On February 7th (the same release day as the game itself), you can grab the Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Original Soundtrack in physical or digital format. The “dark fantasy score” is composed by Grant Kirkhope (GoldenEye, Perfect Dark, Viva Pinata) and performed by the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra. Head over to Amazon to listen to sample clips. There’s also a full interview below with Kirkhope on the game’s music and sound. If you don’t have a full seven minutes free to watch it, at least check out the last twenty seconds. It’s practically guaranteed to make you crack a smile.

Source: Top Dollar PR
Buy the Soundtrack: Amazon

If you haven’t heard of Mirror’s Edge, the first-person parkour fest from EA and DICE, you should really come out from under that rock you’ve been living under. Seriously, everybody can get behind jumping around on skyscrapers and giant construction equipment. Think Assassin’s Creed minus the knives and ancient architecture, with a slick monochrome aesthetic that makes the city appear almost too clean and perfect – something that stands in stark contrast to the abundant political corruption in the story.

What’s puzzling to many people (myself included) is that Mirror’s Edge achieved great review scores (averaging 79-81 on Metacritic, depending on platform), yet has somehow fallen by the wayside. Several representatives from both EA and DICE have expressed a love for the game and a desire to see a sequel, but so far nothing concrete has happened aside from hints at a second game during E3 2011. This is a sad scenario indeed, but it begs the question of why. With a cult following backing it up and people within the development and publishing companies both advocating it, why hasn’t a sequel already been made?

The obvious answer is that it didn’t sell well. Mirror’s Edge sold less than 150,000 copies during its first month on shelves, a relatively small number for a game that was supposed to kick start a new series for EA. With such low numbers, it’s no wonder EA decided a second game wasn’t worth backing. But why didn’t the game sell well? What was it that kept people from picking up an excellent title with high review scores and general praise from critics and players alike? What turned Mirror’s Edge into a sleeper hit?

First, its price was too high for the amount of content it had. I completed my first playthrough in only a few hours and given that fact, I’m glad I didn’t buy it on launch day. It certainly isn’t worth the full fifty bucks. This explains why initial sales were dismally low, whereas currently EA has recorded sales exceeding two million across all platforms (including the iOS adaptation). Mirror’s Edge just couldn’t get away with its own price tag.

Second, the game tried something relatively new – platforming from a first-person perspective. This was both a blessing and a curse. I can attest from personal experience that when the game was first released I was not motivated to buy it. I heard good things about it, but not enough good things, and the idea of a first-person platformer was too bizarre and overwhelmed any desire to try it out. Once I bought a copy last year on Steam for twenty bucks and was immediately hooked. I’ve done multiple full playthroughs since; something I can’t say about many other games. Preconceptions about game genres die hard sometimes. Mirror’s Edge sought to expand the borders of what games can do and be; unfortunately it did so at the cost of its own franchise integrity, at least in the short term, thanks to consumer bias about the limitations of the first-person camera.

Third and last, Mirror’s Edge used a controversial visual style. The starkly monochrome areas were beautifully minimalistic to me, but as we all know, there will always be those who favor ultra-realism over everything else. The cutscenes were another point of dissent; rather than using CG or live-action scenes to represent story moments, the development team chose to incorporate 2D animations. Personally, I felt that the choice was a good one – the animation was professionally done, always smooth, and matched the rest of the game’s aesthetic incredibly well. But some players disliked the choice of style. I’m sure we’ve all met a gamer at some point who refuses to play anything that isn’t gritty and dark. Visuals are a huge part of games and the impressions they give, and using an aesthetic that eschews any kind of realism is going to alienate a large portion of the market on the basis of graphics alone. This is especially so when the game’s basic mechanic is already questionable prior to purchase, and therefore isn’t doing anything to help overcome a bias against certain visual styles.

It’s been three years since Mirror’s Edge was first released. In that time, I sincerely hope EA and DICE have learned from the muted success of their innovative title, and are ready to put it back on the drawing board for a sequel. Keep the first-person parkour, keep the aesthetic, and lower the price of entry. More people will be likely to try something new if it’s not going to break their wallets. I would also like to see a more aggressive marketing campaign for Mirror’s Edge 2 should the sequel be made. People need to know that there’s more to gaming than gray-and-brown first-person shooters, and the first Mirror’s Edge had only a few vague ads that didn’t really push it as a unique and interesting title. It’s all about first impressions for the new generation of gamers.

