GF! Weekly Wrap-Up #11

Intro

So what do you do on a rainy November 11, 2005 besides guzzle Mountain Dew and keep entering bottlecap numbers at EveryTenMinutes.com" (I mean, that’s the only way you’re getting one now…) You listen to the GamesFirst! Weekly Wrap-Up for a summary of th e latest videogame news and reviews from GamesFirst.com, and that helps take care of those caffeine jitters. I’m Val Townsend, the Atomic Goddess, and this week we’ve got reviews of Shadow of the Colossus and the GameTap broadband gaming service, as well a s a preview of Crackdown, one of the Xbox 360’s second generation titles. But before we get to that, let’s take a look at the news.

News

Nintendo’s Wifi Connection service launched this week, coinciding with the launch of Mario Kart for the Nintendo DS. The Wifi Connection is a unified online gaming network, sort of like Xbox Live without the Gamertag or the annual fee. Each game is marked with a serial number, which allows users to maintain a friends list, and so far the early reports indicate that Wifi Connection is working very well. Finally gamers get to hurl red shells and hop-dodge banana peels from all corners of the world at the sam e time. The Wifi Connection will also be used in conjunction with Nintendo’s Revolution console, although we wouldn’t be surprised to see some changes in the system to better facilitate the Revolution’s extra game download features.

JMP Productions has announced the start date of PLAY!, a symphonic videogame experience. PLAY! will be performed by a full orchestra and choir, accompanied by large screens displaying scenes of memorable moments from the games. Featured games include Fi nal Fantasy, Battlefield 1942, World of Warcraft, and The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. Arnie Roth, Music Director and Principal Conductor of the Chicagoland Pops, will serve as Principal Conductor. Music Director Jason Michael Paul will head up the produc tion side. After the recent sudden cancellation of Video Games Live!, another symphonic take on videogame music, maybe now that symphony-videogame crossover audience will finally be served.

Ubisoft has announced preview events in New York City and Los Angeles to promote King Kong on the Xbox 360. The game has been renamed “Peter Jackson’s King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie” which is just, well, silly. Regardless, we’re so stoked to pl ay King Kong that we can hardly keep from swooning everytime we see the game footage. The preview events will feature a Skull Island themed environment as well as eleven Xbox 360 kiosks playing the game on beautiful, large screen HD televisions. If you’re curious about Xbox 360 or King Kong, and you live in the New York City or LA area, you definitely want to check out this event. The Kong-sized event will take place in Los Angeles at Universal City Walk, November 12 from 5-10 p.m. and in New York City at U nion Square Park November 17 from 5-10 p.m.

Reviews

Speaking of things that are Kong-sized, Sony has scored a massive hit with its incredibly beautiful and unique game, Shadow of the Colossus for PlayStation 2. Shawn battled through sixteen of the most amazing boss battles we’ve ever seen to bring this rev iew. Shadow of the Colossus begins with a long, slow cutscene, and although the game features some of the most intense battles we’ve ever seen, it is also one of the most starkly beautiful and haunting games we’ve ever played. Everything about the game is epic and huge, from the landscape, which is full of giant mountains, plunging valleys, and huge bridges, to the colossi that you fight, most of which are hundreds of virtual feet tall or long. The graphics are amazing, hindered only by the power of the Pla yStation 2, which is definitely showing its wrinkles. And the story is simply mindblowing.

The game begins as the protagonist brings a dead woman to an isolated temple. He asks the god of the temple to resurrect his love, and a booming voice tells him that in order to do so our hero must defeat the sixteen colossi that roam the land. Thus begin s a sequence of ride, fight, repeat. You’ll ride your horse Agro across vast landscapes to find each colossus, which are mostly hidden away in hard-to-reach locations. Once you find them, an epic battle ensues, many of which will require you to use the env ironment, your horse, and every tool at your disposal to vanquish the ginormous monsters. Upon killing a colossus, you are teleported back to the temple, and the whole process begins again.

The battles with the colossi are incredible. Many of them are huge humanoids, and you must discover a way to grab hold of them and climb to their vulnerable spots. Climbing on the creatures makes for some of the most challenging platform sequences we’ve e ver played. Once you’ve found a hit location, you must plunge your magic sword into it again and again, enduring violent shakes as the colossus tries to get rid of you like an annoying bee. Some colossi are gargantuan flying beasts that lift you hundreds o f feet into the air. Others are water-dwelling creatures that pull you into the deep as you cling for your life, hoping to resurface for a breath of air. The variety of battles means you’ll use every trick in your book, and a few you didn’t realize you had , to succeed.

