Disney has a new Tron movie coming out at the end of the year, Tron Legacy. For this, they’ve pulled out all the marketing stops. Viral sites, an ARG campaign, A recreation of Flynns arcade at Comic-Con, and, of course, a tie-in video game.
But that’s not what I want to talk about now. Instead, let’s have a look at the viral site Arcade Aid. Within it is a visual quiz, where they have hidden 56 classic game titles. Check it out.
Personally, I got up to 35 by myself, then I found the rest by collaborating with a couple of friends. How many can you find? Post your scores!
Note: If you are gonna post an answer in the comments, make sure to provide a clear warning first, so nobody gets spoiled.
Billy Mitchell, your barrel-dodging reign has come to a screeching halt. Say hello to the new king of arcade game Donkey Kong, New York City plastic surgeon Hank Chien!
Chien has dominated over Mitchell’s old score by 10,000 points, as verified by Twin Galaxies, the official name in arcade scoring.
The real kicker behind this? Chien has been playing the game less than a year. He says he started playing it just last September. “It’s something to add to my resume,” says the Harvard graduate.
Chien said that he was turned on to the game by watching the 2007 documentary The King of Kong, which depicts how Billy Mitchell defended his title from those who would contest it.
“This film made me realize there was a whole group of people that were playing the classics,” he told the New York Daily News. The overtaking occurred during a February snowstorm when Chien decided to take a day off and attempt a shot at the record on the machine he keeps at home.
“It’s something I can be proud of,” he added. “Donkey Kong requires reflexes, it requires strategy, it requires foresight planning and timing. It requires everything, which is the beauty of the game.”
Easily one of the best part about having friends or coworkers who are also die hard gamers like yourself, is the fact that you can talk to this person about how the developers don’t know what they’re doing, how you would’ve done such and such game better, and ultimately, “back in my day…”
Personally, “back in my day” is the best part of any gaming-related conversation. Mainly for the sake of bringing back fond memories, but also because I always manage to realize something that I never noticed before as a kid, or simply couldn’t figure out.
Case in point: Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Casino Night Zone. I spent years trying to get past that block that you simply couldn’t jump over. If you’ve played Sonic 2, you know what I’m talking about. I ended up giving up on the game completely, and declared it broken and unbeatable. Then, just two years ago, I learned while talking to a friend that you actually have to press down on your D-pad, as the platform you’re standing on is actually an elevator.
Silly realizations like this are one of the many reasons it’s always a good idea to take a trip down memory lane. Today’s trip will take us to the town of DoDonPachi. PEW PEW after the jump.
According to Joystiq, Steve Wiebe has reclaimed his title as the #1 Donkey Kong, Jr. player in the world.
Wiebe lost his title last fall to Oklahoma man Mark Kiehl, but on Valentine’s Day, he managed to score 1,190,400 points, far surpassing the score of 1,139,800 points he achieved in April of last year.
The lesson here is that if you want high scores in arcade games, spend your Valentine’s Day playing instead of with your wife or girlfriend.
Major Nelson recently wrote in his blog about the release dates for games on the Xbox Live Marketplace.
Current release dates
Xbox LIVE Deal of the Week:
Feb. 15: Battlefield 1943, 800 Microsoft Points
Xbox LIVE Games on Demand:
Feb. 9: Street Fighter IV
Feb. 9: Halo Wars (Europe, Australia and New Zealand)
Feb. 16: Resident Evil 5
Feb. 16: Beautiful Katamari
Feb. 16: Viva Piñata: Party Animals (Japan)
Xbox LIVE Arcade:
Feb. 10: Darwinia +, 1200 points
Feb. 17: The Misadventures of PB Winterbottom, 800 points
Xbox Avatars Marketplace:
These are just a few of the collections scheduled for the Xbox LIVE Avatar Marketplace.
Feb. 11: Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising
Feb. 16: Resident Evil 5
Feb. 18: Metro 2033
Get your credit cards out. Time for more stuff.
Welcome to space. Aliens live here. Angry ones.
That’s the premise behind Team 17’s new top-down shooter for the Xbox 360, a remake of the original Alien Breed for the Amiga, Alien Breed Evolution.
The game has gotten a new coat of paint and a new set of wheels, so to speak. The graphics and musical score have been updated for the Xbox 360, and the controls rely on both analog sticks for movement and aiming. Movement is done with the left analog stick, while aiming in any direction is done with the right analog stick.
As you may recall, Adon, Cody and Guy were confirmed for Super Street Fighter IV in Famitsu recently, and now we have a video showing off the characters in all their HD, 3D glory.
Fans will no doubt be impressed with how well these characters’ moves have been translated to Street Fighter IV. As an avid Adon and Guy player myself, I’m especially impressed with what they’ve done with these two characters.
Check out the trailer for yourself, after the cut.
According to a story on Siliconera, Super Street Fighter IV will be cranking up the nostalgia. The car smashing and barrel breaking bonus stages from Street Fighter II are making a triumphant return. This is revealed in a scan from Famitsu magazine.
