I’m not entirely sure what expected from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash Up. It certainly seemed promising at Ubisoft’s press conference. I’ve always been a sucker for Ninja Turtle games (The TMNT cartoon and videogames were large parts of my childhood), and the 2.5D, four player, party styled fighting seemed highly reminiscent of another obvious influence, the Smash Brothers series. I got even more excited when the development team was announced, Game Arts, the guys behind Smash Bros Brawl, along with members of the recently restructured Team Ninja. I figured Nintendo probably didn’t want a Smash sequel quite so soon, but Game Arts had a few worthwhile ideas for a potential sequel. The TMNT license seemed like a perfect fit, so I couldn’t wait to get a hold of it and see how Smash-like it was – or wasn’t. After about fifteen minutes with the game, it was clear that it wasn’t going to be the former; TMNT: Smash Up isn’t Brawl 2, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Two face buttons exist for basic attacks, one for guard, and another Ninja Magic rounded out the control scheme. I couldn’t tell if pressing the buttons in sequence (smash attacks,...

Sure, we know absolutely nothing about the upcoming Zelda game, but this artwork, revealed by Mr. Miyamoto during the Nintendo roundtable at this year's E3, at least seems to confirm that it'll be of the adult "older link" style.  Now if we can just get some of that live orchestra love like we did with Galaxy...

Now here’s a game that deserves more attention. I’ll admit, I never played the original Sin & Punishment. Yes, I realize that it’s now available on Virtual Console, so please don’t flood the comments section with how much of a punk I am for not having financially supported and experienced it… I just have not had the time. But now I think I may find the time, because if it’s anything as good as the Wii sequel I played today, it must be great. S&P2 is an on-rails shooter, just like its predecessor, though you’re able to move your character around the screen (think Star Fox) to avoid enemy fire. It’s played with the Wii remote and the nunchuk, with the analog stick used to move your character, Z set to dodge, and B firing your weapon. You can also tap A to lock onto a target and hold/release it to fire a charged shot of projectile energy… again, very much like Star Fox 64 (actually, there are two characters to choose from: a “man” and a “woman”… the woman’s charged shot is a series of homing missiles). You can also jump off the ground and fly around to no...

The dwindling of arcade population in the U.S. has been one of the most saddening things to me in the world of gaming over the last 10 years. However, what's good is that these games' spirits live on in the forms of videogame console software, allowing for nice replication of the experiences you'd expect from an arcade. Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles is, as you would expect, your typical generic zombie arcade shooter with familiar characters from the Resident Evil series. The levels within the game are recreations of previous environments from Resident Evil 2 & 4 (much like the way the Umbrella Chronicles recreated environments from Resident Evil 1 & 3. Controls are as you'd expect where B is your trigger, weapons are mapped to different directions on the D-Pad, and A is used to either pick up items or also can be held down to pull out your knife for melee combat. While holding A, you can swing your Wii-Mote to slash the knife on screen. The game looked pretty good overall and I enjoyed the portions of the game that I played. He could not answer if it would be compatible with Wii MotionPlus but the build...

I had no idea Astroboy was, as I was told, as popular as Mickey Mouse in Japan. I had never heard of him stateside, I saw no mention of him when I was in Japan last fall, and, most importantly, the game didn’t look tainted by the stain of the licensed garbage that permeates much of the Wii market. I didn’t know it was based on the latest Astroboy film, I just thought it looked cool. And, thankfully, I walked away with a great impression. Apparently Astroboy was a boy robot, which worked out quite well given the game resembled, more so than anything else, Mega Man. A weapons based side scroller bookended between 2.5D environment, comparisons to the blue bomber were inevitable. Four powers were also at his disposal, ranging from a flying dash and drill attack to the widely popular butt lasers. These were convenient ways to deal with the enemies, which often looked similar, but most were pallet swapped to display a difference in an attack and a weakness to one of your particular weapons. It wasn’t all combat, however, as the rep giving the demo stressed there would be plenty of other things to do; the...

