News flash!...The Star Wars franchise is one of the most popular multimedia franchises of all time. And with that I have an odd question to pose. Why should you care?

Of course, the original trilogy will always be a classic, but anyone who thinks that anything after Jedi was useful beyond filling in gaps in the saga, the camp factor of Hayden Christensen’s horrendous acting and the birth of Vader, “Noooooooo!” might want to take that stupid Yoda mask off that’s been interfering with your vision and check your light saber at the door; but back to the question of why you should care about George Lucas’ meal ticket. You should care because by the looks of the upcoming Star Wars: the Force Unleashed game, the franchise torch has been successfully passed to video game players who have bought into one of the six platforms the game will be published on. What does that say for the rest of the fan base out there?

Reruns are always an option, but before you start channel surfing you might want to take a look at the trailer for Force Unleashed below. I’ve always wondered why Young Skywalker had such trouble lifting an X-wing fighter out of a swamp in Empire even when he had the force on his side. The trailer shows what Vader’s secret apprentice can do in the new game. Maybe Luke really didn’t know the power of the Dark side:

--Hobson's Choice

Read reviews and shop for great bargains at the Gaming Corner. >>>

In case there are any gamers or would be gamers out there that still don't know that Amazon.com not only sells video games, but is the best place to get games online, consider yourself reminded, that is if you are looking for the best online experience, the best customer service and the best deals. And this isn't just me talking out my cheapass. I'll say anything. This is coming straight from CheapyD over at Cheapassgamer.com and all of those who voted in the annual Cheapy Awards. Cheapy is the acknowledged voice of the online bargain-hunting gamer, and according to him:

"After three years of EBgames.com domination, it seems Amazon is on its way to starting the next Cheapy Awards dynasty. This year, Amazon.com simply dominated the competition, winning every relevant Cheapy Award. Amazon's combination of great deals and superb customer service resulted in CAGs forking over their cash (and their hearts) to the new king of online video game retail. Congratulations to Amazon on their impressive victories!"

This is the second year in a row that Amazon has made Cheapassgamer's awards list. This year we were voted: the Best Online Retailer, as having the Best Online Customer Service, the Best Online Deal (our Deal of the Day) and the Biggest Shopping News Story (Our Deal of the Day). Check out/click through to see the full voting results:


A big thanks to everyone who voted over at cheapassgamer.com. It's great to be recognized by the gaming community for the all the hard work that Amazon.com/games is doing and continues to do. This is just the beginning for us, so be sure to keep your eyes on us and remember that we are always just a click away.

--Hobson's Choice

Read reviews and shop for great bargains at the Gaming Corner. >>>

Last week Austin-based independent video game publisher Gamecock held their second annual Expo for Interactive Entertainment, Independent and Original (EIEIO) media event right in their own backyard in downtown Austin. The previous year’s event was held in Santa Monica and although I can’t speak from personal experience, I can’t imagine that the inaugural event could have stood up to the energy and enthusiasm of EIEIO 2008.

Spread out over two days, EIEIO 2008 featured access to a stable of international game developers working under the Gamecock banner at a few of Austin’s more crowd-pleasing venues, the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema and Stubbs Bar-b-que. Fun town that Austin, especially with the SXSW festival just starting up and with the Gamecock team keeping true to their reputation of being something of a wild bunch. The Alamo Drafthouse is the kind of place that every city should have; beer, movies, food and good company all in one place. And since the drink tickets and a montage of video game related films were flowing freely, so did the fun. It was a hard act to follow, but it was topped the following day as the developers sobered up and talked the talk about their games at Stubbs, one on the premiere open-air venues in Austin. Sure it rained, in fact it poured, but tents, space heaters, bar-b-que with extra sauce, a few bands and a pretty nice lineup of games across most platforms went a long way towards fixing that.

To be fair, I believe that the games lineup this year was more or less the same as in ‘07, barring last year’s Dementium: The Ward and one or two new titles in development. But the fact that several of these return titles--think Hail to the Chimp, Legendary the Box and Insecticide--looked great, played well and maybe more importantly are close to gold status, bodes well for Gamecock’s future, not to mention the development teams involved. I’m looking forward to these three coming out in the months ahead as well as how the others in the lineup proceed through the development process.

Check out an overview of Gamecock’s full upcoming lineup below:

Hail to the Chimp (Wideload Games) – PS3, 360; Rated “T”

Every responsible citizen knows that in an election year your candidate’s platform is paramount, but as the race for the Executive heats up Republicans, Democrats, Independents, and even Naderites will put aside traditional party platforms in favor of their platform of choice as Hail to the Chimp makes its way Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

An Action/Party game centered on the animal kingdom’s rambunctious foray into the democratic process, in Hail to the Chimp players battle each other in singleplayer and multiplayer modes for the right to replace the monarchical tyranny of the “King of Beasts” with what plays out as their own benevolent despotism. Each battle is politically themed--for example, the “Stuff the ballot box” and “Fund Racer” rounds--with the goal being to collect the most “clams” as possible, which includes taking them away from opponents. The more clams you have the more damage you can inflict and absorb. Players can choose to play as one of ten animal candidates and in multiplayer games of up to four players, can team up with competitors to triumph over the rest of the field. There are multiple rounds within each level, with ongoing stats tracked via the in-game GRR Animal News Network hosted by anchor, Woodchuck Chumley.