Famitsu could also reveal details about SSFIV’s online modes. New options will include Team Battles, supporting 2 on 2 and 4 on 4, and a Replay Channel. The matches themselves are still one on one, but Team mode will allow clans to meet up and get a common score.
Capcom has also added Endless Mode, which lets eight players meet up and fight.
One word people: Awesome!
The countdown clock has ended and Square Enix’ new title is… *drum roll*
Lord of Vermillion II! Which is the sequel to Square Enix’ popular card-based arcade game, Lord of Vermillion. (Du’h…)
Characters from Final Fantasy IV, Romancing SaGa II and Magic The Gathering will be making appearances in the game. Who knows what parts they’ll play?
The game will launch in Japanese arcades this autumn, but I wouldn’t hold my breath for a Western release.
A bit of an anti-climax, wouldn’t you say?
The Konami press conference was naturally going to be an interesting one, simply due to the universal love for Hideo Kojima, and the hope that we would hear more about the previously announced Metal Gear Solid: Rising and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. There was also hope that we would find out about the mysterious MASK project, which had unsurprisingly fell under the radar with the Metal Gear hype machine chugging away.
The press conference started a bit late due to the number of press in attendance. People had spotted Kojima about so the general feeling was that it was to be a good conference. After a brief montage of what we were going to see today (which included stuff we had seen before, but also some new releases), the Executive Vice President of Konami came up on stage.
During Konami’s press conference at E3, Hideo Kojima took the stage to talk about some of his upcoming games. Obviously Metal Gear Solid was a huge part of the update, but a few surprises were in store as well.
First off it seems Metal Gear Solid Rising isn’t going to be Xbox 360 exclusive as it was initially assumed. Kojima said Rising is for next-gen consoles, meaning 360, PC and PS3. MGS Peace Walker was also mentioned, but nothing new other than what we saw at Sony’s press conference. Kojima wrote the entire game himself and the MGS4 team is heavily involved in the creation of the PSP exclusive.
Metal Gear Solid Arcade was announced and is being built on the PS3 engine. The game will come with special 3D goggles and features an online component so gamers can compete across arcades. Seeing as arcades aren’t as big in the West as in Japan, it’ll be interesting to see if it will even make it to our neck of the world.
Finally, Hideo Kojima’s “mask game” was revealed, and I am definitely excited about this one. A debut trailer narrated by none other than Patrick Stewart showed off Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. The trailer was full of incredible fights, huge bosses and gothic locations. Lords of Shadow is a re-imagining that’s not connected to the other games in the franchise. LoS tells the story of Gabriel, voiced by Robert Carlyle, who’s looking for “revenge and retribution”. According to Kojima, Konami found that the world audience “demands bloodthirsty action with men that wield crucifix-whips”. Could this be one of the few good 3D Castlevania games?
Lords of Shadow is being released 2010 for PS3 and Xbox 360.
Welcome to TGV’s Evening Topic, where every day we present to you a topic for discussion of the various trends and issues within the gaming industry and culture..
Tonight, in our sophmore post we’ll be discussing a gameplay feature with roots further back than some might assume; Quick Time Events
Starting with the arcade version of Dragon’s Lair (1983) Quick Time Events (QTEs) have slowly become a trend in today’s modern games, usually as a means of giving the player a measure of control during cut scenes and other cinematic sequences. Some games do them well, others… not so much.
- Is there really a need for Quick Time Events in today’s games?
- Why has Quick Time Events become so popular recently?
Capcom pulled a few surprises with Street Fighter IV at today’s Tokyo Game Show, and revealed Sakura as a playable character for Street Fighter IV, whilst also highlighting Akuma’s general badass-ness.
Both characters seems to have very distinctive fighting styles created for them that are faithful to the older titles whilst keeping things updated and original. Sakura’s attack power is low as always, but she makes up for it with some effective floating combos, whilst Akuma has his trademark brutal attack approach but low defence.
After the cut we have gameplay trailers of both characters in action, as well as a collection of screenshots.
It’s epic stuff. Enjoy.
In a recent interview with Kikizo , Sega AM2 boss Makoto Osaki has lamented the slow death of the arcade scene outside of Japan, labelling it as being “practically dead”
“Let’s not even go into the overseas market… it’s practically dead,” he said.
“The market there is entirely redemption [prize] machines now. The users in America just don’t go to arcades anymore, because they don’t see why they should invest the effort when they have games at home.”
“In Japan, you’ve got arcades near train and bus stations that the vast majority of the people have to pass going to and from work, so they get a lot of traffic.”
Lots more through the link, including information on Virtua Fighter 5 R, if that sort of thing interests you.
Ever since the first joke of Sheng Long being a secret character in Street Fighter II started years ago, fans of the series have hoped that, with every installment, this legendary fighter would finally reveal himself.
As time passed, hopes of ever seeing if we actually could defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance seemed very low… until now.
As I mentioned a few days ago, Capcom announced that a new character was soon to be revealed and even hinted that it could be Gouken (Sheng Long as many fans still refer to him). Now it is official, Gouken will finally be appearing in Street Fighter.
After years of speculation and April Fool’s jokes, fans can finally rejoice and test their skills against this legendary character.
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