ZombiU Preview:

How Long Wii(ll) U Survive?

 ZombiU is the M-rated title that has everyone buzzing, and as a likely Wii U launch title the buzz couldn’t be louder. ZombiU drops you in to a post infection world where you must loot and survive. Oh, and there are no lives, no restarts, and no traditional checkpoints. You get one life, so make it count.

The innovative concept of a single life makes for interesting and tense strategy. Every turn of the corner could be your last steps. Once killed you are turned in to the undead and join the ranks of those that took your life. The game isn’t over, just that survivor’s life. Let’s call him Alex. When Alex dies, you come back to the game as a new character who must finish the quest at hand. The twist that turns the zombie survival genre on it’s ear is that you must now find Alex as this new person, let’s call him Kyle. It is now part of Kyle’s quest to find Alex, kill him, and loot him, and then continue on as long as he can survive.

ZombiU will offer classic weapon choices and a looting system for ammo, medicine, and other items. Think Walking Dead. Looting is key to a post infection world. You will have a club, shotgun, pistol, and crossbow, among other weapons collected along the way, but ammo will be limited. There’s no hundreds of bullets. Think Half-Life.

Everything is kept in a backpack. What sets the inventory system in this game apart from others is that picking a weapon or item out of your bag happens in real-time. If you want to switch from your pistol to your shotgun, then your character takes the bag off his shoulder, kneels down, and rifles through the bag to get the item and put his backpack back on. ZombiU doesn’t allow for a COD or Borderlands quick switch, you have to find things in your bag, so switching weapons in a fight is almost not an option. You will be overrun while you search through your bag.

ZombiU is compatible with the Wii Pro controller, but it shines brightest with the use of the Wii U game pad. It is genuinely well used in many ways. Quicktime games like lock-picking happen in real-time, and occur on the touch screen. Aiming happens with the game pad. If you want to aim with your crossbow, then you hold the game pad up to the screen, and the sights of your weapon are on the touchscreen. Also, scanning a room for items is done with the game pad and highlights possibly vital items happens on the touch screen. You can scan the room in 360 degrees by simply turning around, pointing the pad and scan parts of the room not even displayed on the TV. It really is well used here as more than just a mini-map screen, though it does this, too.

It is unclear from the demo what your survivor’s task is overall. You have a voice that guides you through the game, seemingly a voice talking in your ear from a distant location. This gives the impression that your are often running tasks for small pockets of survivors. The classic gopher concept. In the demo, it was your quest to navigate a map to find much-needed medicine you were obviously sent to go get. You are not just a lone soul surviving on your own, think Book of Eli, you’re part of some bigger town or group and you’re the idiot willing to go out there.

With well-used new tech, gruesome violence, and a looting system set to the tune of one life to live, ZombiU will be the breakout hit of the Wii U launch, and will probably be a strong selling point for the hardcore gamer. The casual gaming market–families, kids, dance game, and WiiSports fans–might not bite on this one, but with the powerhouse developer of Ubisoft behind the title, it will probably do well. It is a potentially great game that shows off the potential of the Wii U game pad. Reports also indicate that ZombiU might not be Nintendo exclusive for long. What would they call it for other platforms, though? ZombiMove? ZombiKinect? They’ll cross that bridge if they can survive that long.

Assassin’s Creed 3 Preview:

The gem they meant to make the entire time

Assassin’s Creed 3 has been in the works for years. While other teams turned out the titles Revelations and Brotherhood, the 3 team took years crafting the story, world, and ground-up rebuilt combat system behind this E3 darling.

Playing it on the Playstation 3 and on the Wii U, it shined well on both, but the mechanics behind what the Wii U game pad offered were strong offerings. The screen acted as a quick inventory and as a large map for navigation. A map large enough that ten square city blocks seemed to be viewable, highlighting enemies long before encountering them, which I can only imagine allows for more tactical planning.

Speaking of the map, gone are the days of climbing a church or tower to synchronize. In AC3, wandering and the cities, wilderness, and sailing the open seas now unfogs the map as you go. This is in the tradition of games like BioShock and others. Exploration is the key to defining a map. Traveling at a higher elevation unfogs the map further than walking the streets. This encourages the player to stay in the trees and on rooftops to efficiently see the map more quickly.