The Hail to the Chip hands on demo showed the game to be true to its party game status. In four-person multiplayer action, it was easy to simply grab a controller, choose a character to get a game started. Also easy to master were the game’s controls and the simultaneously similar, yet different feel to each arena. The speed of the game is pretty hectic, so these simplicities go a long way to making the game accessible to players at any level right out of the box. Gathering “clams,” which somehow equates to votes, was nearly as easy to do in an all out button-mashing ‘every animal for his/herself’ scramble as in the more effective option to team up with other player to wreak havoc on the rest of the field. The later is done easily with a simple button push as characters come in contact with each other and there are even on-screen prompts to do so. Each combination of animals creates a different special ability to impose on the rest of the field. In addition, the GRR Animal News Network cutaway scenes and clickable content available between rounds and as unlockables are packed with political humor ranging from political commercials and smear ads for the in-game characters, to satirical renditions of thinly veiled pop figures, for example the short movie of a killer whale hosted talk show titled, “Orcah.”

In the end, Hail to the Chimp is a party game and with a May release date can be counted on to provide all the fun needed during the pre-election rallies and post-election post-mortems that will be raging leading up to Election Day. My only question is why wasn’t it also developed for that heaven on earth for all party games, the Wii. If the game does well I’d expect to see a quick port over to that platform as well.

Check out a video for Hail to the Chimp:

Insecticide (Crackpot Entertainment) - DS; Rated "E10+"

Insecticide is a singleplayer adventure that drops you into a comedic, futuristic, film noir inspired world where insects have evolved into the highest life form on the planet, while humans have dropped a few rungs on the ladder. Here in the bug city of Troi you play as heroine Chrys Lyszt, a six-legged rookie detective investigating a high profile “squashing” at the city’s most lucrative soft drink company, Nectarola. But as always, things are not what they appear and it’s up to you to figure out what’s really going on.

Although Insecticide has several strong points, the most important that came out while playing through the DS demo was its diverse gameplay. Divided equally between Action and Detective (Adventure) levels, this allows for overall play that can be both fast paced as well as relaxed. The game opens with Chrys hot on the trail of a suspect wanted for questioning. Using her two pair of legs, players double hop across a vertically aligned futuristic setting, all the while avoiding and returning fire from the suspect and his cronies. Through the options menu players can choose to use a stylus mode, a button mode or a combination of the two to control Chrys’ movements and the left or right shoulder buttons to fire your weapons. The game features several bio-centric weapons, some of which are user created. The game also makes use of both DS screens; the top for in-game action and the bottom as a sort of insect radar that alerts players to hidden enemies and general direction of play. Although the use of the bottom screen is helpful at first, as you grow accustomed to the controls it seems a bit of a waste of the DS’ limited on-screen real estate. On the other hand a definite nice feature if you should happen to die, is that instead of starting all the way at the beginning of the game you start on the stretch of gameplay where you fell. This along with the nicely rendered cut scenes showing the direction the suspect went in allows players to easily flow through the initial action level and into the detective level that follow. Here players will pry through files and infiltrate areas to uncover evidence crucial to the case, gain access to new areas, meet several of the supporting characters in the game and get a look at the inventory system.

A PC version of the game is in the works that will break the story into two releases, but the DS version is available now, contains the complete story and looks pretty solid. Gamecock was kind enough to provide a review copy, so look for a full review in the days to come.

Check out a video for Insecticide:
Legendary: the Box (Spark Unlimited) – PS3, 360, PC; Rated "RP"

First-person shooters are filled with creatures that someone somewhere spent considerable time dreaming up. Legendary: the Box dispenses with that by pulling its beasties and the building blocks of its story from classic mythology; and by the look of the build shown does it pretty well. Players take on the role of Charles Deckard, a thief who during a botched job at a museum opens up Pandora’s Box. Yes, the actual Pandora’s Box. In doing so he not only releases a slew of creatures such as griffins, werewolves, minotaurs and the like, but also finds himself caught in an endless firefight between two shadowy factions. One of these wants to reseal the box and the creatures with it, while the other hungers to harness the destructive power of the beasts for their own dark purposes. The rub is that having opened the Box, Deckard is the only one with the power to close it.

