Articles

Adventure
Heaven:
Telltale Games
http://www.telltalegames.com/

While some of the usual adventure suspects, like Jowood/Dreamcatcher,
were noticeably absent, Telltale Games seemed more than happy to take
up the slack. I spent a very happy chunk of my first day at E3 learning
about their impressive slate of upcoming adventures.

The energetic game studio behind the beautiful Monkey
Island remakes and the episodic Sam
& Max reboot (not to mention the popular Wallace
& Gromit’s Grand Adventures) are continuing
their love affair with adventure games in a big way.

Telltale’s Dave Grossman stated flatly to a room of us journalists:
“At Telltale we are interested in making story-based games.”
Go, Dave. So what is Telltale currently cooking up?

Back to the Future . . . again!

Well, there’s the continuation of their Back to the Future
episodic series. The fifth episode has just been released, and it’s
the end of the “season” that began in the first episode.
This time around, Marty McFly and the Doc have opposing goals, which
should spice up the dynamics of the gameplay. (The first episode is
currently available as a free download).

King’s Quest?!

Telltale is also working on a King’s
Quest game! Alas, it’s in the very early stages
and they would tell us virtually nothing about it, beyond the fact
that they consulted with Roberta Williams on the project. All Grossman
would really say is “Remember, most of us used to work at LucasArts
. . . not Sierra.” Hmmm.

Hector

Telltale
has partnered with Irish developer Straandlooper Animation to bring
that studios raunchy and hilarious Hector: Badge of Courage
from its exclusive iPhone home to the PC, Mac and iPad. Hector
is definitely old-school adventuring, albeit in gleefully bad taste.
Its bright and brassy 2D graphics are a visual treat and its content
could make Sam & Max eligible for the Disney Channel
by comparison!

Jurassic What?

Next
there’s Jurassic Park. Now before you skip on
to the next bit, let me assure you that this is not another crappy
dinosaur shooter. This is an adventure game. It takes place on Isla
Nublar, the setting for the original novel and film, and the gameplay
will feature “quick time events” reminiscent of the recent
Quantic Dream hits Indigo
Prophecy and Heavy Rain. The plot expands
the focus on several minor characters from the films, while adding
some dynamic new ones (you get to play as a few of them). We got to
see a demo, and the game appears to be gorgeous and highly cinematic.
The puzzles are mostly of the organic problem-solving variety: environmental
manipulation, dialog choices, exploration, etc. Jurassic Park
will be a downloadable game for PC and the major consoles.

Perhaps
taking a cue from some of the better Hidden Object adventures on the
PC, the game does not focus on a lot of walking around. It’s
set up to get you quickly from active area to active area. This seems
to add to the fluid, fun and cinematic feel of the game.

The game will feature major dinosaurs from the film, as well as some
brand-new ones. The dinos will arrive this fall!

You Say Potato, I Say Zombie Apocalypse

Telltale
is branching into a totally new direction with Walking Dead,
a game based on the comic books which are the basis for the popular
AMC cable television series. There was very little to show us, but
we were provided one intriguing detail: There will be a Facebook component
to the game. Does this mean I’ll be able to “friend”
the undead?!

Nelson Tethers Returns!

For
those of you who, like me, loved the first Puzzle
Agent, this one is an easy sell. Created in collaboration
with cartoonist Graham Annable, Puzzle Agent 2 continues
the adventure of FBI Agent (Puzzle Division) Nelson Tethers.

You may recall that the first game ended with, if not quite a cliffhanger,
at least with some very open questions. Yes, Tethers got the Scoggins,
Minnesota eraser factory back on line, but lingering questions remain.
Specifically – just what the heck are those mysterious, elusive
creatures that may be aliens and may be . . . garden gnomes?

For
those of you who are new to the series, Puzzle Agent
is a 2D point-and-click puzzle adventure game. It’s perhaps
what would happen if Professor
Layton and David Lynch had a baby. It’s full of
quirky characters, minimalist but beguiling art, and of course tons
of chewy puzzles. Of all of the upcoming lineup of Telltale games,
this is probably the one I’m the most excited about personally.

