EA has announced 3 on 3 NHL Arcade, an all-new downloadable hockey game from the EA Sports Freestyle label, developed by EA Canada.
3 on 3 NHL Arcade is a no-rules barred, fast paced, “hockey experience that gamers of all types can enjoy”. It will be available to download in February of 2009 on Xbox Live Arcade for 800 Microsoft Points and on the PlayStation Network for $9.99.
Due to the no-rules play of the game, players can deliver devastating checks to send their opponents flying over the boards, check the goalies and play some arcadey, action focused hockey. Graphically the players have an exaggerated look with 40 of the top NHL stars representing every team. The game even features power-ups that fall down onto the ice and can change the outcome of the game.
There are two different control schemes that players will be able to choose from that will let you pass, shoot, hit and break out all your trick moves with ease, no matter your skill level. There’s also a more advanced “Skill Stick” control scheme taken from NHL 09.
3 On 3 NHL Arcade also has everything players have come to expect from an EA Sports game, including ranked matches, the ability for three players on one console to play three other players online and more.
“Available through a simple digital download, 3 on 3 NHL Arcade is perfect for sports fans who want to experience the thrill of NHL hockey at a great value without worrying about the rules of the sport,” said Dave McCarthy, vice president, EA SPORTS. “Accessibility is really important. We have worked to make sure that come February, 3 on 3 NHL Arcade is a lot of fun for players of all skill levels.”
Microsoft is giving holiday love for Xbox Live Gold members in the form of slashed prices on the Xbox 360 Marketplace from now until the end of December.
Called the “Holiday Deal of the Week” program, there will be a new deal each week that will be available to download at a lower price worldwide from it’s announcement on Monday (which will be revealed on Xbox Live director of programming Larry ‘Major Nelson’ Hryb’s blog) until the following Tuesday. After which it will have expired and a new deal will go up.
The first deal on offer will be the Halo 3 - Legendary Map Pack for 400 Microsoft Points ($5), which is a savings of $2.50. The Halo 3 - Legendary Map Pack adds three new battlegrounds to Bungie’s acclaimed shooter: Ghost Town, Blackout, and Lockout. It normally sells for $7.50.
In addition to this, Microsoft has announced the “Friendship Is Free” program which will allow Xbox Live Silver Members to play certain Xbox Live Arcade games online for free (normally you can only play online with a Gold Membership).
There are eight titles which are part of this program and they include:
King of Fighters XII is the latest installment in SNK’s popular arcade fighting series. The game will be coming to Xbox 360 and PS3 eventually, but isn’t even scheduled for release in Japanese arcades until the second quarter of 2009.
However that doesn’t mean that fans out West shouldn’t be excited about it’s release. To the contrary, Ignition Entertainment has announced that they have already secured the publishing rights to release King of Fighters XII in Western countries next year.
King of Fighters is SNK’s long-running fighting series that, much like Capcom’s Street Fighter franchise, has largely been rooted in the past. If you haven’t played any of the games, be sure to pick up the King of Fighters Collection on Wii, PS2 or PSP when it releases.
However with part XII, just like with Capcom’s Street Fighter IV, the game is finally being taken into the modern age. Unlike Street Fighter IV however, King of Fighters XII will continue to use 2D graphics, however the artwork has been COMPLETELY upgraded and re-done with this newest installment, SNK Playmore have redrawn the game’s 20 characters from scratch, first creating a 3D model of the character, than posing it and using it as a guide for traditional, “hand-drawn” 2D pixel art. Making this arguably the most beautiful game in the series.
With all the features of the cult favorite and more added (see details below), it faithfully translates the old-school look and fast & fluid action of the online game to the handheld. N+ will have players leaping and avoiding obstacles using the excellent physics and collision detection while they scour each level for as much gold as they can reach before finding the switch and opening the door to the next challenging level.