One of four of the playable demos at EIEIO 2008 Legendary was probably the most impressive. Although only singleplayer, Spark Unlimited developers on hand confirmed that the game will probably support online multiplayer matches of up to 16 players. The level demoed featured Deckard and an AI crew intent on closing the Box, fighting their way through an urban setting resembling London. In his way are both the firepower of the other faction, a passel of werewolves and eventually a boss battle with a minotaur. This level though fairly short was a perfect intro into Legendary’s gameplay. Frenetic to say the least, players are constantly harassed by beasts, in this case werewolves and the much tougher “Alpha Wolves.” Even the most skilled with the game’s preliminary arsenal of machineguns, shotguns, assault rifles, frag grenades and a trusty fireman’s axe are very unlikely to come away unscathed. It also doesn’t help that these creatures can go up and down walls, as well as hurl chunks of the crumbling city buildings at you.

The toughness and sheer numbers of these creatures highlight a few of the givens of the game, the first of which is that players will be hurt and so must master the use of “animus,” an ethereal substance emanating from creatures bodies as you cut off their heads, and yes when it come to werewolves you must take their heads off or they will regenerate. Animus is absorbed by the player with a push of a button and can both replenish health and be harnessed into animus blasts to push back enemies. An equally important aspect of the ferocity of the creatures is that it can be used against the opposite faction in three-way battles. In the demo this was demonstrated in the sporadic caging of Alpha Wolves in various locations. When up against superior numbers of humans, which is often, it’s possible to free an Alpha and let him do the work for you. Just don’t get in his way or expose your comrades to his wrath and be prepared to finish him off or you’ll end up dog meat as well.

Legendary: the Box is tentatively slated for an early June release. We’ll see if the date sticks, but barring a few “red ring of red death” issues on the 360 platform used during the demo the game looks well on its way to completion and should fit nicely into any FPS library.

Check out a video for Legendary: the Box:

Check back shortly for the rest of the upcoming releases from Gamecock

--Hobson's Choice

Read reviews and shop for great bargains at the Gaming Corner. >>>

Last week Austin-based independent video game publisher Gamecock held their second annual Expo for Interactive Entertainment, Independent and Original (EIEIO) media event right in their own backyard in downtown Austin. The previous year’s event was held in Santa Monica and although I can’t speak from personal experience, I can’t imagine that the inaugural event could have stood up to the energy and enthusiasm of EIEIO 2008.

Spread out over two days, EIEIO 2008 featured access to a stable of international game developers working under the Gamecock banner at a few of Austin’s more crowd-pleasing venues, the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema and Stubbs Bar-b-que. Fun town that Austin, especially with the SXSW festival just starting up and with the Gamecock team keeping true to their reputation of being something of a wild bunch. The Alamo Drafthouse is the kind of place that every city should have; beer, movies, food and good company all in one place. And since the drink tickets and a montage of video game related films were flowing freely, so did the fun. It was a hard act to follow, but it was topped the following day as the developers sobered up and talked the talk about their games at Stubbs, one on the premiere open-air venues in Austin. Sure it rained, in fact it poured, but tents, space heaters, bar-b-que with extra sauce, a few bands and a pretty nice lineup of games across most platforms went a long way towards fixing that.

To be fair, I believe that the games lineup this year was more or less the same as in ‘07, barring last year’s Dementium: The Ward and one or two new titles in development. But the fact that several of these return titles--think Hail to the Chimp, Legendary the Box and Insecticide--looked great, played well and maybe more importantly are close to gold status, bodes well for Gamecock’s future, not to mention the development teams involved. I’m looking forward to these three coming out in the months ahead as well as how the others in the lineup proceed through the development process.

Check out an overview of Gamecock’s full upcoming lineup below:

Hail to the Chimp (Wideload Games) – PS3, 360; Rated “T”

Every responsible citizen knows that in an election year your candidate’s platform is paramount, but as the race for the Executive heats up Republicans, Democrats, Independents, and even Naderites will put aside traditional party platforms in favor of their platform of choice as Hail to the Chimp makes its way Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

An Action/Party game centered on the animal kingdom’s rambunctious foray into the democratic process, in Hail to the Chimp players battle each other in singleplayer and multiplayer modes for the right to replace the monarchical tyranny of the “King of Beasts” with what plays out as their own benevolent despotism. Each battle is politically themed--for example, the “Stuff the ballot box” and “Fund Racer” rounds--with the goal being to collect the most “clams” as possible, which includes taking them away from opponents. The more clams you have the more damage you can inflict and absorb. Players can choose to play as one of ten animal candidates and in multiplayer games of up to four players, can team up with competitors to triumph over the rest of the field. There are multiple rounds within each level, with ongoing stats tracked via the in-game GRR Animal News Network hosted by anchor, Woodchuck Chumley.

