God of War III Midnight Madness at Future Shop Happening This Monday

By Paul Hunter

Get ready Spartan warriors -- the final chapter of the epic God of War series is coming out in a mere five days. If you expect that a PS3 exclusive of this caliber would receive a retail midnight madness launch event -- you assumed right.

On March 15, Future Shop is inviting gamers out to their God of War III midnight madness events, taking place in five of their largest national retail locations. Gamers hungry to get in on the action early can start lining up at 9:00pm and be among the first in Canada to play the game.

PlayStation's street team will be out to entertain the crowds at select locations through demoing the game as well as awarding gift card prizes.

The five retail stores are:

1. Nepean, ON (Merivale) – 1695 Merivale Rd. (at Basil MacDonald Way) – PlayStation street team feature

2. Toronto, ON (Yonge-Dundas) – 325 Yonge St. (at Dundas) – PlayStation street team feature

3. Edmonton, AB (South Edmonton Common) – 1320 99 St. (at Parsons Rd. NW)

4. Calgary, AB (Northlands) – 5111 Northland Dr. NW (at 52 Ave. NW)

5. Richmond, BC (Lansdowne Centre) – 5300 #3 Rd. (at Alderbridge Way) – PlayStation street team feature

All midnight madness events will run from 9:00pm - 1:30am, with doors opening at midnight.

I'll be at the Toronto Yonge-Dundas location, hope to see you there!
>> Read more

Sheridan College Creates 3D Game That Does Not Require 3D Glasses

By Paul Hunter

Not convinced that Canada is the coolest gaming country in the world? Aside from the, you know, hundreds of news items discussed right here on NextGen Player, how about this -- Sheridan College has created the first ever real-time stereoscopic 3D video game that does not require 3D glasses. Oh yes, it's true. Read on.

The game, called IC3D (get it, "I see 3D", har har!) was a showpiece on display in the Ontario House Pavilion at the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games, and was used to introduce Vancouver guests to some of Ontario's most well-known tourist attractions.

"The cutting edge technology of Sheridan’s 3D Game showcases our province’s tourism icons like never before. The world will see in a unique and innovative way that there truly is no place like Ontario to live, visit and invest,” said Michael Chan, Ontario’s Minister of Tourism and Culture.

So how does the technology work? A Toronto-based company called Spatial View has built its own proprietary 3D displays which creates a glasses-free 3D image with a special stereoscopic overlay on display screens. The technology allows for up to five channels of video to display concurrently providing an authentic 3D experience.

Using a BlackBerry smartphone as game controllers, players are required to assemble 3D puzzles of the popular Ontario tourist attractions. The pieces of each attraction appear scattered within the 3D environment and up to five players can work collaboratively to assemble the attraction. Once the puzzle is solved, a multimedia presentation of the attraction is displayed on each player's handheld device.

Nifty eh! Check out the clip above to see it in action.

Source: Metro News Toronto
>> Read more

NextGen Player Review: Dante's Inferno

By Clinton Ma


The action-adventure genre is a tight-knit little club. It's also a place that increasingly caters to the hardcore niche and is ruled over by some long-established heavyweights. So it takes a special kind of game to come on to the scene, get our attention and become a contender to the genre's crown.

Visceral Studio's Dante's Inferno is not that game.

What it is, however, is a solid execution of everything we know and love about modern button-mashing, action-adventures. Sadly, it's also a reminder of the genre's worst excesses and the net result is a game that does little to rise above those well-worn conventions.

Read on past the jump for the full review...

Dante's Inferno is very loosely based on The Divine Comedy, the epic 14th-century poem written by Dante Alighieri. Video game Dante is not a poet but rather a brawny knight of the Third Crusade who descends through the 9 circles of Hell to rescue the soul of his dead wife, Beatrice. With the poet Virgil as his guide and the Grim Reaper's scythe as his weapon, Dante must not only face the ravenous hordes of the underworld but also his own litany of sins that have brought him to this grim predicament.

