With Twisted Metal, the franchise is being rebooted. What little story the Twisted Metal world has is being ignored, and the game takes us to a new tournament—as if the previous games never happened. The new game combines the favorite characters, vehicles, and features from all of the past games. This is the project which was originally titled Twisted Metal: Apocalypse, and was intended to just be the next game in a long line of the same old Twisted Metal, to be released on PSN as a download only title. Partway through the development process, however, Sony decided that they had more on their hands here than just another churning up of the classic franchise. The name was changed, as was the focus. Now it’s a full commercial title with a major marketing campaign.
The engine is new, and the story is rebooted, but the game-play is essentially the same. Basic racing-style controls bring the player into the arena for armed demolition derby matches. This new iteration will be multi-player only with up to 16 players over PSN or up to 4 playing locally on split-screen. New features include the ability to customize drivers and passenger; a few new weapons and vehicles, including a sniper rifle; and new game modes, like Nuke: a capture-the-flag-esque game with nuclear missiles.
Crusader Kings II is the latest strategic world-conquest game from Paradox. It has the same top-only game mechanics that have made their other titles so popular, but this time is set during the 400 years of political turmoil of the Crusades and Middle Ages. Players will have to manage a line of succession to create a lineage and legacy which the populace trusts, vie with the pope for control of each facet of their rule, manage a complex court full of courtiers with each their own agenda, and engage in holy wars in the Middle East to appease a war-hungry Europe. Changes from the first Crusader Kings includes a greater focus on domestic issues—the first one was all about managing the crusades—and, as always, contains many engine improvements, including graphics and drill-down levels. Players still won’t be controlling battles themselves, but there is plenty of micromanaging to be done at every level of government, if you’re into that sort of thing.
Dear Esther is a remake of a free Source mod from a few years ago. The game featured a large environment to explore—an island with some creepy stuff on it—and had very little in the way of objectives. The player wanders the island freely, discovering portions of the island in his/her own time and order, and hearing, along the way, random portions of a journal which was written by an explorer who had recently lost his wife in a car accident. The player is free to explore and draw conclusions, but there is no combat, and no objective—nothing to tell the player when they are finished other than a sense that everything has been seen. It was an experiment in interactive storytelling which saw some critical success.
The game has now been remade from the ground up with a better budget, and more detailed environments and effects, with remastered vocals and music in an attempt to create a more immersive experience. It’s also no longer free.
The Icrontic Spotlight this week shines outward from the exploding organs of Warp. This is a unique third-person adventure game in which players take on the role of a captured alien creature named Zero. Zero is being run through a gamut of tests in a secret science facility, when he acquires the ability to teleport short distances. With this one skill, the creature has to escape the facility. Mostly, he will use stealth to escape the guards and scientists, but when it becomes necissary (or for fun) his teleport can be used as a weapon by placing himself inside of a target and exploding it from the inside. Zero will also use his ability to move trough walls, destroy machines, dodge laser turrets, and do all manner of other sneaky stuff.
Following is a full list of this week’s announced North American releases:
Windows
- Crusader Kings II
- Dear Esther
- Telepath RPG: Servants of God
- Warp
Wii
- B-Units: Build it!
- Rhythm Heaven Fever
DS
- B-Units: Build it!
Xbox 360
- BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend
- Grand Slam Tennis 2
- Pinball FX2: Epic Quest
- UFC Undisputed 3
- Warp
- Zumba Fitness Rush
PS3
- BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend
- Grand Slam Tennis 2
- Twisted Metal
- UFC Undisputed 3
- Warp
PSP
- Hakuoki: Demon of the Fleeting Blossom
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