CO-OP arrives on Revision3! The show's premiere aptly focuses on just why the video game has reached such heights of appeal: variety. Is it merely an insurmountable task or is it nigh impossible to find two games that are more polar opposites than Killzone 2 and Noby Noby Boy? From the creator of the universally beloved Katamari Damacy, Noby Noby Boy is such a simplistic experience that it defies explanation save by complex sentences. Luckily, the always brilliant Tiff Chow was available to raise the level of discourse which would undoubtedly have ensued (see: immature jokes involving the words "stretch" and "length") had Cesar and Matt been allowed to carry on the conversation alone. Rainbows, eating, and pooping may not be your thing (just watch the Noby segment, you'll get it), but perhaps gritty, realistic, eye-meltingly gorgeous first person shooter, is? Our friends John Davison and Will Tuttle join Ryan in our critical assessment of what may be the PS3's largest contribution to the console FPS pedigree. Of course before we did all this we had to get the band back together! Being the first of the month, half our team--Jason, Rob, and Cesar--went on to find new jobs in order to pay their rent. Can we convince them to come back in time to land the deal with Revision3? The fact that this show description exists at all is probably spoiler enough on THAT front. Sorry about that.
The latest attempt to prevent the Zombocalypse is proven successful. GameSpy's Sterling McGarvey traverses Resident Evil 5 entirely in single player while Ryan and Matt, appropriately, instigate their infected extermination co-op style. The Real Time Strategy genre of gaming usually gets short shrift in the console sector. Some say it's impossible and you shouldn't even try. Halo Wars calls that out for being the dirty, dirty lie that it is and JayFresh brings over Dan "Shoe" Hsu, Patrick Klepek, and Anthony Gallegos for the exposè. Any new company, of course, must sell itself in order to expand it's brand identity. This was the task set forth for Jason, Rob, and Cesar this week and boy did they...um...deliver?
This week, it's all Wii. Yeah, surprised us, too. It started with the emergence of Mad World, a thoroughly adult title on a console most of the hard core have dismissed as a toy for the elderly and exclusively for the "family friendly." David Ellis and Kat Bailey share with Ryan their concern over the corruption of today's youth through violence in the media (not really). It's not usually our "thing" to cover games that were released several months ago, but World of Goo is worth making an exception for. While we know we're a bit late to the party on this one, we felt we had to bring it up just in case you might have missed it. It's just that good. Tiff Chow agrees. She, Ryan, and Matt settle over some delicious, gooey ice cream to celebrate the game's finer points. And, also in the might-have-overlooked category is the just released Bit.Trip Beat. No, that's not a typo--the extra period belongs there. It must be seen to be believed as any description is inadequate to the experience. It's pong, but for this generation with elements of rhythm gaming grafted on that pulls together the modern and the retro in an even keel of gaming awesome. We knew we had to at least give it a quick first look in this week's show. Of course it took some effort to find our Wii's and dust them off for this episode. Adventures documented within!
One may ask oneself if it is indeed possible to wrap up an entire weeks worth of game announcements and industry news in one, approximately half-hour show. It ain't easy. Fortunately we had the help of X-Play's Adam Sessler, The Totally Rad Show's Jeff Cannata, WhatTheyPlay's John Davison, formerly MTV's Patrick Klepek, and GameSpy's Will Tuttle and Sterling McGarvey. In a discussion literally of the round-table variety they all join us to boil down GDC into a delicious, spicy reduction sauce of what's important to all of us as gamers. Contained within: Infamous, the OnLive announcements, Fat Princess, PixelJunk Eden: Encore, Punch Out!!, ExciteBots, The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, and wrap-ups on the notable moments of the Keynotes, the GDC award ceremonies and a shout-out to some Independent Games Festival favorites.
As per the usual, the majority of the excitement coming out of GDC stems from the life and energy of the Independent Games Festival. It's a menagerie of clever ideas executed with a polish and precision some established game studios even have a hard time hitting. Made with love and passion--and a desire to win the $20,000 grand prize--the IGF showcases the best of the best in this generations' indie development community. We start out by crawling the IGF with Phil Fish, one of the winners of last year's IGF competition for his upcoming game Fez and a judge in this year's competition. It must have been tough to pick a winner! After you watch our show, you'll see why. Amongst the games he had to choose from: TAG: The Power of Paint. A unique, FPS puzzler where the colors of paint you spray on the surfaces of the environment cause your character to run, jump, and climb walls to reach your destination. The Unfinished Swan. Again, a paint or ink metaphor where you being in an entirely white world and must splatter black ink around in order to reveal the geometry through which you must navigate. Cortex Commabnd. In intensely complex, real-time game of programmable bots and war machines. Highly customizable and backed up by eight years of development, this is one to watch. Feist. As beautiful as they come, it's a charming side-scroller reminiscent of a Miyazaki film. It has to be seen to be believed. Blueberry Garden won the Seamus McNally Grand Prize at the IGF netting the creator, Erik Svedäng $30,000 (Mountain Dew popped on an extra $10k) to finish up his delightful project. Exploration and discovery are the themes here and let's hope that cash is put to good use to getting the final game out the door. We also need to thank Attract Mode for throwing a video game art party where art inspired by and on the subject of video games is featured prominently in the Giant Robot store/gallery here in San Francisco. The event featured pairings of Giant Robot
Love is a 200-player, persistent world in which players have complete control over the very landscape. Follow that by Motorstorm: Pacific Rift and Henry Hatsworth and we've truly run the gamut of gaming. Eskil Steenberg is the sole developer of the game Love. He dropped by the week of GDC to give an extended demo of this 200-player, persistent, and uniquely beautiful game world in which players have complete control--even over the very landscape. Created with tools of his own making, including a 3D modeler and renderer, Love is an incredible example of just how far a solo project can go. Of course that doesn't preclude the incredible outcome that can be achieved with a dedicated team delivering the latest and greatest in heart-stopping visuals. Motorstorm: Pacific Rift fits that bill and then sucker-punches you with a visceral racing experience that is just so damn good we felt it was worth bringing up just in case you missed it in the holiday crush of last year. Ryan, JayFresh, and Matt relive their previous week's harrowing journeys over the rivers and through the volcanoes. In a deceptively simple stroke of genre-bending, Henry Hatsworth is likely to tickle that retro-loving vibe in all old-school gamers as well as remind them of a fundamental fact: old-school games are hard! Still, John Davison, Tiff Chow, and Patrick Klepek were kind enough to come by and share their Hatsworth-y experiences with Ryan and make the case as to why this one shouldn't be missed. Difficulty, though, doesn't seem to be something Jason has all that much patience with and he's forced to make a deal with the devil (in this case, Cesar) in order to progress onward with Rhythm Heaven on his DS.
The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena has a lot going for it. 1) It's two, two, TWO games in one! The package comes with an updated, widescreen version of Escape from Butcher Bay. 2) It's the best movie-to-game license, ever, and 3) we had some great guests come join us to talk about it! Brad Shoemaker from Giant Bomb joins Philip Kollar, Matt, Ryan and Cesar to worship and the blood-stained shrine of Riddick. In what many thought would be a return to form, Grand Thef Auto: Chinatown Wars proves to be a grand adventure in it's own right, with lessons learned from it's big brothers on the big screens and nostalgia born of the series' storied past. John Davison, Sterling McGarvey, Ray Barnholt, and Matt gave it a go and found it largely able to stand up proudly amongst its pedigree. It's CO-OP's first foray into the amazing world of iPhone gaming! There's an ocean of content we could cover, but we've chosen a few of our favorites to highlight in this episode: Karma Star, geoDefense, Topple 2, Drop7, Eliss, and Field Runners. Making CO-OP isn't cheap, so its makers have to be! Fortunately, the Mission District in San Francisco affords a multitude of cheap eats and cheaper desserts!
