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E3 - Hands On Impressions - Capcom
Slashdot Games is continuing to report on the E3 expo in Los Angeles, and we're working our way around the major booths, doing brief overviews of the major titles on each. Check out earlier stories for looks at Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony, and Sega, but now we turn our attention to Capcom. Read on for info on Gregory Horror Show, Onimusha 3, Viewtiful Joe, and more..
- Gregory Horror Show, which is a working title and seriously rips off the Rocky Horror Show logo in current form, was a seriously bizarre Japanese-ish PS2 title that can best be described as Resident Evil with macabre, weird, square cartoony characters. It certainly had nice graphics, but follows the interesting but odd theme we saw on a number of Capcom titles.
- Dino Crisis 3 for Xbox does the obvious, or, uhh, maybe not, and goes for the 'dinosaurs in space' angle for this graphically good title. So you're stuck on a space station with mutated dinosaurs, and the game seems to stick with the more action-based formula showcased in the last Dino Crisis game.
- Viewtiful Joe for Gamecube was a seriously sharp-looking 2D platform title with plenty of 3D graphics and backgrounds. Reminiscent of titles like Klonoa or Pandemonium, but with added slo-mo blur action and crazed combos, this was another very Japanese-styled game (the main character is a masked hero with flowing cape) which looks great, but probably won't be a mainstream blockbuster in the States.
- Gotcha Force was an interesting Gamecube title, reminding us a lot of Virtual On with flying ninjas and dynamic lock-on action. It has a 2 on 2 team battle mode, and was clearly designed mainly for arena-based multiplayer tussles.
- Maximo Vs. Army Of Zin was a sequel to the much appreciated but hardly top-selling Maximo, and the basic elements of the original seem to have been carried over. We heard that Grim (the Reaper, that is) is a second playable character in the game, but didn't get a chance to check that out. Otherwise.. more of the same, in an arguably good way.
- Group S Challenge was a Project Gotham-style racing game for Xbox, which we hadn't heard much of before the show. The control seemed very solid, and there's a plethora of licensed cars.
- Onimusha 3 was only showing in video form on the bigscreen, but the trailer is gorgeous, and well worth watching if it pops up online anywhere. Set in both France of 2004 (with Jean Reno) and 1582-era Japan, the trailer starts with zombie ninjas being vomited out of an organic spacecraft into modern-day Paris, heh.
- PN-03 for Gamecube starred an extremely shapely female robot killer, in this basic action shooter. Plenty of auto-lock action with wrist-firing lasers, plus almost dance-based special moves.
- other games on the booth included Megaman X7 for PS2, with both 2D and 3D action sections and polygons a-go-go, a puzzler called Bombastic for PS2 which seemed to be an update of Devil Dice, Cinemaware's Defender Of The Crown for PS2, a surprise pick-up which uses the traditional Risk-like elements of the original, plus two leading titles, Onimusha Blade Warriors (think Power Stone with Onimusha characters!) and Resident Evil 4 (Leon Kennedy deep in the core of the Umbrella Corporation) which weren't shown on the floor. Oh, and the Steel Battalion controller is truly epic.
For further impressions, screenshots, and media, doing a search by title on Gametab News is working good for us, but you can also try IGN, Gamespot, and a whole buncha others. More hands-on impressions soon.
- Dino Crisis 3 for Xbox does the obvious, or, uhh, maybe not, and goes for the 'dinosaurs in space' angle for this graphically good title. So you're stuck on a space station with mutated dinosaurs, and the game seems to stick with the more action-based formula showcased in the last Dino Crisis game.
- Viewtiful Joe for Gamecube was a seriously sharp-looking 2D platform title with plenty of 3D graphics and backgrounds. Reminiscent of titles like Klonoa or Pandemonium, but with added slo-mo blur action and crazed combos, this was another very Japanese-styled game (the main character is a masked hero with flowing cape) which looks great, but probably won't be a mainstream blockbuster in the States.
- Gotcha Force was an interesting Gamecube title, reminding us a lot of Virtual On with flying ninjas and dynamic lock-on action. It has a 2 on 2 team battle mode, and was clearly designed mainly for arena-based multiplayer tussles.
- Maximo Vs. Army Of Zin was a sequel to the much appreciated but hardly top-selling Maximo, and the basic elements of the original seem to have been carried over. We heard that Grim (the Reaper, that is) is a second playable character in the game, but didn't get a chance to check that out. Otherwise.. more of the same, in an arguably good way.
- Group S Challenge was a Project Gotham-style racing game for Xbox, which we hadn't heard much of before the show. The control seemed very solid, and there's a plethora of licensed cars.
- Onimusha 3 was only showing in video form on the bigscreen, but the trailer is gorgeous, and well worth watching if it pops up online anywhere. Set in both France of 2004 (with Jean Reno) and 1582-era Japan, the trailer starts with zombie ninjas being vomited out of an organic spacecraft into modern-day Paris, heh.
