GF! Weekly Wrap-Up #13

Intro

Now that the pristine white of your new Xbox 360 controller has dulled to a dirty grey, it’s time to take a break and check back in with the rest of the world. Welcome home. I’m Val Townsend, the Atomic Goddess, and this is the GamesFirst! Weekly Wrap-Up for the week ending December 9, 2005. This episode we’re covering two of the biggest games of the season: Perfect Dark Zero and King Kong. And for you Xbox owners who are waiting for the inevitable console price-wars to come, we’ve got a preview of Painkil ler: Hell Wars coming in January. So sit tight, dear gamer, because we’re starting off, as always, with the News.

News

Women in Games International, a non-profit organization in the interactive entertainment industry, today announced their next conference, Women in Games International-San Francisco, titled “Games for Women, Games by Women.” The conference will feature di scussions and presentations from a variety of men and women in the industry, and issues such as quality of life and balancing work and home life affect both genders in the workplace. The Women in Games International conference will be held in San Francisc o in February, and is now open for registration. More information about the conference can be found on GamesFirst.com.

Nintendo super-legend, Shigeru Miyamoto (Shi as in ‘ship’, shi-gare-ooo Mee-yah-moto) shocked those in attendance at Japan’s Digital Interactive Entertainment Conference by admitting that there is another secret Nintendo has been keeping from us regarding their upcoming console, the Revolution. The last big secret Nintendo revealed was their bombshell controller, unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. So we’re definitely listening Mr. Miyamoto. What is it" We hope to find out more in May 2006 at the Elect ronic Entertainment Expo, if not sooner. But we do have a couple of guesses: In the past couple of weeks, a patent application has surfaced that defines a system interface for a console we assume is Revolution which operates very much like the Xbox 360 Das hboard. So maybe the secret has something to do with that system" Or perhaps the Revolution will be renamed, which is a rumor that has been strengthened by a recent letter sent from Nintendo which refers to an “upcoming console code-named Revolution.” A co de-name is not a final product name, as gamers who remember the Nintendo Dolphin already know. We’ll keep an eye on this story as it develops.

Similarly mysterious is the rationale behind a new bill in the making from Senators Hillary Clinton and Joseph Lieberman. The new legislation is called the Family Entertainment Protection Act, and it requires that software retailers comply with Entertainm ent Software Ratings Board age recommendations under penalty of federal law. Retailers would be fined for selling Mature or Adults Only rated games to minors. In addition, the bill would require an annual analysis of the ESRB ratings system by an independe nt review committee. The FTC would gain the authority to investigate companies suspected of misleading the ESRB and would also manage a consumer complaint registry so parents can report retailers or games they feel are not appropriately rated. Finally, the FTC would conduct annual retailer audits, using secret shoppers to find retailers selling mature games to minors. All of this seems like a serious over reaction to the recent events surrounding Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and the Hot Coffee controversy, wherein content was found hidden in the game which could be unlocked. The trouble is, San Andreas was already rated Mature, and should only have been played by adult gamers. So who is being protected" The parent who thinks a Mature title with guns and gut s is OK to buy for their child, but gets upset at sex scenes’ Call us radical gaming activists, but we think there are better things to worry about than spending money to police an industry that Lieberman himself has praised for its self-regulatory ratings system.

And to Senator Clinton: GamesFirst! Is located in Buffalo, NY. And we vote. How about a little less knee-jerk censorship and a little more Executive accountability"

Reviews

This week Jeremy delivers a review of Perfect Dark Zero, which we featured on our Xbox 360 launch podcast. Our first impressions pretty much hold up: Perfect Dark Zero is a worthy successor to the classic N64 shooter, but it lacks a little of that BAM! Th at we expect from Joanna Dark and friends. Perfect Dark Zero is a prequel to the original Perfect Dark, which defined First Person Shooters and multiplayer on the home console. Developed by fan-favorite, UK-based Rare, Perfect Dark became well-loved by man y gamers. When Rare was acquired by Microsoft Game Studios, gamers everywhere looked forward to a Perfect Dark that took advantages of Xbox Live. Several years later, we have Perfect Dark Zero, which is still one of the best shooters on the home console an d offers amazing Xbox Live multiplayer features.

