did you join the project?

Jamie Christopherson: I’ve been on Revengeance a little over a year. I came in around November of 2011. I got there pretty far into the development or at least half way through.

GamesBeat: What inspirational material did Platinum Games give you to work from?

Christopherson: Platinum mainly had the concept art done. They did have some early builds, but they weren’t texturized. But they did have some of the gameplay mechanics implemented like Raiden going around cutting things up. I mainly had to work off concept art for the bosses as well as descriptions.

GamesBeat: What was the direction Platinum had in mind for the Revengeance score?

Christopherson: When I met with Platinum Games, they had the idea to use heavy metal music. They threw out a lot of older style heavy metal references like Metallica and other stuff from the ‘80s and ‘90s. I took that and suggested a lot of modern electronic elements to go along with it.

Then we worked back and forth. I would always see how far I could push the futuristic , post-apocalyptic vibe while implementing the sound they wanted.

GamesBeat: Is heavy metal outside your comfort zone?

Christopherson: It was definitely a stretch for me. I’d done a few heavy metal pieces here and there, but I’d never done a full score. Early on I knew I needed help.

So I enlisted the help of Logan Mader, the former guitarist for Machinehead. Now he produces heavy metal music. I hired people like him, and we co-wrote the songs. We wanted real heavy metal guitar riffs and drums to maintain an authentic vibe.

Mostly, I came up with ideas that weren’t very metal then mixed it with these ideas from Logan and people who knew much more about it than me.

GamesBeat: What was the most challenging aspect of working on Revengeance?

Christopherson: Producing the 13 metal tracks was definitely an unusual experience compared to other projects I’ve worked on because there was a huge amount of back and forth with the client, and then we had to get live performers for all the songs. After that, the music was remixed several times. The process of just writing the songs took at least six months.

It was definitely a unique experience compared to how I usually compose, which is usually very solitary. At the very final stage, when I’m done writing, I’ll turn over music to the client. But here, it was collaboration the whole way through. We’d record live guitars, play it for the client, then work from their feedback.

The asset management of this project was also very intense. I ended up passing 700 gigs of files back and forth with Platinum’s musical director Naoto Tanaka because every track used multiple musical stems, all recorded in surround. Most of the work after recording was just editing stems back and forth.

GamesBeat: What is a musical stem?

Christopherson: A stem is a set of instruments, like guitars or an orchestra, separated out into different tracks so the composer can mute or amplify different elements to make new music if they wanted to.

Stems come into play when you’re trying to make your music interactive. Say I write one piece of music that’s 10 minutes long with several different stems. You can make over 100 different tracks out of the original composition just by rearranging how the stems flow together.

GamesBeat: Did you know Platinum was looking for a heavy metal score before you took the project?

Christopherson: No, my agent submitted my music to them and they were well aware of my style. But, I’m not sure how I got that job without having done a score like that before.

GamesBeat: What’s your preferred composing style?

Christopherson: I definitely enjoy working with orchestras, like live orchestras, but I don’t work in a purely orchestral way. I like to combine that with electronics or ethnic music. I like to kind of blend everything and make a hybrid score that’s not one type of style.

GamesBeat: What are some of your favorite pieces from Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance?

Christopherson: I’m really happy with all the vocal tracks, only because they went through so many iterations. That was something I didn’t imagine at the very beginning.

The track “The War Still Rages Within” was a lot of fun because it started as a rough idea. When I shared it with Platinum, they threw back some ideas and it worked like putting puzzle pieces together. It came together very organically.

GamesBeat: How important is game composing compared to television and film?

Christopherson: While they share many components, music is music, but games are different because of their interactivity. The best music is the kind that adapts correctly to the environment and gives the player feedback. It’s always doing something to enhance the gameplay. That’s how it sets itself apart.

With Metal Gear Rising, I worked closely with Naoto Tanaka. He took a lot of our song tracks and used them to create in-house music for the boss fights. Those remixed pieces don’t start out with the vocals but, as the battle continues, the music ramps up until right at the end when the vocals come in. It continuously builds in intensity.

GamesBeat: What other projects have you worked on recently?

Christopherson: Recently, I worked on Ubisoft’s Mighty Quest for Epic Loot which is a free-to-play game for PC. That one’s more adventure but really over the top. We made fun of the genre, making everything very bombastic and giving each character a very identifiable theme.

I also do music for film and TV and recently provided additional material for the show Revolution.

