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I may have mentioned before that while I am continually fascinated by EVE Online and its idiosyncrasies, I also am not a powerful enough gamer to sustain the will and mental fortitude required to play EVE at any level of seriousness. It’s an intimidating game to get into, for someone raised on friendlier, World of Warcraft-ian MMO fare.

Developer CCP seems to be aware of that, and will be taking steps to help new players along as they dive into the cutthroat world of null-sec space. The December 3rd retail release of EVE Online, called the “Commissioned Officer Edition” will have an exclusive in-game item, the “Cerebral Accelerator”, which greatly increases the speed of skill development for the first 30 days of a player’s new life. The box also includes a month of free game time.

It’s notable that there’s a new retail release on the horizon, given that some big changes are afoot with the game’s next (free) expansion, Incursion, which aims to expand cooperative player-vs-environment play options, revamp the character creator, and add in a bunch of UI improvements.

Some longtime EVE players might cry foul, but frankly speaking I’m all for anything that helps lower the barrier to entry for this craziness. There aren’t nearly as many decent sci-fi MMO games as fantasy ones, and EVE’s is especially interesting. Who knows, maybe this will tip me off the fence.

EVE: Queue-skipping edition [Rock Paper Shotgun]

It’s strange to think that in the same year Sega launched a traditional 2D Sonic the Hedgehog game that finally gave the fans what they wanted, it was the announcement of a Wii game that continued in the same vein as the undesirable “modern” titles that captured the excitement of the fans. 

Sonic Colors, despite its status as a “3D” Sonic, complete with a focus on narrative, gimmicks and brand new colorful friends, has somehow convinced everybody that this is the legendary “return to form” that Sonic fans have been waiting for. 

All I have to ask is … how has Sonic Team managed to pull the wool over our eyes again?

Sonic Colors (Wii)
Developer: Sonic Team
Publisher: Sega
Release date: November 16, 2010
MSRP: $49.99

At first, Sonic Colors appears to have finally done everything right. By taking the fun and speedy levels from Sonic Unleashed and leaving behind the dreary “Werehog” nonsense, Colors breezes through its first few stages with an empowering, thrilling charm. It truly does manage to convince one that Sonic has finally nailed it. 

Then come the laggy controls … and broken homing attacks … and pitfall deaths … and 2D platforming sections so badly presented, you’d think they were patched together by chimpanzees. Then you realize that Sonic Colors is a case of the same old problems, in a brand new package. 

The simple fact of the matter is this — Sonic Colors is terribly designed. The level layout is atrocious, putting the focus on cheap pitfall deaths instead of real challenge, and various platforming sections that clash with the game’s very physics. There are issues in Sonic Colors that have plagued the series since Sonic Adventure first arrived on the Dreamcast, confirming once and for all that whoever works at Sonic Team, they just don’t have a clue what’s wrong with their games.

This is compounded by the fact that Colors tries to be two games at once, despite the fact that Colors isn’t versatile enough for that. The engine simply isn’t equipped for both 3D racing and 2D platforming, and the abhorrent way in which Sonic controls during these latter sections demonstrates this fact over and over again. Sonic floats mystically in the air with every jump, making precision landing next to impossible. The jumps possess an otherworldly inertia that one never quite gets used to, making these segments feel laggy and uncomfortable. 

And this is all before we get to the controls. 

First of all, don’t use a Wii remote. This game requires a Classic Controller to even start being enjoyable. Secondly, whatever controller you use, the layout is absurd. For instance, you’ll need to make liberal use of the double jump, but if you double jump when there is a homing attack target nearby, you’ll whizz over to the target instead. Sometimes this can land you in trouble, especially during the sections where the camera zooms out to such a degree that all the graphics look like a muddy blur and you don’t even know where Sonic is, let alone how to get him across a network of moving platforms. Sometimes, the game seems to require sheer dumb luck in order to progress. 

There are also sections where Sonic must quickly zip from left to right while running along a path. These were among my favorite parts of Sonic Unleashed, mostly because Sonic’s movements used the left and right triggers, which felt rather satisfying. Not so with Colors, even on a Classic Controller. In Colors, you have to push the movement stick left and right, while still pushing forward to keep Sonic running. I’ll let you guess just how great that feels. 