It's Rhythm Heaven, Battlefield Heroes, Flight Control and we take the extra effort to import the Final Fantasy XIII Demo straight from Japan! Chris Kohler of Wired.com's Game|Life is the featured guest this week in our chat about Rhythm Heaven for the DS. Just as avid a fan of the game as Jason and Matt are (and much better at it to boot), Chris was kind enough to hang out with us in our hallway (it was the only way to avoid the heat) and go over the game's many finer points. We also continue our coverage of iPhone favorites and Jason gives Chris a quick demo of Flight Control. Final Fantasy fans everywhere have probably heard of (or at least made fun of) the animated feature Advent Children. Given it's rather lackluster reception, why would we take the trouble to import it from Japan? It comes with a playable demo of Finaly Fantasy XIII, duh! Actually, it's more like the FFXIII demo comes with Advent Children, if you catch our drift. Ryan, Cesar, and JayFresh battle the bewildering heat snap in San Francisco to enjoy the demo's splendors. The free-to-play model is one that we here at Area 5 can get behind, but it may have a few pitfalls to overcome in the US Market. Still Battlefield Heroes is a fantastic experiment to start with and JayFresh and Matt both seem to agree that it brings back the fun of DICE's original Codename: Eagle while not throwing out the best parts of the Battlefield series. We're anxious for the final release, but we had to tell you about our impressions of the Beta! San Francisco is known for it's freakishly weird weather, and this week was no exception. Suddenly jumping up to 90-degrees for a few days, the only place to escape the heat was in the hallway leading up to Matt, Ryan, and JayFresh's apartment. We know it's a bit echo-y, but for our sanity--nay, our very lives we had to make use of the space!
Red Faction: Guerilla, Fat Princess, and Phantasy Star Portable. David Ellis graced us with his presence for the Fat Princess discussion and the crew spends the day in the park. The more things change, the more things stay the same. It's another year in gaming which means more capture-the-flag, multiplayer gameplay. Luckily for us there's Fat Princess; a downloadable title for the PS3 which mixes that ancient (in terms of gaming history) concept with some RTS and throws on bit of cute and a lot of violent on top of some beat-em-up to give you the most unique multiplayer experience so far this year. David Ellis steps out of the 1UP offices for some lunch-time discussion with Matt and Cesar about the great time they're all having with the Beta. In another early look, the demo for Red Faction: Guerilla has hit and JayFresh finds the rampant destruction too exciting to contain. He immediately calls Rob to share. Finaly, thanks to GameFly, Matt and JayFresh get Phanatasy Star Portable delivered and it lives up to it's legacy with some classic, collect-a-thon gameplay. And even if the story and characters leave very much to be desired the rest of the experience is solid enough to recommend
X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Demigod, Excitebots: Trick Racing, Trixel. We make it up to Jason for leaving him behind last week whine reminiscing about our recent gaming conquests. The movie may have rubbed some people the wrong way, but at least the game version of X-Men Origins: Wolverine serves up all the delicious violence fans of the comic have come to expect from their indestructible hero. G4TV.com's Sterling McGarvey joins JayFresh to share tales of rampant decapitation and Wolverine's Limb Removal Service. Demigod may look like an RTS, but it has more in common with Diablo and the venerable Warcraft III mod Defense of the Ancients. Current.com's new online gaming figurehead Philip Kollar laments the game's utter lack of a tutorial or in-game help with Matt. The Wii seems to be hitting it's stride this year with yet another non-Mario, non-Zelda, non-Metroid release that may serve to pull in a wider audience of kart-racing enthusiasts. Excitebots: Trick Racing is what Excitetruck should have been and is ROBOTS on top of that! Dan "Shoe" Hsu comes along for the Area 5 BBQ and hashes it out with Ryan over whether this game is all it's cracked up to be. This week's iPhone shoutout goes to the brain-meltingly difficult puzzler Trixel. Matt takes a few minutes out of stuffing his face to explain it to Shoe.
Bionic Commando, Plants vs. Zombies, Zeno Clash, and Sway for the iPhone. Jeff Green, Brad Shoemaker, Tiff Chow, and David Ellis are the featured guests while the Area 5 team drills for E3. Generally, we can get behind this phenomenon of the "series reboot," and Bionic Commando is latest to receive the treatment, but is it the greatest? There seems to be some dissension in the ranks! 1UP.com's David Ellis hashes it out with Ryan. PopCap is a powerhouse developer that is far too often overlooked by the "hard core" gamer. EA's Jeff Green lays it out, rightly, that it's time for that to stop as Plants vs. Zombies is something even the most tenured of game developers should weep over having not made it. Unequivocally, JayFresh, Tiff Chow, and Cesar agree. Another title that would be tragic to overlook is the first-person brawler Zeno Clash. Dripping "unique" from its very core, it's a game that Brad Shoemaker, Matt, and Ryan all agree should be experienced in it's entirety by anyone with the means to do so. The iPhone has plenty of unique offerings all it's own, but only a few really feel suited exclusively for the platform and Sway is definitely in that category. Jason and Cesar share their love with one another. For the game, that is. E3 is the fist week of June and as it's the largest video games expo on the planet we will be there in force! Or will we? Not unless JayFresh can whip the crew into shape in time! It's just like Friday Night Lights but with pasty gamer-critics instead hard-bodied football stars.
E3 2009 Predictions, Patapon 2 and the Punch-Out!! rebirth round out this week's show! Next week CO-OP will have THREE shows and THREE live shows from the floor of E3! E3 is the biggest, most action-packed convention of the year! It's every gamers' dream to go and a nightmare for every member of the gaming press. Still, we love it! And we're going to do everything we can to bring you with us! Next week CO-OP will have three recorded/edited shows and three LIVE shows! Check out the full schedule for both us and the Totally Rad Show guys at http://revision3.com/e3. We take a bit of a breather at The Napper Tandy again, this week, and talk with G4's Patrick Klepek about what we're most excited to see at E3 next week. The big three, Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo are on everybody's lips, but there may be a few surprises in store! Follow our predictions and then share with us on our blog or on the Revision3 forums what you're most excited about seeing! Patrick was also kid enough to hang around after our E3 chat and talk with Matt about the enigmatically difficult Patapon 2. They both agree that it may be too much for the typical adult life to handle, but there's still real genius there! It's not every day you get to have a conversation with 1UP's David Ellis and Scott Sharkey! They do us a solid and come by to share the love over Nintendo's latest nostalgic rehas: PUNCH OUT!!. And, yes, those two exclamation points are in the game title, we didn't just add them for emphasis.
It's CO-OP's first E3 special! We document our road-trip down to LA and our impressions of Microsoft's impressive showing at their press event on Monday. There was almost too much to remember: Modern Warfare 2, Shadow Complex, Left 4 Dead 2, Splinter Cell: Conviction, Forza Motorsport 3, Halo: ODST, Final Fantasy XIII (with a quick look at the Odin Summons!), and Project Natal, the code-name for the new, controller-less interface Microsoft R&D has been cooking up and for which Lionhead Studios's Peter Molyneux had an impressive demo of an interactive AI, Milo, capable of voice, face, and motion recognition through the Natal stereoscopic camera. Whew! And E3 hasn't even officially BEGUN yet! We'll be appearing on the RevisionE3 Live Stream starting today and every day of E3 starting at 4pm and we'll have two more special episodes of CO-OP before the week is out! For the full schedule of our coverage, go to http://revision3.com/e3/. And remember to come back at 4pm, PST!
Now both Sony and Nintendo have had their say and we follow it up with our say about their say. Or something. Dan "Shoe" Hsu from BitMob joins us for some thoughts on Metroid other M, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Super Mario Galaxy 2, and, of course, Women's Murder Club: Games of Passion from Nintendo. Sony, of course, dealt a full hand with God of War 3, The Last Guardian, Uncharted 2, Mod Nation Racers, Assassin's Creed 2, Gran Toruismo PSP, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Maker, Sony's new motion controller for the PS3, and the worst-kept-secret of E3: the PSP Go. Keep an eye out at http://revision3.com/e3 for updates on our joint CO-OP and TRS live streams happening today and tomorrow and the final E3 CO-OP special going live tomorrow!
Finally we had some time to look at the E3 show proper! Hands-on time with the Sony PSP Go, God of War 3, Soul Calibur: Broken Destinies, Gran Turismo PSP, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Scribblenauts, Split/Second, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. There are some big names in there, but E3 always has some great surprises and Sribblenauts and Split/Second are exactly those. Also, it's usually dangerous to just let Jason run free with a camera on him.
