Due for release later this year, Bloody Good Time looks well, bloody good. Using B-movie style and substance, the game is a competitive multiplayer shooter for up to 8 players that takes place on a Hollywood set in which wild and varied sets- from creepy hotels to whispering beach houses- can be chosen to backdrop the explosive carnage. Just taking a look at the announcement trailer for the game induces humour, silliness and a barrel of laughs from its stereotypical moguls.

Giving the opportunity to play as any one of a whole array of B-movie characters with a promise for wacky and unsuitably outrageous weaponry, Bloody Good Time is shaping up to be worth your time later this year.

For more information, go to: http://bloody-good-time.ubi.com/

The new area will also include a “Dolphy” racing game, the virtual pet races taking place in the lounge and allows users to watch, vote and participate in the racers of up to 8 Dolphies. And if all that weren’t enough. Hudson also add a “Dolphy Room” to the mix that will let players breed their own Dolphy pets to race. Strange, indeed.

For more information on Hudson Gate, visit: http://www.hudson.co.jp/home/eur/.

When blocks evaporate depending on which way you're facing, you know you've got to flip quick.

Set along three various landscapes made up of crumpled up paper textures And Yet It Moves by the small team at Broken Rules at times seems like a physics based platformer that explores the unknown world inside a paper bin. That is not to say that it is all set in the refuse of a troubled writer, instead the paper is adorned with different themes, vibrant not blank. Pictures of trees, clouds or animals are pasted on to the rippled textures and re-arranged to create a platforming environment that is familiar to most of us. Even your character is made out of paper, he himself is susceptible to rips and – with such a fragile body – he needs a lot of looking after to keep him alive.

Something tells me I don't want to be on this tree much longer.

Even thought the environments of AYIM are a unique but familiar in design, the way of traversing them is entirely exceptional. There is not a simple left to right way through each level; instead you have to manipulate your surroundings to help you on your way, by using the Wiimote to pause the game you twist and turn the environment around your wandering character. A tree that was once blocking your way can be flipped around so that you can walk along its trunk, it is now, after all, the floor.  Also a gap that is too large to be simply leaped over can be made easily by turning the paper world so you’re no longer jumping on the spot but now in mid air, achieving the momentum you need to pull yourself forward to the next area.

This is the main mechanic of AYIM and one you are going to be using a lot. Twisting and turning the world to avoid traps and pitfalls, enemies and beasts. The physics of this manipulation are incredibly well utilised and the ingenuity of the level design will have you smirking with pleasure.

Platforms that would traditionally move up and down to try and halt your progression are replaced with branches of trees that wave in the wind, touching each other one second, only the next to be pulled apart. Or the branches themselves bend in upon the tree, so that by directing the world around you, your character ends up having to walk on the underside of the branch before you can flip the world back to its original state and then move onwards.  Where there are traditional blocks found in platforms, these turn and move along with the world or disappear and re-appear in time with the music. Broken Rules have taken what you know about platformers and gone and flip reversed that mother.

Capture the fire and move the flames to progress through. Simple!...?

To say I was captivated by AYIM is an understatement. The actual procedure of twisting the world becomes second nature very quickly and is introduced slowly but with just enough detail that you’ll feel like a pro within a few levels.  The true allure though comes from the design of the levels. Some of them feel utterly natural to traverse and none ever feel too contrived when you get confronted with an enemy or puzzle. The character you play has no form of attack so again the design of the game is to use the mechanics in place to take out the enemies for you. Bats for instance won’t harm you whilst you’re in the caves but they will distract that Chameleon who has a tongue not susceptible to paper cuts.  There is no way though to get the bats to do you bidding other than to manipulate the world so they share the same ceiling as the dastardly lizard. Always attracted to the top of the screen, like a fluttering Bat marble in a maze, you have to flip the world around so they fly to the top of the screen, on to the place destined for some Chameleon for supper. AYIM is so cunning and simple with a mechanic that feels never out of place, like the Earth revolving around the sun.

The detail and precision of the movements required is so precise and defined it is sometimes a shame that there are some minor bugs. The Wiimote responds well when using it like a key to turn the world but using it to ‘point and turn’ is a feature not without its problems.  In either mode there are moments that you’ll blink through solid objects if you spin the world around too much. Also there are the occasional frame drops when there is a lot of Bat and Chameleon action on screen.  These are only minor niggles that are unfortunately exaggerated by the lack of any manual ‘save’ function. To my knowledge the game saves automatically, however it never tells you when it is doing so and there is no option to save your profile in the main menu. This omission always left me somewhat scared to leap out of the game at any point, afraid that my unknown progress would be lost.

The perils of being made of paper.