For the production cycle on TV shows, you do the spotting [the initial composing phase] then within 5 days you have to do the scoring. You have to do one episode a week and the process repeats throughout the season.

In video games, we have a much longer production cycle. So , there’s generally a little more time to think and plan out what kind of music you’re going to do.

GamesBeat: Did the challenges you faced while composing for Revengeance change how you will approach future projects?

Christopherson: Haha, I definitely learned a few tricks to keep it all organized.

Filed under: Games

GamesBeat weekly roundup: Sony reveals PlayStation 4, House GOP blasts game research, and Crysis 3 review

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 18:22:09 +0000

If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, Sony unveils it’s latest home console the PlayStation 4, Ziff Davis Media shuts down 1Up, UGO, and GameSpy, and Electronic Arts and Activision both lay off workers.

You’ll also find reviews for Crysis 3, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, and Serious Sam Double D XXL.

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GamesBeat weekly roundup: Luigi turns 30, and Obama says we need more gamers

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 19:07:41 +0000

If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, World of Warplanes developer Wargaming bought Gas Powered Games, Nintendo announced a bunch of new content focused on Luigi as the company celebrates his 30th birthday, and both House of Representatives Minority leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and President Barack Obama defended video games.

You’ll also find a review of Aliens: Colonial Marines and previews for Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate and Darkstalkers Resurrection.

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Celebrate Valentine’s Day the gaming way

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 18:13:26 +0000

Valentine’s Day is never complete without a wealth of punny sayings. Unsurprisingly, the video game industry provides ample material for an endless fountain of clever and downright groan-worthy Valentine greetings you can share with the gamers in your life.

Here’s a look at cards we’ve received from various companies this year, some of which are a little unsettling. Nothing says love quite like throwing a brick at someone, right?

Sly Cooper’s Carmelita Fox’s Love Connection:

Be sure to check out GamesBeat writer Mike Minotti’s original gaming Valentines while you’re at it.

Filed under: Games

How to meet celebrities and chat up girls, Seduce Me style

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 20:30:45 +0000

Oh, Seduce Me. Actually, no, please don’t. Nothing can prepare you for the story you’re about to read.

Simply put, Seduce Me is porn. It’s incredibly dull, tedious, and theoretically erotic to someone, somewhere. I had the misfortune of reviewing it earlier this year.

This is the tale of a completely broken player, one who spent hours screen-capping static pornographic images and arranging them in the least enticing slideshow ever created. Hilariously, the woman who wrote Seduce Me claims that the guests at international socialite Pietra’s party are not demeaning to women, and they’re certainly not nauseating stereotypes ripped out of adolescent fantasy. No, these women have true depth while freely divulging every aspect of their sex lives to an absolute stranger.

In effort to survive playing Seduce Me for as long as I have, I viewed it as a “choose your own adventure” story. Only my character isn’t here to seduce anyone at all. He’s a nice man interested in making friends, traveling the world, and someday settling down with a nice lady. I think he might even have a degree in classical studies. He has no idea that his new friend Pietra hosts infamous sex parties, and he certainly did not accept her invitation thinking all the other guests would find any excuse to get naked.

No, gentle, innocent John (as I’ve started calling him) simply wants to live life to the fullest. Well, isn’t he in for a treat?

In 10 years time, I’m going to look back on this article and weep. Enjoy!

(Even though the most racy pictures in this slideshow are blacked out, much of the language and all the unedited images are not safe for work or any other place. You’ve been warned.)

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GamesBeat weekly roundup: D.I.C.E. 2013, Dead Space 3, and game investments take a dive

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 19:16:27 +0000

If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, the 2013 D.I.C.E. (Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain) summit took place in Las Vegas, Valve founder Gabe Newell argues for PC gaming in the living room, Journey dominates the D.I.C.E. awards, and Star Wars director J.J. Abrams and Valve announce they’re working on a game.

You’ll also find a breakdown of game investments for 2012 from GamesBeat’s Dean Takahashi, reviews of Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, and Dead Space 3.

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GamesBeat weekly roundup: Disney shuts down Junction Point, GTA V delayed

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 19:58:21 +0000

If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, Bethesda finally announces The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim expansions for the PlayStation 3, Disney shuts down Epic Mickey developer Junction Point Studios, and Rock Star pushes the Grand Theft Auto V release date to Sept. 17.