The Hail to the Chip hands on demo showed the game to be true to its party game status. In four-person multiplayer action, it was easy to simply grab a controller, choose a character to get a game started. Also easy to master were the game’s controls and the simultaneously similar, yet different feel to each arena. The speed of the game is pretty hectic, so these simplicities go a long way to making the game accessible to players at any level right out of the box. Gathering “clams,” which somehow equates to votes, was nearly as easy to do in an all out button-mashing ‘every animal for his/herself’ scramble as in the more effective option to team up with other player to wreak havoc on the rest of the field. The later is done easily with a simple button push as characters come in contact with each other and there are even on-screen prompts to do so. Each combination of animals creates a different special ability to impose on the rest of the field. In addition, the GRR Animal News Network cutaway scenes and clickable content available between rounds and as unlockables are packed with political humor ranging from political commercials and smear ads for the in-game characters, to satirical renditions of thinly veiled pop figures, for example the short movie of a killer whale hosted talk show titled, “Orcah.”

In the end, Hail to the Chimp is a party game and with a May release date can be counted on to provide all the fun needed during the pre-election rallies and post-election post-mortems that will be raging leading up to Election Day. My only question is why wasn’t it also developed for that heaven on earth for all party games, the Wii. If the game does well I’d expect to see a quick port over to that platform as well.

Check out a video for Hail to the Chimp:

Insecticide (Crackpot Entertainment) - DS; Rated "E10+"

Insecticide is a singleplayer adventure that drops you into a comedic, futuristic, film noir inspired world where insects have evolved into the highest life form on the planet, while humans have dropped a few rungs on the ladder. Here in the bug city of Troi you play as heroine Chrys Lyszt, a six-legged rookie detective investigating a high profile “squashing” at the city’s most lucrative soft drink company, Nectarola. But as always, things are not what they appear and it’s up to you to figure out what’s really going on.

Although Insecticide has several strong points, the most important that came out while playing through the DS demo was its diverse gameplay. Divided equally between Action and Detective (Adventure) levels, this allows for overall play that can be both fast paced as well as relaxed. The game opens with Chrys hot on the trail of a suspect wanted for questioning. Using her two pair of legs, players double hop across a vertically aligned futuristic setting, all the while avoiding and returning fire from the suspect and his cronies. Through the options menu players can choose to use a stylus mode, a button mode or a combination of the two to control Chrys’ movements and the left or right shoulder buttons to fire your weapons. The game features several bio-centric weapons, some of which are user created. The game also makes use of both DS screens; the top for in-game action and the bottom as a sort of insect radar that alerts players to hidden enemies and general direction of play. Although the use of the bottom screen is helpful at first, as you grow accustomed to the controls it seems a bit of a waste of the DS’ limited on-screen real estate. On the other hand a definite nice feature if you should happen to die, is that instead of starting all the way at the beginning of the game you start on the stretch of gameplay where you fell. This along with the nicely rendered cut scenes showing the direction the suspect went in allows players to easily flow through the initial action level and into the detective level that follow. Here players will pry through files and infiltrate areas to uncover evidence crucial to the case, gain access to new areas, meet several of the supporting characters in the game and get a look at the inventory system.

A PC version of the game is in the works that will break the story into two releases, but the DS version is available now, contains the complete story and looks pretty solid. Gamecock was kind enough to provide a review copy, so look for a full review in the days to come.

Check out a video for Insecticide:
Legendary: the Box (Spark Unlimited) – PS3, 360, PC; Rated "RP"

First-person shooters are filled with creatures that someone somewhere spent considerable time dreaming up. Legendary: the Box dispenses with that by pulling its beasties and the building blocks of its story from classic mythology; and by the look of the build shown does it pretty well. Players take on the role of Charles Deckard, a thief who during a botched job at a museum opens up Pandora’s Box. Yes, the actual Pandora’s Box. In doing so he not only releases a slew of creatures such as griffins, werewolves, minotaurs and the like, but also finds himself caught in an endless firefight between two shadowy factions. One of these wants to reseal the box and the creatures with it, while the other hungers to harness the destructive power of the beasts for their own dark purposes. The rub is that having opened the Box, Deckard is the only one with the power to close it.

One of four of the playable demos at EIEIO 2008 Legendary was probably the most impressive. Although only singleplayer, Spark Unlimited developers on hand confirmed that the game will probably support online multiplayer matches of up to 16 players. The level demoed featured Deckard and an AI crew intent on closing the Box, fighting their way through an urban setting resembling London. In his way are both the firepower of the other faction, a passel of werewolves and eventually a boss battle with a minotaur. This level though fairly short was a perfect intro into Legendary’s gameplay. Frenetic to say the least, players are constantly harassed by beasts, in this case werewolves and the much tougher “Alpha Wolves.” Even the most skilled with the game’s preliminary arsenal of machineguns, shotguns, assault rifles, frag grenades and a trusty fireman’s axe are very unlikely to come away unscathed. It also doesn’t help that these creatures can go up and down walls, as well as hurl chunks of the crumbling city buildings at you.

