A patchwork, not a hybrid, Shadows Of The Damned is an awkward mixture of elements from the oeuvres of its high-profile creators. As executive director and writer, Suda 51 brings along many of the motifs that have typified his quirky, outlandish productions. From wisecracking protagonist Garcia Hotspur to blood-spurting finishers and a fetish for strawberries, it’s easy to mistake Shadows Of The Damned for his latest solo effort rather than his first major collaboration.
Perhaps the biggest problem for Hard Lines is its inspiration. Because Snake is rubbish. But Hard Lines puts that bare mechanic to good use, building a game around it that's anything but an idle distraction.
The big idea is simple: loads of lines, and loads of points. Depending on the mode, your line has to either pick a path through the intersecting mass towards points, kill those other lines and gobble up their 'bits', or simply keep scoring to stay alive.
Masahiro Sakurai has poured cold water on the suggestion that a new game in his Smash Bros series is around the corner, admitting that work has yet to begin on the project and saying that gamers may have to wait "several years" before anything is released.
Nintendo's 3DS was the best-selling hardware in Japan last week, as the release of The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time 3D saw the glasses-free 3D handheld outsell PSP for the first time in more than two months.
3DS sold 40,649 units over the course of the week, a comfortable lead over PSP's 31,741 sales, though PSP has been the best-selling hardware in Japan for some time: the last time 3DS topped the hardware chart was the week ending April 17.
Nintendo's 3DS was the best-selling hardware in Japan last week, as the release of The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time 3D saw the glasses-free 3D handheld outsell PSP for the first time in more than two months.
3DS sold 40,649 units over the course of the week, a comfortable lead over PSP's 31,741 sales, though PSP has been the best-selling hardware in Japan for some time: the last time 3DS topped the hardware chart was the week ending April 17.
Seemingly without exception, developers really want to talk about LA Noire. With its use of performance capture taking centre stage, creating the first detective game in which the only required reading is the face of each suspect, it's given us a breakthrough we seldom see: obvious and powerful, without which the game simply would not work. So integral is MotionScan, a pioneering 'markerless' capture solution by Depth Analysis, that no mention of LA Noire is complete without it.
Everyone in the video game industry, and anyone with an interest in gaming, can attest that the last couple of years have brought considerable change, and with it an equivalent amount of turmoil. But in this opening column for Edge I want to argue that those events, rather than wrecking our beloved industry, are putting down the foundations for the next stage of growth, and potentially for a true Golden Age of gaming.