Interview With A.J. LoCascio, the Voice of Marty
McFly

One of the things Telltale Games is most excited about is the performer
they found (or, to be more accurate, found them) to provide
the voice of Marty McFly for their Back to the Future
games. When they received A.J. LoCascio’s MP3, their collective
jaws dropped. It’s like he was channeling the young Michael
J. Fox. Even Bob Gale, the producer and writer of the original films,
was sold.

I
had the opportunity to spend a few minutes with A.J.

I first asked A.J. if he ended up sounding like Marty McFly accidentally
or on purpose. He admits it was a little of both. “As a teenager,
when my voice started to crack, people began commenting that I sounded
like that dude from Back to the Future.” He then
began cultivating it and honing it.

I wondered if he had met any of the people from the films, and answered
that he was thrilled to have met both Christopher Lloyd (who reprises
his role as Doc for the games) and Bob Gale.

Any other impressions? Why yes. A.J. does a mean Johnny Depp / Captain
Jack Sparrow (and has been hired on numerous occasions to appear in
this role) and he does not one but two versions of Ewan McGregor.
Yes, I heard them both, and they were both spot on!

As far as training goes, Mr. LoCascio has mostly learned by doing.

I asked him if there was any other Michael J. Fox role he’d
love to do the video game of. Doc Hollywood, he answered,
with very little hesitation. Telltale . . . you should get busy on
this one!

Rayman Origins
http://www.ubi.com/US/Games/Info.aspx?pId=9815

One of the most appealing games I saw at E3 was Ubisoft’s
upcoming Rayman Origins. A co-op platformer for up to
four players, it’s a return to classic 2D platforming with zippy
co-op play and eye-melting graphic beauty.

You can play the game solo, but it looks to be much more fun with
a group. Among the many advantages to the co-op play is the fact that
if even one of your team members is still alive, she can revive
you so you can continue.

I
spent about twenty minutes playing this shiny game when the Ubisoft
employee who was helping demo it for me casually mentioned that he
had arrived at the show with Michel Ancel.

I dropped my controller. “Is he here? Can I speak with him?”
I tried to keep my voice calm.

M. Ancel, you may remember, is not only the dude who created
the Rayman franchise, but he also was behind one of my favorite games
of all time, Beyond Good and Evil.

“Oh, he was just here.”

Yeah, right. I scoured the floor for him but no luck, and of course
his dance card was utterly full for the whole show. So I apologize,
dear readers, that I was not able to ask him personally about
the Beyond sequel. Doggone it.

RPG Heaven
Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
http://www.bethsoft.com/eng/games/games_skyrim.html

I was lucky enough to score a front row seat to the very first preview
of the upcoming entry into Bethesda’s long-running Elder Scrolls
series. Starting thirty minutes after E3 began, game director jokingly
referred to us as “early adopters” there to beta test
his presentation.

And what a presentation it was. As with each main game that has
come before it in the series, Skyrim will use a new
engine. The game takes place in the northern-most area of the continent
of Tamriel, which is mountainous and snowy. And this new engine is
able to push graphics that are nothing short of jaw-dropping, breathtaking,
and all those other superlative idioms you try to pull out of your
vocabulary when faced with such preposterous eye candy in a game.
Among other things, this new engine provides a staggering level of
shadow detail and epic draw distance. It also handles weather effects
in an impressive way. For example, if you see snow on the ground,
it’s not “painted” or “tiled” in, it’s
actually a dynamic particle effect created by the weather effect in
the game engine. Impressive!

Like the earlier games in the series, you develop your character
by using skills. Or, as Howard put it, “you are what you play.”
Use swords a lot, and you’ll get better at swords. Use healing
magic a lot, and you’ll get better at healing magic.

For the first time in the series, you can dual-wield both weapons
and magic. You can even combine spells by having one in each hand.
This pleases me.

As
does the palette of the game. After the browns and . . . well, more
browns of Fallout 3, Howard says the designers were
eager to implement the neglected green color channel. And boy, does
it show. The land of Skyrim looks to be much more diverse than
Oblivion’s Cyrodill, which was pretty much pretty
wooded forests and a few mountains. Skyrim has mountains, tundra,
forest, and much more. For World of Warcraft veterans,
it looks a bit like Grizzly Hills on steroids.

Continuing in the Elder Scrolls tradition, there is
much lore to be uncovered, with over 300 readable books distributed
across the game world.