Fortunately, the game gets some enjoyable moments thanks to the Wisp gimmickry. Usually, Sonic’s gimmicks are the worst part of his games, but at least the Wisps of Sonic Colors have some merit to them. These little aliens are being used by Dr. Eggman to power his intergalactic theme park, and once freed, they bestow upon Sonic a multitude of special abilities. White Wisps allow him to dash, Orange Wisps turn him into a rocket, and Purple Wisps change Sonic into a giant maw of chomping death. These alien abilities are legitimately fun to use, helped by the fact that Sonic’s various transformations are quite unique and even adorable at times. 

The Wisps aren’t always mandatory to the completion of a level, but they can open up new paths in order to collect more rings, find shortcuts, or collect red tokens for unlockable stages. Of course, sometimes the speed at which the game moves makes missing Wisp opportunities far too easy, and it seems Sonic Team expects you to replay levels over and over again to learn where everything is. Unfortunately, the fun levels are so few that you’ll be angry you played most of the stages once, let alone multiple times. 

The frustrating part is that, at times, Sonic Colors truly does show flashes of brilliance. Several of the earlier levels are fantastic, finding as they do a perfect mix between speed and challenge. When a level works, it really works, and some of the boss fights are more unique and clever than your usual Sonic fare. The game’s story is also fairly tolerable, and Sonic seems to have had a personality makeover, now becoming an affable idiot with a terrible sense of humor. His new voice actor, and this amusing personality shift, make for a much more enjoyable hedgehog than the “cool dude” we’ve seen in the past. The jokes don’t always work, but the writing is vastly improved over previous games.

It seems, however, that the further the game goes, the less the developers gave a crap, and every instance of inspiration soon gives way to the same sloppy, slapdash construction we’ve witnessed a dozen times before. Even when a stage starts brilliantly, the game invariably finds a way to muck it up with some sort of new environmental trap that wasn’t introduced properly, or a slice of transparent trial-and-error gameplay that has been designed purely to force a replay. To its credit, Colors attempts to curb the frustration of pitfalls and platforming by flashing a warning sign before a jumping section, but these warnings are so vague and appear so suddenly that they might as well not be there. 

The Wisp idea is pretty cute and remains fun throughout and there are a smattering of well crafted stages, but the rest of the game provides absolutely nothing you didn’t already play in Sonic Unleashed or any other 3D Sonic game released in the past ten years. The problems are exactly the same, and shoddy levels are just as bad as always, and death-by-pitfall is in as much abundance as ever.

Sonic 4 had its problems, but at least it was an improvement. Sonic Colors feels like a step right back into the same crap this series has drowned in for the past decade. If I had to pick a color for this game, it would be brown, for very obvious reasons. 

Score: 4.5 — Below Average (4s have some high points, but they soon give way to glaring faults. Not the worst games, but are difficult to recommend.) 

Have you played Machinarium? If not, you should do that. The game is amazing. I can’t wait to buy it (again) when it comes out on WiiWare.

In the meantime, I’ve got this appearance from Josef in Super Meat Boy PC to tide me over. Josef replaces Alien Hominid’s slot from the XBLA version of the game, which is sad, but understandable. Somebody had to be cut, and while I love Alien Hominid, he’s hard as hell to use properly in Super Meat Boy.

I wonder how hard Josef will be to use? Will he have to point and click his way through all of Super Meat Boy’s deathtraps, or will he have some other method of survival?

It’s Official! [SuperMeatBoy's Twitter]

Much has been made of Killzone 3’s controls and the removal of the notorious lag. Many gamers, myself included, were worried that the heavy, weighty feeling of the game were in danger by the removal of what some call “lag”, but senior producer Steven Ter Heide says that we’ve got it wrong — the lag and the weight are two separate issues, and while the former is eradicated, the latter remains.