The maps in AC3 are the biggest ever designed. Each city is larger than past cities combined. Florence and Rome are equal to one city in this game, not to mention the ocean and the wilderness. These large maps also forced the team to think of new tasks and ongoing quests. Hunting and exploration clubs encourage the player to explore and track and hunt animals. There is a monetary system, and hunting gets you meat and pelts you can sell. There are more than 25 species of animal to hunt from rabbits to bears. Don’t over hunt in an area too much, or those animals will disappear from that zone for a while. This is in keeping with the balance of nature and using everything that you kill that comes from Connor’s background as half Native-American.

The story of AC3 takes place over thirty years. It starts with Connor as a boy in his village, and ends after the Revolutionary War. Your enemy will be the Templars primarily, but this might be anyone from Americans to British to others. As always, this game is made by people from many religious and political backgrounds, which is the disclaimer found before the menu screen of every title.

Since this is a very open, realistic world, tasks will pop up and come and go. Exploration is everything, and Connor is not one to let a chance to fight for the people pass him up. The Templars are the enemy, but fighting power, oppression, and violence is a key goal. The common people will sometimes need Connor’s help. Whether it is a random street crime, a task to find meat for hungry villagers, or the task of securing medicine for sick and dying soldiers, Connor will have the option of intervening and upping his support from the people. This system is much like the one found in Brotherhood, where the people needed to be liberated from the tyrannical Borgias which allowed you to buy businesses and repair the city. Connor fights for his nation, his people, and anyone who is oppressed. You gotta respect a guy like that.

The combat system had to be retooled as well. There are a host of new kills and counters available, and stringing them together looks incredible while being so satisfying. Just as in the past, Connor can grab a weapon and use it in a fight, but can’t store it. You’ve seen the video of him grabbing a musket, shooting one man while stabbing another with the bayonet. There are new executions like stringing up the enemy. When you do this, you have the option of staying in the trees after the kill, or swinging down to the ground while the dying enemy goes up like a pulley system. One hell of a way to make an entrance. The combat system was rebuilt to account for the new class of weapons and Connor’s native background. He fights fluidly and viciously. There are now styles of running kills without missing a step, jump executions, and an endless way of mixing and matching your play style. He carries guns and a bow and arrow instead of the throwing knives we’ve seen in the past. Include his tomahawk and double wrist blades among others and you’ve got just about any combination of ways to deliver justice.

The free running in my gameplay was very intuitive. Back are the lifts for quick ascent to the rooftops, but when the team had to account for shorter buildings and the difficulties of navigation trees and natural growth for the first time, they had to rethink how Connor gets around. Just the programming and thinking about how to use the V-shape of branches and trunks and getting from tree to tree called for a complete redesign of how Connor could get around.

The team had the time and the fresh blood to redesign almost every aspect of Connor’s mannerisms. This is a completely new world, new type of character, and they even went as far as to think of how a man from his background would walk. It was explained that his gate, his frame, had to be rethought. Connor is a man who grew up in the wilderness. He was taught by Indians, and spent a lot of time hunting and respecting animals for their sacrifice. After explaining this to me, I saw that Connor moves like an animal. He lurks, hunches over, peers fro side to side, and seems to stalk his enemies. All movements that come from hunting in the wild. It is this attention to detail that new team members with fresh eyes and ideas could put in to place over a design cycle rarely heard of anymore. With three years from initial design meetings to release date, they were able to focus on this kind of detail and further define and flesh out a character as dynamic as Connor.

Another instance of great care was the time taken to properly match the physics of snow. Snow took so much attention, because it is a large part of the game. Snow had to have different depths, banks, and beaten tracts. Moving through it had to be dynamic. Running in to fresh, shallow snow had to be fast but then high steps and slower progress had to be designed as the snow got deeper and more difficult to navigate. I was able to watch Connor high-step through deep snow. That initial pull of the leg out and then set down on the snow where it plunged back in. This labored walking encourages Connor to keep to the trees. Snow also had to leave tracks until it snowed again. Connor can be tracked by his steps as he’s pursued, but this also comes in handy when Connor is hunting an animal and can follow it’s tracks.

