The Wii U is out. It's interesting. The mini-games I played in NintendoLand were fun, but I'll need more time with the system before I take the plunge. All those games came out yesterday, which means they piggybacked on last week's Co-Op Release Alert. I highly recommend checking out our Co-Op Spotlight: Wii U Edition. It has a more comprehensive list of the co-op games for Nintendo's new system.
Disney's latest animated feature Wreck-It Ralph is chock full of videogame references, some more obscure than others. For instance, the final boss of Altered Beast makes a brief cameo in his rhino form. That gives us the perfect excuse to look at an obscure Japanese port of the game in our latest installment of Co-Op International. This month we look at Altered Beast (called Juuoki in Japan) for the PC Engine, an 8-bit system known as the Turbografx-16 in the west.
Six years after the Nintendo Wii launched, shaking up the video game industry forever, the console's successor is here with the Nintendo Wii U. The Wii U doesn't look to offer the same revolutionary features of the original, or at the least, it doesn't appear that it's going to have the same effect on the industry.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 is this year's release of the franchise, and I consider myself to be someone able to see both sides of the yearly release argument. But this is the first year I truly feel that the series has taken a step back in some regards. Whether that's because of a shorter development cycle or poor implementation of fresh ideas - Black Ops 2 just doesn't seem to resonate with me the same way Modern Warfare 3 did last year.
Think back only a few weeks ago .... you were asked to choose which of three Van Helsings should star in the upcoming The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing. The vote was one sided with The Mysterious Stranger winning by a 72% landslide. You have a hero, but what about the world in which he exists? NeocoreGames have released some world building Development Diaries.
Kung Fu Strike: The Warrior's Rise may be my pick for worst game of the year, but I've run across a few forum-goers who proved impervious enough to its general crapulence and numerous faults that they still enjoyed it. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like many new players will get to judge the game for themselves (at least on Xbox 360), as the XBLA version has been pulled from the Marketplace without warning. The Steam version remains unaffected, at least for now.
We've only briefly talked about Star Citizen, which is Chris Roberts (Wing Commander, Privateer) return to PC gaming after a 10 year hiatus. The game started up crowd funding a little over a month ago on both its own site and more recently on Kickstarter. Funding actually wraps up tomorrow and while the initial goal was around 2 Million - the game is has crested the 5 million dollar mark with over 73,000 backers.
Gears of War has been around since early on in the life cycle of the Xbox 360. The first game was released in 2006, introducing the world to Marcus, Dom, and the glorious Lancer weapon. A smash hit, the original was followed up by two sequels, one in 2008 and another late last year. Each of these games took what made the first great, cranked it up a notch or three, and added in glorious features like Horde and Beast mode. Throughout the series, co-op options have been solid, culminating in four-player online campaign support in Gears of War 3. To say that it has been a successful series would be an understatement.
Welcome to Beyond Co-Op, the weekend column that rounds up some of the interesting stories from the week outside of the co-op sphere of interest.
Just about every member of our staff is completely addicted to Halo 4 - and with good reason. Despite Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 releasing this week everyone is hooked on Master Chief and Cortana's story and of course some co-op Spartan-Ops.
Every now and then I post a review, hop on over to Metacritic, and wonder what the hell everyone else was playing. Assassin's Creed 3 was one such review. There are a lot of stellar scores for Assassin's Creed 3 on Metacritic. Man, I wish they had their version of the game. Because my version is scheduled to be patched "by the end of next week."
Skylanders Giants is the sequel to the insanely popular Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure. Beneath all the new action figures, inter-connectivity, PC mini-games, and Portals of Power, there's an actual game to play. Find out if it's worth playing in our Co-Op Review.