In the story mode, one or two players (local or online) play through missions revolving around the young Joanna Dark, who helps her father, Jack, with his bail bonds business. He’s like Dog the Bounty Hunter in the year 2020. The cooperative gameplay is s ome of the best we’ve seen. Missions are slightly different when played with two people, which makes it more fun to complete the game alone and with a friend. And the online cooperative story mode is exactly the same as the local version, something that ha s really never been seen on Xbox Live. This aspect alone would make a normal FPS worth playing, but we’re dealing with Perfect Dark here.

Other multiplayer modes are available online, too. There are typical deathmatch and capture the flag modes that support up to 32 players in a single match. Bots can be used to fill in for players to allow even a few people to play on a huge map. There are other online multiplayer games such as Dark Ops, which encourage more innovative teamwork. All of these games are fun, and the Xbox Live system for getting into games and hanging with your pals is near perfect. We can session Perfect Dark Zero all night l ong, which is why we can give Perfect Dark Zero a bullet-riddled four out of five stars.

Next up, Aaron checks in with another big title of the season is Peter Jackson’s King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie. With a Kong-sized title and Kong-sized talent behind it, this is one game you should check out on whichever platform you own, and i t’s available on the 360, Xbox, PS2, and Gamecube, so there’s no reason to not play it. King Kong has been developed by Michelle Ancel, famed developer of Beyond Good and Evil and Rayman, who worked closely with Peter Jackson and the assets from Weta Digit al. The collaboration has resulted in one of the greatest games of all-time.

King Kong opens with you (screenwriter Jack Driscoll) as you land on Skull Island with Carl Denham and the crew of his film. You play as Jack for most of the game, which is in the first-person perspective, but is not really a “shooter”. As you arrive on S kull Island you discover monstrous wildlife, and you must use limited ammo and interactive environments to defeat creatures that are sometimes far stronger than you. Setting fields on fire is a standard tactic in Kong, as is spearing smaller animals to bai t larger beasts away from where you need to be.

Partway through the game, Kong appears, and eventually you get to play as Kong himself. These segments are played in a third-person perspective and feel completely different. Kong swings through the jungle with speed and grace, and he uses physical attack s to bring down the toughest dinosaurs and creatures.

Although there is a lot going for Kong, there are, unfortunately, some downsides. Much of the game relies on finding levers to help open gates and doorways. For the first few hours, the many doorways are tolerable, but eventually it just becomes ludicrous . Who are these exotic islanders anyway" And who is their contractor" The Kong portions also fall a bit flat, being too much on-rails and not as flexible as we would have enjoyed. These problems create some tedious gameplay moments, most of which end fairl y quickly with some new dynamic monster. We give Peter Jackson’s King Kong; The Official Game of the Movie a hefty four out of five stars.

Preview

Dreamcatcher Interactive brings their cult PC hit Painkiller to the Xbox, and our guy Tristan checked out an early build for us. Painkiller: Hell Wars is coming to Xbox in January 2006, and so far looks pretty great. Capturing almost all of the graphical glory of its PC cousin, Painkiller presents a terrifying vision of Heaven and Hell. In Painkiller you play Daniel Garner, who is killed in a car accident and recruited to be a sort of “holy hitman.” The plot is pretty bad, and Painkiller really focuses on the quick shooting action. Featuring a top-notch rag doll physics system, the game is gory and the action is insane. The bosses in Painkiller are some of the hugest we’ve seen, making for some amazing final battles.

It’s not going to revolutionize the genre, but Painkiller will deliver a great shooter experience to any Xbox owners who just want to blow shit up. With some good Xbox Live support, we can see Painkiller: Hell Wars finding an audience. Keep an eye out for Painkiller: Hell Wars next month.

Conclusion

And that does it for this week’s edition of the GamesFirst! Weekly Wrap-Up. Thanks for listening gamers. Remember, you can podcatch the Weekly Wrap-Up every week, and you can always find more of the latest videogame news, reviews and previews at GamesFirs t.com, updated every single day. I’m Val Townsend, the Atomic Goddess, and I’ll be back next time with an all-reviews round-up featuring some of the best games of the season. There’s so much out right now, it’s like Christmas or something!