The Warp Pipe

Backbreaker continues to promise a little innovation in the football genre, even as it tries to take on the mighty Madden juggernaut. In this new Training Camp video, you can check out the running game and how it works. In theory, it sounds great — just use the right stick in an intuitive way to bump, stiff arm, and hurdle your opponents in the constant drive towards the end zone. In practice, though, it’s tough to see how well the game will determine the gestures, like comparing a simple hurdle (pushing the right stick up quickly) versus an all-out leap (pushing the right stick up for a while).

Still, even though Backbreaker is starting out deep in its own territory against the long-lived, well-funded and officially-licensed Madden series, if there’s anywhere a plucky young underdog with a big, physics-based heart can win, it’s in the sports genre. The game will set, hut, hike on June 1 for a discount price of $49.99.

Backbreaker’s running game looks for the gap originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 11 May 2010 03:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

 

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Let us lay it out for you: in 2008, Square Enix released Dragon Quest Swords for Wii, a game based entirely around using the Wii Remote to simulate a sword. It used the normal Wii Remote/Nunchuk setup. Now, Square Enix is preparing a Wii port of Dragon Quest Monsters Battle Road Victory, an arcade game based on collectible cards. For that, peripheral company Hori is producing a controller shaped like a sword.

The optional controller, first shown off on VJump magazine’s staff blog, features an exact replica of the arcade machine’s layout, including two giant buttons and a replica sword hilt, which players push down to activate special attacks. The controller will retail for ¥12,800 ($137) and will be out in Japan this summer. Keep an eye on your favorite import retailer if you’ve been waiting for a controller with part of a sword sticking out of it.

[Via Andriasang]

Dragon Quest Monsters Battle Road Victory has a monstrous controller originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 11 May 2010 00:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

 

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You may have heard about the multiplayer customization features in Transformers: War for Cybertron, but now, thanks to the video above, you can actually see them in action. Before you ask, no, you can’t create your dream Transformer that transforms from a Lamborghini into a totally sweet dragon. Instead, War for Cybertron allows players to select a character class and then customize that character with several different abilities. And, as we discovered during our reason hands-on session with the game, it’s actually pretty fun.

Watch War For Cybertron’s multiplayer customization originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 10 May 2010 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

 

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If you clicked on the video above before reading this, you’re probably a little confused. Yes, it looks like you’ve somehow pulled up footage from PlayStation Home. If you stick with it for a bit, though, you’ll see that it isn’t. It really is footage from Test Drive Unlimited 2. Like we said in our preview last month, the game is essentially an MMO, incorporating player avatars and various places for folks to hang out when not racing. That’s what you’re seeing. Crazy, right?

The video provides you with a pretty good look at this aspect of the game; thankfully, it also contains a decent amount of actual racing, specifically highlighting TDU2‘s day/night cycle, weather effects and off-road driving. You know — the other stuff you’ll be experiencing when not shopping for clothes, getting cosmetic surgery or chilling in a jacuzzi on-board your yacht. (Actually, the MMO stuff is pretty cool … )

Test Drive Unlimited 2 feels like Home in this new trailer originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 10 May 2010 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

 

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You may not have been too disappointed that Fable 2 wasn’t full of animals (filthy, stinking animals), but Lionhead‘s Lead Artist John McCormack was, and he tells Beauty of Games that he’s making up for it with the next game. “The lack of animals in the Fable franchise is always something that has bothered me,” he says, and so in Fable 3, “we’ve built bats, crows, rabbits, ducks, robins, vultures, lizards, rats, butterflies, moths, insect swarms, dogs, fireflies, geese and we even started on a cow.”

Rest assured that animals won’t be the only new part of the experience, though — McCormack also says his team is hard at work on incorporating the new Industrial aesthetic into the game’s buildings, morphed weapons and NPCs as well. He says he’s not sure whether all of those animals will eventually make it into the finished product, but obviously we hope so — vultures need to be Touched, too.

Fable 3 art team working on a menagerie of animals originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 10 May 2010 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

 

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