And while you’ll be glad when some parts are over and finished with, there is replay value in AYIM which it sure needs with a main spread reaching to a paper thin 3 / 5 hrs. Broken Rules have put in the right modes of temptation to get you coming back though with achievements, time trials, speed runs and turn limitations all available to unlock to test your other skills once the puzzles have been solved.

AYIM is a tremendous achievement. Fusing some ball grabingly good level design with some fantastic physics elements and sound design that all feel as tactile and glorious as crumpling up a piece of paper.  Though however well implemented the mechanics and the re-imaginings of the genre, for some, may still not be enough to take the paper from their pocket…

MLG Rating: 8/10

Platform: Wii (PC, Mac)  Release Date: 27/08/2010

Disclosure: Midlife Gamer were provided a digital copy of And Yet It Moves for review purposes by the promoter. The title was reviewed over the course of four days on a Wii

There is something very special about Shank for me, probably stemming from my fond memories of Double Dragon and Final Fight.  But this isn’t the first 2D brawler to come to the current gen consoles, so what makes this different?

To start with let’s take a look at the game’s visuals, it’s an almost perfect art style with a solid amount of character to it.  All you need to know about Shank’s story is told in the grimace of the lead protagonists face – “shit just got real!”

Shank’s moment to moment gameplay also pans out like you’d expect, walking left to right taking on gangs of bad guys with a few tasty boss battles in between and with a smattering of platforming.  Things starts out simple with light and heavy attacks combined with a selected firearm and the well used evade move (you’ll be using this a lot).  It is at this point where you’ll either continue to enjoy Shank like I did, or get frustrated and admit defeat.

The art style and animation which portrays almost perfect combat transitions can also be its major down fall. Imagine controlling Shank as he fights through two skin heads, tears through an eight foot biker with his chainsaw before marching across the screen guns blazing as a few dogs start to lunge.  You’re mid-animation you realise that perhaps if you were to evade, you could counter with an uzi and a few grenades – nope, too late.

It may sound like a tiny gripe, but I found myself blaming the – admittedly incredible – animation when I did badly. This system doesn’t take long to adapt to, until you find another weapon, as all in all on the fly I was able to select between three guns and four heavy melee weapons (which have different effects against different enemies) and consequently I never felt quite at one with the combat system until the very end.

Once I had battled through to the last few levels and final boss battle, everything came together and I was able to quickly assess each encounter and know what weapon would see me through the best.  Which is why, once the game was over, I was left wanting more, perhaps a little more than just an additional difficulty level…

Although the end can come in less than four hours, the prologue of the story can be played with a friend by your side in a whole separate co-op story.  Not only do you get to see a little more of Shank’s brutal story unfold, but twice the action on screen makes for twice the enjoyment, not to mention two character specific combat situations and boss battles.

For what can feel like a short experience, I would have dropped well over the £10 asking price going through Double Dragon in the arcades and I got the same feeling as that felt here.  There is a demo available as always and I strongly suggest you go check it out.  Just remember to persevere if things feel a little ‘shanky’.

MLG Rating: 8/10

Platform: Xbox 360 (Playstation 3)  Release Date: 24/08/2010

Disclosure: Midlife Gamer were provided a digital  copy of Shank for review purposes by the promoter. The title was reviewed over the course of three days on an Xbox 360.

1983

Toys, Books and Records were very tactile. Customers could fondle these little beauties before deciding to purchase or not. Computer games on the other hand were a different kettle of fish. How could it be possible to stock Cassette Tapes where customers could load them into a computer, wait 5 minutes or so for it to load, then play for 10 minutes before deciding not to purchase? Staff would need training because of the very technical nature of the product and to top it all games publishers, on the most part, were fly by night, one hit wonders. Retailers were suspicious. There’s just no profit in Computer Software.

Screen shot of Mastertronic Logo

Mastertronic to the rescue
Mastertronic persuaded newsagents, sweetshops and garages, video shops and groceries, even motorway service stations to take “dealer packs”, 100 games at a time mounted on cardboard racks. They were asked just to give the products some space. Sale or return agreements meant traders undertook no risk.

One important source for Mastertronic’s games were the brothers David and Richard Darling (name ring any bells?). Setting up a partnership with Mastertronic gave them both a royalty and a share of the profits on the sales of their games. In that hectic first 15 months nearly 750,000 games written by the Darlings were sold, netting them some £85000. Professional programmers would have been glad of such sales. For two boys of school age this was evidence that games were likely to be better than education and as soon as they could the Darlings left school, terminated the deal with Mastertronic and set up a new company, Codemasters. (2 points if you knew already)

Boring bit about maths
In 1983-4 most computer games retailed in the UK at prices between £4.99 and £7.99. Mastertronic games were priced at £1.99. How could they do it?