You’ll also find reviews for Antichamber, Omerta: City of Gangsters, Fire Emblem: Awakening, and Skulls of the Shogun as well as previews for Tearaway, Splinter Cell: Blacklist, Injustice: Gods Among Us, and Serious Sam Double D XXL.

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Required listening: Ni no Kuni, Anarchy Reigns, and an interview with Aliens: Colonial Marines composer Kevin Riepl

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 00:26:21 +0000

Game music isn’t all chirpy chip tunes or sweeping symphonic movements. Just like film scores, soundtracks inspire us, scare us, and can even bring us to tears with a well-placed melody or a jarring action cue.

Because of this, I decided it was time we start paying attention to music as well as the people lovingly creating it. Try playing through Final Fantasy VII, Borderlands, or The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim with the sound turned off. None of these are even half as good without their scores subtly shifting tone and setting scenes around us.

Each month, I’ll take you on a guided tour through some of the notable albums released in the last few weeks and interview a composer on an upcoming project.

This month, we’ll take a look at Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, DmC: Devil May Cry, and Anarchy Reigns. We’ve also got an in-depth interview with Aliens: Colonial Marines composer Kevin Riepl.

January albums

Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch
Composer: Joe Hisaishi

It’s a bit disheartening that many Japanese role-playing games these days are moving away from jaunty adventuring tunes. Long-time Studio Ghibli composer Joe Hisaishi’s score for Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch delightfully combines the orchestral bombast found in older Final Fantasys and Dragon Quests with his own playful melodies.

Hisaishi’s music enhances the overall Ghibli quality to Ni No Kuni. You could use the studio’s art style and even the same story with any other composer’s work but it wouldn’t retain that feeling that you’re diving into a Miyazaki film. With Hisaishi’s help, Ni No Kuni gets a little extra sprinkle of magic in an already fantastic adventure.

DmC: Devil May Cry
Composers: Noisia and Tom Colvin

This is probably the least comfortable soundtrack I’ve listened to in many years. DmC: Devil May Cry leans heavily on pulsating and grating dissonance with an occasional burst of tinny orchestral melody.

Dutch electronic group Noisia took a step away from their signature drum ‘n’ bass for most of Devil May Cry and focused instead on a grungy and oppressively synthetic wall of noise.

Fans of dubstep insisting on “dirty” bass drops will likely enjoy the soul-vibrating nastiness to the bass lines in “Mundus Theme” and “Lilith’s Club.” Dubstep is already an overplayed addition to most games, but Noisia’s attempts fit it into Devil May Cry’s overall tone and maintains a feeling that the world is constantly shifting between reality and Limbo.

Anarchy Reigns
Composers: Compilation

I dare you to not want to kick some ass after listening to Anarchy Reigns. Every song drips with that “hardcore” sound Sega established in Jet Set Radio and Crazy Taxi in the late ’90s, but here it updates it for a more hip-hop-aware world. Fat beats and heavily repetitive lyrics deliver a perfect one-two punch for tireless combos and horrible acts of digital violence.

Nothing about Anarchy Reigns is particularly classy or subtle, so it stands to reason that the music glorifies vengeance and thuggish braggadocio. Spending a few minutes with “Kill ‘Em All” and “Laughing at U” will almost certainly make you put on some gloves and destroy a punching bag.

Unlike Ni No Kuni and Devil May Cry, Anarchy Reigns’ music is always in your face like an overzealous hype man urging you to feel the beat.

Well, it worked. Excuse me while I go to the gym.

Filed under: Games

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GamesBeat weekly roundup: THQ asset auction, Legend of Zelda in HD, and Atari is bankrupt

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 18:30:37 +0000

If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, THQ’s assets went up for auction, leaving Darksiders and its developer Vigil Games without a parent company. Nintendo threw a mini-E3 announcement revealing Wii U updates and an HD remake of The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, and the long-troubled Atari files for bankruptcy protection.

You’ll also find reviews for Tokyo Crash Mobs and The Cave, as well as previews for Phone Fight and Dead Space 3.

News:

Mobile News:

Interviews:

Previews:

Reviews:

Community Spotlight:

Pieces of Flair:

Filed under: Games

VentureBeat » Jasmine Maleficent Rea

GamesBeat weekly roundup: Google’s game service, EA axes online passes, and a look at The Last of Us

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Required listening: Ni no Kuni, Anarchy Reigns, and an interview with Aliens: Colonial Marines composer Kevin Riepl

January albums

GamesBeat weekly roundup: THQ asset auction, Legend of Zelda in HD, and Atari is bankrupt