Ever since its conception, The Conduit has quite possibly been one of the most anticipated games for the Wii since its launch. A system with motion controls clearly begs for competent first person shooters & real time strategy games but unfortunately, the Wii has little to offer in either of these categories. Its FPS limitations have been strongly emphasized by the lack of precise control that the Wii's motion sensing technology provides. The Conduit is one of the few original FPS titles for the system but gamers' motion gaming had been somewhat soured due to some of the attempts at strong FPS gameplay, such as the highly clunky Red Steel. However, with the creation of the Wii MotionPlus, Nintendo's one-to-one coverup, has been a huge advance in controls and for a while, it was reported that The Conduit would follow suit and make this peripheral compatible with their game along with the WiiSpeak...only to announce that they were not going to be using the Wii MotionPlus only a few months after their initial adoption of the product. Thus, gamers began to reawaken their fears of the title becoming just another clunky shooter on the Wii. E3 2009 has rewon everyone's...

Mario & Sonic at the Winter Olympic Games private demo impressions This might come as a surprise: this game’s actually fairly interesting. I know what a lot of you core gamers are thinking: after Summer Olympics, I’m not too terribly concerned about the details of the follow-up. But here’s the thing: from what we saw today, it looks like this game’s considerably more polished and possibly more entertaining than its predecessor. Although we haven’t put our hands on it yet, we did receive a behind-closed-doors demo straight from the Japanese developers featuring a bunch of stuff which wasn’t available on the show floor. Here’s the scoop. The Wii version of the game is, as you might expect, wholly separate and different from the upcoming DS installment (for that, we’ll be posting separate impressions in a bit). Although there are a range of events available, the three we were shown which weren’t available to general attendees were as follows (in bullet-point format, as we all love): Figure Skating Very simple and intuitive. To control, swing the remote in the indicated directions as you hit the circles on the ice. The path of the skater is on-rails,...

I was able to play through the Red Steel 2 demo today at Ubi's booth while talking to a developer of the game. The demo lasted about twenty minutes, playing on Medium, and with me dying about four times. Some of the first details you should know about Red Steel 2 if you don't already are that it requires the Wii MotionPlus, which it will ship with later this year, and that it has absolutely nothing to do with the first Red Steel. In fact, when I asked the developer that was talking to me while I played the demo, he said the dev team thinks of the term Red Steel as just a name to represent the ideas behind the two Red Steel games -  using guns with blades and the idea of a West meets East culture shock. Also, before I dive into these impressions, let me point out that I recorded the entire event and have placed the audio clip here for your enjoyment. That said, this was actually my personal first time with the Wii MotionPlus. After placing the controller upside down on a flat surface for a couple of seconds as the demo instructed (to...

Single-Player Footage Tony Mecca and Keith Hladik give us an inside look on what it takes to complete the demo (which is actually the 7th level in the final game).  Please keep in mind that portions of this video were cut per High Voltage's request so that the entire level isn't spoiled.  Also, don't forget that A) You're watching a developer play who is practically flawless at the game and B) the version he's playing is considerably easier than the final one.  Also, apologies for the screen glare (for which I went shaky cam to help avoid), but it was inevitable.  Hopefully the HD off-screen makes up for it. Keith is the one playing and Tony is narrating.  There's a wealth of information in this video... so I hope you find it valuable. {seyret id="231"} Multiplayer Footage New information abounds in this informative and undeniably awesome developer-narrated 10-minute multiplayer video, where you'll see editor Greg Schardein beating the living crap out of his competitors, even while adjusting his bounding box and mucking around with the options mid-battle.  Because that's how we roll at DigitalChumps. {seyret id="263"} Let us know if you've got any more questions for the team, and we'll...