Before meandering our way up the desolate (and yet amazingly beautiful) 5 freeway from San Francisco to California, we had one, final, incredible day at E3. Getting to play some Left 4 Dead was certainly a highlight, but the impromptu Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age: Origins hands-on experiences pretty much blew our pants off. Yes, in front of Drs. Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk, the two heads of BioWare that, prior inviting us to come spend time with ME2 and DA:O graced us with a solid interview surrounding both those products and their upcomming MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic. Tony Hawk: Ride introduced yet another plastic peripheral you'll likely have to find storage space for and a couple of XBox Live games, Shadow Complex and 'Splosion Man surprised us with strong showings from out of nowhere. Next week's show will be a compilation of some of the best moments from the live streams we had at E3 and then the following week we'll be back with our premiere of Season 02! Hard to believe we've already gone through a complete season of CO-OP. We couldn't have done it without you!
For those fans that may have missed our joint CO-OP/Totally Rad Show live shows at E3, we bring you the two biggest highlights, live demos of HALO ODST and Splinter Cell: Conviction. Can you believe there's already been a full season of CO-OP? 16 full episodes of gaming awesome! We're on a break for one, brief week to recover from E3, but that doesn't mean we can just sit around gaming! Together with our friends at The Totally Rad Show, we pulled together some live shows at this last E3. Those of you subscribing just to our RSS/iTunes feed might have missed some of the highlights, so while we're taking our mid-season break, we thought we'd bring you the two live demos we had on-set: HALO ODST and Splinter Cell: Conviction. The Bungie guys even took a few extra moments to show off some of the HALO ODST multiplayer for us! Big thanks to everyone that made all of our E3 coverage such a success! In case you missed any of it and would like to check it out (including the full, archived versions of the live shows), go to http://revision3com/e3/ and partake! We'll be back next week our with premiere of Season 02!
It's a theme show! Three open-world games released so close to one another, how could we not? Prototype, Infamous, and Red Faction fight it out in a cage match of awesome! It's our Season 02 premiere! And, of course, with any premiere you have to go big. In this case, going big seemed best exemplified by diving into three open-world games. First, Prototype. Will Tuttle (GameSpy) and Anthony Gallegos (GameSpy and Eat-Sleep-Game) join JayFresh in a rather candid discussion of the game's successes and, unfortunately, it's several faults. Infamous, on the other hand, seems more universally loved in spite of it being a bit rough around the edges. Anthony jumps in on this one, joined by his RebelFM cohort, Tyler Barber, to chat with Matt about what makes this urban shocker (har har) such a delight Finally, in what may be one of the biggest surprises of the year (so far), Red Faction: Guerrilla adds two parts jammazing to one heaping gallon of explosion-sauce to create what Matt, John Davison (What They Play), and (roudning out the RebelFM/Eat-Sleep-Game cast) Arthur Geis agree to be a recipe for a game so fun it's difficult to do it justice in one, brief segment.
Showing up today, Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood is a force to be reckoned with while the multiplayer beta for Uncharted 2 and the iPhone's Star Defense shine on. Most action movie genres have seen more than their fair share of gaming allusions. The western, historically, has been sadly underrepresented. The powers that be (also known as "game developers") seem to be rectifying that this year and the first of the breed to make its way into our yearning grip is Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood. Boasting beauty as well as grit, it's a trek that JayFresh and Matt loved while Cesar held up as an example of a direction to go in gaming if not really a paragon example. It's small wonder that in anticipation of the full game's release, Greg Ford, Tyler Barber, and JayFresh were eager to jump into the multiplayer beta for Uncharted 2. It seemed a pleasant surprise all around. Ryan and Cesar, recently back from France, carried with them the plague. Still down for the count, Ryan is grateful, however, for his iPhone and the opportunities it affords, not the least of which is the most-excellent Star Defense. It may seem a small wonder that there's yet another tower defense game on the iPhone, but this one offers unique twists that make it more than worth your while. And, perhaps inspired by his cohorts, Jason takes a sick day to do what he does best. That's right: DANCE PARTY.
Check it out! We introduce a brand new series! GAMER CRIBS! First up, that mega-hottie, CESAR QUINTERO. AWW YEAH! Also: Wii Sports Resort (is awesome), Overlord 2, and Real Racing for the iPhone. Occasionally we have an episode that features one person over all others. This show is ALL CESAR ALL THE TIME BABY, WOOOOOooo! His smiling countenance appears in each segment and in our first-ever Gamer Cribs. We'd like to thank MTV for all the lame cross-fades, ridiculous camera angles and for setting a standard of reusing the same footage over and over again; saved us a lot of time and brainpower. So, here's something that was kind of a shocker for some of us: Wii Sports Resort is genuinely awesome. Yeah, a few of us are kinda cynical when it comes to the Wii "waggle," but the addition of Wii motion plus impressed Cesar, Matt, and JayFresh show much after our hands-on time down at Nintendo of America HQ that we just had to share. Overlord 2 is a sequel people have been frothing at the bit over ever since its announcement. The much-beloved premiere of the series is a paragon of evil pastimes for gamers everywhere and thus this latest incarnation comes with some heavy hype baggage. Matt and Cesar are both new to the series and while Matt remains less-than-impressed (at least partially due to his frustrating experience with the PC controls), Cesar's evil genes were tickled pink thanks to the baby seal clubbing and mayhem exercises. Our good friend from GameSpy, RebelFM host and Eat. Sleep. Game magnate Anthony Gallegos was our sole guest on the show this week during this segment of the show and held up his end as an ardent supporter of the franchise. And, finally, Cesar rounds out his appearances on this week's show with a quick, and insistent, hands-on of Real Racing for the iPhone. Both an impressive technical and visual achievement, Ryan didn't have to press very hard to convince Cesar to give the game a try.
Matt's little bro makes a stop in town, we take a trip into the 100th WiiWare title with an interview of the creator of the Bit.Trip series and Rolando 2 rolls onto our iPhones. There still seems to be some doubt out there as to the legitimacy of the iPhone as a "proper" gaming platform. It supports indie developers and full-fleged, iPhone exclusive development houses like NGMoco, however, and the distinction between the iPhone and it's seemingly-more-legitimate cousins from Sony and Nintendo is increasingly thin. Rolando 2 is the latest expression of this factoid and it's a big enough experience to merit it's own, full-length feature spot in this week's episode. Tiff Chow drops by to share her thoughts with Ryan. Can the classics come back? Cellfactor: Psychokinetic Wars seems to think so in it's unabashed homage to the FPS, multiplayer experiences of yesteryear. An amazing feat as a full-on multiplayer experience via XBox Live. It throws in a lot of new ideas, but how well-executed are they? BitMob's Dan "Shoe" Hsu talks it up with Ryan and Jason on how the experience measures up. Lastly but perhaps most-awesomely, we got some sit-down time with Gaijin Games founder Alex Neuse to talk at length about the 100th WiiWare title, the excellent second-part in the ongoing Bit.Trip series, Bit.Trip Core. It's out now, so go download it already!
Area 5 takes a day for R&D and Matt's brother exacts his revenge. We also preview 'Splosion Man, review Trine, and talk Critter Crunch for the iPhone. The side-scrolling action game is one of the oldest genres in gaming. Gamers have battled left to right in countless adventures and so there's something to be said for the ones that can still impress and feel like something new. Trine is one of those games and so Matt is joined by Giant Bomb's Brad Shoemaker to discuss why you should be checking out this awesome platformer. Another side-scoller that stood out is 'Splosion Man, a game where you self combust to jump to platforms, avoid obstacles, and terrorize scientists. After playing out a few stages, Jay and Jason meet up to share their thoughts. Critter Crunch has been available for a long time on iPhone (it even has a PSN version on the way) but Matt's still prone to get into a game or six. Maybe the puzzle-solving stimulates his intellectual side. Maybe feeding tiny creatures to larger ones is his idea of a good time. Jay Frechette wants to see what the fuss is about and joins Matt in seeing why Critter Crunch is still Matt's go-to iPhone game.
