Turtle Power Wii article:

We wouldn’t have believed it if we hadn’t seen it, but there we were in late November at Ubisofts San Francisco offices, watching turtle-versus-turtle combat. Ubisoft- who will publish the game- had been looking for an opportunity to work with Games Arts, part of the all-star team that developed Brawl under the direction of Super Smash Bros. creator Masahiro Sakurai. The studio became available just as it was time for Ubi to start a new Turtles project to be release in 2009 - the 25th anniversary of TMNT. And then former members of Team Ninja joined the production to officially make this the craziest story we ever heard.

The version of the game that we got to see is very early - it’s been in development for just over a year - but it already looks impressive (Ubisoft is aiming for a September ‘09 release). In fact, the visuals may even surpass the bar set by Brawl; for example, a rooftopd level features a city skyline that is much more detailed then most brawl stages. And we were instantly relieved to see that this isn’t meant to be just a kids’ game. The visuals are dark and edgy for a TMNT title, and we were guaranteed that our ears wouldn’t have to suffer through endless loops of Turtles quips like “slice and dice!” during the action. Further, the team wisely avoided tying the game in with any particular iteration of TMNT- it doesn’t look exactly like any of the comics, cartoons, or toys.

As you can probably gather from these screens, the game is quite similar to Brawl in look and feel. There are some differences in the gameplay that we’ll get into in qa moment - and some other features that will set TMNT apart that Ubisoft isn’t ready to reveal yet - but the action should feel instantly familiar to anyone who’s put time into a Super Smash Bros.-style fighting game.

Up to four players can fight at once, and since competing turtles can be tough to distinguish between when the camera is far away, each character is color-coded with a glowing effect. The fighting is what you’d expect: regular moves, special moves, throws and combos. There are also attacks that use the environment, such as flying kicks off of walls, or attacks while hanging from ledges. In true ninja style, you can run short distances up walls, and some stages have poles that you can grab and swing on for higher jumps and more-punishing jump-kicks.

There will be multiple control schemes to choose from; we can confirm both Wii-remote and -nunchuck and remote only options. No word yet on whether a Gamecube controller will work, but a new control scheme is said to be in development for advanced players. Motion controls will be used, but not extensively- don’t expect to be swinging your remote constantly for common attacks. We can also report that taunts are in the game (we saw Leonardo mock his opponents by spinning his swords in the air) and that items will play a role in the fighting (although the only one we were able to catch a glimpse of was a health restoring pizza).

Players each have a life meter that depletes when they take damage, and it’s possible to be KO’ed instantly by falling off the screen (plus match rules can be customized). the game will have a generous roster of characters pulled from the turtles’ long history (we’ve been told Mirage Studios, which owns the TMNT brand, has been involved with the character-selection process), but so far we’ve been able to peek at only the turtles themselves and Splinter, their rat sensei.

Among the game’s various modes and match types (most of which are still a closely guarded secret) is a story mode. All we could get out of Ubi is that it won’t be a side-scoller like Brawl’s Subspace Emmisarry, and that Peter Laird- co-creator of TMNT- worked on the story. Four-player online battles are also planned, and the developers are working hard to deliver a smooth experience free of the issues that hindered brawl. They also want to add something unique to the mix, so expect a new twist or two.

Finally, we were really impressed by the games stages. We got to check out two of them, and they both looked as though they could hang with the best Brawl had to offer, thanks to lots of environmental interaction and plenty of visual detail. The first stage we saw was a gorgeous rooftop battle against a detailed city skyline, featuring a water tower that could be busted open to send water gushing out at opponents, an electric sign that zapped whoever got knocked into it, lots of long falls between the buildings, and poles to swing on for sky-high acrobatics. The next battle took place in the sewers and started in a small, confined area with water flowing along the ground. But when someone beat on a giant hatch on the left side of the room, it broke open and unleashed a tidal wave that pushed everyone into the stage’s second area, a vertical chamber with slippery platforms and a crocodile that popped out at random to chomp on unsuspecting victims.

We haven’t been this excited about the turtles in years. If the developers can deliver on the promise of what we’ve seen so far, fighting fans will have something pretty special to look forward to in the back half of ‘09. Ubisoft tells us the development team is determined to set a new standard for the genre, and that the fighting may end up being even deeper then Brawl’s. If they can pull that off, the whoa- cowabunga, dude.

edgecrusher said:

TimeSplitters
PlayStation 2 83.7%

TimeSplitters 2
PlayStation 2 91.5%
GameCube 89.4%
Xbox 88.1%

TimeSplitters: Future Perfect
PlayStation 2 85.6%

Thanks to Blackley at GS. This is how overrated the TS games were in the press.

Timesplitters: Future Perfect (PS2, Xbox, GC) 65,181 (all platforms combined)
XBX SECOND SIGHT 4,139
PS2 SECOND SIGHT 2,991

And that's what there last couple games sold before Haze. So as you can see, they've been on the brink of death for most of their existence. Now Doak is basically going to reform them under a different name, and the same thing will happen.

 I searched but I could only find sales for Haze which were just over 500'000. I don't think those figures above can be right? I liked second sight but it wasn't as good as Psi Ops and needed to work on the controls more. They had the right idea though. 