“Controls are very important and have been quite the challenge,” he says. “There still is some confusion about the ‘weighty’ feel and lag. Those two things are different. We removed the lag completely. This means that when you press a button or move a stick, things happen. This is instantaneous, as it should be. This was a problem with Killzone 2 that we in part remedied with a patch. 

“The weighty feel and skill required to pull of shots comes from things like animation and weapon setup with things like recoil. We are carefully balancing the weapons so each retains its properties and plays into people’s preferences. We’re not done yet, and part of why we do a public beta is to get more feedback on top of all of the playtesting we have already done. 

“Fine-tuning this will go on for a while as it’s very important to get that right feeling. We’re looking for something that is easy to get into, and takes skill to master.”

This is good news. I have never been a fan of the 90’s era “floaty” feeling that I get when I’m playing Halo, and you’d think heavily armored men with massive guns wouldn’t glide along with the grace of a pink swan. I’m sure some people will still complain that it doesn’t feel exactly like every other shooter, but screw those guys.

“If you thought that the Xbox LIVE Indie Games service was just filled with massage apps, clones, and garbage, think again! We are fighting back against mediocrity and lameness in the best way we know how — by releasing amazing games!”

That’s the declaration of the developers behind the Indie Games Winter Uprising, and they absolutely nailed it with their description of the Indie Games channel. It’s unbearably hard to find quality content, and everyone knows it. That said, there are gems to be found — and this group is trying to raise awareness.

The so-called uprising consists of 14 separate games, all of which are releasing on the service during the first week of December. It’s quite cool to see these indies come together; that’s definitely become the big trend amongst other designers and the independent scene in general.

Why can’t we be friends?

So, we’ve been doing this show for a month now, over a month if you count the pilot episode that we shot in late September. I wonder if we’ve gotten any better? I hope so. We sure are trying hard. But not too hard! That would we bad. One thing I’ve learned from doing this show; you are never supposed to try too hard, or too little. You must always try the exact right amount, or else you suck and should die in a fire.

As for this episode, it’s pretty amazing. Chad Concelmo and Jim Sterling both make an appearance, we talk about that Mario 3 remake, Rockstar upcoming blockbuster L.A. Noire, Adam Sandler’s PIXELS movie, the creator of Tetris, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. We also recap the whopping seven reviews, including Call of Duty: Black Ops, Kinectimals, and Goldeneye Wii. If you’re not into reading reviews, but still want to know what other people think about videogames, than this video recap will totally be your thing.

Also, we’re still giving away that platformer prize pack to anyone who subscribes to us on Youtube or iTunes (in HD or large sizes). It’s pretty awesome.

Angry Birds, that game everyone won’t shut up about and I only just saw in motion for the first time five minutes ago, is coming to new gaming systems. We knew that already — kind of. It was previously made clear that the game will release on PlayStation 3, PSP, and DS.

The new word on the street is that Angry Birds will also get Wii and Xbox 360 versions (presumably via download), as revealed by Rovio CEO Peter Vesterbacka at London’s Social Gaming Summit. Purportedly, multiplayer will be a major emphasis and feel like classic Worms.

I’m super interested to see how well Angry Birds does on non-mobile platforms. You can’t really compare any of those marketplaces to what’s happening on the AppStore, which continues to blow my mind on a daily basis and makes me long for programming skills. It’ll be neat to see how that success translates.

Angry Birds coming to Wii, Xbox, PSN. Multiplayer to resemble ‘old school Worms’ [Pocket Gamer via MTV Multiplayer]

Last week, I had the opportunity to visit Sony Online Entertainment’s studios in Austin and see the work they’ve been doing on DC Universe Online. During my time there, I was given the opportunity to play four solid hours of an internal beta starting from character creation.

I’ll be talking more about the experience of playing the first few hours of the game in another preview. Since this is the first chance we’ve had to get a good look at the options for building heroes and villains in the game, I thought it best to chronicle the creation of my own mighty villain.

Armed with the expectation that I would have to make a character of some kind at this event, I started fleshing out some ideas in my head. I could have simply selected one of the quick-create configurations and tinkered until I had something suitably weird but I enjoy the exercise of dreaming up characters. It seems silly to say it, but the concept I had going in was of a chubby kid with a sunny disposition whose good nature and telekinetic abilities would always seem him through the day.