If you can put aside the outcry over the crass handling of a piece of classic literature, I think Alighieri's work serves the purposes of this game very well. Sure there are a multitude of video games that send players through hell-like environments or to battle throngs of demonic creatures, but when you get right to down it very few of them actually send you to "Hell-with-capital-H". Furthermore, no self-respecting gamer would want to visit Hell as a helpless, tortured sinner forever impaled on a spike or boiling in a lake of blood. So why not pay a visit to Lucifer as an angry, scythe-wielding knight? The industry is still not mature enough to the point where I so often demand much more from my games than a license to kick unholy ass. This simple fact seems to have been lost amid all the controversy and the frankly bizarre PR stunts pulled by Electronic Arts leading up to the game's release. A more thoughtful interpretation of The Divine Comedy is certainly possible; the sad truth is we as the game-buying public are probably not ready for something quite so radical.


So the version we have now is definitely the easy road, and it's a road well traveled by some very storied franchises such as Ninja Gaiden, God of War and Devil May Cry. Dante's Inferno adheres to the rock-solid formula to a fault: use a combination of light and heavy attacks to eliminate waves after wave of enemies then either jump through a few hoops, solve a simple puzzle or watch a lavish cutscene before fighting the next wave of boogeymen. The cycle is punctuated by dramatic, screen-filling boss battles where pattern recognition and quick reflexes are the order of the day. And before you die of curiosity overload: Yes, there are finishing moves, upgradeable skills and quick-time events. Rejoice!

Some may be very happy to see all these feature boxes checked while others may roll their eyes at yet another example of uninspired game design. Originality may be in short supply here but it's in the execution where Visceral has mostly hit the mark. As Dante, you start the game with some powerful moves and you only get more formidable as your descent into Hell gets deeper. Orbs dropped from fallen foes provide you with experience points that go towards unlocking dozens of skills divided into "Holy" or "Unholy" disciplines. In a nice game play twist, Dante has the option of punishing or absolving his enemies, with the result of each action yielding a bounty of corresponding holy or unholy points.

There are new attack techniques as well as unique magic abilities that can be mapped to the face buttons. In addition to the skill tree you have a finite number of slots in which to equip special relics found along the way. These relics confer a variety of bonuses ranging from the more pedestrian damage-dealing types to some very exotic, specialized functions. Let it be known that most of these skills are useful: Dante's Inferno is not such a button masher that you can simply hammer on the X button and expect to reach the end without any problems. Different skills work better for different situations and it's a testament to the thought put into properly balancing this aspect of the game.

Another highlight of Dante's Inferno is, surprisingly, the story. It's a bit deceiving since the premise is so straight forward. Dante himself comes off as a very one-dimensional meathead at the game's outset. He even becomes increasingly unlikable through the first half of the game but there came a time when my impression of Dante did a 180-degree flip. By learning of Dante's many sins as a mortal I developed a great deal of sympathy for his cause. This was also helped along by some of the slickest cinematics in any current game. The in-game stuff may look clumsy but the combination of the traditional cel-animated flashbacks and the extremely glossy, pre-rendered cutscenes drives home the impact of the story.

Well you saw this coming: Dante's Inferno has some downers. For a game that never bothers to be original or to reach for the stars, you would think it would at least nail the execution of all its standard mechanics. Sadly, the game blunders in a number of areas, beginning with its reliance on puzzles to break up the action. Whether it be the dreaded jumping puzzle or something involving levers, gears or switches, none of it is especially satisfying to complete. Certain areas of the game, like the circle of Greed, are jam-packed with environmental challenges and it's hard to consistently enjoy a game that so actively avoids playing to its own strengths.

When the puzzles cease and you finally come up for air, you're hit with a late-game section (Fraud) that blatantly recycles enemies through a grueling series of battle arenas. The term "play time padding" definitely went through my head a few times as I grimly slogged through this unnecessary evil.

This area also made me realize the overall lack of a sense of accomplishment that pervades the game. The unforgiving difficulty in some spots paired with the poorly designed puzzles combined to create a game that often felt like work more than play. I wondered if I would have felt compelled to even finish Dante's Inferno if not for the opportunity to see the next cutscene or discover the next twisted new corner of Hell to fight through.