Well, computer game code fitted onto a short length of tape that could load in about 5 minutes. For a reasonable print run, a tape duplicator could produce copies for about 25 pence each. Mastertronic, aiming for large product runs, bought its tapes at 22 pence. Inlay cards cost about 3 pence each. The artwork cost anything up to £1000; assuming a print run of 20,000 this reduced to 5p per unit. Other distribution costs might add 5 pence in total.

So a game could be duplicated and put out to market for a total cost of some 35 pence. The other main cost was the software itself. Games could be purchased outright but most authors wanted royalties, not wishing to lose out in case of success. The standard deal offered in 1984 was an advance of £2000 and a royalty rate of 10 pence a unit. Many young authors were very happy to take this, especially when Mastertronic went on to sell 50,000 copies or more.

In later years royalty deals moved closer to the standards in book publishing with royalties based on a percentage of receipts, but in 1984 this would have made no difference, all games were sold at the same price anyway.

Press cutting from Your Computer Magazine questioning Mastertronics marketing genius.

A bit more about the math
Having set the costs, the profit depended on the wholesale price. Here the calculations work backwards. From a retail price of £1.99, VAT (15% at the time) took 26p. Retailers expected to make a margin of 30%. They would therefore not buy at prices higher than about £1.30. Between this price and the production cost of 45 pence was a margin wide enough to cover advertising, overheads, the profits of distributors and (provided there were not too many), the costs of failed titles. In practice Mastertronic sold to distributors at about 90 pence a unit, reduced to around 80 pence in the more competitive late 80s, and at about £1.30 when able to distribute directly to retailers.

This pricing structure would generate good profits provided sales were high enough. If the total sales of a title were just 10,000 units then raw material and distribution cost might be £3000, artwork and advance to author a further £2500 and the receipts about £9000. So this would bring a reasonable gross margin of 38%. But in the early days they easily exceeded 10,000 units per title. The 10 C64 titles released at the start of Mastertronic’s life sold on average40,000 in the first year and over 50,000 before being withdrawn from sale. The Vic titles achieved 44,000. Surprisingly the early Spectrum releases did less well but still averaged 28,000.

Budget pricing was proved to be perfectly viable provided that most titles achieved good sales, and in the fast growing market of 1984–6, at the “pocket-money” price point of £1.99, they did. (boring bit over)

M.A.D
In late 1985 Mastertronic launched the M.A.D label ‘Mastertronic’s Added Dimension’ and was the first, deliberate, step away from the “pure budget” game. M.A.D games retailed at £2.99 and were intended to be better quality. The range was launched with a party on a boat on the Thames where the authors demonstrated their first games in the range -The Last V8, Master Of Magic, Spellbound and Hero Of The Golden Talisman.

Programmers like David Jones (Magic Knight series), Clive Brooker (Empire strikes back, One Man & His Droid, Lap of the Gods), Kevin Green (Skyjet, Flash Gordon, Space Hunter), Jim Ferrari (King Tut, Human Race, Hollywood or Bust) became part of Mastertronics regulars. Rob Hubbard would pop in to hand over his latest tune, even the shaggy-haired one, Jeff Minter himself climbed on board. Several programmers worked for the company in-house for a while as technical advisors – Stephen Curtis (Nonterraqueous, Soul of a Robot, Into Oblivion) Richard Aplin (Destructo, Fly Spy, Ultimate Combat Mission) Tony Takoushi (Frenesis, Hyperforce) to name a few.

Mastertronic Inc.
In 1986 Martin Alper set up Mastertronic Inc in the states. This company could only distribute C64 games at the start because all the other 8 bit computers were virtually unknown in the USA. Gradually Martin introduced games for the new 16 bit machines and Mastertronic Inc began to take on a different profile to the UK based business. Links with US software houses provided a new source of games and the label “Entertainment USA” was created to showcase these in Europe. This was balanced by another label, Bulldog (“Best of British”), which Mastertronic acquired when Bulldog were on the verge of going bust. Exclusive distributors in the major European markets thus created the impression of a truly international group. In France and Germany Mastertronic SA and Mastertronic GmbH.

Around the late summer of 1986, Mastertronic recruited Geoff Heath as Director of Marketing. Geoff had run both Activision and latterly Melbourne House. He was a heavyweight in the games industry and his appointment marked a step up in Mastertronic’s internal development. His long term target was to bring Mastertronic into full price software. 16 bit computers became popular and for the first time the quality of games for the home machines such as the Amiga and Atari ST seemed similar to those in arcade machines. The 16 bit range was launched, appropriately enough, on a new label called 16-Blitz although the name was not used for very long.

Mastertronic Inc began to develop a range of new arcade games that would run equally well on home computers. Mastertronic agreed to buy a large number of Amiga chips from Commodore to power the new arcade machines. This venture, called Arcadia, nearly killed the company because the project developed slowly and the games were poor quality and not well suited for arcades. This demonstrated a weakness in Mastertronics setup – any games player could have explained that a home computer game is fundamentally different in design to an arcade game. But nobody asked games players.