The toughness and sheer numbers of these creatures highlight a few of the givens of the game, the first of which is that players will be hurt and so must master the use of “animus,” an ethereal substance emanating from creatures bodies as you cut off their heads, and yes when it come to werewolves you must take their heads off or they will regenerate. Animus is absorbed by the player with a push of a button and can both replenish health and be harnessed into animus blasts to push back enemies. An equally important aspect of the ferocity of the creatures is that it can be used against the opposite faction in three-way battles. In the demo this was demonstrated in the sporadic caging of Alpha Wolves in various locations. When up against superior numbers of humans, which is often, it’s possible to free an Alpha and let him do the work for you. Just don’t get in his way or expose your comrades to his wrath and be prepared to finish him off or you’ll end up dog meat as well.

Legendary: the Box is tentatively slated for an early June release. We’ll see if the date sticks, but barring a few “red ring of red death” issues on the 360 platform used during the demo the game looks well on its way to completion and should fit nicely into any FPS library.

Check out a video for Legendary: the Box:

Check back shortly for the rest of the upcoming releases from Gamecock

--Hobson's Choice

Read reviews and shop for great bargains at the Gaming Corner. >>>

Last week Austin-based independent video game publisher Gamecock held their second annual Expo for Interactive Entertainment, Independent and Original (EIEIO) media event right in their own backyard in downtown Austin. The previous year’s event was held in Santa Monica and although I can’t speak from personal experience, I can’t imagine that the inaugural event could have stood up to the energy and enthusiasm of EIEIO 2008.

Spread out over two days, EIEIO 2008 featured access to a stable of international game developers working under the Gamecock banner at a few of Austin’s more crowd-pleasing venues, the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema and Stubbs Bar-b-que. Fun town that Austin, especially with the SXSW festival just starting up and with the Gamecock team keeping true to their reputation of being something of a wild bunch. The Alamo Drafthouse is the kind of place that every city should have; beer, movies, food and good company all in one place. And since the drink tickets and a montage of video game related films were flowing freely, so did the fun. It was a hard act to follow, but it was topped the following day as the developers sobered up and talked the talk about their games at Stubbs, one on the premiere open-air venues in Austin. Sure it rained, in fact it poured, but tents, space heaters, bar-b-que with extra sauce, a few bands and a pretty nice lineup of games across most platforms went a long way towards fixing that.

To be fair, I believe that the games lineup this year was more or less the same as in ‘07, barring last year’s Dementium: The Ward and one or two new titles in development. But the fact that several of these return titles--think Hail to the Chimp, Legendary the Box and Insecticide--looked great, played well and maybe more importantly are close to gold status, bodes well for Gamecock’s future, not to mention the development teams involved. I’m looking forward to these three coming out in the months ahead as well as how the others in the lineup proceed through the development process.

Check out an overview of Gamecock’s full upcoming lineup below:

Hail to the Chimp (Wideload Games) – PS3, 360; Rated “T”

Every responsible citizen knows that in an election year your candidate’s platform is paramount, but as the race for the Executive heats up Republicans, Democrats, Independents, and even Naderites will put aside traditional party platforms in favor of their platform of choice as Hail to the Chimp makes its way Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

An Action/Party game centered on the animal kingdom’s rambunctious foray into the democratic process, in Hail to the Chimp players battle each other in singleplayer and multiplayer modes for the right to replace the monarchical tyranny of the “King of Beasts” with what plays out as their own benevolent despotism. Each battle is politically themed--for example, the “Stuff the ballot box” and “Fund Racer” rounds--with the goal being to collect the most “clams” as possible, which includes taking them away from opponents. The more clams you have the more damage you can inflict and absorb. Players can choose to play as one of ten animal candidates and in multiplayer games of up to four players, can team up with competitors to triumph over the rest of the field. There are multiple rounds within each level, with ongoing stats tracked via the in-game GRR Animal News Network hosted by anchor, Woodchuck Chumley.

The Hail to the Chip hands on demo showed the game to be true to its party game status. In four-person multiplayer action, it was easy to simply grab a controller, choose a character to get a game started. Also easy to master were the game’s controls and the simultaneously similar, yet different feel to each arena. The speed of the game is pretty hectic, so these simplicities go a long way to making the game accessible to players at any level right out of the box. Gathering “clams,” which somehow equates to votes, was nearly as easy to do in an all out button-mashing ‘every animal for his/herself’ scramble as in the more effective option to team up with other player to wreak havoc on the rest of the field. The later is done easily with a simple button push as characters come in contact with each other and there are even on-screen prompts to do so. Each combination of animals creates a different special ability to impose on the rest of the field. In addition, the GRR Animal News Network cutaway scenes and clickable content available between rounds and as unlockables are packed with political humor ranging from political commercials and smear ads for the in-game characters, to satirical renditions of thinly veiled pop figures, for example the short movie of a killer whale hosted talk show titled, “Orcah.”

