Activision’s booth this year was quit a show. The promoters on the stage in the middle of the booth even referred to it most of the time as Club Activision. In order to promote the powerhouse lineup this year, they had game trailers playing on a dozen projector screens around the booth, at least two live DJ’s performing several hour-long shows onstage during the convention and even Stan Lee showed up to give autographs. (I got one.)
Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 was my first stop in Club Activison. The demonstration showed many things that made me very happy. First off, anything that includes Deadpool automatically gets approval, so already the game has me excited. Also, on top of all the special moves each character has, any two characters can team up for an even more special combo attack that usually does lots of damage over a large area. Each combo attack is unique and fully controllable by the player. I did a little math and figured that given that the 24 playable characters are split evenly between the two warring factions, each character can team up with 11 other characters for a game total of 264 unique combos. That may not be the exact number, but it will be somewhere around there. Since you always have a party of four, 12 of these combos are available at any given time. One of the most memorable combos was between Storm and Thor. Thor summoned a tornado and Storm shot lightning into it creating an electric vortex of death. The tornado lasted for roughly 30 seconds and the guy demonstrating the game steered it around the area sucking up enemies and electrocuting them to death. And, of course, all the gameplay elements that made the first Ultimate Alliance a great game are still there.
The story of Ultimate Alliance 2 is a derivative of the Marvel Civil War. Obvious deviations include the presence of the Hulk as a playable character through the entire game, but apparently there are a few other major changes. All the crucial turning points in the plot remained intact, however, so look forward to playing through all the great battles in the comic book series. Appropriately enough, you can play through two full campaigns as either the pro-registration superheroes alongside Ironman or as the anti-registration rebels lead by Captain America. Deadpool is a registered superhero, so that’s my side. What’s yours?
DJ Hero has been at the center of a legal scuffle over stolen intellectual rights, but that just makes it more exciting. I think. It looks like it will be a blast, and I’m sure lots of you are looking forward to it. Much like the Guitar Hero series, DJ Hero enables you to use a peripheral that simulates the DJing experience. It looks to be a solid game, but personally I’m more interested in Scratch: Ultimate DJ. It looks a lot more authentic, but is only on the Xbox 360 and PS3.
Also in the rhythm and music genre this year is Guitar Hero 5, which was proudly displayed, but not playable anywhere at the convention. New in this iteration is the option of playing with four players on any combination of drums, vocals or guitar. Now you can put your multiple guitar controllers to use, since playing with four lead guitarists is perfectly acceptable. Or four drummers. Star Power is now tracked individually as opposed on one meter for the whole band, but there will be ’Band Moments’ that must be played perfectly by all band members in order to gain bonuses. Also new is the Party Play mode that allows players to drop in or out between songs or right in the middle of a song. You can even switch instruments or change difficulty during a song. Finally, RockFest allows up to eight players to play together online for a variety of skill-based competitions. Guitar Hero 5 will feature songs from 85 artists on the game disk, and will automatically include music from World Tour downloadable content.
My last stop in Club Activision was Tony Hawk: Ride. This was a fun stop because the demo was playable and open to the public, so when I got there about 8 people were in line to play at the specific console I was going up to, but being press allowed me to cut in front of all of them. That was a good feeling, but actually being on the board was also a surprisingly good feeling. Before the show, I admit I was quite apprehensive about the new skateboard peripheral that is being packaged with the game, but the great design and excellent feedback really made me change my mind. I’ve never been a fan of the Tony Hawk series, but finally this one seems to have a formula that I might go for.
The board itself is shaped just like a real skateboard and uses accelerometers to detect tilt in any direction. Standing on the board and leaning to either side steered the in-game character beautifully. Infrared sensors on the sides ’see’ your foot swipe by the board so when you accelerate by putting your foot on the ground and pushing, just like on a real board, the motion is transfered perfectly and your character speeds up. Once you are going fast enough, you can do jumps just like you would on a real board by using the upward curve on the back of the board to kick off the ground. You don’t have to actually jump in real life, but the motions are still pretty much the same. During a jump, flicking the board in different directions with your feet cues all the tricks of the previous Tony Hawk games. Again, the motion is not exactly translated one to one, but it’s still basically there. In the half-pipe demonstration, I put my hand in front of the infrared sensors on the nose and tail of the board to initiate a board grab while in the air. All of this was seamless and easy to get into.
According to the trailers that kept playing on the nearby screens, the game was designed so that people could get a feel for skateboarding without the risk of serious injury that is oh so common in real life. (Look for skateboard accidents on YouTube if you’re curious.) I call this game a big success in doing what it was meant to do. I really enjoyed it, and would consider it an instant buy if it were under $90, but apparently GameStop listed the price as $119.99. Still not bad, but perhaps right at the point where I would wait for a friend to buy it.