Rob gets yet another lesson in San Francisco parking procedures, we assemble a squad to talk about Battlefield 1943 and the full version of Wii Sports Resort leaves a bit to be desired With a franchise as storied as the Battlefield games, it's only natural to believe that rehash, even at a discounted price, would seem little more than a nostalgic cash-in. But, if it works on us for every classic Nintendo property ever, why not one of the lauded and favored of the Double-You-Double-You-Eye-Eye era of multiplayer mayhem du yester-year? While BitMob's Dan "Shoe" Hsu finds Battlefield 1943 to be less-than, the greater-than team of Kat Bailey, Tyler Barber from RebelFM and a Eat. Sleep. Game., GameSpy's Will Tuttle and Anthony Gallegos (Anthony, of course, also of RebelFM fame), and our own Jason Bertrand form-up a squad to storm the beaches of awesometown. Yes, we know Wii Sports Resort was a recent feature on CO-OP, but now that we've had a chance to really dig into the final, retail version it's clear which events are successful and which lack imagination. Shoe stays on to talk with JayFresh and Matt about the could-have-beens.
Living in the Mission in San Francisco has rewards beyond the cheap and the savory. We show you some of the best while our guests join us to talk about classics reborn. Ask, and ye shall receive. While we have not the power to grant boons and favors of the supernatural, we can, indeed, cover the games you wish us to cover. Ghostbusters has been a request directed at us ever since it's release, and we've finally found the power-house guests necessary to give it proper due: Phil Theobald from PlayerOne Podcast along with GameSpy's Will Tuttle and Arthur Gies of Eat. Sleep. Game. fame. Every show seems to have a theme, whether or not we consciously intend one and with the classics being reborn around every corner, this week's show is perhaps better themed than most. The Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition is double-featured with Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 1 One: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal in a blast-from-the-past especiál. Insidiously long names aside, we're always grateful to Tiff Chow for dropping by and we're especiál-ly glad for 1UP's Justin Haywald making his CO-OP debut! The final, classic-resurfaced game in this week's show is a testament to one of the most venerable genres of software-gaming: the shooter. Yes, Space Invaders is back, in the iPhone, with an intensely aural and action-ridden experience best seen (and heard) to be believed. Space Invaders Infinity Gene may be a classic reborn, but it's thoroughly modern in its execution and should not be overlooked! And what way to not-overlook iPhone games than to play them while eating backon-apple-maple donuts, thai-chili-lime ice cream and breakfast-for-lunch? It's a tour of San Francisco's Mission District's best delectable dispensaries!
Old tech, new tech, it all has the same capacity to annoy Rob. That didn't stop us from downloading the Gears of War DLC, Fat Princess and Wipeout HD Fury, though. Fat Princess, as an affordable, downloadable, multiplayer-focused title has a lot of parallels with Battlefield 1943. Unfortunately those parallels continue with similar network and matchmaking problems that are simply not conducive to the most positive of play experiences. Fortunately, though, Fat Princess has many a charm which will continue to keep David Ellis, Ryan, and, of course, Jason all agree that there's very little not to love! Those of you familiar with Ryan's video game critic career will be long aware of his deep and abiding love for the Wipeout series in all its iterations and on all its platforms. The new expansion for Wipeout HD, entited: Fury is but the latest in the line of ever-broadening improvements for the storied franchise and Matt can do very little but agree with Ryan as to its sublime qualities.
HALO may be famous for bringing the big guns (in terms of sales and in the more literal sense), but Facebook and the iPhone are 800 lb. gorillas all their own. The "Mythic Disc" for HALO 3: ODST was the topic of a Bungie hosted multiplayer event to which our beloved JayFresh and our slightly-less-beloved Rob got to attend, much to the jealous chagrin of the rest of the Area 5 team. They returned, however, with exclusive footage ('cause it's actually of Rob playing, not that other people don't have footage of them playing) of them having a pretty damned good time. It's crazy to think of the iPhone is generating new genres in gaming, but that's exactly what's happening thanks to the nature of the device. "Line Drawing" games are now a "thing" and Harbor Master is that genre's latest and greatest incarnation. Rob, Jason, and Cesar each fret over the intricate strategies of getting their little virtual boats to and from port safely. Gears of War 2 & lunch time. And perhaps not quite an emerging genre so much as a force of nature, Facebook's gaming scene is rapidly approaching mythical status if one looks at the numbers alone. We give a quick rundown of the biggest and best of Facebook's gaming offerings, and while we know we've barely scratched the surface of what there is to offer, we luckily had Gareth Davis, Facebook's Platform Manager on hand to chat with Matt about what makes Facebook such an attractive platform for game developers and publishers.
Little King's Story provides an adorable grind to world domination while Shadow Complex and Wolfenstein take old ideas and add a new coat of paint. Matt's been taking over the world one territory at a time in Little King's Story for weeks. This Pikmin-like adventure looked simple at first but ended up spanning over dozens of hours of invading, building, and decorating in service of building a new kingdom. Anthony Gallegos and Alice Liang join Matt to chat about whether the task ended up being more than they bargained for. We also tread familiar waters to check out Wolfenstein RPG for the iPhone. Does shooting Nazis (in the standard forms of, soldiers, zombies, and skeletons) in corridors blend well with role-playing elements? Ryan and Cesar take a break from laundry to discuss. Drawing obvious inspiration from games like Metroid and Castlevania, it's debated whether Shadow Complex is an homage or rip-off. David Ellis and Dan Hsu came by to discuss with Matt and Cesar that while this revamped side-scroller may feel familiar, it's scope and gameplay make it one of the best downloadable games of the year.
To know the future you must know the past and we prove it this week by delving into a classic. We keep it current thanks to some Nazi-Zombie killing and insect-adventure on the iPhone. Yes, it is 1994 all over again thanks to JayFresh missing out on the Metroid classics the first time around. Such outrages will not stand! It was a good opportunity to bring back a classic and give it the full, CO-OP treatment. Would you want to see us cover more classic games like this, or should we just think of this as a one-off? Your feedback matters! Remakes of classic franchises are all the rage these days, and Wolfenstein is certainly the latest of these. Fortunately it's taken some cues from modern game design and proves to be able to stand proudly amongst its competition. BitMob's Dan Hsu, Arthur Gies from RebelFM & Eat. Sleep. Game. and 1UP's Justin Haywald talk it over with JayFresh. The iPhone continues to deliver evolutions in game design that are surprising and Spider is no exception. Ryan, Jason, and Cesar are all suitably impressed by the game's structure and unique approach to narrative. Our recent coverage of Shadow Complex struck some extremely nostalgic chords here at Area 5 and when we found out that JayFresh's gaming education lacked a certain, related, classic franchise we knew it was time to bring back the past and present it as fresh! No pun intended. Also from 1UP and her own, classic-gaming blog Dusty Pixels, Jade Kraus pops in to talk with Dan Hsu, Justin Haywald, Ryan, and Fresh about just what a momentous occasion it was to experience Super Metroid for the first time!
The Dark Knight cometh, the iPhone gets it's first real, GTA clone, and the re-release of the best, "this-generation" Metroids improves upon the best. There's been a lot of Metroid in the gaming world lately. Games that are inspired by and a resurfacing of the classics. We all know how JayFresh was introduces to the Super Nintendo versions last week and now, it seems, the Super Nintendo has sunk its claws into him and won't let go. In a near-perfect representation of the Batman universe, Arkham Asylum offers up far more game than anyone thought possible. Ryan, Matt, and JayFresh have, admittedly, a bit of a love-fest over what's really the best Batman game to date. The iPhone may very well be more powerful than developers realize. This game proves that not only can you bring a near-GTA experience to the iPhone, but that it can be done with controls that are fairly intuitive and with gameplay straight out of the early PS2-era. It was a surprise to both Jason and Cesar that such a game even existed, but, as they mention, it's not without its flaws. Perhaps it would have been more awesome to have a new Metroid Prime, but re-releasing the entire trilogy, complete with improved, Wii controls a la Corruption is nothing to sneeze at. Ryan and special guest Torrey Holbrook Walker (you may recognize that name from our music credits) step out into the depth of night in order to discuss the finer points of what makes this series so particularly special.