There’s a lot of ground to cover before Mirror’s Edge 2 is allowed to see the light of day, but I have high hopes that it will be able to make the leap (pun intended) from a sleeper hit to an instant classic.

“Friday Old Games” is a series of articles in which we review a game from the older generations of consoles, share why we picked it, and whether or not it holds up with time.

In Electronic Arts’ Genesis classic, Road Rash, you take on the roll of a street biker who has to punch, club, and speed his/her way to victory.

You aren’t racing on a giant circle completing laps – you are competing in illegal street races for stacks of cash.

Road Rash takes advantage of the 3rd person, behind the bike perspective that was popular on the Genesis and uses it very well. Keeping all the HUD elements on the lower part of the screen clears up a lot of space for you to be able to watch out for oncoming traffic, police, road hazards, and other bikers trying to punch you in the face. I’m sure only using the upper part of the screen also contributed to how smooth the 2D scrolling is pulled off.

All five of the tracks in Road Rash are based off of actual California Highways. You can access all five of them right from the start, and after getting fourth place or better in each of them, you progress to the next set of races. As you progress through the sets of tracks, you race farther on the various highways, with faster opponents, more hazards on the road, and bigger stakes.

The only way to completely lose the game is to run out of money. This happens if you are busted by the cops (crashing too close to a police bike) and are unable to pay bale, or you completely wreck your bike and don’t have enough money to repair it.

Why did I pick this game?

Road Rash is one of my wife’s favorite games. She and her siblings used to play it all the time. When we saw that our local game store, Gamer Time (shout-out!), had a copy during one of their big sales, we ended up picking up a Genesis, Road Rash, and several other games for around $35.

Since Brittany loves the game so much, I’ve been wanting to give it a try.

How does it hold up with time?

Having never played it as a kid, there is no nostalgia factor here for me. My initial impressions were good. The game looks good, the soundtrack is fun (though a little funky on the Genesis sound chip), and being able to punch the other bikers in their stupid faces as you pass them has a certain charm to it. The bikes handle well and you get a sense of progression from buying the faster machines with your winnings.

I was getting frustrated with the increasing length of the tracks at first. As far as I could tell, there was no way to tell how far along you were in a track. Then Brittany pointed out that you had a mile counter in your HUD. It requires you to pay attention to how long a race is before starting it, since once you are in, there is no other indicator on how far along you are.

Once I realized that, my frustrations with the game seemed to slowly evaporate. There is not as much variety within the tracks as I would like, but for a 16-bit era racer with a little bit of a twist, it is still a pretty fun game.

To better understand and appreciate the significance of this landmark achievement I need to give you a little history.

Dad has owned every single Madden since the original Super Nintendo. The only year he didn’t get Madden was the year they didn’t release it for Playstation 1 (so he bought NFL Gameday). That is over 15 years of video game football. Every year we play, and every year his superior running game and knowledge of actual football is enough to grind me into a very fine powder.

15 years of him dominating and crushing my feeble football skills.

Dad has been a lifelong football fan. Our family van is decked out Raider style in silver and black with skulls and everything. The first thing you see when you walk into our house is a poster celebrating Raider legends. In fact, if you cut him he actually bleeds Raider silver and black. To go along with this life long love of the Raiders is a passion for the game itself; he just loves football.

He has the NFL Sunday Ticket package so he can watch every single game on Sunday. He is currently in 4 different Fantasy Football Leagues. He has played or coached football for more years than I have been alive.

It is not just me that he crushes. His online record for Madden 2009 is something like 100 wins and 50 losses, which is even more impressive when you find out he only plays top tier opponents. He doesn’t pad his wins with easy pickings like a lot of online gamers. When I was growing up, he would challenge and defeat all of my friends, my little brother’s friends, my little sisters’ friends, and even people from church that mentioned they enjoyed Madden.