The success of the budget range and the growing influence of Mastertronic led to them becoming the main supplier of both budget and full price software to a number of major retailers in the UK, notably Toys’R'Us and Woolworths. Some full price publishers were happy to let Mastertronic re-release their older product at a budget price and of course this was easy business. The “Ricochet” label was born, featuring in particular games from Activision Martech and US Gold. Mastertronic also created a special label, Rackit/Rebound for Hewson.

Melbourne House
Mastertronic bought the famous UK publisher Melbourne House, when that company was struggling with financial problems, from its Australian holding company Beam Software. Melbourne House kept its label identity and a few of the staff joined the Mastertronic team, notably Rachel Davies the marketing manager, and general manager Martin Corrall. Ironically they were reunited with their old boss, Geoff Heath. This move meant that they had first refusal on re-releases of games such as the Hobbit, Lord of the Rings and The Way Of The Exploding Fist. However the main justification for the purchase was to provide a vehicle for the sale of full price games, a market from which Mastertronic had previously excluded itself, and in particular as a sales outlet for the home version of arcade games.

Frank Herman. hailed as 'the first suit in the gaming industry'

Virgin
In 1987, following negotiations between Herman and Richard Branson, Virgin Group purchased the 45% of shares held by the outside investment group. In that year Mastertronic’s turnover was about £8 million and pre-tax profit £1 million. The deal valued the group at around £10 million. The remaining 55% was held by Alper (25%), Herman (20%) and Sharam (10%) and they sold out in 1988 in a highly complex deal which required their continuing involvement in the business and achievement of profit and cashflow targets. The company was renamed the ‘Mastertronic Group Ltd’, and later was merged with Virgin Games to create ‘Virgin Mastertronic’.

In September 1988 Mastertronic joined forces with the Virgin Games staff in their mews offices in London’s Notting Hill. This signalled the beginning of the end of the key Mastertronic budget business. Virgin were not really interested in it – they wanted Mastertronics Sega franchise…

Sega
Frank Herman, in early 1987, spotted that Sega had no UK distributor for the Master System range. They Were applied and appointed distributor for one year. Martin Corrall, who was somewhat at a loose end after the absorption of Melbourne House, was the ideal manager for this new line of business. They sold all they could get that year, the UK distributorship was renewed and in addition they were appointed as distributors in France and Germany, and thus was born the huge business that was to become Sega Europe.

In 1991 the group turnover was around £100 million, a phenomenal growth. Nearly all of the sales, and certainly all of the profit, came from Sega products. Staff numbers soared but the traditional games publishing side began to be neglected. Full price games such as Golden Axe and Supremacy were achieving significant results and making the budget business seem irrelevant.

In early 1991 Sega expressed interest in taking over the business. Virgin Group was happy to sell (probably to raise cash for the airline). Sega had no interest in the games publishing side. As a result nearly all the staff moved over to Sega when they bought the business that summer and only a handful of Virgin games programmers stayed with the publishing side (quickly renamed Virgin Interactive Entertainment). By that time the budget business was dying and nobody cared about it. In any case the competition had become intense as everyone was now recycling their old full price games as budget games. And of course the kids who used to buy C64s and Spectrums were now buying Segas and Nintendos.

After the Sega takeover Frank became deputy Managing Director of Sega Europe and Alan was Managing Director of Sega UK. Martin stayed with Virgin and continued to head up VIE for several years, remaining resident in the US. Anthony Guter moved to Sega where he became European IT Manager.

Sometime around 1992-3 VIE pulled out of budget games altogether and the Mastertronic name disappeared from view. Quantities of unsold games came back from the retailers and some are still being sold today. Somehow the name continues to bring back memories. There must be many thousands of kids who could not afford the more expensive games and who were able to enjoy gaming thanks to Mastertronic. The business really was unique -it could not be replicated today. Games are now developed by teams of programmers and designers and typical retail prices are £30 – £45. The days when a teenager could walk unannounced into an office, load up a tape and instantly be offered a publishing deal have gone. But there was really a time when this happened. It is beginning to feel like a legendary era but it was only twenty five years ago.

Sold Out Logo

Mastertronic Group
After a ten year silence in August 2003 Mastertronic was reborn. The name was used to launch a new range of budget games, all of which had previously done well as full price titles. Frank Herman joined them in March 2004, resuming his old position as Chairman. There is no relation between the new company and the old, other than the name.