It's been 10 years since the launch of the much-beloved Dreamcast and as such we had the perfect excuse for a retrospective. Multiple blasts from the past combine with a bunch of memories our fans at PAX shared with us. You may have heard that PAX happened! We were there. Well, a couple of us were and the rest via web-cam. Still, it was a great opportunity for us to share Dreamcast memories for this week's retrospective. Being that the console is 10 years old, was cut down in its prime, and is still a favorite amongst its fans, we felt this show was our best opportunity to give tribute to one of the greats from yesteryear. Fans at our CO-OP panel at PAX had some awesome stories to share along with some random gamers hanging out on the sea of beanbags that are the Handheld Lounges at every PAX. Thank you so much to everyone at the show that took time out of that awesome experience to share their stories with us! Join in the memories as we go over 15 of the best and most unique games to grace the swirly console and our young lives! Here's a list of the games we touch on in this week's episode: Soulcalibur Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 Jet Set Radio (& Future) Shenmue 1 & 2 Sonic Adventure Power Stone 1 & 2 Skies of Arcadia Phantasy Star Online Samba De Amigo Tennis 2K2 Crazy Taxi Seaman House of the Dead Typing of the Dead Chu Chu Rocket
Jason and Matt stop by the XNA's Indie Games booth to chat with Microsoft's Kathleen Sanders and we review the Fall's first blockbusters: Halo 3: ODST and Beatles Rock Band Halo 3: ODST is a side-story placing you in the role role of an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper on a mission to find his scattered unit in the occupied city of New Mombasa--a change of pace from playing as a super powerful Spartan. Anthony Gallegos joins Matt to discuss whether or not change is a good thing and Matt explains why he'll be playing the new multiplayer mode, Firefight, more than Gears of War's Horde. If you know us, you know that we don't go to an event without spending quality time with indie games and PAX was no exception. Matt and Jason had a chance to play a bunch of games from XNA's Dream Build Play contest, among others, and interview Microsoft's Kathleen Sanders. Quite a few of the games stood out and so Jason and Matt took their newly acquired free-time to reflect back on better times. Not surprisingly, a bunch of people wanted to come over to join us in playing Beatles Rock Band. It's a loving tribute to an iconic bands with lots of great music. Dan 'Shoe' Hsu, Raychul Moore, Justin Haywald, and Jade Krauss rock out with Ryan and Jason and hang out to talk, and sometimes argue, about the pros and cons.
Camping. It's cheap, easy, and thanks to the DS and the PSP we can bring our games with us! It's an all-portables week as the gang goes primal. One of the benefits to living in San Francisco is the ease with which one can be out into the wilderness, partaking of the nation's wonderful parks system. Fortunately, even with a lack of power outlets we are not gaming-deprived! After camp is set, it's time to start up the blowtorch, PSPs, and DSs. One of those three doesn't require a battery for the fun. Jason and Ryan are two of the biggest SoulCalibur aficionados to ever hold a PSP. It has long been Ryan's dream to take his favorite fighter on the go and Jason seems to agree that this portable installment of the venerable franchise is everything the fan could have hoped for. JayFresh has always been a giant fan of the JRPG and he's no stranger to the nostalgia inherent in the RPG titles. Ryan poses a bit of skepticism to Fresh's optimism about this latest title, but Fresh is able to hold his own as he details the unique quirks that make this one a keeper. A hallmark of graphic fidelity on the PS3, the Motostorm Franchise has done a fantastic job of thrilling the pants of the Area 5 crew. Matt and Ryan have been fans since day one and the opportunity to bring the game with when away from the PSP's big brother was too tempting to pass up. Ryan's convinced it equals it's nearest relatives in both scope and fun.
Only one of us got to go to TGS this year, but that doesn't mean we didn't get to bring home the goods! In this special episode of CO-OP we round up the big announcements as well as dive into two games: Deadspace Extraction and Scribblenauts. The Tokyo Game Show was "interesting" this year for a myriad of reasons. Our special episode covering TGS doesn't have a narrative as we normally do and instead focuses on rounding-up the games from the show as well as bringing in two full-on segments for Deadspace Extraction and Scribblenauts. We're on a brief vacation, next week will be a short episode and we'll be back with a full-on season premiere on the 20th! Justin Haywald of 1UP fame joins our crew for both full-on game chats, the first of which is the Wii prequel to one of last-year's best games. More than a mere "light gun" game, Ryan, JayFresh, and Justin all agree that this game should sell way more units than it probably will. Hmm, how's this list strike you? Final Fantasy XIII, Crackdown 2, Lost Planet 2, Dead Rising 2,Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, Last Guardian and some anecdotes about Project Natal on the show floor. Many thanks to David Ellis, also of 1UP for coming by and sharing his thoughts and some of his game footage with us! Justin Haywald of 1UP again joins us for a talk about a game that should have been so much better than it is. Sadly, Matt and Justin both agree that Scribblenauts is an amazing idea harmed irrevocably by poor execution.
Since Cesar was the only one at TGS this year, we asked him to do some light documenting of Japan for us so that we could live his experiences vicariously. The new stuff this week consists of Cesar's pretty sweet travel log of his time in Japan during TGS. Japan is certainly unique and here within are some of the primary reasons why. Since we're on vacation we were struggling with what to put in a show when we're not even supposed to have a show and the idea came up to post something most of you probably haven't seen. Prior to CO-OP being part of the Revision3 family of programming, Area 5 produced the show solely for your YouTube channel. CO-OP 0004 was a test-bed show for Revision3 where we actually produced the entire thing in HD so that they could try out their compression settings and what not in advance of our first, actual premiere on the network. Here, for the first time anyway, are the two game segments from CO-OP 0004 in HD. Dan Hsu may no longer maintain the Sorethumbsblog, but yeah, that's what the titles for that section say in this episode because back when this segment was shot that was still before the launch of the awesome BitMob. Ryan and Cesar are also in this segment that talks about what makes this bit of DLC a definite must-have. Miguel Lopez now works for GameTrailers, but back when he and Ryan had this chat about Street Figher IV he was still going strong at GameSpy. In a an excelleng segment that is prat reminiscing about past SF glory days and part review of the latest incarnation, it's one of the segments we are most proud of from our "Season 0" time period.
It's our season 03 premiere! In our longest segment on a game yet, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves takes the spotlight this week. We also stop by indie developer Gaijin Games to grab a look at what makes an indie studio tick and to get a sneak peak at Bit.Trip Void. Also, of course, we had to share the quickie got with New Super Mario Bros. Wii! Arcades still exist, particularly if you're willing to expand your definition a bit. The Musee Mecanique is a remnant of a San Francisco past steeped in amusements for the emergent middle class of the late 19th and early 20th century. Within are some of the oldest coin-op amusements to be found anywhere. We take a trip down memory lane (not our own memories, mind you) with some true cultural predecessors to our favorite form of media.
Believe it our not, it's our first CO-OP: The Animated Series! Well... sort of. You'll see. We have a lively debate on whether Demon's Souls is as terrific as people say or truly awful, an in-depth about the ambient, indie RTS Eufloria and an iPhone round-up of some of our favorites: Canabalt, Geared, and Mr. Bounce! Yes, this is the premiere of CO-OP: The Animated Series! Except it isn't. Well, it sort of is . . . you'll see. The merits of Demon's Sous are hotly contested in this week's episode while our iPhone round-up and Eufloria coverage give you plenty of light-weight alternatives to the season's heavy-handedness in "Triple-AAA" releases currently flooding store shelves. Formerly known as Dyson, the indie darling Eufloria was given some quality play-time by Matt and it definitely lives up to the hype. The simplified RTS mechanics go a long way to making the graphical gem a playable wonder and were it not for the lack of multiplayer could easily be a must-have for any fan of the genre, even in such a crowded holiday season. It's been a while since we got a chance to cover gaming on the iPhone and we figured it would serve you better if we could offer up more than just a single title for your consideration. Within: the simplistic but addictive Canabalt, the groovy and though-provoking puzzler Geared, and a new take on a classic gaming form with Mr. Bounce. Bon appetit! Ray Barnholt from 1UP.com reviewed Demon's Souls for that site and gave it an "A." Kat Bailey, an industry freelance writer also thinks of the game as one of her "best purchases this year." Ryan and Matt hate it. We attempt to clear up some of the mystery as to why this game appeals greatly to some and causes others to toss it aside after repeated fits of rage.