The maps are bigger than ever. The enemy is everywhere. There are many side quests and random tasks that will come up when even on a major storyline quest. You hunt, you sail, you explore. The combat is fluid and dynamic. The free running has been reworked with care and intuition regarding how the player should be able to move through a world with obstacles never seen in an AC game before. The character of Connor has been lovingly created and realized down to the greatest detail. AC3 represents what enough time and support for a team of developers can accomplish. Ubisoft has allowed a team to create a game that will be a shot in the arm for the franchise, and get more kids Googling American history sites and Wikis than ever before. Assassin’s Creed 3 hits shelves on October 30, 2012.

The Big Three at E3: Who Won?

E3 has a lot to offer. It has to since it’s the biggest gaming event of the year. E3 is the Detroit Auto Show of gaming. E3 has it’s big players same as the auto industry and they go head-to-head each year to roll out the best concept and production vehicles they can to wow the public revealing their lineup for the coming year.

Just as with the auto show, there are forgettable mistakes like the Gremlin and triumphs like the Shelby Mustang. E3 has its big three, and they won and lost as follows.

Sony came in third place almost immediately after its press conference. Not the strongest exclusive lineup of games. The new God of War Ascension looks like a four out of five to me. They also failed to instill any confidence in me that the PSN (Playstation Network) is any more secure or robust. Also, the Playstation Plus package looks weak and half-cocked. If you’re going to drop a pay to play package on an audience used to free service, your pitch should be better than free PSone titles; don’t lead with old stuff as a selling point.

Sony also failed to impress me with what they featured. OK, an Assassin’s Creed title for the Vita, but I’m not impressed. Not impressed that you glorified it as a package deal with a new Vita this fall. Also, don’t care that it can be a great controller with full functionality for the PS3; that’s a $300 controller my friend. Ouch.

Sony’s biggest bust, one that shows how out of touch they are with their gaming base, is the Playstation Wonderbook. Who thought integrating a book into gaming was a good idea? Utilizing their augmented reality system, between the book and a camera, a 3D image appears on the television screen. The big selling point was the launch of a Harry Potter themed game where you learn spells from the book using the Playstation Move ice cream cone as a wand. The demo barely worked, and the major drawback is that you have to sit on the ground five feet from your TV to use it. I’ve got a coffee table and a small living room, where the hell is my kid supposed to play his book game? It was a poor choice to reveal this at an event as large as E3 and got only polite applause from the audience.

Sony made a poor decision in attempting to move Vitas and interactive books; it felt like a sales pitch, not a press conference. They didn’t bring out any new tech for the core of the gaming audience. The core, mind you, is an average age of 34 years old. Yeah, my kid might want the book, but why invest in something that looks like a device with little replay value? Unless titles are cheap downloadables, this is a piece of hardware that will have a short lifespan. How diverse can the title lineup be if they all must be restricted to this book format? This looks like another piece of hardware that will sell well initially, and then fall off sharply like what happened with the Vita.

Nintendo came in second place this year in the console wars. With offering of Kingdom Hearts 3D among other bankable titles, and the relative success demoing Wii U, Nintendo upped their street cred. The Wii U as a device seems to be getting used fairly well initially. The console has its limits after seeing much of the specs, but the Wii U game pad adds another dimension to a console that will support all other interfaces like the Wiimote and the Pro controller among others. This was savvy on their part to keep support for all the controllers people already own and are used to. Between all of these remotes, this might become a very dynamic console. From Assassin’s Creed III to Pikmin 3 and the M-rated ZombiU–the most interesting use of the tablet–there seems to be some great content out there that will highlight its particular skill sets.

Nintendo has been losing a lot of ground among hardcore gamers as they have been appealing to casual gamers. Nintendo looks strong with hit games like Just Dance 4 as well. JD 4 looks to sell a ton of copies as the world’s best-selling dance game. The Wii U game pad is integrated into gameplay as well. Don’t forget Rayman Legends, showing some serious power and fun gameplay. For what it is, if this is the kind of item you enjoy, then it has been well thought out and there is a game for everyone.