The group has also purchased the low-cost software distributor ‘Sold Out’. The label has been retained, and is (as it was previously) being used to sell software at the £5 (frequently “3-for-£10″) price-point. The company is also distributing software under the old ‘M.A.D.’ imprint, as well as another label associated with PC Gamer magazine. Games on these labels are being sold for £10 (or “3-for-£20″). Mastertronic started the Great Indie Games publishing label, to spread independent games only available on the internet.

This Community Content article was created by Wind Junky, a member of our community. Community Content is your way of getting long-form writing and opinion out to the Midlife Gamer audience, an open platform to get something off your chest. For full guidelines on our editorial standards and how to create your own post, click here. The views expressed within are those of the author and not necessarily the opinions of the Midlife Gamer Staff

EA have just released the full setlist for the game, including tracks from ‘The Smiths’, ‘Echo & The Bunnymen’, ‘Queen’, Bob Marley, John Lennon and erm, Amy Winehouse.

Have a filter through the 83 song list and hope that EA can continue to provide a platform for Rock Band to rise to dominance at the behest of the more metal-orientated Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock.  As Paul DeGooyer, senior VP  of electronic games, musics and programming at MTV Games, points out, “the RB3 soundtrack represents the strongest, most diverse collection of music ever assembled for a videogame”.

Here it is…

2000s:
Amy Winehouse, “Rehab”
At the Drive-In, “One Armed Scissor”
Avenged Sevenfold, “The Beast & the Harlot”
Dover, “King George”
The Bronx, “False Alarm”
The Flaming Lips, “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt. 1”
HIM (His Infernal Majesty), “Killing Loneliness”
Hypernova, “Viva La Resistance”
Ida Maria, “Oh My God”*
Juanes, “Me Enamora”
Metric, “Combat Baby”*
Paramore, “Misery Business”*
Phoenix, “Lasso”*
Poni Hoax, “Antibodies”
Pretty Girls Make Graves, “Something Bigger, Something  Brighter”
Queens of the Stone Age, “No One Knows”
The Ravonettes, “Last Dance”
Rilo Kiley, “Portions for Foxes”*
Riverboat Gamblers, “Don’t Bury Me…I’m Still Not Dead”
Slipknot, “Before I Forget”
The Sounds, “Living in America”
Tegan & Sara, “The Con”
Them Crooked Vultures, “Dead End Friends”
Tokio Hotel, “Humanoid”*
The Vines, “Get Free”*
The White Stripes, “The Hardest Button to Button”*

1990s:
Faith No More, “Midlife Crisis”*
Filter, “Hey Man, Nice Shot”
Jane’s Addiction, “Been Caught Stealing”*
Maná, “Oye Mi Amor”
Marilyn Manson, “The Beautiful People”
The Muffs, “Outer Space”
Phish, “Llama” • Primus, “Jerry Was a Racecar Driver”
Rammstein, “Du Hast”
Smash Mouth, “Walkin’ On The Sun”*
Spacehog, “In the Meantime”
Stone Temple Pilots, “Plush”
Swingin’ Utters, “This Bastard’s Life”

1980s:
Anthrax, “Caught in a Mosh”
Big Country, “In a Big Country”
The Cure, “Just Like Heaven”*
Def Leppard, “Foolin’”
Devo, “Whip It”
Dio, “Rainbow in the Dark”
Dire Straits, “Walk of Life”
Echo & the Bunnymen, “The Killing Moon”
Huey Lewis and the News, “The Power of Love”
INXS, “Need You Tonight”* • J. Geils Band, “Centerfold”
Joan Jett, “I Love Rock N’ Roll”*
Night Ranger, “Sister Christian”*
Ozzy Osbourne, “Crazy Train”*
The Police, “Don’t Stand So Close to Me”
Roxette, “The Look”*
The Smiths, “Stop Me if You Think You’ve Heard This One Before”
Tears for Fears, “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”
Whitesnake, “Here I Go Again”*

1970s:
The B-52’s, “Rock Lobster”*
Blondie, “Heart of Glass”
Bob Marley, “Get Up, Stand Up”
Chicago, “25 or 6 to 4”
Deep Purple, “Smoke on the Water”
Doobie Brothers, “China Grove”*
Elton John, “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting”
Foreigner, “Cold As Ice”*
Golden Earring, “Radar Love”
John Lennon, “Imagine”
Lynyrd Skynyrd, “Free Bird”
Queen, “Bohemian Rhapsody”*
Ramones, “I Wanna Be Sedated”
Steve Miller Band, “Fly Like an Eagle”
T. Rex, “20th Century Boy”
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, “I Need to Know”
War, “Low Rider”
Warren Zevon, “Werewolves of London”
Yes, “Roundabout”*

1960s:
Beach Boys, “Good Vibrations (Live)”
David Bowie, “Space Oddity”
The Doors, “Break on Through (To the Other Side)”*
James Brown, “I Got You” (I Feel Good) – Alternate Studio Version*
The Jimi Hendrix Experience, “Crosstown Traffic”*
The Who, “I Can See for Miles”

Any that catch your eye. Any tracks or artists that are glaring omissions? Leave comments below and get the debate raging on what ought to be included within this, the third full release in the Rock Band cannon.