In the end, Hail to the Chimp is a party game and with a May release date can be counted on to provide all the fun needed during the pre-election rallies and post-election post-mortems that will be raging leading up to Election Day. My only question is why wasn’t it also developed for that heaven on earth for all party games, the Wii. If the game does well I’d expect to see a quick port over to that platform as well.

Check out a video for Hail to the Chimp:

Insecticide (Crackpot Entertainment) - DS; Rated "E10+"

Insecticide is a singleplayer adventure that drops you into a comedic, futuristic, film noir inspired world where insects have evolved into the highest life form on the planet, while humans have dropped a few rungs on the ladder. Here in the bug city of Troi you play as heroine Chrys Lyszt, a six-legged rookie detective investigating a high profile “squashing” at the city’s most lucrative soft drink company, Nectarola. But as always, things are not what they appear and it’s up to you to figure out what’s really going on.

Although Insecticide has several strong points, the most important that came out while playing through the DS demo was its diverse gameplay. Divided equally between Action and Detective (Adventure) levels, this allows for overall play that can be both fast paced as well as relaxed. The game opens with Chrys hot on the trail of a suspect wanted for questioning. Using her two pair of legs, players double hop across a vertically aligned futuristic setting, all the while avoiding and returning fire from the suspect and his cronies. Through the options menu players can choose to use a stylus mode, a button mode or a combination of the two to control Chrys’ movements and the left or right shoulder buttons to fire your weapons. The game features several bio-centric weapons, some of which are user created. The game also makes use of both DS screens; the top for in-game action and the bottom as a sort of insect radar that alerts players to hidden enemies and general direction of play. Although the use of the bottom screen is helpful at first, as you grow accustomed to the controls it seems a bit of a waste of the DS’ limited on-screen real estate. On the other hand a definite nice feature if you should happen to die, is that instead of starting all the way at the beginning of the game you start on the stretch of gameplay where you fell. This along with the nicely rendered cut scenes showing the direction the suspect went in allows players to easily flow through the initial action level and into the detective level that follow. Here players will pry through files and infiltrate areas to uncover evidence crucial to the case, gain access to new areas, meet several of the supporting characters in the game and get a look at the inventory system.

A PC version of the game is in the works that will break the story into two releases, but the DS version is available now, contains the complete story and looks pretty solid. Gamecock was kind enough to provide a review copy, so look for a full review in the days to come.

Check out a video for Insecticide:
Legendary: the Box (Spark Unlimited) – PS3, 360, PC; Rated "RP"

First-person shooters are filled with creatures that someone somewhere spent considerable time dreaming up. Legendary: the Box dispenses with that by pulling its beasties and the building blocks of its story from classic mythology; and by the look of the build shown does it pretty well. Players take on the role of Charles Deckard, a thief who during a botched job at a museum opens up Pandora’s Box. Yes, the actual Pandora’s Box. In doing so he not only releases a slew of creatures such as griffins, werewolves, minotaurs and the like, but also finds himself caught in an endless firefight between two shadowy factions. One of these wants to reseal the box and the creatures with it, while the other hungers to harness the destructive power of the beasts for their own dark purposes. The rub is that having opened the Box, Deckard is the only one with the power to close it.

One of four of the playable demos at EIEIO 2008 Legendary was probably the most impressive. Although only singleplayer, Spark Unlimited developers on hand confirmed that the game will probably support online multiplayer matches of up to 16 players. The level demoed featured Deckard and an AI crew intent on closing the Box, fighting their way through an urban setting resembling London. In his way are both the firepower of the other faction, a passel of werewolves and eventually a boss battle with a minotaur. This level though fairly short was a perfect intro into Legendary’s gameplay. Frenetic to say the least, players are constantly harassed by beasts, in this case werewolves and the much tougher “Alpha Wolves.” Even the most skilled with the game’s preliminary arsenal of machineguns, shotguns, assault rifles, frag grenades and a trusty fireman’s axe are very unlikely to come away unscathed. It also doesn’t help that these creatures can go up and down walls, as well as hurl chunks of the crumbling city buildings at you.

The toughness and sheer numbers of these creatures highlight a few of the givens of the game, the first of which is that players will be hurt and so must master the use of “animus,” an ethereal substance emanating from creatures bodies as you cut off their heads, and yes when it come to werewolves you must take their heads off or they will regenerate. Animus is absorbed by the player with a push of a button and can both replenish health and be harnessed into animus blasts to push back enemies. An equally important aspect of the ferocity of the creatures is that it can be used against the opposite faction in three-way battles. In the demo this was demonstrated in the sporadic caging of Alpha Wolves in various locations. When up against superior numbers of humans, which is often, it’s possible to free an Alpha and let him do the work for you. Just don’t get in his way or expose your comrades to his wrath and be prepared to finish him off or you’ll end up dog meat as well.

