Kidzworld's Official Blog

This week, Split Second is pumping a ridiculous amount of adrenaline into the racing game genre. On May 25th, two more racers are coming out with very different approaches. Let’s just quickly compare the three.

Split Second: Race opponents and your friends over chaotic courses that anyone can blow to smithereens at any time, totally changing the course and taking racers out.

Blur: The only one of the three with real licensed cars, it’s more realistic than the others as well while still being arcade-y. Racers still try to perform stunts and use power-ups to take down the other cars.

ModNation Racers: Think LittleBigPlanet meets Mario Kart. It’s a kart racing game where you get to make the characters, the karts, and the tracks, all with incredibly detailed tools that anyone can use.

There wasn’t even enough room to describe everything in Skate 3 in this week’s post. So here’s a more complete list of all the cool new stuff.

• A new city! You’re not in San Vanelona or New San Vanelona, now you’re in Port Carverton! Plus there aren’t any security guards to beat you up this time…
• New tricks! You can now do probably the coolest trick ever, the DARKSLIDE. It’s like a boardslide, but with the board upside down. Along with that, you get underflips and stuff related to that.
• Teams! You create a skate team and your own skate company in Skate 3. You can invite your friends into your team, and have your team graphic on their boards and shirts and stuff.
• Board sales! Every objective you complete is to sell your company’s boards. You’re in big business now, and it’s about the sales just as much as your skating.
• Co-operative gameplay! Invite a friend to skate along with you, and you can complete single-player objectives along with him. He’ll get credit in his game, too.
• Create your own skate park! Pretty self-explanatory. It’s your team’s HQ.
• Easy mode! The physics are easier, and you get some help landing on rails.
• Hardcore mode! The physics are tougher, and you get no help at all on landing those grinds.

This week’s gaming news post covered the release of the Iron Man 2 video game. A couple of weeks ago, I visited the Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo, where they were auctioning off various props from the Iron Man 2 movie. None of the props were ridiculously cool, like the actual suit worn by Tony Stark or anything, but they sure went for ridiculously cool amounts of money. Here’s how much the stuff sold for:

• A battle-damaged and crushed Iron Man helmet: $11,000
• The left hand of the Iron Man suit: $5,500
• The right foot of the Iron Man suit: $1,900
• Iron Man suit butt plate (yes, really): $700
• A random boom box from a Humvee: $500
• A California license plate that reads “STARK6″: $900
• A newspaper that reads “WHO IS THE IRON MAN?”: $1,000

This week, we talked about the new FIFA World Cup game. Given my limited expertise in international soccer, I’m going to go ahead and predict the results of the entire World Cup, right here, right now. Not by simulating it in-game, no, I’m just going to guess. At least no one can really laugh at how terrible the picks are until July. Two teams advance from each group.

Read the rest of this entry »

This week’s game releases include Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, and on the very same day, another game (one that’s not so kid-friendly) will be released based on Dante’s Divine Comedy. I decided that this should be a growing trend, games based on awesome literature, so here are some games I’d like to see that fit that mold:

• The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – There is a classic, hilarious 1984 text adventure based on this classic, hilarious 1979 book. But text adventures are a little hard to get into ever since games got, you know, graphics, so we need a new Hitchhiker’s Guide game. Besides maybe the Ratchet & Clank series, not enough games are funny nowadays.
• Pride and Prejudice and Zombies – This mixture of a famous Jane Austen novel and, well, zombies is getting a movie made of it pretty soon. So it’s the perfect time for a video game beat-em-up adaptation to go along with it!
• The Three Musketeers – This book’s due for a comeback. Lots of good combat actions between muskets and rapiers, and a good story to back it up.

Level-5 is the developer of our latest featured game, White Knight Chronicles. They’re an often overlooked RPG dev, with some amazing games for Sony systems in particular over the years. Here’s a quick rundown of them, and why you should pick them up if you see them for $5 in a bargain bin somewhere.