- PN-03 for Gamecube starred an extremely shapely female robot killer, in this basic action shooter. Plenty of auto-lock action with wrist-firing lasers, plus almost dance-based special moves.
- other games on the booth included Megaman X7 for PS2, with both 2D and 3D action sections and polygons a-go-go, a puzzler called Bombastic for PS2 which seemed to be an update of Devil Dice, Cinemaware's Defender Of The Crown for PS2, a surprise pick-up which uses the traditional Risk-like elements of the original, plus two leading titles, Onimusha Blade Warriors (think Power Stone with Onimusha characters!) and Resident Evil 4 (Leon Kennedy deep in the core of the Umbrella Corporation) which weren't shown on the floor. Oh, and the Steel Battalion controller is truly epic.
For further impressions, screenshots, and media, doing a search by title on Gametab News is working good for us, but you can also try IGN, Gamespot, and a whole buncha others. More hands-on impressions soon.
Im waiting for three words: Street Fighter Four
Everything else is just ya-ya'ing.
Well except maybe Viewtiful Joe, I will pick that up on Gamecube.
Oh and first post biotches
Or is everything mentioned 'good-looking'? Come on. Most video games are mediocre, at best, yet everything mentioned so far has been 'good-looking'. If I wanted pointless previews, I would go to gamespot or the like. These hands on impressions seem like fluff pieces in the extreme. Did simoniker get to play any of the games? Anything besides it's 'good-looking'?
Anything?
if Slashdot DIDN'T cover E3. I mean, what's a "games" site without E3, right?
I dunno, I like the mini reports. Please keep doing them.
Of Capcom's upcoming titles, I'd say Onimusha Blade Warriors is the most intriguing. It's compared to Power Stone here, but is more often compared with Super Smash Bros. It'd be great if it falls somewhere between the two and plays well.
Of course, the next Steel Battalion game, which is supposed to be online, will be a special game.
As someone commented above, I'm sort of bummed out by the non-announcement of a new Street Fighter title.
And here I was hoping for Street Fighter Gamma 3y+2x/pi Extra Super Platinum Special Edition.
Oh well, there's always next year's E3...
and reading comments like yours makes me feel like pouring salt in your wounds.
...seems to be really fun. In fact i got sucked into that "one more turn" phenomenon until one of the exhibitors gave me a t-shirt to go away *blush*
- Gotcha Force was an interesting Gamecube title, reminding us a lot of Virtual On with flying ninjas and dynamic lock-on action. It has a 2 on 2 team battle mode, and was clearly designed mainly for arena-based multiplayer tussles.
;)
It reminds me more "Power Stone" (Dreamcast), because it's full of action and weapons, but here the mainly characters are robots. Here is a link to the trailer.
Go cube
Not just some strange new title with weird new characters shaped like blocks with arms...it's first itteration was as a Japanese cartoon. The franchise eventually found it's way stateside as a board/dice game with collectible pieces. The game is rather fun to play, especially with friends and playing for keeps (keeping the monsters you capture), but I don't know much about the series itself, as I have yet to see even a fan-subbed episode of it available anywhere. Seems like the RHPS logo rip-off has been around since it's inception, though, so that's not likely to change (barring, of course, some sort of injunction from those who hold the appropriate rights over RHPS and it's associated logos ant TMs). Just an FYI for anyone wanting to know more about this new offering from Capcom (and the screens I've seen online and in gamer mags do, in fact, look great...so their at least not just cookie cuttering for this title;)).
"How like you to drag your keyboard to a gun fight." - Aaron Bedard (BANE)
Capcom has been sitting on the PS2 version of Catan for a while now -- I wonder if they're holding it back due to the lack of installed network adaptors? Trying to figure out how to price it? Trying to figure out how to market it? Not yet bothered to translate it from the Japanese version?
There's been almost no word on this one period -- I even wrote Capcom to find out what's up and they told me they couldn't tell me anything. Guess I'll have to stick to playing the Java version for now...
Capcom announced a few weeks ago that they killed production on their next Street Fighter vs SNK game. It seems like they are moving away from the dying (dead?) Genre of fighting games. It's kind of dumb, they should really be re-releasing improved versions of the old ones for online play. StreetFighter vs SNK2 EO for X-Box would have done a lot better if they fixed some of the problems with it, and it was based on Alpha2(no isms/grooves) instead of Alpha3 and beyond (groove, ism, countless low skill tactics that take away from the game).
If Capcom decides to release SF4 they should release it at launch of one of the next generation systems, make it work online, take out the crap "features", and put in a real online ranking system.
wooo hooooo! Maximo sequel!
I loved the first game, though most people were put off by the higher than average difficulty level. I'm glad that Capcom is still going with a sequel despite the fact that the first one did less than great in the slaes department. Much of this though I blame on the early rental availability through blockbuster video. i think a lot of people had already had their fill with the game before it came out.
A great game and a worthy one to check out if you loved the old school action platformers.
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?