Ugly American: Apocalypsegeddon
Apocalypsegeddon is the tie-in game for Comedy Central’s popular new show, Ugly Americans. It’s a Simpsons-esque side-scrolling fighter for up to four players—each choosing an avatar with different specialties based on one of the show’s characters—to adventure co-operatively. Unfortunately it doesn’t look very polished, and would mostly only appeal to fans of the show due to an overabundance of in-show jokes and references. Apparently they are fighting to stop the end of the world, but since I don’t watch the show, I don’t really get the context of the mission.
The Baconing
The Baconing is the sequel to the goofy DeathSpank. DeathSpank, the ultimate arbiter of justice, has made a mistake. When he puts on all of his underwear at the same time, it summons AntiSpank, the opposite of DeathSpank’s justice and righteousness embodied. To defeat AntiSpank, he must collect five magic thongs and burn them in the Fires of Bacon. Other than the odd story, the gameplay is much the same as the original DeathSpank. If you enjoyed that one, you’ll probably enjoy this one.
Bloodrayne: Betrayal
Another sequel this week is Bloodrayne: Betrayal. Lots of changes to this one, however. It seems the only thing they kept is the name, as the graphical style has changed from 3D realism to 2D cartoonish. The gameplay has gone from over-the-shoulder shooter to platformer, and Rayne doesn’t seem to be fighting any people this time, just monsters. She does still have those sweet arm-blades, and her costume is still pretty revealing.
Achron
The Icrontic Spotlight this week arrives a few moments in advance of Achron. At its most simplistic description, Achron looks like a real-time strategy game, and in some ways it is, but in one major way, it is not. The developers are calling it a ‘time-travel strategy’ game, the first of a new genre. Time-travel is not a new mechanic in video games, but the challenge is to make time travel work with a multi-player game. Lots of game designers (or their marketing departments) like to call their games innovative, but in this case it’s true. How could it possibly work? The basic function is this: Like an RTS, there is a battlefield, and each player can use resources to build buildings and units, and issue orders to those units. That should all be familiar to most RTS gamers, which will help the typical gamer get into the mechanics more easily.
The head exploding part is that each player moves through the battle at their own pace, choosing not just which part of the battlefield to focus on at any given moment, but also what moment along the timeline of the battle, then with great expense of resources, some units can also be moved forward and backward through the timeline. For example if your opponent decides to rush your base early on, you can move to a later point in the timeline, where you have already collected a lot more resources, build some defensive units, and send them back through time to the moment you need them to defend against the rush.
Paradoxes are dealt with almost randomly. A skilled player can try to time the execution of a paradox to their advantage, but most of the time, the rare paradoxes which occur will oscillate a few times, then resolve in an unexpected, uncontrolled fashion. If all that isn’t enough, the game supports up to 25 players in a single battle, which is boggling all on its own. Imagining the way it works is difficult, but I’ll try to make it more clear in Icrontic’s review of the title, which will be up soon.
Following is a full list of this week’s announced North American releases:
Windows
- Achron
- Air Conflicts: Secret Wars
- Casino Chaos With Las Vegas Players Collection
- IGT Slots: Lucky Larry’s Lobstermania
- Jumpgate Evolution
- The Baconing
- The Sims Medieval: Pirates and Nobles
Wii
- Get Fit With Mel B
- Gunslingers
- Madden NFL 12
DS
- Hoppies
- Junior Island Adventure
- Junior Mystery Stories
- Veggy World
3DS
- Angler’s Club: Ultimate Bass Fishing 3D
Xbox 360
- Air Conflicts: Secret Wars
- BloodRayne: Betrayal
- Bodycount
- Chester
- Madden NFL 12
- Pinball FX 2: Ms. ‘Splosion Man
- Redd: The Lost Temple
- The Baconing
- Train Frontier Express
- Ugly Americans: Apocalypsegeddon
- Wheelman
PS3
- Air Conflicts: Secret Wars
- Bodycount
- Madden NFL 12
- The Baconing
- Ugly Americans: Apocalypsegeddon
PSP
- Carnivores: Ice Age
- ClaDun x2
- Madden NFL 12
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