Yes, Area 5 threw a Halloween party! It was awesome! We had the best costumes ever! There's no way your party was better than ours! Is there any way exclamation points can denote sarcasm as opposed to genuine enthusiasm? Honestly, we're better gamers than we are party-planers. Oh, and we talk about some games. Halloween is very special time of year - for everyone but Ryan. Still, he was convinced to dress up for this special occasion. He may have been better off avoiding the specialized Area 5 event altogether. Rock Band iPhone just got released. The Tap Tap games have graced the platform since the beginning and there's even a Guitar Hero clone, Guitar Rock 2, now in it's second iteration. We talk about them all in our iPhone rhythm game roundup and give you the skinny on which is the best bang for your buck. JayFresh is the biggest R&C fan at Area 5 and Ryan can always be convinced to give them a go even if he's not the biggest fan of the series. Still, this latest incarnation grew on him enough to make sure it made it into this week's show and it has plenty of charms to worm its way into even the most jaded gamer's heart. The MMO genre is has generated far more than cash-cows and spectacular flops over the past few decades. It's good to see some of the better ideas concerning game design take root in other genres. Borderlands happens to be both fun and and interesting take on design choices that most would consider the exclusive domain of its massive cousins. Arthur Gies of Eat. Sleep. Game. and RebelFM comes by to share his thoughts with JayFresh, Matt, and Cesar.
The words "movie" and "license" area anathema to gamers when paired and the exception is rare. Fortunately, this week's coverage of Jame's Cameron's Avatar may show us a way to one of said exceptions. We were invited to an event at the Dolby Labs in San Francisco to experience the game hands-on (in 3D no less). Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony ratchets up the excitement and the better-than-Diablo Diablo clone Torchlight receives some much deserved face time. Is 3D gaming a gimmick? Does anyone expect to actually own a "3D Ready" television soon enough to give a care as to whether Avatar is in 3D or not? We're on the fence on this one, but that didn't stop us from accepting an invitation to put on some goofy looking glasses and try it out for ourselves. Liberty City is an endless playground for ideas and implementation of said ideas and as long as Rock Star continues to deliver quality on the order of The Ballad of Gay Tony it's likely we'll keep buying each episode. Ryan, Cesar, and our friend from RebelFM and Eat. Sleep. Game., Tyler Barber get behind the wheel again for some insane, action-movie-esque times in the seedy underbelly of Liberty City's club scene. Diablo clones are many. Excellent ones are few and Torchlight is the best of them yet. Granted, it lacks multiplayer but given the pedigree of the developers (many of which are the same people that brought you the first two Diablo games) it should be small wonder that Torchlight feels like an evolution of the gameplay type rather than an also-ran. Arthur Gies from the RebelFM podcast and Eat. Sleep. Game. came over to talk with Matt about why any Diablo fan not caught up exclusively on multiplayer should give this one a go. We were invited (and accepted, of ourse) to go see Jame's Cameron's Avatar at the Dolby Labs here in San Francisco. 3D in the best audio environment imaginable? Yes please! We got to put the controllers in our hot little hands and give both the Human and Nav'vi char
Midnight launches are not for the feint of heart. You know, the whole staying up late, playing a game all night, trying to go to work the the next day. But that's part of what being a gamer is all about! We were there for a San Francisco midnight launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 so that we could cover the single-player, at least, on this week's show. It's the first of a MW2 two-parter. We believe it takes longer than a few days to evaluate multiplayer so we're going to give it a good shakedown before talking about that part of the game. The epically awesome Dragon Age Origins and the next, big rhythm game DJ Hero round out this week's coverage. Welcome to midnight at a GameStop in San Francisco and the launch-line for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2! DJ Hero definitely seems to be worthy of having yet another plastic peripheral in your living room. Richard Li of 1UP drops by to share his thoughts as an expert with the game with Cesar and Jason. The multiplayer of this game is worth an entire segment of its own and that's exactly what we're going to do. This week, however, it's all about the single-player. David Ellis from 1UP joined Ryan and JayFresh to talk about the sometimes controversial, sometimes awesome, sometimes played-out trek through the single-player experience.
We're going to be on our Thanksgiving break next week, so keep your eyes out for a special episode of CO-OP on December 1st that'll be a departure from the norm. We'll be back on December 8th with our regular programming. This week, though, is an almost-special episode thanks to our long-form coverage of Assassin's Creed 2. It's just too big to talk about in the normal time constraints of our show. Enjoy and remember to enjoy your holiday! And by "enjoy," we mean catch up on the holiday gaming rush. It's going to be a HUGE 2010 and you need to get started now ;p Better than it's predecessor in every conceivable way, one of the best games Ryan has played, ever, and nearly-equal high praise from our guests Will Tuttle of GameSpy and Arthur Gies from Team XBox, the RebelFM podcast, and Eat. Sleep. Game. One unfortunate, though important, point raised in the chat this week is that the PS3 version is clearly the inferior product. To be clear, we hate the console wars and find it inane to decry one console in favor of another, but the difference in AC2 is apparent enough to merit at least some quick discussion in this week's extra-long chat. And extra time is exactly the kind of favor that this game warrants and thus the nature of this only-two-game episode of CO-OP. JayFresh and Matt are the final two members on the AC2 Love-Fest board of directors.
We're still on holiday for one more week but that doesn't mean we didn't cook up something nice for you ahead of time. Jason stole Ryan's camera and all of AREA 5's backup drives to construct an all-new episode of the Jason Show. Despite our wishes, behind our backs, Jason has filled his episode with outtakes and behind-the-scenes moments that the rest of the crew wishes the world didn't have access to. Additionally, Bitmob.com's Dan Hsu and CO-OP composer Paul Greenleaf sat down with Cesar to chat about the multiplayer madness of New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Sit back, relax, and get yourself a plate of leftover stuffing burritos and turkey fries and enjoy! We'll be back with tons of game coverage next week! Yes, it's a clip show, but clips of stuff you've never seen! We've had requests every so often for outtakes and a look at stuff that hits the cutting room floor (virtually, of course) so we thought now would be a great opportunity to deliver!
Half the team was on vacation for a while, so this week's show is a wee bit shorter than normal--but don't let that fool you into thinking it's any less awesome! 'Cause it ain't! The big feature this week is the latest offering meant to swell your collection of plastic peripherals: Tony Hawk: Ride. We've got some skaters in the Area 5 crew and they'll give you the skinny. Before that, though, is a look at the surprisingly well-done, PSP version of Assassin's Creed. Is it worth it to you PSP owners out there? Find out. Skaters just have no respect for property (or their own persons) and apparently the Area 5 crew are no exception! Ryan and Matt are both long-term Assassin's Creed fans and decided to give the PSP version a go. Low budget, yes, but a fair--if clipped--portable representation of the series original. The broadside conclusion is that it's worth while, provided you're a portable owner of the PlayStation kind. Perhaps having felt the sting of competition, the skating franchise most synonymous with the idea of risking life and limb on a skinny board with wheels has jumped on the plastic-simulacrum gravy train. Does the peripheral meet the demands of our own, dynamic skater-duo Jason and Cesar? What about the indoor-bound Ryan? IRL on an actual board-with-wheels may be the best place to "experience" the life of a skater.
Is December really the best time to be going to the beach in Northern California? Not really, but try telling that to Santa Cruz native Cesar Quintero . . . So, yeah, the team was convinced to follow him down to his old haunts in the interests of seeing sights better left until the warmer seasons, but also to visit Edmund McMillen, creator of many awesome games, but the most recent of which is sure to delight many: Super Meat Boy. Rounding out the coverage this week: The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks and we enjoy some 8-bit Vintners wine by the wintertime fire while discussing PixelJunk Shooter. Santa Cruz is a summer town, but that didn't stop us from swinging by one of the few real arcades left in our area. Our good friend Kat Bailey came by to talk with Ryan and Fresh about this next Zelda adventure which they all seem to agree is leagues ahead of Phantom Hourglass in both story and gameplay execution. It will surpass no one that we love this game. Ryan, JayFresh, and I all sit around a warm fire, enjoying some wine kindly provided us by 8-bit Vintners and reminisce fondly about playing the game the previous eve in a way that you should only reminisce about something you've enjoyed for years. Q-Games and the PixelJunk series just have that effect. If you're a fan at all of the PixelJunk games this is another no-brainer. Edmund McMillen invited us down to his apartment in Santa Cruz, California to see a super-early version of Super Meat boy! You never get this kind of early look at games outside of the indie scene and we feel privileged to have had the opportunity. If you've never heard of Edmund before, you're likely to now. Google him and go play one of the ton of free flash games he has up (including the original Meat boy and Time Fcuk), you'll love 'em all!