See, the silly thing was thinking that I could make the character chubby. While heroes and villains come in a few sizes, with three different levels to choose from, they’re all in shape. This should not have mattered to me — it certainly has no bearing on the game — but it instantly changed my character concept. If he couldn’t be fat, by God, he’d be villainous. I must be mad.

I selected the runtiest model available and moved on to choose my mentor. These are iconic DC characters who set the tone for your progression through the game and represent your character’s aspirations. Since I had made the decision to follow the path of evil, Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman were not options. I could choose from Joker, Lex Luthor and Circe. Now, I don’t truck with witchcraft and I wouldn’t follow Joker anywhere but Luthor has style. This was a no-brainer and meant that I would begin my adventures in Metropolis.

Next we have power selection. There are six different types of powers available in DC Universe Online, but don’t let that fool you into thinking the options are small in number. Each of the six sets of powers – Fire, Ice, Gadgets, Mental, Nature and Sorcery — has two different development trees within them. Each of those trees has more than a dozen powers and buffs to build up, allowing for a considerable variety of character loadouts. While I couldn’t make him tubby, I still wanted my villain to be telekinetic and selected the Mental powers.

Powers in mind, so to speak, it was time to consider how else my character would be mixing it up with his enemies. DC Universe Online is a very action-oriented game and every character comes prepared to fight with more than just super-abilities. There are ten combat options available and include unarmed combat styles, melee and ranged weapons. Regardless of what you choose all have short and long-range capability and have development trees of their own which open up new combos and attacks as you progress. Keeping with my theme of mental abilities and appreciating the exotic nature, I decided to equip my villain with energy blasts from his hands.

The choice which followed was movement. This determines, obviously, how your character will move within the world. Metropolis and Gotham are both huge environments that would take forever to traverse without superpowers. So, every character will have the power of flight, acrobatics or super-speed to help them get around. These powers level up as well, making great distances even easier to traverse. I could not see my villain being willing to dirty his feet with the soil of the common man, so flight was the only way to go.

Then it was time to figure out the aesthetics of my villain, starting with the skins. There are a bunch of different animal designs which I can’t say looked all that appealing. On the other hand, the robot skin looks a lot like Michael Jackson’s robot form in Moonwalker, which is awesome. There are a ton of these to choose from and all can have their colors adjusted, so people should have no trouble finding one they like if they want something a little less human. I did not, so I moved on after scanning through the options.

There are also a bunch of different faces and hairstyles to choose from. The hair in particular had a lot of options to choose from with everything from afros to crew cuts represented. The face variety is less impressive but I also can’t imagine folks spending a lot of time examining each other’s facial features when everyone is wearing an ostentatious costume. I gave bad guy a side part which made him look a little bit like a kid and called it a day.

My work with the character creator at its end, my future lord of villainy was ready to take his first steps toward global domination. The only thing left was to think of a name. It would have to be something dignified and strong, a name which would inspire compatriots with admiration and enemies with terror.

And so it was, on that day, that the great and powerful villain Steve came to conquer.

[Look for more of the adventures of Steve tomorrow in our hands-on preview!]

THQ has been getting out of its comfort zone lately, by turning some of its franchises into movie and television properties, and now, by experimenting with lower-priced games. CEO Brian Farrell talked with Gamasutra about some of these new strategies.

“We spent a lot of time in Asia watching that freemium model. I think our markets are migrating that way, but you see it more in iPhone and iPad games right now,” he said. As such, the next MX vs. ATV title will launch at $40, and this cheaper price will be supplemented by downloadable content.

An interesting concept, for sure. I could see it working quite well in the right hands. Of course, Farrell was quick to point out games with bigger budgets, like Homefront, would remain at the normal $60. He also mentioned that the Saints Row movie is still in the works. Yeah — it’s really happening.

The full announcement will be made next month. THQ is hoping to align this release with the launch of Saints Row 3, but Farrell mentioned that’s subject to change.

Interview: CEO Farrell On THQ’s Path Through The Changing Game Landscape [Gamasutra]