I also have to say the interface simply looks spectacular: useful,
deep, yet facile. In a beautifully stylistic touch, the skill trees
are actual constellations. And in a stunning display of the game engine’s
musclepower, Howard showed us how, in order to see a map, you simply
zoom the camera back. Waaaaay back. It’s like Google Tamriel.
This bit brought out a collective gasp from the room full of journalists.

Dungeons? The game has over 150 of them. Say good-bye to sleep!

One more thing: The various dragons in the game are unscripted,
meaning they can interrupt what you are doing at any time. This actually
happened during a fight with a giant, and it was heart-stopping!

And have I even mentioned the mammoths? Yeah, I’ll be pre-ordering.

  Independents
Day
  IndieCade
  http://www.indiecade.com/

I ran into my friend Myles Nye at the IndieCade booth, where he
was moderating a rousing game of Twister Racing. Picture a classic
vinyl Twister map, but greatly extended, and then picture a group
of players trying to be the first person to successfully transverse
the length of the map. Progress is made just like playing the original
game (“Left foot RED!”). It was a riot to watch.

This
eye-catching enterprise was a good draw to get convention-goers interested
in the upcoming IndieCade, which will be held in Culver City, California
October 6-9. It will showcase the talents and projects of independent
developers in a wide range of gaming types, from computer and video
games too board games to large format games like the Twister Race.
We’re currently enjoying a real renaissance in independently-developed
games on all platforms, and I for one am planning on attending this
event.

What Would Jesus Play
http://gamechurch.com/

Perhaps the most curious organization I discovered at E3 was GameChurch.
It’s a Christian outreach project dedicated to connecting with
gamers of all stripes. They don’t make games and they don’t
hand out moral ratings on games. They seemed like a very nice group
with a clever marketing idea.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not a believer in ancient superstitions
of any kind, but I figured if the US Army could use gaming to promote
its goals, why shouldn’t The Army of Christ? All’s fair,
etc.

To
show you just how laid back these cats are, the big GameChurch event
at E3 was a free beer party. Yeah, like that.

They also came so very close to having the coolest single
piece of swag at E3. It’s their Media Kit. These days all media
kits are in the form of USB data sticks, and GameChurch’s is
quite clever: It’s a wooden cross that you wear around your
neck.

Alas, the piece is so poorly designed that if you do wear
it around your neck (which I totally would have), the bottom of the
cross, which is the cover for the USB connector, promptly falls off.
So what would have been a super cool and funny accessory became just
another broken toy.

Since I’m a giver, I sought out one of the main Jesus dudes
at the booth, and showed them the problem. We tried a few other samples,
but they all had the fatal flaw. “It’s a pity,”
I said, “That these were not Intelligently Designed.”

Eye Candy

As
with every E3, there was no shortage of Booth Babes. They were many
and various. Babes in army fatigues, babes in Bayonetta drag. Cheerleader
babes, Lara Croft babes.

I was once again reminded of the cluelessness of these game companies
who continue to believe that their entire audience consists of straight
males. We all know that by now there are plenty of women gamers (gay
and straight) and gay male gamers. Where’s our eye candy?

To
show you how lame this situation is, at the booth for one military-based
game, there were a gaggle of smoking hot ladies in fatigues. Were
there males in fatigues also? Yeah, but . . . let’s just say
they were ordinary Joes. Come on, people! How hard would this have
been? It’s Hollywood!

Your intrepid reporter established that there were exactly two specimens
of eye candy at the entire show.

One
was Eric Carpenter. This handsome hunk was the floor model version
of Nathan Drake from the Uncharted Games. I told him
he had now ruined the games for me, since there was no way the character
in the game would look as good as him (I’m playing the first
game in the series and, yeah, I was right about that).

The other was Derek Opperman, who was demonstrating a UFC fighting
game.

Kudos to Eric and Derek, and shame on the gaming companies
for this paltry procession of male pulchritude!

Conclusion

As
always, I’m like a kid in the largest candy store in the world
at E3. I had a great time as always. I’m terribly lucky that
I live in Los Angeles, so I don’t have to travel for the show.
I’m also lucky because the show was held the very week after
I arrived home after a twelve week work trip. Yeah, every now and
then my timing is good.

I look forward to another terrific year of gaming. What games are
you most looking forward to?