E3 2007: The Simpsons Game melts faces, relies on team work

While watching a friend play The Simpsons Game, I asked the representative on hand if I could jump in and help. "Sure!" he said, and I took over the controls of Bart Simpsons while my friend played as Homer. Together we would have to work together to defeat Lard Lad, who, just as in Treehouse of Horror VI, had come to life and was terrorizing the city. Not an easy task, it required team work, and a little luck.

Each of the main Simpsons characters (sorry Maggie) is playable at different points throughout the game, and each has special abilities that aid in completing the various levels. Bart has the ability to use a grappling hook to reach high areas, and can float to the ground after jumping when in Bartman form. He has a slingshot for shooting projectiles, giving him an advantage over other characters when needing to attack enemies at a distance. This came in particularly handy for shooting Lard Lad in the back, thus stunning him and giving us access to his wiring within.

The graphics looked good, but it was easy to tell the game was still in development, as there were bugs with the camera and the character controls were not quite refined enough. The representative explained the cell-shaded graphics were a bit different than traditional cell shading, as the models actually changed shape to help give the characters the right look from every angle. I never noticed this "face melting" visually as I was playing the game, but the characters did appear more true to their animated form than 3D renderings usually allow.

The Simpsons Game doesn't tie into the movie in any way, except for being released in the same year. We're told that the game will be a video game parody of video games, with references to many many games throughout. The Lard Lad battle was being given a "play by play" in game by Kent Brockman, in the same vein as games like Madden NFL 08.

If the crowds around the game at E3 are any indication, there will be a lot of "D'oh" and "Woo Hoo!" moments in front of the television later this year. End Communication.

E3 2007: Boogie breaks down the idea of a traditional game

In the past few years, the concept of what can be sold as a "video game" has changed a lot. For years, a game involved accomplishing some task for points, and working your through levels until you reached an endpoint. Now we're seeing companies sell "games" that don't have an endpoint, and hardly have any sort of goal. Games like Electroplankton, Brain Age, and Picross DS all have systems of scoring, but they're not really intended to have an ending, or to be "beaten" in the sense that you "beat" games like Halo, Super Mario Bros. or Ridge Racer. EA is expanding this concept of a non-traditional game by releasing Boogie, a game all about creativity on the part of the player.

In Boogie, you control a character to make them dance on screen in time with music. You can adjust their style of dancing, and earn the ability to perform additional moves, but the biggest goal is make their moves synchronize with the timing of the soundtrack. There is a scoring system in place, so it is possible to compete with your friends in a dance-off, but that is not the main focus of the game.

Once you have created your dance to a piece of music, you are given the ability to make a music video. The dancing that your character performed will be recreated in the video, but you can enhance it with different visual effects and camera angles. The limit is 100 camera edits per video, but with each song being only a few minutes long, I don't see how that could feel like much of a limit.

A microphone is included for karaoke competitions in the style of SingStar or Karaoke Revolution, with the option to use these vocal tracks in the music videos as well. For the karaoke-shy among us, the options let you balance how much of a "vocal assist" you would like, giving you the option to not hear your own voice at all, or hear it completely unassisted, or anywhere in between. The EA representatives I talked to said this was added to encourage more people to play.

Boogie looks like an interesting title, but it may disappoint the traditional gaming crowd, as it's more about creativity than competition. For those interested in a more creative title, who want to produce their own music videos to songs like "Can't Touch This" and "Don't Cha", this is a perfect match.

For more pictures, visit our Boogie image gallery.

E3 2007: Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 raises ridiculosity

The Nintendo Wii has given rise to the term "waggle" in describing the controls of a game, I feel unfairly. Every motion that's made with the Wii remote doesn't constitue "waggle." Swinging it like a bat isn't waggling, swinging it like a golf club isn't waggling. A bowling motion is not waggling! But some things definitely are waggling, and no game is taking hold of the concept of "waggling" like Rayman: Raving Rabbids 2. A few minutes with the game at E3 made it clear that many of the games revolve around the concept of waggling, but with somewhat logical reasoning.

I completed a foursome of players at the Ubisoft "booth" and we tried to play a rhythm game version of Smoke on the Water. Each player had a different instrument, but we all basically did the same motions. If you played the first Rayman Raving Rabbids game on the Wii, it was basically the same as the musical rhythm game there, but with four people. It was reasonably enjoyable, but it was hard to tell if our performance was having any affect on the music.

The second event was a swimming relay, where I felt the full power of the Wii waggle. Each player dove into the water by pressing A, and then proceeded to perform a series of motions with the Wii remote and nunchuck to advance your player across the swimming pool. Most of the motions were fairly simple, like pumping the controls up and down, which is used as a running motion in nearly every Wii mini-game collection. However, the motion that I can only describe as "cranking a bicycle with your hands" caused me to get tangled in the cord connecting the Wii remote and nunchuck. After a few tangles I separated the controls more, and went more slowly, and it seemed to work out well. I waggled my way to victory, although against exhausted exhibitors I cannot proclaim my mastery of the game just yet.