Nintendo will always command the handheld market. The Vita price point is too high and Microsoft could care less. Mobile phone and tablet gaming had a huge presence at the expo as well, so this should make Nintendo a bit nervous since the tablets I got to play on had some very impressive processing power for games that were pretty expansive. The 3Ds has had less than stellar sales after the initial cycle. Some of this can be blamed on a terrible launch title line and flooding the market with games instead of peppering them out of a longer period. Nintendo will still hold on to that part of the market that wants to just game and not mess around on their phone for little games that are free or at most a couple bucks. The 3Ds and other mobile gaming platforms won’t flop, and many of the games on display seemed strong and from franchises one can plan on moving a lot of copies.

This might be the year that Nintendo gets it right and gets back in the black. The public’s understanding of what the Wii U actually will be is important, along with a reasonable price to convince people to buy a new console at launch.

By elimination, this means Microsoft is this year’s winner. It’s not by a close margin, either. Microsoft did three things right. They led with console content, a game people are losing their shit over, and some great tech.

There were few flaws in the Microsoft plan of attack. Leading with content, they blew the competition out of the water with all the major sports on their platform. MLB, NFL, live ESPN, NHL, and more. HBO is coming to XBOX, and other movie providers. They are also redesigning the XBOX desktop for easier searching. They are also bring the internet to the XBOX. True surfing through Kinect will be possible to find information, YouTube videos, and other content. XBOX established itself as the media center powerhouse among the competition. No one comes close to the moves Microsoft is making as a media platform in the home. They seemed to go in to this console generation with this in mind, and have easily kept one step ahead while a company like Sony seemed to add it as an afterthought when Blu-Ray players became affordable and Nintendo seems to be almost ignoring diverse media support.

Microsoft then hit us with Halo 4, and will have almost every major title on their console this season and into next year. Besides God of War Ascension, they have everything people are going to want. Halo 4 will be the runaway hit of the year and it seems to be a well-crafted start to another cash cow trilogy of Halo games.

Now for the sweet tech. It is almost laughable how stupid the Wonderbook is compared to SmartGlass tech. I almost saw a smug smile on their faces when they demoed the tech at the press conference and on the floor. Savvy to use a HBO hit show for the demo, too. SmartGlass takes all the items you already have–tablets, smart phones, and XBOX, TV–and makes them work together. Uninterrupted change from tablet to TV in video playback. Tablet support for gameplay like drawing up plays in Madden. When making the switch from tablet to TV viewing, the tablet will instantly switch to supporting information about the film or TV show you’re watching in real-time.

SmartGlass is a savvy move on many fronts, but most of all it’s just software. This is where Microsoft got brilliant. Instead of making a piece of hardware, getting it past all the dev time and inspections, shipping, maintenance, warranties, customer service calls, production cost, and most of all persuading someone to buy yet another thing, they just decided to create enough code to make it all work together. It really is genius. No ad campaign for a new piece of hardware…just download this. Apple has you buying iEverything to work seamlessly, but Microsoft will make any phone and any tablet work with an XBOX. This appeals to current XBOX owners and coupled with their content lineup and games coming out, it will topple anyone on the fence about buying a console or switching teams.

Microsoft knocked this E3 out of the park with a savvy tech decision that compliments everything else they do well. Kinect worked beautifully with games demoed and with surfing their XBOX desktop. They have a lush and vibrant lineup of new games and content providers which will appeal to a lot of people, gamer or not. Now that a Blu-Ray player costs $50 at Walmart, it’s not the selling point it used to be for Sony. Microsoft really excelled at forcing someone to think if a $50 Blu-Ray player and an XBOX might be the way to go in the future–those things will be one thing in the next console generation, mark my words. They will also sell the shit out of games this holiday season. They’re gonna have a good year.

Most shocking of all was that I felt like Microsoft didn’t try to sell me anything. This is key. They didn’t try to package anything up to sell a Kinect or a console or a new tablet or some Wonderbook you need a camera and a Move controller to use. Microsoft simply showed off new tech, new games, and new content. While Sony played the role of carnival barker and Nintendo was talking up the merits of the Wii U, Microsoft played the sales card close to the chest and just showed us great stuff. No sales pitch needed. Great stuff sells itself. Game, set, match. Microsoft.