Welcome to Beyond Co-Op, a weekly piece that talks about industry stories that may or may not be related to co-op gaming.
The stories for this week:
- Darkspore Announced
- Alice: Madness Returns Officially Announced
- Kinect at $150
- New Cole Chucked for Updated Old Cole in inFAMOUS 2
- Little Game Called StarCraft II This Week
Darkspore Announced
EA had a little shindig earlier this week where they showed off some new games and one we already knew about. Darkspore was one of the new games. Built on the universe of Spore, but with the underpinnings of games like Diablo this game is sounding pretty good.
Source: Colony of Gamers
Alice: Madness Returns Officially Announced
We all knew that American McGee was busy at work on a sequel to the fantastic Alice game. At the same EA event, they supposedly showed off some more art and even some in-game shots from the newly named Alice: Madness Returns. The game is set 10 years after the first one and will take place in both London and Wonderland (or, correctly named, Underland). One would guess it will have the same sort of twisted version of the Alice story that the first game had. I personally can’t wait until next year when it comes out.
Source: Colony of Gamers
Kinect at $150
I am interested in this, but I don’t know if I’ll have $150 to spend come November. I think this peripheral has the ability to be something very interesting and I’m sure my wife would love it with stuff like Kinectimals and upcoming workout games for it. Hopefully at some point here I’ll be able to go to the Mall of America and see/play it in person. I have until August 22nd, but then again I have vacation coming up in a couple weeks.
I’m a little more understanding of the price when EEDAR came out with their opinion that compared it to Rock Band and Guitar Hero bundles, which are more expensive. These bundles are not upgradeable and the upcoming Rock Band 3 shows this off perfectly with the addition of keyboards as well as better guitar offerings. Their opinion was that buying those bundles will only be used in one genre whereas the Kinect will have a variety of genres of games made for it. That makes $150 not seem so bad anymore if you ask me, but then again I don’t plan on shelling out more money for the additional Rock Band 3 stuff no matter how much I love it.
Source: me
New Cole Chucked for Updated Old Cole in inFAMOUS 2
Not sure what Sucker Punch was thinking when they changed the look of Cole, but after supposed fan backlash about it they are going back to the drawing board and making an updated Cole that stays closer to the one in the original game than the vastly different one we saw at E3 2010. I think this is a good move, but my question is why make the move at all? This isn’t like Dead Rising 2 where there is a whole new character. Here we’re playing the same character.
Source: Joystiq
Little Game Called StarCraft II This Week
Clear your calendar boys and girls, StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty finally drops this week. I’m excited although I don’t know whether I’ll be picking it up or not with vacation coming up soon. I really want to get the Collector’s Edition, but $100 is a lot to slap down at this time. I will say the TV ads I’ve seen make it look like an upcoming movie that is releasing. This game is going to sell a ton, no doubt about it. We’ve been waiting well over a decade for this game to come.
Source: me