Android or iPhone? Perhaps not a nerd debate to be decided in a single episode, but that doesn't stop Cesar and Rob from taking some . . . extreme measures. Fortunately their adorable little feud didn't harm our interview with Mass Effect 2 producer Adrien Cho when we got to go check out the game last week. A few of our friends stuck around to talk about their brief play-session afterward including one "J. Cannata"--if that is his real name! Avatar is no doubt going to break (or has already broken) some kind of box-office record, but the game leaves something to be desired. Lastly, the most-likely-overlooked LittleBigPlanet for the PSP stands up proudly on its own as a must-have for any PSP owner. Android Vs. iPhone! FIGHT! Cesar vs. Rob! FIGHT! LittleBigPlanet rightly made an impact upon gamers worldwide when it hit last year. Strange, then, that except for some television commercials almost no one is talking about the PSP version. In perhaps one of the closest handheld-to-console experiences to date, the online, creator-mixmaster nature of LittleBigPlanet isn't one you'd expect to be so excellently made for a handheld system. Ryan and Matt go into why this is a necessary purchase for PSP owners. A huge thanks to Adrien Cho, a producer on Mass Effect 2, for taking the time to talk to us during the preview event last week. JayFresh was the lucky bastard that got to represent Area 5 and play the game for a few hours, but these big-game preview events are always a reunion of sorts for us in games media and our friends Jeff Cannata of some show that I hear is both Totally and Rad stuck around to talk with him and Demian Linn and Brett Bates, both of BitMob, about why ME2 is looking (surprise surprise) like yet another BioWare success story. Biggest movie of the holiday season? Almost definitely. Biggest game of the holiday season? It'll undoubtedly do well in terms of game sales, but Ryan, Matt and 1UP's Justin Haywald all agree that "meh" is the best, one-
It's a CO-OP roundtable on what makes multiplayer shooters so special. Why do some succeed and others fail? Join as we go over some of the biggest shooters of this year and yesteryear and try to get to the bottom of what makes some stick while others flounder. Also, big thanks to Astro Gaming for providing the freakin' awesome 5.1 headsets used in this week's show. How many multiplayer shooters can we cram into one episode? We weren't sure, but when you're talking about an entire genre it's very hard not to meander a bit throughout the entire history of gaming. There are some standouts, though. Here's the quick list: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Team Fortress 2 Halo 1, 2, & 3 Killzone 2 Battlefield 1943 Tribes 2 Quake 3 Arena There are probably even a few others in there that we're forgetting, but it's best if you just watch it and see if you agree with our panel of experts on what makes 'em all so damn special. And who's on said panel? Why that would be Dan Hsu and Brett Bates from BitMob.com, Kat Baily, RebelFM and Eat-Sleep-Game.com badass Tyler Barber, and representing Area 5: Matt and Ryan.
We're on vacation this week, but we still wanted to get something out there to help fill up all that extra hard drive space you've got lying around. Yeah, this week's show is really short, but we hope the quality makes up for the quantity! If you've been following us since the beginning (meaning even before CO-OP showed up on Revision3), you might be familiar with "Area 5 Snacks." They're digital shorts that we were putting together in the early days before we found out we needed to make money to stay in business. Here's all four of them in a row. We would disavow these if we could, but we've all got our legacies to live up (or down, as the case may be). Robobank. Fresh on Fresh. Bad CO-OP. Hall of Meat. They're what happen when you give grown man-babies cameras and audio gear to play with. Hopefully you'll enjoy these four quick slice-of-absolutely-real-life events as much as we enjoyed making them. The Snacks are a concept we'd like to bring back if we can get the whole having-enough-time thing sorted out. Let us know if you'd like to see more!
2009 isn't wrapped up quite yet. There are a few leftovers we felt absolutely essential to take care of. Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes is a huge success and Saboteur offers a bit of newish-ness if you're interested in expanding your open-world-gaming horizons via occupied, WWII France. Also, take a look at Matt and Ryan's Y2K time capsule. What was life like 10 years ago? We're a decade into a new millennium and STILL no flying cars! Still, it's a good time to go back and take a look at the memories of yesteryear. Ahh, yesteryear… Ryan, JayFresh, and Cesar are all huge fans of Capybara's new game, Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes. It's an amazing new puzzle/tactical-RPG almagamation of awesome. They dive into why this absolutely should be part of your DS library Exploring an open-world game as a WWII terrorist intent on giving Nazi's a bad time in Paris may, on the surface, seem like a rippin good time, and it is! Of course every open-world experience seems have its share of quirks and Saboteur is no different. The much-vaunted "boobies experience" actually takes quite the back seat to the slightly marred gameplay of the rest of the game world.
2009 was a very good year--for video games. While much of the rest of the world is suffering an "economic downturn," to put it politely, the creators of gaming goodness out there haven't seemed to notice. We gather a bunch of CO-OP regulars for a giant, two-parter round table that delves into what was truly an epic year for the greatest medium ever invented by humankind. Our 2009 retrospective was too big and too long to fit into a single episode, so our crew and friends agreed to hang around for over three hours of filming so that we'd have plenty of time to go into what was such a huge, packed year for gaming. We've been hugely thankful for all the amazing guests we've had on CO-OP throughout 2009, and we're doubly grateful to have so many of them show up for this show: - From Bitmob, Dan Hsu. - Tyler Barber of RebelFM fame and Eat-Sleep-Game.com as well as regular work for GameSpy. - Kat Bailey, a frequent, favorite guest of ours and a freelancer at large. - Long-time blogger Tiff Chow. - Justin Haywald and David Ellis from 1UP.com. Of course we talked about all of our favorites and, hopefully, some of yours, including: Uncharted 2, Killzone 2, Assassin's Creed 2 (seeing a lot of 2's), Batman: Arkham Asylum, Shadow Complex, Fat Princess, Infamous, Red Faction, Trine, Plants vs. Zombies and, yes, MORE! Your favorite not in this episode? Come back next week and you'll likely see it there.
It's the second part of our epic, 2009 year-in-review special! We assembled a crew of the finest CO-OP regulars to share what their favorite games of 2009 wound up to be. This isn't a "Game of the Year" rank-a-thon, but rather a recollection of what made 2009 such a freakin' awesome year for gamers! Again, it's the same cast of all-stars from our first part: - From Bitmob, Dan Hsu. - Tyler Barber of RebelFM fame and Eat-Sleep-Game.com as well as regular work for GameSpy. - Kat Bailey, a frequent, favorite guest of ours and a freelancer at large. - Long-time blogger Tiff Chow. - Justin Haywald and David Ellis from 1UP.com. This week we reminisce fondly about Borderlands, Flower, Street Figher 4, Super Maro Bros. Wii, Mad World, Demon's Souls, Dragon Age, HALO: ODST, 'Slosion Man, Spelunky, and more! We loved 2009. You loved 2009! Holy crap-face was it a good year to be a gamer!
This is not a joke. CO-OP will be going LIVE starting next Tuesday, February 9th at 7PM Eastern, 4PM Pacific. No editing to cover our mistakes. It's just us sounding as lame as we do "IRL," but with one crucial addition: you. Twitter will be a great way to participate in the discussion. Follow http://twitter.com/coop_live and get in on the act! Live chat may show up as well, but we can't guarantee that just yet. The best way to participate in CO-OP Live will be to follow the show's Twitter at http://twitter.com/coop_live. We're going to try to have a live chat active as well. For now, the community participation part will come in at the end of the show. Ask us (and the guests that agree to stick around) questions at the end of our show or just comment and agree/disagree with our assessment of the games we cover. We've got plans for whole new slates of content above and beyond the normal CO-OP offerings for CO-OP Live. Make sure you head over to Area5.tv for a full blog-post update on how things are going to change for us and for you!