There have been flashes, brief moments where I think I can take him down. But every time he disabuses me of that notion. With 2001 I thought my Randy Moss post pattern was invincible, he taught me the beauty of a good pass rush. In 2004 when I thought the skills I had picked up online would carry me through, he taught me the hurry up offense and how it can disrupt a defense.

Every year Madden would come out and I would learn a little bit more about the game of football. I stopped picking my defense based on which play had the coolest name. No more Red Dog and Atomic Blitz. I actually began to learn the difference between a Nickel and Dime defense. For mobile Quarterbacks I learned to have one of my Linebackers Spy the QB. I figured out a Zone defense makes interceptions a little easier but leaves little holes in your defense. I made dozens of little improvements over the years.

On offense I stopped going for it on 4th down every time; no more 4th and 28 Hail Mary passes. I learned there were other offensive sets besides Shotgun. I even began to learn how an effective running game can eat up clock and set up Play Action passes and force the defense to put 8 in the box (more defensive players at the line of scrimmage) which frees up your receivers with one-on-one coverage.

It was all futile.

My record against Dad was something like 0-100.

For every stride I made, he had a counter. It was like every time I raised my game he had already raised his to a higher level. I was getting better, but I still wasn’t good enough to take him down. I could crush all of my friends, but the victories were hollow since I could not beat dad.

With the recent release of Madden 2010, I saw my opportunity. He had played 2009 so much that the little tweaks would bother him way more than they would bother me. While he would have to reprogram his brain I would just be playing the game. So like a T-Rex with sharks for arms I struck.

17 years of crushing victories were forgotten as I exploited mismatches in the secondary and pounded the ball on the ground with Ladainian Tomlinson (L.T.). It wasn’t flashy but it didn’t need to be. It was effective. As the game progressed I began to think I might have a shot at winning. His defense couldn’t stop L.T. and my tight end Antonio Gates always seemed to find the seam in the coverage.

On defense I felt like I was playing with 12 men. I was actually able to find just the right combination of blitzes that I made Adrien Peterson a non-factor. My defensive linemen even managed to get to the quarterback and force him out of the pocket enough to disrupt the passing game. He was constantly scrambling and reacting to me rather than forcing me to react to him.

I kept expecting some kind of miraculous comeback. I kept waiting for him to pull it out like he always had before, but as the time ticked off the clock I was still ahead on the scoreboard. He needed to recover an onside kick to even have a shot. Our teams lined up for the onside kick, my hands sweating and my mouth dry I watched as his kicker kicked off. The ball bounced once and then landed right in the hands of my player. As he was tackled the breath I didn’t even realize I was holding in escaped in an audible gasp.

As my offense trotted out to the field I frantically searched for the QB kneel play. There was no way I was going to relive “the Miracle at the Meadowlands.” I knelt down and the clock ran out.

I had won.

I had beat Dad.

At Madden.

He turned to me and smiled “Good game. Rematch?”

The Sega Dreamcast was the greatest system that never really had a chance. When most systems die after a year and a half, it is because they are terrible systems with horrendous game libraries (see 32x, Atari Jaguar). The Dreamcast had arguably the greatest first 18 months of any console in history. The unfortunate thing is those 18 months were all we got.

Why did the Dreamcast die?

The Dreamcast faced three nearly insurmountable obstacles, any one of which would have been enough to derail most systems. The first obstacle was EA. Still bitter about the failure of the Sega Saturn and unsure of the Dreamcast’s potential, EA, the largest publisher at the time, decided not to release games for the Dreamcast.

This meant that some of the biggest franchises, such as Madden and Live, were not going to appear on the Dreamcast. Sega and 2K Sports did an awesome job of filling this gap with amazing sport games, but for many people Madden is football. No Madden meant lots and lots of people sticking with their PS1 and waiting on PS2.

The second obstacle was the hype for the PS2. When the Dreamcast was released on 9/9/99 most people were playing Playstations. Sony was the undisputed leader with no one else even close. For a generation of gamers, Playstation meant video games. Sony was in such control that everyone was anticipating the launch of the PS2. In fact, the hype generated by Sony for the PS2 was enough to convince people that the next generation did not start until Sony released the PS2. This perception caused a lot of people to consider the Dreamcast as competition for the PS1 instead of the PS2. Sony convinced people that the Dreamcast was a toy, and the PS2 was the future.