System: DS, PSP Genre: Platformer, Action, Puzzle Release dates: August 26th 2008 (USA/Canada/Mexico/Latin America) Players: 1-2 simultaneous (Multi-Card) Developer: Metanet Software & SilverBirch Studios Publisher: Atari Origin: America Rating: E for Everyone with Mild Fantasy Violence Pricing: $19.99
Your god-like speed, dexterity, jumping- sliding- & climbing powers, and reflexes are all the result of an amazingly fast metabolism; sadly, so is your natural lifespan of 1.5 minutes.
Like all ninjas, you have an unquenchable thirst for gold, a natural propensity for exploring rooms infested by increasingly lethal ninja-killing robots, and a devour belief in N.
N is a highly advanced system of spiritual, cognitive, and physical training. It emphasizes pacifism, humility, and the need to traverse five rooms before the end of your lifetime; a feat known only as ‘beating an episode.’
In accordance with the teachings of N, it is your profound hope that one day you will develop your skills, intelligence, and inexplicable ability to reincarnate, necessary to achieve mastery of all N+ levels.
The gameplay modes are:
* Tutorial: Before you begin Single Player Mode, you can play through the tutorial, which will assist you with sharpening the basic ninja techniques necessary for surviving and developing your N+ skills.
* Single Player Mode: Whether you are racing through an open room avoiding Zap Drones, jumping over Floor Guards, or navigating through a maze scattered with Timed Mines, your objective is clear… SURVIVE!
– Note: Aside from the single player game, that you can continue at any time, there’s the option to choose an episode, access your latest statistics, and look at your saved replays in user data.
* Cooperative Multiplayer: Team up with another cunning ninja in Cooperative Multiplayer Mode. In this mode players assist one another in order to survive an onslaught of enemy attacks. Be careful and remain in tune with your ninja skills. Your partner is counting on you! Work together with your ally in order to survive. Get the exit door open at any cost! Only one ninja must get to the exit, but it won’t be easy.
* Competitive Multiplayer: Now prove there is no other ninja with your level of skill and intelligence. Move with speed and agility, but move with purpose. Don’t let your competitor steal all the gold… that could prove fatal! Accomplish your goal faster than your adversary and stay alive.
– Domination Mode (competitive match type): The goal of this mode is to own as many black switches as you can. The ninja that has activated more switches gains time and the other ninja loses time. Have your ninja grab red colored switches to turn them black. Keep control of the switches and keep your time up!
– Tag Mode (competitive match type): You’re it! The only way to become a Tag Mode master is to make contact with your opponent making them ‘It’, then stay untouched for as long as possible. Whoever is ‘It’ loses time. Lose all your time and it’s game over for you.
– Blitz Mode (competitive match type): A race to the door. Race your ninja to the door as many times as you can in the time provided. The ninja with the most ‘doors’ wins!
Features included in N+ are:
* Hundreds of built in Levels: Conquer over 200 levels in single player or play with friends in over 100 Cooperative and 50 Competitive levels!
* PURE and PLUS modes: Play in PURE mode reminiscent of classic “N”, or try out the new enhanced PLUS mode only in the handheld versions!
* Ninja Techniques: Master stealthy Ninja techniques like wall-climbing and missile dodging to get past deadly laser drones, homing turrets, and other deadly enemies!
* Networked Content: Download new maps and replays from the N server. Design new maps or show off your slick ninja moves.
* Level Editor: Design maps and share them with friends or the world using the integrated level editor and the infrastructure modes of the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection on the Nintendo DS (and the PlayStation Portable system).
* Unlockables: N+ offers optional unlockables such as different-colored ninjas, extra music tracks from up-and-coming video game music producer 5 Limbs, extra single and multiplayer level sets and more!
If you haven’t played the flash original N, you might want to watch the following N+ trailer for the platformer and action gameplay described in this review to make sense.
Click on the bottom-right corner arrow to view it fullscreen.
As a conclusion let’s rate N Plus on its fun-basis.
FUN FACTOR - 9.0
I can fully endorse the game for fans of the flash N original, the Xbox Live Arcade N+ game, or simply anyone who want to feel like a badass pixel ninja! Simple button-controls and a cheap $19.99 price make N+ easy to recommend. The best news is that it has 350 all-new levels and a new music soundtrack. The graphics are a perfect fit for this type of game, minimalistic but heavily stylized. You get all the simple-but-fast gameplay you want, and it lets you perform amazing acrobatics that’ll make you feel like you’re on the top of the world, or you’ll die dozens of times in a row and are left nearly pulling the hair from your head! No matter the outcome, your skills will improve over time making this challenging gem of a game crazy addictive.