Dvader said:

I have been all over RE5 stuff today, amazing footage on Xplay. Capcom is trying to clean up the mess of the demo debug, they contacted our site biohaze and told us to take down anything on it.

Also been hoping for good amazon deal but it didnt happen.

So whats going on besides free radical?

 Can you link the X-Play footage? Puh-leaseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Yodariquo said:

holy crap @ the amount of news posted today

 Yeah, nice job guys. 

Foolz said:

At the very least better than the shooteres on those overrated HD consoles like GoW2 and CoD4.

 Uh oh, you'll scare Edge away. Fool! zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Well, anyone who trusts Lucasarts enough to get in bed with them is asking for trouble, anyway. They've never seemed like one of the more trustworthy companies to me.

One thing that all this has taught me, though, is that for some odd reason Free Radical has a crazy, albiet small, fanbase that acts as if they are on Rare's level and wants to believe they were responsible for all Rare's great N64 games, which I find hard to believe, because they've never matched Rare in any way. Be it what they did on N64, or after.

At one time I feared that hey, maybe Free Radical WAS the talent at Rare. But when you look at what Rare has done since then, even going through ownership changes and all, its obvious the talent is still there. I think the Rare people at Free Radical....their talents meshed well with the rest of what Rare had to offer. But since branching out away from those guys, they lost a big part of what allowed them to build AAA games, IMO.

I hope he's joking about it being better than COD4....

It lives. 

edgecrusher said:

Beats me. As far as I know, only the directors and producers left Rare, like Ellis, Hollis, Doak, etc. And they got a bunch of new guys to join up.

How does an N64 die? N64 never die. Only the controllers die.

That's Duke Forever? Ripoff Gears much?

 It doesn't seem to turn on. I should check the fuse again. 

I just read this on 1up:

LittleBigPlanet, Valkyria Chronicles Sales Disappoint

Couple of sad stories for you today, PS3 owners. One involving a cute little title that should never have been thrust into the limelight as a system seller. The other, a gorgeous tactical RPG.

Let's start with LittleBigPlanet, then. Media Molecule's quirky, original platformer was always going to be a struggle to sell to the holiday masses, what with it being an original IP that involved neither rock music nor guns. But even Sony's most pessimistic sales teams wouldn't have been prepared for this.

The game sold an OK-ish 205,000 units in October, but wasn't out for that long. It'd do a lot better in November, when it was on sale for all four weeks, right? No. It sold a disappointing 141,000 units for the month, which saw it slip out of NPD top 20 charts altogether.

Lord only knows how few copies it would have sold had it not been marketed to hell and high water. Then again, maybe that was the game's problem. The game itself is fine, as its "failure" is a relative one. Selling 346,000 of a niche, debut IP with novel concepts would otherwise have been a huge success!

But selling 346,000 copies of your most high-profile holiday release? That is not a success.

The second game we're looking at today is an even sadder tale. Valkyria Chronciles is one of the best-looking games of this hardware generation, and although tactical RPGs of the Japanese variety aren't big sellers, it still would have been nice to see it move more than 33,000 copies in North America for the month of November.

33,000 means the game wasn't even in the top 100-selling titles for the month. Meaning it probably got beaten by some Imagine: and Nancy Drew games. So sad.

edgecrusher said:

I bought both of those games.

It seems like the kings of games that used to sell on PS systems, aren't, on the PS3. I know platformers aren't all the rage anymore, but you'd think LBP would do better.

People have basically been buying PS3's for the same games they could have gotten on 360, it seems like.

 I've never seen you talk about LBP, I just assumed you didn't have it. We were talking about its sales in this thread:

http://www.thevgpress.com/forumtopics/the-ps3-is-not-just-for-games-anymore_74.html

On PS systems you had platformers selling great right? What did the new Rachet do in sales? PS systems were bigger in Japan back during PS1/2 era so games like tactical rpgs would have had Japan as their main market right? Now I think that Japanese developers aren't like western PC devs, not that well adapted to ramping up production from PS2 to PS3 and 360 is still weak there although MS cash incentives work as well as the burgeoning western 360 market. You see companies like Level 5 or iNis doing handheld games or continuing small scale PS2 support or even thinking about doing more Wii titles. 

Well I'm yet to play LBP or Valkyria Chronicles. Too many games man.

I'm renting Force Unleashed and Brothers in Arms, so I'm trying to get those done. And I'm still not done with Persona 3.

gamingeek said:

edgecrusher said:

Well I'm yet to play LBP or Valkyria Chronicles. Too many games man.

I'm renting Force Unleashed and Brothers in Arms, so I'm trying to get those done. And I'm still not done with Persona 3.

You buy a crapload of games. Do you have games from the past gen left to play? I can just imagine your closet lol.

Actually I have been buying a lot of older games from last gen that I didn't get to, like the SSX games, Fatal Frame stuff, RPG's. I've been picking up more of this than new games cause I'd rather rent the new stuff then maybe buy later.

My problem right now is long-ass games like Fallout 3, Fable 2, and Persona 3 taking tons of my gaming time. And Persona 4 just came out, I picked it up along with a copy of Nocturne.

I'm saving the shorter games for next year so I can blast through them and leave Dvader in the dust.

BTW, why don't you guys have a smiley-tab yet? I want animated smiley's.

Fragile looks gorgeous.