People always say that everything always comes down to the games, but if you were to compare the first year of Playstation 2 games versus the games that were out on the Dreamcast, the PS2 library doesn’t even come close. The PS2 launch really only had 3 games: Madden 2001, Timesplitters, and SSX. Compare that to: Soul Calibur, Power Stone, NFL 2K, NBA 2K, Skies of Arcadia, and dozens of others. Even with a superior library, the Dreamcast was still demolished by the perception that Sony had created.

The final obstacle was Sega itself. After much success with the Sega Genesis, Sega managed to dilute their brand name by releasing way too many systems. At one point you could go to the store and purchase: a Nomad, a 32X, a Sega CD, a Genesis, a Game Gear, and a Sega Saturn. Having so many systems confused retailers and consumers. By the time Sega got it right with the Dreamcast it was too late. People no longer trusted Sega consoles. They had been burned too many times before. The Dreamcast could have dispensed Nacho cheese and free Beer and people would have wondered if they would need 7 expansions and attachments to play all the games for it.

Any one of these obstacles would have been enough to derail a system. The poor Dreamcast faced all three. Is it any wonder the Dreamcast died?

EA and Dice’s new third-person-shooter / MMOG, “Battlefield Heroes”, has finally opened to the public. It takes the basics of the Battlefield series and boils it down to a much more simplified version of the game.

Once you get past EA’s overblown login system, it is a simple matter of making a character and hopping into a random game.

They have stripped down to only three classes: The Soldier, The Gunner and The Commando.

Each class has their own unique play style. The soldier is the most balanced, with medium armaments and the ability to throw grenades, the gunner is slow, but has a high defense and a shield ability, and the commando has a sniper rifle, a knife, and the ability to cloak.

I highly recommend making one of each character so you can find a play style suited to you. Personally, I chose the gunner. I love getting “all up ons” in the middle of a battle.

The basic game mechanic will be very familiar if you have played other Battlefield games. You and your team try to capture locations on the map by holding the area for a certain amount of time. The more of your squad on the flag, the faster you will take it over.

"Teamwork is key"

Each team starts with a number of points which slowly decreases based on the number of bases the enemy has captured. The more you have captured, the faster the enemy team’s number drops to zero. It’s a pretty simple mechanic that forces you not only to press forward, but to continually watch your back.

As your character progresses, points are earned that can be spent on new costumes for your characters, as well as some new weapons and gadgets. There isn’t a lot in there yet, but EA plans to add more in the coming months. There are only two extra long range, two extra short range, and one extra big explosive weapon per class. There are also bandages (for slowly restoring health) and wrenches (for repairing vehicles) that can be purchased. These all have a limited number of uses.

There are already a decent number of options for costume changes. However, only a few of these can be bought with the in-game points. Most of them require spending real money. You can buy points from the main site which can be used in-game.

"Costumes range from stylish, to practical, to just plain silly"

You will also unlock special “hero points” which can be spent on abilities. With my gunner being naturally slower than the other classes, I was able to unlock an ability that lets me sprint for a short amount of time. That is just one example of the type of class-specific upgrade that can be unlocked. This system adds that little addictive touch of role playing games that I love so much.

The vehicles are a lot of fun to use. The tank is a great way to cause some havoc without it being an instant win machine. While it is powerful, everyone has, at the very least, sticky dynamite that they can take you down with. However, you are able to run over enemy players and take them down with your cannon. You can also have a second player riding in the top of the cannon as a backup.

The jeep is extremely fast, but leaves you open to attack. You cannot use any of your weapons while you are the driver. You can, however, take two passengers who can fire with a limited range.

The plane is, by far, the hardest to control. If you can manage to control it, the machine guns built into them can take out tanks and soldiers very quickly. You can even take along passengers on the wings.

"I can see your impending doom from here!"

Another good point is that it is highly scalable. The cartoony graphical style lends itself very well to playing even on low-end machines. That is a must in getting a big audience with a free to play game.

