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• Leisure Suit Larry to Exist in 2009

  In a move that will delight dozens and leave millions feeling completely ambivalent, CodeMasters announced over the weekend that they would publish Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust for the XBox 360, PS3, and PC this April (thanks Big Download). The title fell into what can best be described as a mericful limbo during the Activision-Blizzard merger, but most people were justifiably more concerned with the future of Ghostbusters than playing as the progeny of a washed-up PC adventure gaming celebrity. With a main character who doesn't even wear the titular leisure suit (how many people still know what the hell this is and what it signifies) and looks like he fell out of an anime, Box Office Bust is sure to garner attention from no one except old-school Larry fans who'd love nothing more than to see this game wiped from existence. Read More... Posted Feb 24 2009, 12:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: sierra, leisure suit larry, point and click adventure games

• Wet is All… Oh, Nevermind

  While it was certainly distressing that promising games like Ghostbusters: The Videogame and The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena fell into no-publisher limbo following Activision’s axing of Sierra Games’ line-up, we knew it wouldn’t be long before some intrepid business would give those wayward titles a home. (Of course, Sierra’s most promising game, Brutal Legend, is still homeless. Boo.) Some games lost in the fire sale, however, should probably stay lost. Take, for example, A2M’s ludicrously named Wet. Wet trades in the same bombastic violence and stars the same sort of big breasted protagonist as Hideki Kamiya’s Bayonetta, but has, from the looks of this game footage, none of that game’s humor or eccentricity. The game actually looks very similar to the John Woo and Midway collaboration Stranglehold, with an almost identical slow motion trick-shooting system. The difference? A Quentin Tarantino-style soundtrack and grainy film filter! Oh yeah, and Chow Yun Fat has been replaced by a lady in impossibly tight clothing. Read More... Posted Dec 09 2008, 06:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, hideki kamiya, bayonetta, Ghostbusters, sierra, activision, midway, brutal legend, john woo, chronicles of Riddick, wet, ghostbusters the videogame, a2m, assault on dark Athena, stranglehold

• Where is Prototype?

  The open world game, or sandbox if you prefer, isn’t a genre any longer. At this point, it’s just another method of structuring other genres in a way that gives you more freedom in how to play the game. Open world games aren’t GTA clones anymore; they’re just games with a modern version of the ol’ Mega Man boss select screen. It’s been neat over the past couple of years to watch the open world platform branch out. Crackdown, Assassin’s Creed, Burnout Paradise, Far Cry 2, hell, Spider-Man; all very different games that let you do whatever the hell you please in their world (to a degree) on your way to completion. One of 2008’s more promising games, Radical Entertainment’s Prototype, is a violent action game with a nice open world foundation. It looks gruesome and brutish but it also has some neat ideas behind it, particularly its brand of character customization. Alex Mercer, the genetically altered amnesiac protagonist with a spooky past, eats his felled foes and gains all of their characteristics, abilities, and memories. This lets you come up with all sorts of horrific, bombastic ways to destroy things but it also lets you blend in with crowds, a nice twist on the open world formula of manipulating hordes of NPCs. Sounds cool, no? Read More... Posted Oct 29 2008, 07:30 PM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, where is, mega man, grand theft auto, sierra, activision, burnout paradise, far cry 2, crackdown, radical entertainment, assassin’s creed, prototype, spider-man

• For Love of the Game: Quest for Glory II

  Lori and Corey Cole's Quest for Glory was always one of my favorite franchises. It set unusually logical puzzle-solving (by adventure-game standards — no “THROW BRIDLE AT SNAKE” here) in culturally distinct worlds that went beyond the usual D&D boilerplate. Even in Quest for Glory I, which eased players into the series with a traditional medieval setting, the sense of place was richer than usual. (My favorite detail: a frost giant from north of the Germanic game-world speaks in the alliterative verse of Beowulf.) But Quest for Glory II must've blindsided fans of the first game. Expanding the small-scale campaign of QfGI into a world-saving epic, it also transported the hero from a sleepy European valley to the full-sized Arabian city of Shapeir. In all the hype about GTAIV earlier this year, I couldn't help thinking that QfGII had done the same thing decades before — not at the same scale, but with as much attention to detail. Read More... Posted Sep 11 2008, 10:00 AM by Peter Smith with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: peter smith, remake, for love of the game, fan project, quest for glory, sierra, lori cole, corey cole, adventure game, agd interactive, quest for glory ii, best of 2008

