The First Templar
First up, The First Templar is attempting to capitalize on the current popularity of the Templar story, thanks to the Assassin’s Creed franchise. This game follows the story of a noblewoman who has been declared a heretic, and the Templar who has chosen to help protect her from his own order. I’m sure there is a deep mystery to uncover, but the big deal here is co-operative play. You know I’m a sucker for co-op, and this one has drop-in drop-out co-op play: Both characters are in the game at all times, and the player can switch between them freely, with the AI taking over the other. At any time, a friend can drop-in and play the other character instead. In my book, however, that means the game does not have a single-player mode.
LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game
We have yet another movie franchise turned LEGO game with the release of LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game. This game covers the events of all four Pirates of the Caribbean films, including the one which has not yet been released (It’ll hit theaters May 20th). Like the previous LEGO movie games, players will fight their way through the scenes of the films beating up LEGO minifigures and monsters to earn little LEGO coins. Co-op play is local only.
Dream Trigger 3D
In Dream Trigger 3D, players are challenged with working on two screens at once. On the touch screen, a Lumines-like puzzle game creates the ‘sonar’ pulses that the player will need to shoot the enemies on the 3D screen. The game uses the full abilities of the 3DS, and puts all the action into three dimensions in such a way that the screen’s capabilities become a necessary part of the game—not just a gimmick, but an integral part of play. If you’re not into using the 3D feature of the new 3DS, skip this one.
Brink
The Icrontic Spotlight this week shimmers upon the spires of Brink. This much-delayed game is one of first-person, squad-based combat. Two teams of up to 8 players compete in a number of game modes. Players can choose to play in missions alone or with friends in competitive or co-operative matches with bots of varying skill levels. The gimmick here is a Mirror’s Edge-esque parkour style of movement, but without the rails. The game engine includes what the developers call the SMART (Smooth Movement Across Random Terrain) system, which is predictive. It watches the player’s movements through the environment, and tries to predict the possible sweet steps and jumps that the player will want to make, essentially simplifying the controls of complex mobility. A further feature is the Squad Commander. This system looks at the players’ positions and skill levels to assign each member of the team an objective. Completing these objectives earn experience points, which the player can use to improve their character’s abilities along four skill paths: Soldier, Media, Engineer, and Operative. There are a lot of interesting gimmicks here, and the Squad Commander feature in particular sounds like it could be a game-changer. Also, it has Steamworks integrated, so no worries about matchmaking.
Following is a full list of this week’s announced North American releases:
Windows
- Allods Online
- Brink
- Fate: The Cursed King
- Garshasp: The Monster Slayer
- Hydrophobia Prophecy
- The First Templar
Wii
- LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game
- MDK2
- Virtua Tennis 4
DS
- GO Series: Tower of Deus
- LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game
- Mighty Milky Way
- Touch ‘N’ Play Collection
- Whack-A-Friend
- Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s World Championship 2011: Over the Nexus
3DS
- Dream Trigger 3D
Xbox 360
- Brink
- Gatling Gears
- LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game
- MX vs. ATV Alive
- The First Templar
- Virtua Tennis 4
PS3
- Brink
- LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game
- MX vs. ATV Alive
- Virtua Tennis 4
PSP
- LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game
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