I have been having a blast playing “Battlefield Heroes”. Even though it is fairly limited right now with only the three classes and four maps, the simplicity of the game mechanics allows for a balanced experience. If you are there for some cartoony, over the top, shooting fun, then you should definitely check it out. Just try not to take things too seriously. Oh, and did I mention to work as a team? Trust me, you’ll have more fun that way.

You can play right now, for free, on the official site.

"Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees!!"

First off, I just want to get one thing out of the way. This game can also be found on both the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, however, this review is only going to focus on the Wii version. All the menus and even the leveling system is handled very differently on the Wii version.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 is one of the first games to take advantage of Nintendo’s latest peripheral, Wii Motion Plus. With the announcement of motion technology from both Microsoft and Sony at this year’s E3, Wii Motion Plus has a lot of impressing to do. Can it pull off the task?

The short answer is yes. Your fade and draw is determined by twisting your wrist left or right and your power is determined by the strength of your swing. During putting, your power is determined by both how far you move your arms back as well as how fast you move them forward.

When Wii Motion Plus is attached, all of this works both extremely well and with perfect consistency. For comparison’s sake, I tried the game without the attachment. The fade/draw was no longer performed with motion controls. Considering how poorly older iterations handled fade/draw without Motion Plus, this is probably for the best. Power seemed to work “OK”, but with much less precision than with the dongle. Putting, however, was atrocious. While the back swing had a lag to it that I could probably get accustomed to (had I not bought the Motion Plus bundle), the speed seemed almost random. If you are going to pick up this game, do yourself a favor and pay the extra ten bucks for the Wii Motion Plus bundle. After all, that just makes it the price of its HD counterpart, $60.

There are three different control difficulties to choose from. Standard, the default setting, is a great place to start. You are allowed to add fade/draw to your shot manually before actually taking the shot, you can add spin to the ball as it flies through the air, and you are equipped with one putt preview per stroke. I found that this setting is a great way to learn the ropes.

The Advanced setting increases the sensitivity, making a perfectly straight shot much less likely. I was happy to see the added variance, as my Standard mode shots lacked variety after practice. Advanced mode really adds to the immersion, removing arcade-style features like the manual fade/draw and the mid-air spin. In addition to this, there is no putt preview for the advanced setting. After getting the hang of everything, the Advanced setting increased my enjoyment of the game immensely.

The easiest setting is All Play. This is clearly designed for as much accessibility as possible. Your shot arc is visible at all times and so is your putt preview. Since the putt preview is always seen, the challenge for putting is solely in performing the shot rather than also planning the shot. This mode is designed with your grandma in mind.

The character creator, much like earlier entries in the series, has a disturbing amount of sliders to customize every facet of your face and body allowing you to create anything from your doppelganger to a hideous freak of nature. The equipment customization is no slouch either. You can customize your golf balls, clubs and even your grips. One of the features I enjoyed most was your ability to choose which 14 clubs you take with you. Sure, you can purchase different sets, but within those sets you will have a lot more than 14 clubs. The ability to fine tune your selection on that level of detail really helps you personalize your gameplay.

This is a game that will last you a long time. There are tons of course and game modes to keep you busy for both single-player and multiplayer. Thankfully, as with most golf games, a 4-player match can be played with one controller. Having only one Wii Motion Plus dongle will not impair your ability to play with others, unless of course you just don’t want to pass around the WiiMote.

Disc Golf is an interesting diversion. After picking up the disc with your disembodied hand by holding down the “B trigger”, you can really see the Wii Motion Plus shine. This looks and feels like true 1:1 control. It turns out, I am as bad at playing digital Frisbee as I am in real life. This mode really suffers if you don’t use the Plus attachment. Without the added sensitivity, your movements feel laggy and imprecise. Thankfully, Wii Motion Plus makes the experience feel like a technical marvel.

You can play online using EA accounts instead of friend codes. You can also compete in online tournaments. But the online feature I enjoy most of all is the real time weather. If enabled, all the courses you play on will have the weather conditions their real-life counterparts are actually experiencing at the time. It’s another nice step toward immersion.