Graphics – 7.5
You can play with either classic/pure or enhanced/plus visuals. In both settings the graphics come off as minimalistic yet incredibly sharp. The stylized character and level design gives the game a charm of its own.
Audio – 8.0
The fantastic music beats in the many retro-sounding techno tracks drive you forward in the game. The sound effects are pretty standard, meaning the death and other impact sounds are satisfying enough but don’t ‘pop’ like the music does.
Ingenuity – 9.0
The simple pick-up-and-play controls can be summed up like this: Running, jumping, and dying in unpleasant-yet-comical manners has never been more fun. If you happen to be a long-time fan of the N series, then you should know that this portable version has slightly different physics giving the game a bit of a controls-feel learning curve compared to the other versions, but it works great in the end.
Thanks to the DS stylus the level editor is simple to use (compared to the PSP version I tried). The zoomed-in and zoomed-out views of the level displayed on the DS’ dual-screens give a good overview, too bad there are no camera controls though (same story on the PSP where its set to medium view only).
Frustratingly difficult as the level design may be at times, since you’ve go unlimited lives that challenge makes for platforming at its best. The spot-on physics deliver gameplay that almost seems to be there to let you know that, if you die, you’ve got only yourself to blame!
Replay Value – 9.5
You’ll be playing this for many hours in a row. It won’t be easy, but you have all the skills needed to display your ninja mastery. Be clever, cunning, and quick. Unlock all of the level groupings to discover hidden bonuses and features. Once you get hooked, you’ll want to play through all 350 included levels and there are tons more to download for free.
The single player experience is expanded by the game’s support for: wireless multiplayer, unlockables like ninja colors, online community leader boards, local level sharing as well as the ability to upload your created levels that might get included on the levels downloadable content that comes out twice a week, and then the downloadable content in the shape of those user-created levels — only the PSP has unlimited storage for the free weekly levels downloadable content compared to 8 save slots on the DS — but you can browse/rate/download/play countless levels made by others this way. Altogether this gives N+ near-unlimited replayability.
CastleVania the Arcade game is a surprise title developed by Konami that the Japanese can now enjoy at their local arcade parlor.
How exactly would an arcade CastleVania game work, you ask? (And yes, the “V” is deliberately capitalized) How about by letting YOU become the vampire slayer yourself, by handing you a whip to swing around! That’s right, the arcade machine features a huge screen and allows for two players to stand up next to each other and swing a “whip” around to whack enemies with. But . . . that’s about all that we know at this point.
Sadly, there isn’t much more to go on than a few eye-witness accounts from gamers who have seen it, but the whip is motion-sensitive, which begs the question . . . could this game possibly come to the Wii (who is getting an upcoming spin-off called Castlevania Judgment)? And is it build on the same Wii Arcade hardware as Capcom’s Tatsunoko VS Capcom fighting game?
Tatsunoko vs Capcom is heading to the Wii if you haven’t heard. The reason the Wii was chosen is due to the arcade hardware the game was made on, which is based on the Wii hardware. Thus making for easy port over to the Wii.
Tatsunoko VS Capcom is the newest game in Capcom’s “versus” series that includes the incredibly popular Marvel VS Capcom and Capcom VS SNK arcade staples.
Sadly the game may not come to the United States due to licensing issues. The game involves characters from many different anime series from a company known as Tatsunoko Productions, which is most well known in the U.S. for the Gatchaman and Speed Racer series. The problem is that, in the U.S., different companies hold the rights to the different characters, thus making it difficult for Capcom to get the licensing issues sorted out. That’s in addition to the characters not being well known in the U.S. and/or some of them never having been released outside of Japan legally.
The Wii version will include at least one new exclusive character and will support both the Classic and GameCube controllers.
Check out a new gameplay video from the game from the Tokyo Game Show 2008 show floor and a previously released trailer.