Like so many entrants into the action-adventure genre before it, Dante's Inferno is very much a mixed bag. A technically engaging combat system is dragged down by far too many pace-killing puzzles and repetitive enemy designs. The potential of rendering a fantastic game-version of Hell is cut short by a visual aesthetic that wears out its welcome long before the last cut scene rolls. And most curious of all, the game is fairly challenging but it so rarely lends a sense of accomplishment for surmounting its trials. Instead of a joyous fist pump there's only a heavy sigh of relief and a thought of "phew, I hope I never have to do that again".

This may be Hell but somehow I'm not sure the developers wanted to take gamers that far into the abyss.

Pros:
- Stylish cinematics and evocative art design
- Fun combat system: great combination of melee, ranged, magic & passive abilities
- Two-branch skill tree full of useful, unlockable powers
- Technically rock solid: no crashes or unsightly frame rate drops
- Some educational lip service is paid to the source material

Cons:
- Repetitive enemy designs
- Unrewarding and frustrating jumping/environmental puzzles
- Time-padding combat challenges
- Story "twist" can be seen coming hours & hours ahead
- Unimaginative "copy cat" mechanics like QTEs, life & mana orbs, etc.
- Weird difficulty spikes

NextGen Player gives Dante's Inferno a...


>> Read more

Scribblenauts 2 Announced

By Andrew Shin

Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment has announced that Scribblenauts 2 will be released in Fall 2010. This sequel to the highly successful Scribblenauts promises to offer more creative ways to interact and a significant increase of words to use within the game. The game is developed by 5th Cell.

In this new game, players will need to solve puzzles to help Maxwell obtain the 'Starite'. In this new game adjectives can now be used with words to modify objects such as a change in colour or size as well as elements or behaviours. Additionally, numerous adjectives can be combined to allow for greater creative possibilities.

"The next Scribblenauts broadens the players' experience from the first Scribblenauts through more creativity, innovation and in-depth gameplay," said Jeremiah Slaczka, Creative Director and Co-Founder of 5TH Cell. "All of these enhancements give players even greater control over how they want to play the game."

I've had my fair share of fun playing Scribblenauts on the DS and all the while I've thought to myself how much better this game could be with an added level of flexibility in gameplay options. Sounds very much like part 2 may deliver just that. I'm definitely looking forward seeing how Scribblenauts 2 turns out.


>> Read more

EB Games Canada Hosting Final Fantasy XIII Midnight Madness Launches

By Paul Hunter

The Final Fantasy XIII launch is upon us, and by the looks of it EB Games will be having some midnight launches across Canada.

Check out this PDF file for all the locations.

Anyone else know of other Canadian retailers hosting midnight launches?

>> Read more

Watch SomeGirlFromCanada Kill Zombies, Shake That Derriere

By Paul Hunter

I was on Twitter the other day and ran into a user going by the name of SomeGirlFromCanada who mentioned she loved gaming and had an "in-action" clip of her playing Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles posted on YouTube. I found the short 90 second video last night and was so enamoured by her post-victory booty shake that I just had to share with you all.

Come to think of it, I play a lot of on-rail shooters, maybe I need my own hip-shaking victory dance. Maybe I'll ask SomeGirlFromCanada for some wiggle waggle tips.

>> Read more

Pure Pwnage Production Blog Episode 7: How Crunchy Are Your Pickles?

By Paul Hunter

With each passing Pure Pwnage production blog I'm looking more forward to checking out the show when it debuts this month on Showcase.

In this episode Jeremy gets his very first assistant and makes him uhh...organize his pickles. I won't say any more than that, check out the video above.

Pure Pwnage recently updated their website with a brand new look, in case you've missed any of their previous production blogs you can view them here.

>> Read more

Assassin's Creed 2 and FIFA 10 Nominated for BAFTA GAME Award

By Paul Hunter

Two high profile Canadian-developed video games have been nominated for a British Academy of Film and Television Arts award -- Ubisoft Montreal's Assassin's Creed 2 and EA Canada's FIFA 10.

The second annual award show, presented by GAME (Europe's leading PC and video games retailer) and BAFTA, will held on March 19 at the London Hilton. The event begins at 8:45pm and will be live streamed on the BAFTA GAME Award website.

Voting is open to the public and you can register your selection here. In total, ten video games are in the running for the BAFTA Game of the Year award.

Best of luck to the Canadian developed games!
>> Read more