Rock Band 3 will be released for PS3, Xbox 360, Wii and DS on the 26th October 2010 in North America and 29th October for the rest of the world.

What have we been playing?

Matt gets both hands on Starcraft 2 & has some fun times with Shank.

Daren discusses Alchemy on Android OS, explores turntablism with DJ Hero and worries about his time with Aion.

This weeks news topics

The UK is set to get a dedicated TV gaming channel, Final Fantasy XIV gets an open Beta date and an interesting XP limiting mechanic, Cryptic Studios confirm a new Neverwinter title, Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep not coming to PSN, further updates on the PS3 hack, Shank has issues on the Xbox 360, Microsoft banning pirates of Halo: Reach, voice chat improvements planned for the next 360 dashboard update, Demon resurface as a gamer specific ISP and EA Sports MMA will not be released in Denmark.

The usual suspects: Retail Roundup, New Releases, the Twitter Section and the Sexy Quiz.

Subscribe to the show on iTunes & leave us a sexy review. Download direct or listen here.

I’ve tried to tick all the boxes this week, offering a little survival horror, a little MMO and not to mention a big old dose of some familiar faces and some innovative platform gaming.

Well what are you waiting for? Oh right you want to know what’s in store? Well allow me to happily oblige you…

Gaming has been littered with successful partnerships, Banjo & Kazooie, Sonic & Tails, Mario & Luigi to name but a few, however we have had very few successful quads… Until now, doubling its numbers from 2 to 4 its Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One, offering 4-player co-op for the very first time.

Now personally I am a huge fan of the old style platformer, sit me down with a 2D Mario, Sonic or Little Big Planet and I will be gone for hours which is why this next title really took my fancy, we often look here at titles for XBLA & PSN and now its time for WiiWare to get some love, here it is with And Yet It Moves.

What I like about this next trailer is its honesty, like many sequels its happy to quote the fantastic comments lavished upon it but this title is also willing to tell us what’s wrong with the original which would appear to be the lack of multiplayer, so coming soon, with multiplayer its Torchlight II.

Heading back to Nintendo and the Wii comes the title which majority of Wii owners have been waiting to see since the launch of the Virtual Console (now WiiWare), there were many rumours, whispers and inevitable denials but at E3 this year it was confirmed, heading to Wii as a full title this year is Goldeneye 007.

The news has been rife recently with more abuse thrown at the gaming industry due to the rumoured content of the upcoming Medal of Honor, now games down the years have consistently caused uproar for their content and in 2003 one game embraced the controversy with its tagline “Banned in 13 Countries”, that game was Postal 2 and this week we take a look at the trailer for the sequel, Postal 3 which promises to keep the careful balance between humour and ultra-violence.

The final trailer this week is a PC title (although rumours are a 360 port is on the way), for those of you who haven’t had enough of an apocalyptic alien shooter fix yet from the likes of Lost Planet and Gears of War then maybe this could be right up your street, with a trailer which has left this Trailer-Gasmed viewer wondering what’s going on its The Scourge Project.

And that’s all I have for you this week, I’ve given you 4-way platforming, American Hockey mom tasering and lets not forget the trip down memory lane with Goldeneye, but that’s it for now, but fret not the next episode is just around the corner I have more great Trailers than I can shake a stick at so until next week its goodbye from me and goodbye from…. erm… well just me!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MnP6aUy8jE

Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One, Developer: Insomniac Games, Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment

And Yet it Moves, Developer/Publisher: Broken Rules

Torchlight II, Developer/Publisher: Runic Games

Goldeneye 007, Developer: Eurocom, Publisher: Activision

Postal 3, Developer/Publisher: Running with Scissors/Akella

The Scourge Project, Developer/Publisher: Tragnarion Studios

Simply put Madden NFL 11 is an alright game. That’s about as plainly as I can put it. It is a shrug raiser, lip curler, feet shuffler of a title. Though however basic I would like to put it and be done with it Madden NFL 11 isn’t going to let me go that easy. It’s just that those pond splashers over the way do have a penchant for overcomplicating the simple. So in turn sharing my opinion was never going to be that simple either.

Especially when it comes to sports, the Yanks tend to make the plain into the elaborate. That which starts with Cricket ends in Baseball. That which starts with Hockey ends by being played on ice. And that which starts with Rugby ends with American Football. The trouble is that with all this complication going on in one place, how does a game that is meant to replicate that exercise maintain a sense of control and ability whilst also making sure the title runs and plays like you see it in ‘RL’?