Shadow of the Colossus is possibly the most artful game we’ve ever played, and we’re very happy to award it a HUGE five out of five stars.

Hitting another high note this week is Turner Broadcasting’s new GameTap service. Our man George got himself a GameTap account and checked it out for us, and he found a lot to like.

GameTap is a broadband gaming service. For a subscription fee of $14.95 per month, users get access to a library of games they can download. The GameTap library includes current PC games, as well as games from a wide variety of older systems which run usi ng the GameTap emulation of the original console. Games are selected from the library using the GameTap interface, and you can download as many as you’d like as long as your subscription is current. Modern PC games such as Splinter Cell and Beyond Good and Evil take a long time to download, but you can always start those and then play some Sega Genesis or Commodore 64 games while you wait. The retro titles download quickly and the systems range from the earliest arcade games emulated in darn-near perfection to Sega Dreamcast titles.

The games look great on GameTap, and Turner Broadcasting promises to expand and improve the system in the coming months. The improvements will not limited to adding more games, although GameTap expects to add new titles every month. Other planned enhancem ents include a chat system to build the GameTap community and continued development of original GameTap media programming. Oh, did we forget to mention that GameTap includes access to a “channel” of video content, featuring shows about game strategies, cel ebrity gamers, info on retro games, and more" Altogether, GameTap looks set to become a hub for gaming enthusiasts that offers not only material about the games, but the games themselves.

We’re glad to see GameTap focus on the games, and the games work great. The default controller maps are pretty wonky, but with a little tweaking and a controller-to-USB adapter it felt good to play some classic old-school titles. The emulation is solid, p roviding the original experience and sometimes running even better than the original hardware thanks to the speed of the contmporary PC. Our only beef is that at a $14.95 price tag we expect to find more new PC games for download. An equivalent GameFly sub scription gets us lots more of the latest games, and with so many retro hardware and software packages available, we feel like it’s priced a bit high. But the free two week bargain is just the thing for a holiday vacation full of classic gaming.

We recommend a free trial on GameTap at least, and give the service a four out of five stars.

Preview

Speaking of online gameplay, the Xbox 360 is set to deliver another generation of Xbox Live goodness to many gamers. We’ve heard a lot about the launch titles coming out in a couple of weeks, so we’re glad to take a longer view this week and check out Cra ckdown, a second-generation Xbox 360 title in development by Real Time Worlds for Microsoft Game Studios.

Crackdown puts you in the role of a genetically enhanced secret super-agent tasked with protecting the city from various evildoers. Turning away from photorealistic graphics, Crackdown is rendered in a unique style somewhere between comic book and cartoon . The dynamic world is huge and heavily populated with individuals who pursue their own business. As a supercop, you are blessed with super abilities, such as enhanced strength and speed. You can toss vehicles around like footballs and leap tall buildings with a single bound. There are vehicular elements, and if it sounds like this game rides on the GTA-clone wave, then you wouldn’t be totally wrong. But don’t underestimate Crackdown.

Crackdown is being developed by a team led by David Jones, the creator of Grand Theft Auto who brought much of his team from DMA studios to Real Time Worlds. Jones also created Lemmings, another landmark title that was hugely popular and featured interest ing group dynamics and behavior. This gives Crackdown a very good pedigree, and in interviews Jones has stated that Crackdown seeks to evolve the freeplay genre.

The most significant elements unique to Crackdown are in its integration with Xbox Live, which is so far unprecedented. Not only will you be able to team up with other super agents online for cooperative play, but you’ll be able to trade DNA with members of your friends list. In a single-player game, you can tap the DNA of your friends to give you temporary boosts in abilities. Achievements in the single-player game are transmitted to Xbox Live, where they are integrated into an ongoing news broadcast abou t the accomplishments of agents playing Crackdown. However, because the agents are secret, these news blurbs are hidden in billboard images in the city. Agents can equip a special viewing mode to reveal the hidden messages, adding to the sense of a hidden community of super-agents.

All of these features make Crackdown a game to pay close attention to. Currently scheduled for a Fall 2006 release, we hope to see Crackdown again at E3. We’ll let you know when we know more.

Conclusion

And this super-secret super-agent is out of here. That’s your Weekly Wrap-Up from GamesFirst.com. Remember, you can get more on all of these stories, plus the latest news, reviews and previews posted daily online. I’m Val Townsend, the Atomic Goddess, and you can catch me again next week.