• Dark Cloud (2000) – PS2. Actually very similar to White Knight Chronicles in that it’s a regular RPG with city-building elements. A real under-recognized gem.
• Dark Chronicle (2002) – PS2. Sometimes it’s called Dark Cloud 2. It has the same city-building stuff combined with RPG stuff, and then adds in this odd photography system. It has awesome, stylish graphics.
• Dragon Quest VIII (2004) – PS2. Again, great cel-shaded graphics. Japanese magazine Famitsu called it the fourth best game of all time at one point.
• Rogue Galaxy (2005) – PS2. It’s pretty unfair to say it’s a sci-fi version of Dark Cloud 2, but I don’t have a lot of room to talk about it here, so I’m just going to say it’s like a sci-fi version of Dark Cloud 2.
• Jeanne d’Arc (2006) – PSP. A tactical turn-based RPG instead of an action one like the others, plus it’s (loosely) based on the story of Joan of Arc. One of my favorite PSP games.
• The Professor Layton series (2007-today) – DS. Not an RPG, but rather a game of puzzles set around a storyline, with some adventure-y elements. Definitely a must-have for DS owners, unless you’re really ticked off by brain teasers.

For this week’s “Nate categorizes several games he knows that share an oddball common theme with some other game that came out this week” post, I’m going to mention some awesome photography games, because Afrika is coming out this week. Let’s see here, there’s:

1. Pokemon Snap, the sorta famous game in which you ride around and take pictures of pokemon doin’ stuff. Way, way more fun that that sounds, even if you aren’t a Pokemon fan.
2. Endless Ocean, which is a lot like Afrika underwater. Probably even more chilled out than Afrika will be.
3. Fatal Frame, if you get your parents’ permission to play it (rated Teen), is an old PS2 horror game in which you take pictures of the ghosts to defeat them. Does that sound like an odd Japanese game to you? Then you’re right!
4. Beyond Good & Evil, the cult classic, involves photography in its gameplay quite a bit. Of all these four, you should definitely try this one first if you’ve never heard of it. It’s also rated Teen, though, so get permission first, and let your parents watch some gameplay or trailers or something so they can decide.

Almost all of the songs in The Beatles: Rock Band have now been revealed, but one is being kept secret for now, likely an endgame surprise. Here’s the list, in order of the songs’ original release, and with which level the songs will be played in:

# Twist And Shout / Cavern Club
# Do You Want To Know A Secret / Cavern Club
# Can’t Buy Me Love / Ed Sullivan Theater
# I Wanna Be Your Man / Ed Sullivan Theater
# Eight Days A Week / Shea Stadium
# Paperback Writer / Budokan
# And Your Bird Can Sing / Budokan
# Yellow Submarine / Abbey Road Dreamscape
# Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band / Abbey Road Dreamscape
# With a Little Help from My Friends / Abbey Road Dreamscape
# Within You Without You / Tomorrow Never Knows / Abbey Road Dreamscape
# Revolution / Abbey Road Dreamscape
# Birthday / Abbey Road Dreamscape
# Dig A Pony / Rooftop Concert
# I’ve Got A Feeling / Rooftop Concert
# Boys / Cavern Club
# A Hard Day’s Night / Ed Sullivan Theater
# I’m Looking Through You / Shea Stadium
# If I Needed Someone / Shea Stadium
# Ticket to Ride / Shea Stadium
# Drive My Car / Budokan
# Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds / Abbey Road Dreamscape
# Getting Better / Abbey Road Dreamscape
# Good Morning / Abbey Road Dreamscape
# Hello, Goodbye / Abbey Road Dreamscape
# Hey Bulldog / Abbey Road Dreamscape
# Dear Prudence / Abbey Road Dreamscape
# While My Guitar Gently Weeps / Abbey Road Dreamscape
# Helter Skelter / Abbey Road Dreamscape
# Something / Abbey Road Dreamscape
# Come Together / Abbey Road Dreamscape
# Don’t Let Me Down / Rooftop Concert
# I Want You (She’s So Heavy) / Rooftop Concert
# I Me Mine / Rooftop Concert
# I Saw Her Standing There / remainder unknown
# I Want To Hold Your Hand
# I Feel Fine
# Taxman
# Day Tripper
# Back In The USSR
# I Am The Walrus
# Octopus’s Garden
# Here Comes The Sun
# Get Back

AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! — A Reckless Disregard for Gravity, mentioned in this week’s gaming news post, is another sort of independent game with an extremely eye-catching title. In the game, you go skydiving off of skyscrapers, trying to go through rings and stuff to get extra points. You can get it cheap off of Steam (game download program that comes with Valve titles like Half-Life, but you can download it on your own) before it comes out, I’ve played the demo, and it’s really fun. Don’t expect it to be realistic or anything, though.