Legendary: the Box is tentatively slated for an early June release. We’ll see if the date sticks, but barring a few “red ring of red death” issues on the 360 platform used during the demo the game looks well on its way to completion and should fit nicely into any FPS library.

Check out a video for Legendary: the Box:

Check back shortly for the rest of the upcoming releases from Gamecock

--Hobson's Choice

Read reviews and shop for great bargains at the Gaming Corner. >>>

Last week Austin-based independent video game publisher Gamecock held their second annual Expo for Interactive Entertainment, Independent and Original (EIEIO) media event right in their own backyard in downtown Austin. The previous year’s event was held in Santa Monica and although I can’t speak from personal experience, I can’t imagine that the inaugural event could have stood up to the energy and enthusiasm of EIEIO 2008.

Spread out over two days, EIEIO 2008 featured access to a stable of international game developers working under the Gamecock banner at a few of Austin’s more crowd-pleasing venues, the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema and Stubbs Bar-b-que. Fun town that Austin, especially with the SXSW festival just starting up and with the Gamecock team keeping true to their reputation of being something of a wild bunch. The Alamo Drafthouse is the kind of place that every city should have; beer, movies, food and good company all in one place. And since the drink tickets and a montage of video game related films were flowing freely, so did the fun. It was a hard act to follow, but it was topped the following day as the developers sobered up and talked the talk about their games at Stubbs, one on the premiere open-air venues in Austin. Sure it rained, in fact it poured, but tents, space heaters, bar-b-que with extra sauce, a few bands and a pretty nice lineup of games across most platforms went a long way towards fixing that.

To be fair, I believe that the games lineup this year was more or less the same as in ‘07, barring last year’s Dementium: The Ward and one or two new titles in development. But the fact that several of these return titles--think Hail to the Chimp, Legendary the Box and Insecticide--looked great, played well and maybe more importantly are close to gold status, bodes well for Gamecock’s future, not to mention the development teams involved. I’m looking forward to these three coming out in the months ahead as well as how the others in the lineup proceed through the development process.

Check out an overview of Gamecock’s full upcoming lineup below:

Hail to the Chimp (Wideload Games) – PS3, 360; Rated “T”

Every responsible citizen knows that in an election year your candidate’s platform is paramount, but as the race for the Executive heats up Republicans, Democrats, Independents, and even Naderites will put aside traditional party platforms in favor of their platform of choice as Hail to the Chimp makes its way Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

An Action/Party game centered on the animal kingdom’s rambunctious foray into the democratic process, in Hail to the Chimp players battle each other in singleplayer and multiplayer modes for the right to replace the monarchical tyranny of the “King of Beasts” with what plays out as their own benevolent despotism. Each battle is politically themed--for example, the “Stuff the ballot box” and “Fund Racer” rounds--with the goal being to collect the most “clams” as possible, which includes taking them away from opponents. The more clams you have the more damage you can inflict and absorb. Players can choose to play as one of ten animal candidates and in multiplayer games of up to four players, can team up with competitors to triumph over the rest of the field. There are multiple rounds within each level, with ongoing stats tracked via the in-game GRR Animal News Network hosted by anchor, Woodchuck Chumley.

The Hail to the Chip hands on demo showed the game to be true to its party game status. In four-person multiplayer action, it was easy to simply grab a controller, choose a character to get a game started. Also easy to master were the game’s controls and the simultaneously similar, yet different feel to each arena. The speed of the game is pretty hectic, so these simplicities go a long way to making the game accessible to players at any level right out of the box. Gathering “clams,” which somehow equates to votes, was nearly as easy to do in an all out button-mashing ‘every animal for his/herself’ scramble as in the more effective option to team up with other player to wreak havoc on the rest of the field. The later is done easily with a simple button push as characters come in contact with each other and there are even on-screen prompts to do so. Each combination of animals creates a different special ability to impose on the rest of the field. In addition, the GRR Animal News Network cutaway scenes and clickable content available between rounds and as unlockables are packed with political humor ranging from political commercials and smear ads for the in-game characters, to satirical renditions of thinly veiled pop figures, for example the short movie of a killer whale hosted talk show titled, “Orcah.”

In the end, Hail to the Chimp is a party game and with a May release date can be counted on to provide all the fun needed during the pre-election rallies and post-election post-mortems that will be raging leading up to Election Day. My only question is why wasn’t it also developed for that heaven on earth for all party games, the Wii. If the game does well I’d expect to see a quick port over to that platform as well.