CO-OP comes into its namesake today by involving YOU! We'll tell you when you can join in and all you need is a Twitter account. Simply put @COOP_live anywhere in your tweet and we'll see it! Wait until we ask for it, though, as we don't want your tweets to get lost in the shuffle. We're going to have a musical guest that we think you'll love and right after his first performance is when we're going to go to the first fan segment where you can ask him questions. He'll then play himself off and right after that we're going to do ANOTHER fan segment where you can ask any of the Area 5 crew anything you want. Disagree with our Mass Effect 2 review? Tell us! Want to see more of the set? Want to tell JayFresh how bloody sexy he is and see him blush? Now you can! CO-OP could never have come this far without you and now we need you to make CO-OP Live the best it can be! Join in, talk to us and we'll talk back. <3 In our first ever LIVE show (oh god oh god!) we'll be taking a long, hard look at BioWare's latest epic, Mass Efffect 2. Pay particular attention to what we say as this is the first time you're going to be able to directly talk back to us and tell us what you think! At the end of our show (we'll tell you when) we're going to have a fan segment and all you have to do is put @COOP_live somewhere in your tweet and we'll see it! Ryan, Matt, and JayFresh have all spent some serious quality time with ME2 since its release and have been bursting at the seams to spill on the beans on what makes it such a paragon example of the western RPG. Nothing is perfect, however, and it'll be a lot of fun for the whole team to see where the game succeeds and fails for everyone else out there. Now's your chance to be a part of CO-OP! A big, ginormous and special thanks to our friend Jonathan Mann! Not only is he part of the duo (along with the fabulous Jane Pinckard) that created the original CO-OP theme, he's also done a Mario opera, musical numbers for X-Play (including their
We were invited to attend the X10 event last week and were able to get some hands-on time with some of the hottest games slated to come out in 2010 for the 360! HALO: Reach and Fable III had, essentially, no video assets so we're not going to have much to show you on that front. However, they didn't leave us empty handed! Splinter Cell: Conviction, Dead Rising 2, and Game Room were all available to us and we had a great time with them! Matt also got to sit down with Alan Wake, but they won't let us talk about it this week. CURSES! Make sure to tweet to @COOP_live during our X10 discussion to ask us about some of these amazing games. Oh yeah, and some little game called Bioshock 2 came out last week. JayFresh and Matt tell you what they think while Ryan takes your questions. We'll be starting out with Bioshock 2, followed by our in-depth X10 previews. Make sure to pay attention to when we're taking questions and then simply tweet to @COOP_live to get in on the act!
We're experimenting today with all-live gameplay. Come on it and chat with us as we play the delightfully delicious The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom and two awesome Independent Game Festival finalists Monaco and Puddle. Ryan was an IGF judge for the festival this year so he's got some unique perspectives to share. Remember, once the show starts, tweet your questions to @COOP_live and we'll have Jason here collating the best. Well, Jason's opinion of what's best anyway! As an IGF judge this year, Ryan was on the ball for what was the best of the best in terms of the indie offerings in that most prestigious event. The Game Developer's Conference coming up soon is always a huge event for the indie gaming scene and as usual we've got some incredible games to look forward to. The student showcase is particularly strong this year and we'll be showing off one of the finalists: Puddle. Fluid dynamics with Loco Roco controls is the easiest explanation we can think of. One of the games up for the highest award of the festival is Monaco, a hugely innovative heist-movie-in-a-game that somehow manages to be retro and modern all at the same time. Finally, we're leading off the show with The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom--an XBLA title that is so charming it almost bleeds uh... charm! Sorry, we're not quite as original as the poetry and amazing "hint text" sprinkled throughout P.B.'s adventures. Such is life. Bear with us in this next, experimental episode of CO-OP Live!
A huge event in gaming for those paying attention, Matt and Ryan are going to talk in-depth about Heavy Rain. Nintendo had a media day last week and we got hands on with a ton of stuff. We take your questions and offer up some previews concerning Nintendo's latest announcements: WarioWare D.I.Y., Sin & Punishment: Star Successor, Art Style: Light Trax, Art Style: Rotozoa, and the create-a-fighter DSiWare title, Photo Dojo. They didn't allow us any video for Super Mario Galaxy 2 or Metroid Other M, but we can chat it up with you and if you ask! A leap forward in interactive entertainment, Heavy Rain should be on everyone's list of paradigm-shifting moments for the medium. While some question whether or not it's really a "game," Matt and Ryan are going to go into why the game's release deserves to be heralded as an important event for gamers everywhere. Unfortunately marred by some mediocre voice acting, the surrounding message to this talk is going to be: play this. Play this game and then make everyone you know play it, gamer or not. Big game companies and publishers every so often like to throw a "media day" where the invite the gaming press, feed them lots of free stuff and in return get a bunch of glowing previews about their upcoming period of new offerings. Nintendo's can sometimes be marred with fewer offerings, but this one suffers no such indignity. With almost every title on hand having a strong showing, this looks like it may be a very good year to own a Wii and a DS (or a DS Lite, or DSi, or DSi XL, or... sheesh, just how many of those things ARE there??). WarioWare D.I.Y. is like the game industry in a box. You can make your own game and then send it out to be discovered by the rest of the world--well, the "world" being the game world inside of the cartridge. Still, it's a great toolbox of intuitive tools that will have you making WarioWare hits of your own in no time. Add to that the ability to transfer your creations to your Wii and everyone i
We're starting off this week's show with a community segment where we'll gladly delve into the announcements you may have seen on Area5.tv concerning this being the the second-to-last episode of CO-OP Live. So, make sure you get those tweets to @COOP_Live ready for the start of the show! What else do we have in store? Just Cause 2 sets a new standard for what it means to have an "open world," the iPhone is still hitting it strong with Tilt to Live, and we show you what games are must-haves on the new iPad! Just Cause 2 has really raised the bar for just how open an "open world" game can be. With more freedom of movement than perhaps any of its predecessors, the only question that remains is if the rest of the gameplay can measure up (here's a hint: almost). Tilte to Live is an absolute must-have for iPhone gamers everywhere. Its unique control mechanism is perfectly suited to the platform and is likely going to spawn a horde of copycats. Laced rough with surprising humor and gameplay that belies the seemingly-innocuous graphical style, this is a game worth every penny of its $1.99 price tag! In case you were under a rock this last weekend, the iPad came out and Ryan and Cesar each got one. Get ready with your iPad questions (again, tweet to @COOP_Live) and we'll be happy to share our experiences and show you what this new platform is made of! Still, there are some games which we'll absolutely be showing off: Geometry Wars, NOVA HD, Command and Conquer, Charadium, Mirror's Edge, and a uniquely amazing iPhone upscaled game: Eliss. The iPad has a crazily strong launch offering of games, but the apps are amazing too. Simply tweet to us if there's more you want to see and (if we have time) we'll show them to ya!
It's our final episode of CO-OP, EVAR! Yes, we're sad to see it go, and the Area 5 team has had a fantastic time here at Revision3, but we're going out with a bang! We've got some very special guests for this final episode, a deep look into Alan Wake, watch us stumble and fumble over Bit.Trip Runner as we play it live, and our final iPhone game recommendation goes to . . . drum roll please . . . Enviro-Bear! While all good things must come to an end, our big hope is that your fond memories of CO-OP will help keep the dream alive! We've done our best to make this last show a special one, and with your help it will be! Make sure to stick around for our community segment at the end of the show and ask us all those juicy questions you've been saving up for just such an event! We've also got Alex Neuse of Gaijin Games on hand to answer your questions during our live gameplay of his latest game for WiiWare, Bit.Trip Runner. It's one part Canabalt, two parts Vib Ribbon, but ALL Bit.Trip. As the fourth installment of the Bit.Trip series, it has uniquely approachable gameplay as both a rhythm game and a platformer. Hopefully we don't just completely fail in front of the entire world as we'll be playing it LIVE. But first, Alan Wake FINALLY sees the light of day, today, and we're here to show you how it measures up. Does it really look like a game that was in development for over five years? Is the hype to be believed? Ryan and Matt actually have some disagreements on this and other aspects of the game. Right off, as well, this is where we'll be introducing our first special guest of the show: the return of JAYFRESH!! He was able to convince his corporate masters at Visceral Games/EA to let him come on our show one, last time. Lastly but not leastly, we felt the need, nay, the DUTY, to inform you of the ultra-awesomeness that is Enviro-Bear! Cheap on the iPhone and iPod touch and free on the PC, Enviro-Bear is the epic tale of a one-handed bear that has to drive (yes