The easy answer is that you do what Madden 11 has done and you take away one piece of this simple conundrum. You make it a one hander and decide that this year, in the two decades of Electronic Arts presenting NFL titles; it is all about the spectacle, more about the experience than ever before. The armchair is your house and Madden dives in for a visit.

You can't beat how it looks but it is all too QT for me!

American Football is an extraordinary amusement, a mix between Rugby and essentially Dungeon and Dragons. Two teams take it in turns to out stratergise each other in the pursuit of gaining yards whilst keeping possession of the football or pig skin at the same time. Critically each play is a chance to out maneuver your opponent, rolling the dice hoping to guess what defensive/offensive moves they’ll try on you and then trying your best to counter in return. After all that, if you end up with the oval in the end zone then you score points and the most points win. Easy as that!

It is a complicated game and that is reflected in pretty much every area of Madden’s presentation bar the exceptionally well crafted replication of the sport on the pitch. EA’s attempt to streamline your play and offer up a smooth “in and out” style still ends up feeling cluttered because EA have abandoned any hope of the uninitiated gaining interest of the title and therefore little to no explanations, tutorials, or guidance is given to the depth and variety on offer, so you’re left to find your way like a shred of hay in a bottle of needles.

I am sure though that hardened Football fans are having a blast in all the modes on offer. Amateur leagues, mini-games, the usual extensive online functions and the very, very extensive  Franchise mode, which unlike the paltry Manager Mode in FIFA – which only lasts for four or five seasons – in Madden the challenge is to be on top of your game for thirty. Three decades of football!

Seasons are quite short, but EA’s eye is on delivering an experience away from the actual physical playing of the pig. The world of the Football Franchise is so in depth I was worried at one point that it was going to ask me how often the grass should be cut and when the Quarter Back should be getting his nails done. Again, to the hardened fan, I bet making sure that his minions of badly modeled spectators will have super fast broadband and personal firewalls whilst watching the game is of up most importance.

If you want, you can of course simulate all of these decisions and leave it to the CPU to arrange signings of players and make sure your winning staff stays paid and wealthy. You even have the option to simulate all the football games scheduled for you to play. In fact I found all this simulation a little demeaning. I just wanted to play football, and to go into a mode and then have the computer ask me if I am sure that I want to actually play the game and not ‘simulate’ felt like the emphasis was trying to be drawn off the game itself and for me to utlise the more in-depth manager mode.

Coach, I saw it in the showers. It was this big!

For a while now EA’s target for the franchise has not been to necessarily make an intricate and complicated replica of American Football but instead provide an experience, the experience of taking part in a televised event. Once you’re squeezed into a game, it starts with huge team logos planting on the pitch, fans relaxing outside the stadium, players, coaches and warming up. It all looks like it should look. The commentary as well is nice and playful, never too over the top and actually comes highly commended. It seems that the golden rule with sports announcing remains to be that ‘less is more’.

The world of the football game is very exciting to be a part of as well. You can challenge calls you think are wrong, and get treated to replays and officials arguing on the sidelines.  You can silence the crowd and get them pumped up just before a big play, and all of this adds to what you would see on T.V during the weekly matches. Though as much as the experience of goggle box viewing struggles to be maintained it still lacks the polish to be truly immersive.

Announcers will talk over each other when trying to skip through lengthy cut sequences or they will get things plain wrong, sometimes just pausing the game can take up to a minute to show up a menu and the crowd participation gets repetitive very quickly. Even the addition of The Extra Point, a real life show with real human hosts analyzing the weekend’s best games becomes best ignored very soon as the disc that spins away inside to find the audio that contains the right numbers sounds more interesting than the hosts themselves…

If you win the Super Bowl you get to meet this man! No half-time show or cheerleaders though.

Overall the whole experience has been streamlined to try and cater to those wanting to just get ready to watch the real thing by playing a simulation. While once you had to cycle though the hundreds of plays on offer to try and out play your opponent, this is all done now by the computer through one quick button press. The CPU decides the best play and you are simply an envoy taking part in quirky quick time events. Even the defence can be controlled by CPU just by the press of a button and it all starts to become all too tempting to just hit the switch and have the decision be done with, and with the orders being piped in through your PS3 or Xbox headset it feels so authentic. However, as time moves on you get the itch to learn more about the plays and decide for yourself what works best to take advantage of the depth that Madden 11 tends to scream and boast about, though when you do do that, American Football is still too much of a complicated sport to warrant full control over the field, so no matter how much you’ll start taking control away from the computer you cannot shirk that horrible feeling that you’re not doing any of the work.