Check out a video for Hail to the Chimp:

Insecticide (Crackpot Entertainment) - DS; Rated "E10+"

Insecticide is a singleplayer adventure that drops you into a comedic, futuristic, film noir inspired world where insects have evolved into the highest life form on the planet, while humans have dropped a few rungs on the ladder. Here in the bug city of Troi you play as heroine Chrys Lyszt, a six-legged rookie detective investigating a high profile “squashing” at the city’s most lucrative soft drink company, Nectarola. But as always, things are not what they appear and it’s up to you to figure out what’s really going on.

Although Insecticide has several strong points, the most important that came out while playing through the DS demo was its diverse gameplay. Divided equally between Action and Detective (Adventure) levels, this allows for overall play that can be both fast paced as well as relaxed. The game opens with Chrys hot on the trail of a suspect wanted for questioning. Using her two pair of legs, players double hop across a vertically aligned futuristic setting, all the while avoiding and returning fire from the suspect and his cronies. Through the options menu players can choose to use a stylus mode, a button mode or a combination of the two to control Chrys’ movements and the left or right shoulder buttons to fire your weapons. The game features several bio-centric weapons, some of which are user created. The game also makes use of both DS screens; the top for in-game action and the bottom as a sort of insect radar that alerts players to hidden enemies and general direction of play. Although the use of the bottom screen is helpful at first, as you grow accustomed to the controls it seems a bit of a waste of the DS’ limited on-screen real estate. On the other hand a definite nice feature if you should happen to die, is that instead of starting all the way at the beginning of the game you start on the stretch of gameplay where you fell. This along with the nicely rendered cut scenes showing the direction the suspect went in allows players to easily flow through the initial action level and into the detective level that follow. Here players will pry through files and infiltrate areas to uncover evidence crucial to the case, gain access to new areas, meet several of the supporting characters in the game and get a look at the inventory system.

A PC version of the game is in the works that will break the story into two releases, but the DS version is available now, contains the complete story and looks pretty solid. Gamecock was kind enough to provide a review copy, so look for a full review in the days to come.

Check out a video for Insecticide:
Legendary: the Box (Spark Unlimited) – PS3, 360, PC; Rated "RP"

First-person shooters are filled with creatures that someone somewhere spent considerable time dreaming up. Legendary: the Box dispenses with that by pulling its beasties and the building blocks of its story from classic mythology; and by the look of the build shown does it pretty well. Players take on the role of Charles Deckard, a thief who during a botched job at a museum opens up Pandora’s Box. Yes, the actual Pandora’s Box. In doing so he not only releases a slew of creatures such as griffins, werewolves, minotaurs and the like, but also finds himself caught in an endless firefight between two shadowy factions. One of these wants to reseal the box and the creatures with it, while the other hungers to harness the destructive power of the beasts for their own dark purposes. The rub is that having opened the Box, Deckard is the only one with the power to close it.

One of four of the playable demos at EIEIO 2008 Legendary was probably the most impressive. Although only singleplayer, Spark Unlimited developers on hand confirmed that the game will probably support online multiplayer matches of up to 16 players. The level demoed featured Deckard and an AI crew intent on closing the Box, fighting their way through an urban setting resembling London. In his way are both the firepower of the other faction, a passel of werewolves and eventually a boss battle with a minotaur. This level though fairly short was a perfect intro into Legendary’s gameplay. Frenetic to say the least, players are constantly harassed by beasts, in this case werewolves and the much tougher “Alpha Wolves.” Even the most skilled with the game’s preliminary arsenal of machineguns, shotguns, assault rifles, frag grenades and a trusty fireman’s axe are very unlikely to come away unscathed. It also doesn’t help that these creatures can go up and down walls, as well as hurl chunks of the crumbling city buildings at you.

The toughness and sheer numbers of these creatures highlight a few of the givens of the game, the first of which is that players will be hurt and so must master the use of “animus,” an ethereal substance emanating from creatures bodies as you cut off their heads, and yes when it come to werewolves you must take their heads off or they will regenerate. Animus is absorbed by the player with a push of a button and can both replenish health and be harnessed into animus blasts to push back enemies. An equally important aspect of the ferocity of the creatures is that it can be used against the opposite faction in three-way battles. In the demo this was demonstrated in the sporadic caging of Alpha Wolves in various locations. When up against superior numbers of humans, which is often, it’s possible to free an Alpha and let him do the work for you. Just don’t get in his way or expose your comrades to his wrath and be prepared to finish him off or you’ll end up dog meat as well.

Legendary: the Box is tentatively slated for an early June release. We’ll see if the date sticks, but barring a few “red ring of red death” issues on the 360 platform used during the demo the game looks well on its way to completion and should fit nicely into any FPS library.

Check out a video for Legendary: the Box:

Check back shortly for the rest of the upcoming releases from Gamecock

--Hobson's Choice

Read reviews and shop for great bargains at the Gaming Corner. >>>