I never actually played any of the early Silent Hill games. Resident Evil was where I got my survival horror jollies, so I always took a spectator role when it came to Konami’s series of mindf--- masterpieces. I watched my roommate play through the first three titles and parts of four, and promptly lost the same amount, if not more, sleep than he did. Eternal Darkness made a good run, but Silent Hill pretty much owned the psychological terror/horror corner of gaming. But it’s been a tad stagnant as of late. Origins were cool, but mostly retraced familiar ground, and 5 hit with a resounding thud. The team behind Origins opted for a different route with their latest take in the series, and chose to completely reimagine the first game in the Silent Hill series. The general outline and atmosphere are roughly the same, but the mechanics have been shifted from the tired action paradigm and translated into a more adventure based journey. You’re hands are limited to a flashlight and, eventually a cell phone. The flashlight is perfectly tailored to the Wiimote, and is, basically, your only means of interacting with the environment. The environment was also semi interactive;...

Yesterday I caught a glimpse of New Super Mario Bros. Wii and was able to put my hands on the game for around 20 minutes with a developer and a couple other DigitalChumps editors in multiplayer. While I wasn’t able to get through the entire demo in that time period, I thought I’d report back here with my impressions anyway to update you guys on my thoughts about the game so far. First off, graphically, it’s as expected. It isn’t stunningly gorgeous or anything like that, but it does employ the usual parallax scrolling techniques and all that jazz. I’m personally pretty taken by 2.5-D presentation, so to me, it’s attractive anyhow. The gameplay is quite similar to that of the DS version, though with this time, obviously the focus is heavily on “co-op” multiplayer. I enclose that in quotations because it’s just as easy to be a hindrance to your peers; you can pick them up by holding down 1 and then shaking the Wii remote, after which you can toss them around. You can also bounce off their heads to jump higher and collect coins dangling overhead and even scroll the screen to kill stragglers. It’s actually a...

I played through the Red Steel 2 demo today and spoke with a Ubi developer, asking questions and learning more about the game. It's all here on audio, enjoy.

I walked into Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles with, probably for the better, never having played any non numbered entry in the Resident Evil series. Anything of the mainline typically hasn’t been of the most stellar quality, but I remember 2007’s Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles doing reasonably well, and not too bad critically either. Still, I never played it, so I started fresh with DC. Immediately I noticed that I was, apparently, reliving segments from Resident Evil 2 as a rail shooter and from a different perspective. The game was mostly played in first person (occasionally pulling out to third person point of view for some extended cinematics), and it did some cool tricks with point of view. Falling down, getting pulled to the side, and taking quick glances left and right helped keep the melee interesting, even if it did take some getting used to. My shots rarely felt precise and often I felt like I was just blasting into the ether, but headshots started increasing in frequency the more and more I played. Weapon and item pickup was tied to pressing a button whilst pointing the Wiimote was crosshair at the item, providing a sense of immediacy for...

IGN and other sources are reporting the sighting of some pretty interesting stuff on the currently-under-construction E3 show floor.  While everything's still pretty much under cover, astute gamers were able to discern what appears to be a a"New Super Mario Bros. Wii" logo amongst the props.  No one's sure about this, of course, but multiple reports have surfaced, and thus, chances are this has probably got some weight behind it. As we sit here in the Nokia ampitheater awaiting the start of the Nintendo briefing, we can be certain of just one thing: we'll surely know soon enough whether or not this is the case.  Stay tuned for up-to-the-minute news from the conference.

TMNT Smash Up Product Description The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are partnering with Ubisoft to celebrate their 25th Anniversary with a brand new game – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles™: Smash-Up. This is the first Ninja Turtles video game that is not directly tied to a movie, television show or comic book. The 4-player action brawler features a variety of battle modes including online multiplayer gameplay, minigames, and an original story mode for single player co-created with Peter Laird. The game is developed for the Wii™ system from Nintendo by Game Arts – part of the team who worked on Super Smash Bros.™ Brawl. While similar to their past project, Smash-Up offers some new surprises and features for a new shell-raising experience. Throughout the game, fans will be treated to unlockable surprises celebrating 25 years of Turtle history. Key Features FIGHT AS YOUR FAVORITE TMNT CHARACTERS Choose from a wide variety of classic TMNT heroes and villains, each with unique acrobatic moves, weapons and combat skills that will come in handy during the free-for-all brawls. SHARE THE FUN Not only can you immerse...