Earlier, I wondered if Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10′s focus on being a true golf simulator would coexist or ultimately replace the arcade-style gameplay of We Love Golf. Honestly, I can’t see myself ever going back to We Love Golf after this. Tiger plays incredibly well and with the All Play setting, accessibility to casual players remains in tact. This is a golf game I simply cannot recommend enough.

"Look out, Dawin! The Finches are right behind you!"

Now that EA has transformed Dante’s Inferno from a poem about a tour through hell into an epic God of War style fight through the demons of Hell, the proverbial floodgates have opened and all of classical literature is up for the Extremification treatment. As anyone who has read any of my articles here at WingDamage can tell you, I have only a passing knowledge of the English language. Part of this ignorance is an utter disregard for classical literature. I think this makes me a perfect candidate to join EA in transforming classical literature into video games. Video game developer guys please send all royalties to WingDamage care of Shaolinjesus.

James Joyce – Ulysses: The story of Leopold Blooms’ journey through Dublin as he must fist fight with hundreds of gang members and ninjas. The final battle culminates in an epic duel against Molly Bloom who must be hit 4,391 times.

Henry David Thoreau – Walden: Something evil lurks in Walden Pond and only Detective Thoreau can stop it. This one plays a lot like a Silent Hill game only with a pond.

Plato – The Republic: Plato and Socrates must stop the villainous machinations of the Sophist Thrasymachus using Pankration. They team up with Alexander the Great and Hercules to stop the Sophists from taking over the Republic. Socrates has all kinds of hilarious one liners as he punches people in the face. Picture God of War with the Godfathers of Western Philosophy.

Darwin – Voyage of the Beagle: For young naturalist, Charles Darwin, it was to be the trip of a lifetime. Little did he know that the Finches of the Galapagos were waiting for him. With the powers of observation and his trusty Katana, Darwin must fight off the Finches, a ruthless band of pirates from the future. This one plays like Prince of Persia meets Uncharted meets biology. One of the unique game mechanics has to do with the way your weapons “evolve” as the game progresses.

Ayn Rand – Anthem: (In deep movie trailer voice) : In a world where individuality is forbidden, Equality 7-2521 has learned the concept of “I” and the World Council sends out an army of ninja robots to stop him. This one plays out as a 3rd person shooter with crazy sci-fi weaponry.

Herman Melville – Moby Dick: Ishmael knows only 2 things, sailing and killing. He is going to need both to defeat the great white whale that has teamed up with the Loch Ness monster, the Kraken, and a host of other sea monsters. This one plays a lot like the first person portions of King Kong. Also, Ishmael has a unique harpoon gun that he can use in a variety of ways, such as shooting people with it, then yanking them around.

Jane Austen – Pride and Prejudice: I haven’t actually read this one, but I assume that it is about a group of MMA fighting women who have to overcome prejudice to get the chance to compete in the tri-county MMA tournament. Also zombies.

Fyodor Dostoevsky – Crime and Punishment: A GTA style romp through St. Petersburg.

Jack Kerouac – On the Road: Sal and Dean are at it again… Cannonball Run style! Plays like a Burnout-style racer featuring huge jumps and hairpin turns as the 2 heroes have adventures across the country, running away from Boss Hog.

Henryk Adam Aleksander Pius Sienkiewicz – Quo Vadis: GTA style romp through Rome during Nero’s reign. Culminates in an epic street fight as Rome burns and Nero plays the fiddle.

Do you have any other ideas for books that would translate well to video games? Is it sad that I would totally play most of these with glee? That’s right, glee.

On a very special ninth episode of “Barrel Roll! – A Video Game Podcast”, with Wesley Johnson from Insulin Funk in tow, we review “Wanted: Weapons of Fate”, Civ Rev on the DS, “Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard”, and HAWX to name but a few.

In the news we discuss the rumors of the Xbox Elite being bundled with some best-sellers, Assassin’s Creed 2, the fact that GameStop has gotten themselves in hot-water (as did EA), and that you can suplex a dragon in Bayonetta.

The second half of the show, we talk about the Tom Hanks classic made for TV movie, “Mazes and Monsters”. This is followed by a comic discussion about what we’ve been reading lately.

This episode, we had a lot of problems with Skype, and with keeping people on-topic, much to our own amusement. If it seems to jump around in a few spots, this is why.

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