Due out November 13, 2007, Rayman Raving Rabbids should provide all the wackiness of the first, with more waggle for you and your friends.

For more screenshots, visit our Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 gallery.

E3 2007: Classic Contra gameplay returns with Contra 4

When you talk about classic video games, Contra invariably comes up as one of the original "run-n-gun" titles that everyone enjoyed. It had great controls, a good variety of levels, and required exact timing to complete. Konami recently announced that a new Contra was being released, but only for the Nintendo DS.

The Konami representative I talked to said the idea for a new Contra series came from last years successful release of New Super Mario Bros., in which the classic Mario gameplay was brought back with some updated graphics and a few new surprises. Contra 4 has these same goals, with the biggest change from games in the original series being the use of two screens for gameplay. The addition of a grappling hook to your standard arsenal gives you the ability to grab onto beams overhead to raise yourself to the upper screen. Also you now have the ability to hold two different weapons, so that uncomfortable decision of whether to pick up the Fire gun or hold onto your machine gun doesn't even have to be made.

The game is just fun to play. It feels like the old Contra series, with all the difficulty of numerous enemies, and of course the flying power-up barrels. Power-ups can fly by on either screen, with the ones that fly by on the top screen being a little difficult to hit. Since your standard gun bullets have a fairly low velocity, knocking the power-up from the sky requires firing into the air almost as soon as you see it.

One of the great features that kept people playing Contra was the multiplayer, and the DS will be keeping that tradition alive with a local ad-hoc multiplayer mode. Expectedly, each player will have to have a copy of the game, but there may be bonus features that allow multiple players to play together with one cartride. Including the original Contra as an extra feature would be nice, but again, details have not been finalized.

The Konami team is working hard to make the original side scrolling shooter relevant in gaming again, and with a little luck, I think they'll be quite successful.

E3 2007: The clothes make the man in Crysis

Crysis has a unique twist that differentiates it from other combat first person shooters. "The suit," says Producer Dan Blackstone, "it's all about the suit." The suit allows you to enhance your abilites to move through protected areas and accomplish your missions. Strength, speed, shield & health, and even invisibility. The missions are prtty open ended, with few checkpoints along the way.

I played through one mission that involved crossing a protected area to be picked up. An optional side mission allowed me to earn extra points, but would require dealing with extra bad guys. Using speed I could run through the forest surrounding the main road, avoiding a few of the easier enemies. Along my way, I found some logs stacked on a hill above a few guards; shooting out the supports let them roll down the hill very realistically. Almost anything of reasonable size can be picked up and thrown, or even carefully stacked for later use. Tossing it at an enemy can kill them if you throw it hard enough, but throw too lightly and they'll get back up and shoot again.

Crysis leaves a lot of choices up to the player, and gives a beautiful environment to play in. This PC title should be released this holiday season, and the adventure with "the suit" can finally begin.

E3 2007: Mario makes a triumphiant return on Wii

Super Mario Galaxy is being described by Nintendo as the "true successor" to Super Mario 64. It returns to the fun-house feel with lots of smaller levels that stress exploration and adventure. I was able to play through a small level in the Barker Hanger and got a quick feel for the highly-anticipated title.

Starting off on a small asteroid-like surface, I explored the surface, gathering gems. As seen in most previews, you travel around the entire surface of the asteroid, so there's no way to fall off the edge and die. To gather jewels you either touch them with Mario, or point at them with the wii remote. The gems can be used to shoot enemies, but gather point bonues on completion of the level.

Mario traveled to another area by using some gravity balls (I'm not sure they have an offical name). You jump to get into the air, and then pull yourself towards the balls by pointing at the with the wiimote and hitting A. As Mario flys towards the gravity ball, others come into view. Several can be visible at once, and you can choose which to pull yourself towards. Eventually you get to another planet and you continue your adventure.

Super Mario Galaxy feels as though it's been written for the Wii, instead of a Gamecube port like Super Paper Mario. The graphics are clean, but you can see a lot of aliasing against black backgrounds like space. It's going to be a fun game though, and for Nintendo that's all that matters.

For more pictures, check out our Super Mario Galaxy gallery.

E3 2007: Beautiful Katamari is... another Katamari game

Beautiful Katamari continues the tradition of rolling anything in the world up into a ball, but will mark the first appearance on the Xbox 360. The E3 demo gave you a couple minutes to roll as big a ball as you could, then reset for the next player. In my first attempt, I scored so well that the person manning the station was heard to declare "that's probably the biggest I've seen yet." I hoped he was talking about the Katamari ball and moved on.