• Whatcha Playing: The Thirst For Adventure, Pointing At Things, and Not Knowing What to Say

  Amidst the cavalcade of blockbusters, handheld eccentricities, and Rock Band I’ve been indulging in over the summer, a grand season now a mere two weeks from being officially dead, I’ve been getting a crash course in one of gaming’s most respected and forbidding forms: the adventure game. Though I started playing games during the genre’s heyday, I’ve always been somewhat less than literate when it comes to the many point-and-click and text-commanded classics crafted by Sierra and Lucasarts. My only real experiences came from visiting my aunt Donna. At the ripe age of seven years-old, she introduced me to the wonders of Kings Quest and, er, Leisure Suit Larry. Yeah. It’s not that I didn’t have fun with these eye-openers – they certainly expanded my vocabulary – I was just more interested in walking from left to right, jumping, and shooting when it came to videogames. I always knew that I was missing out on something, listening to friends chortle over playing Space Quest and even later, as a teenager, looking at lush screens of Grim Fandango. I’ve only gotten around to them recently thanks to three conditions working in concert. One is that there are new, easy to access (read: on Wii) point-and-clickers being released with regularity by folks like Telltale Games. Two and three regard vintage software: Hooksexup is equipped with numerous PCs capable of running things machines in my home twenty years ago could not, but also (and most importantly) I have a guide. It’s easy to approach Telltale’s Strong Bad games because they move at a brisk pace and they work on a very simplified version of classic point-and-click language: see something, point at it to interact with it. Got an item? Point at it, click, then point the item at what you want to use it on. Repeat playings of King’s Quest V left me acclimated to both the process and the occasionally obtuse logic at work in these sorts of games, so it’s been a painless process and a reminder of the genre’s charms. Playing through the first two episodes of Strong Bad’s Cool Game For Attractive People (more on Episode 2 when I’m allowed to talk about it) has, however, made it abundantly clear that adventure games are not inherently relaxing in comparison to more action oriented fare. Read More... Posted Sep 08 2008, 07:49 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, whatcha playing, PC, quest for glory, lucasarts, wiiware, sierra, adventure, strong bad, telltale games, conquests of Camelot, grim fandango, kings quest

• Sierra Popularizes Digital Adventure (also Roberta Williams n00dz)

  Did you know that Stanford University has a gaming blog? Well they do, and it's pretty great. It's called How They Got Game (ugh), and it's dedicated to exploring the history and culture of New Media. They've recently posted a fascinating history of the tremendously important Sierra, whom I've developed a newfound love for in my recent foray into interactive fiction. HTGG chronicles the early history of the company, with a few images of the studio's first three games. If you can squint for long enough without getting a headache, check out the highly entertaining Winning Strategies for Adventures. In Part 2, we discover Cannonball Castle, a Revolutionary War-themed Donkey Kong ripoff, and the birth of one of my favorite franchises, King's Quest. Get ready for face melting box art. Read More... Posted Aug 15 2008, 09:00 PM by Cole Stryker with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: donkey kong, sierra, activision, blizzard, leisure suit larry, gabriel knight, roberta williams, king's quest

• 50 Cent: Get Rich or Banned by Parent Groups Trying

  Written by Derrick Sanskrit I am of two minds when it comes to the new action-shooter-brawler 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, which the 61FPS crew were treated to a pre-alpha demo of this week. On the one hand, it looks like a fantastic urban shooter with a ton of fun, though not revolutionary ideas packed into it. On the other hand, I have never seen a game more likely to fuel the violent-games-produce-violent-children argument. Read More... Posted Jun 13 2008, 03:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: playstation 3, derrick sanskrit, xbox 360, 50 cent, unreal, sierra, swordfish studios