Madden 11, looks pretty and the animations on the field are slick and interesting, American Football nonetheless is a sport that will never translate properly to a full video game simulation. It requires too individual movements and design to ever be controlled by one person. All EA can do is to carry on developing their attempts to convey the experience of a televised effect because the results are often fascinatingly appealing, dragging you back for another fling of the football.

MLG Rating: 7/10

Platform: PS3 (Xbox 360, Wii, PS2, PSP, iOS)  Release Date: 13/08/2010

Disclosure: Midlife Gamer were provided a physical copy of Madden NFl 11 for review purposes by the promoter. The title was reviewed over the course of seven days on a PS3.

thatgamecompany are taking these concepts and turning them into some of the most compelling games of our recent console era. Anyone who has played Cloud, flOw or Flower knows how much desire, focus and energy thatgamecompany manage to put into their simple game ideas. But how do they make it look so simple? Marconi decided to find out…

Marconi: First of all can you tell us who you are and what you do at thatgamecompany?

Kellee Santiago: Hi, I’m Kellee Santiago. I’m President and Co-Founder of thatgamecompany. I co-founded the studio with our Creative Director, Jenova Chen in 2006, after we met each other at the University of Southern California Interactive Media MFA program, at the School of Cinematic Arts.  Now our studio is 10 people, and my work focuses on business development and strategic planning, marketing and public relations, and working with Sony, our publisher.

M: We ask the same question to everyone one we speak to here at Midlife Gamer, what your favourite biscuit (cookie) and beverage?

KS: I guess that would be Oreo double-stuff, although it’s not the most attractive cookie to eat! My favourite beverage currently is ginger ale – the real stuff, though.

M: Tell me a little more about thatgamecompany. What were the origins of the company and your main focuses and theories when creating games?

KS: The seed of the company was planted after the release of the USC student game project “Cloud,” on which Jenova was the lead. “Cloud” is free PC downloadable game that attempts to embody the lessons we were getting at USC – to begin your game design with an emotion or theme in mind, and then design towards that as your goal. We wanted to see what would happen if we applied this practice on a theme that isn’t commonly found in video game. Would people still be engaged? Are there limitations to what can be expressed in a video game?

For “Cloud” the idea was to give the player the feeling of remembering what it was like to be a child, staring up at the clouds and daydreaming.  When the game was completed, the team felt satisfied with the experiment, but still had no idea how the public at large was going to react. But, it actually caught on. Within a few months the game had been downloaded 400,000 times, without any promotional work on our part. Jenova and I felt that the game had struck a chord. And it had shown us that there was an audience for these different kinds of games, and we decided to make a company that did just that.

M: Delivering an artistic experience seems to be on the top of your agenda when creating a new title, how do you balance this aspect of pushing boundaries and try new things, whilst ensuring that your title is appealing to a wide enough audience to be a commercial success?

KS: In a way, we think they are one in the same. There are many games, like Wii Sports and Rock Band, that have shown that the people who aren’t playing games aren’t doing so because “they aren’t gamers.” It’s because there aren’t any video games that they like. By making games with themes that anyone can relate to – like the serenity of a field of flowers, or being a rock star – we can appeal to a wider, untapped audience.

M: If you had been releasing games a decade ago, do you think they would have been so appreciated and accepted? Is the notion of what a console is used for changing?

KS: We couldn’t do what we do without digital distribution, which allows us to make games that priority quality over quantity and take them directly to market.

M: How crucial was Sony Computer Entertainment in the creation of thatgamecompany?

KS: Extremely so. Jenova and I were in the second graduating class from the USC program, which was one of only a handful of programs in the world. Publishers didn’t know what to do with us, because we didn’t have experience shipping commercial titles, which was standard at the time. Sony took a huge leap of faith in signing us up for three games. In addition, they were part mentors and part publisher, which is a very rare situation. They helped us figure out the in-and-outs of commercial game development, producing, negotiating, PR – all of these aspects to game development that you have to do well in order to run a successful business. We couldn’t be thatgamecompany without them.

M: You straddle the thin line with Sony between independent and first party. How much say does Sony have when you pitch new titles?

KS: In general, Sony is very supportive of their developers, and they have been extremely supportive with us. Although the idea of a game about being in a flower field raised a lot of eyebrows in meetings, those same people trusted us and allowed us to realize that vision.

M: Can you tell us a little more about your next title Journey. How far away are we from seeing the game and what can players expect from it?

KS: Journey is our first online experience for PSN, and we want to apply everything there that we’ve learned from Cloud, flOw, and Flower.  The common themes in online experiences today are about empowerment and destruction, so we began with the idea of creating an online game that would generate a sense of awe and wonder – a feeling that we believe is sorely lacking from not only our gaming experiences, but our day-to-day lives.

For more on thatgamecompany, check out their blog at http://thatgamecompany.com, or the thatgamecompany Facebook page.