Duke Nukem 3D is headed to Xbox Live Arcade with a ton of updates worthy of the first-person classic shooter. Take a look at the features that will be appearing in this Xbox 360 update:
* 8-player co-operative and Duke Match online play over Xbox Live!
* User Clips: Share, upload and post your own gameplay clips to the Duke Nukem 3D Leaderboards!
* Rewind Time On Death: 5 minutes or 5 seconds!
* Unlockable concept art gallery and more
“Come Get Some” with this first trailer for Duke Nukem 3D on Xbox Live Arcade!
N+ AKA “N Plus” is an update to the beloved and award winning N flash-game, N+ brings the action platformer to the PSP (at the same time there’s N+ on DS) when it’s released on August 12th, 2008, in America. Created by Metanet and developed by SilverBirch Studios, Atari will be publishing the game.
With all the features of the cult favorite and more added (full features list at the bottom), it’s faithfully translating the old-school look and fast & fluid action of the online game to the handhelds. N+ will have players leaping and avoiding obstacles using the excellent physics and collision detection while they scour each level for as much gold as they can reach before finding the switch and opening the door to the next challenging level.
Having now played the nearly finished version 1.02 of N+ on PSP, I can fully endorse the game for fans of the flash N original or Xbox Live Arcade N+ game. This portable version has slightly different physics giving the game a bit of a controls-feel (re)learning curve compared to the other versions, but it works great in the end. The best news is that it has 350 all-new levels and a new music soundtrack. You’ve got all the simple-but-fast gameplay you want back (play with either classic / pure or enhanced / plus visuals) to perform amazing acrobatics that’ll make you feel like you’re on the top of the world OR you will die dozens of times in a row and are left nearly pulling the hair from your head! No matter the outcome, your skills will improve over time making it addictive as heck.
The final game will have full support for wireless multiplayer, cartridge sharing ability (upload levels that might get included on the levels DLC twice a week), unlockables, local level sharing, downloadable content — only the PSP has unlimited storage for the free weekly levels DLC compared to 8 save slots on DS — and community leader boards… meaning gamers will be able to settle, once and for all, who is the greatest ninja of them all. I don’t know if I’m the best, but by now I’m definitely feel like a badass pixel ninja!
If you haven’t played the flash original (link at the start of this page) you might want to watch the following N+ trailer for the platformer and action gameplay described in this preview to make sense.
Features for both the PSP and DS versions are:
* Hundreds of built in Levels: Conquer over 200 levels in single player or play with friends in over 100 Cooperative and 50 Competitive levels!
* PURE and PLUS modes: Play in PURE mode reminiscent of classic “N”, or try out the new enhanced PLUS mode only in the handheld versions!
* Ninja Techniques: Master stealthy Ninja techniques like wall-climbing and missile dodging to get past deadly laser drones, homing turrents, and other deadly enemies!
* Networked Content: Download new maps and replays from the N server. Design new maps or show off your slick ninja moves.
* Level Editor: Design maps and share them with friends or the world using the integrated level editor and the infrastructure modes of the PlayStation Portable system and the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection on the Nintendo DS.
Street Fighter 4 producer Yoshinori Ono had something to say about Street Fighter 5 in Capcom’s future. To quote:
“It’s really early to be thinking about that because IV just came out in the arcades. I don’t really think anyone at Capcom is thinking about V just yet. What we might see happen, depending on feedback from the arcade and what players think of this version of IV, we may or may not see upgrades to IV before we ever take the next big step to V. It’s really is just too early to tell, to be honest.”
MTV adds that traditionally the gap between Street Fighter games is large. But Yoshinori Ono isn’t sure if that will be the case here between Street Fighter 4 and 5 as well.
Called the “Holiday Deal of the Week” program, there will be a new deal each week that will be available to download at a lower price worldwide from it’s announcement on Monday (which will be revealed on Xbox Live director of programming 
Your god-like speed, dexterity, jumping- sliding- & climbing powers, and reflexes are all the result of an amazingly fast metabolism; sadly, so is your natural lifespan of 1.5 minutes.
