L.A. Noire
L.A. Noire is a strong attempt at an interactive 1940s detective movie. A lot of effort has been put into the film feel of the game, including using the mo-capped likenesses of several known actors—including Aaron Staton of Mad Men fame—and over 20 hours of voice acting. The game will take players though the cases of Phelps, an officer of the LAPD. When the game begins, Phelps is a simple beat cop, but players will have the opportunity to advance the protagonist’s career up to the rank of investigator along the way. Each promotion comes with greater access to the city and a new partner to interact with, and each case Phelps solves brings him deeper into the world of crime in the city. The gameplay itself is much like Rockstar’s other games, such as the GTA franchise. The player will move through an open, explorable city, which is intended to be a “perfect replica” of 1947 Los Angeles. Players can travel by foot or in a variety of period vehicles as they complete the open-ended narrative.
Spongebob Squigglepants 3D
Spongebob Squigglepants 3D is a collection of mini-games based on the Spongebob Squarepants IP. Much like a WarioWare game, players will be challenged to complete many very short challenges in a row, using the stylus and 3D functionality of the 3DS. The game features over 100 different mini-games, most of which require some kind of drawing to solve—thus the title.
Terraria
The Icrontic spotlight this week illuminates the depths of Terraria. This indie game is a 2D action blockcrafter with heavy Minecraft influences. Players drop into a randomly generated world, which they may choose to either explore or immediately begin to harvest and build. Exploring distant and deep will have its rewards in the form of rare materials, and from the promotional materials it appears that there will be a wider range of items and building materials to craft with the game’s recipes than we’ve seen in other blockcraft games so far. There also seem to be magic spells and guns, which will either add some interesting variety or crowd the game’s potential. Players can choose to fight more difficult enemies, and get more rare rewards, by summoning bosses. There is multi-player, which is open-ended to be as co-operative or competitive as the players wish, including the ability to set up password-protected servers for persistent access.
Following is a full list of this week’s announced North American releases:
Windows
- Crysis 2: Retaliation
- Detour
- Fable III
- Fallout: New Vegas – Honest Hearts
- Final Fantasy XI: Ultimate Collection Abyssea Edition
- Terraria
- The First Templar
Wii
- Chrono Trigger
- Gabrielles Ghostly Groove: Monster Mix
- ExerBeat
DS
- Big Bass Arcade
- Cake Mania: Main Street
- Chess Attack
- Hellokids – Vol. 1: Coloring and Painting
- Word Searcher 3
3DS
- SpongeBob Squigglepants 3D
Xbox 360
- Crysis 2: Retaliation
- Fable III
- Fallout: New Vegas – Honest Hearts
- L.A. Noire
- Pinball FX 2: Marvel Pinball – Fantastic Four
- SEGA Rally Online Arcade
- Shift 2: Unleashed – Speedhunters
- The First Templar
PS3
- Crysis 2: Retaliation
- Fallout: New Vegas – Honest Hearts
- L.A. Noire
- Marvel Pinball: Fantastic Four
- Shift 2: Unleashed – Speedhunters
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