So Microsoft had their pre-TGS Media Briefing today and other than Capcom teasing some of their upcoming lineup (Bionic Commando, GTA IV for Japan, Street Fighter IV, and Resident Evil 5) rather than announcing the dream sequel, Dead Rising 2, the only big thing worth mentioning about the event is the official unveiling of Ninja Blade. This Japanese action game is published by Microsoft themselves and developed by From Software (Chromehounds, Otogi series). During the briefing, they showed a teaser clip (below) of what to expect graphically in terms of cutscenes and a brief gameplay clip (not yet up anywhere). They also announced this game being playable at the Tokyo Game Show next month, so hopefully we'll have more impressions around that time.
So MTV gave us an ABDC special to hype up for this year's Video Music Awards, which could be likely crap - Live blog of that craziness when that happens. Anyway, let's recap today's ABDC show of five of the top crews from the top 2 seasons competing for a VMA slot doing the nominated videos for Best Dance Video and 25k for their favorite charity.
Actually, the show started off with a performance by Jabbawockeez and SuperCrew, the winners of the two seasons, and it was sick. The number is a collaboration of the two crews and Shane Sparks and it is just awesome seeing these winners do their thing together.
The competition started off with Irvine's very own Kaba Modern doing "4 Minutes" by Madonna and Justin Timberlake. Right off the bat, the conveyor belt they used is true to the video and plus its your typical Kaba performance of isolations and MTV cameras following Yuri around. Good thing they're not letting their success of traveling worldwide performing everywhere get into their heads because they're still doing their thing.
Next up is BreakSk8 doing Ne-Yo's "Closer" and they also ripped it. It feels good that they are still doing their thing showing that skating and dancing can mesh pretty well together. Like Kaba being true to themselves, BreakSk8 stayed true to their style with various b-boy moves on skates and being accurate to the video from the outfits to the chorus moves.
So Real Cru continues to do their thing as well fresh off their loss to SuperCrew last week at the Season 2 Finale. At least their hunger for winning was still in for this little competition doing Chris Brown's "Forever." Nothing really surprising from this performance since the ABDC audience is pretty much used to their style already of crazy hand illusions and bringing the "Explosion." Plus, we finally to see So Real and Kaba dance in the same show since everyone says they're the same, but there are noticeable differences with their styles.
Once again, Fanny Pak continues to amaze with their creativity and crazy concepts for their performance of "When I Grow Up" by the Pussycat Dolls. From the beginning, you just expect randomness from them, but the whole thing still came together with the baby carriages to the various outfits they were wearing just like the song of what they want to do when they grow up. This is hands down my favorite appearance of the show today.
Last up is Status Quo and no wonder they disappeared after Season 1 because of drama and their egos going off. Yet, they still managed to do okay doing "Damaged" by Danity Kane despite getting a song they don't like and doing LOTS of flips at any moment. I hope they stay broken up and MTV could of replaced them with Boogie Bots. This performance was the worst one compared the rest of the competition.
So the judges picked the top three crews to have a shot of being in the VMAs and I agree with who they picked.
Fanny Pak
Kaba Modern
So Real Cru
After that, people vote for the top 2 they want to face off at the VMA pre-show and then the winner gets the 25k for charity along with being in the award show as presenters. Its pretty obvious Fanny Pak gets in as one of those two, but it can be a toss up between Kaba and So Real for the other spot. Overall, this ABDC special is pretty good with great performances and shows how why the show is successful. Good thing Season 3 is in January, but the tour should be cool with the lineup of crews in.
According to Capcom's Unity Blog, they announced a multi-year deal of games to have the GGPO netcode. For those who don't know, GGPO has been the saving grace for fighting games on the PC for playing online which is usually for 2D fighters like the Street Fighter games (Super Turbo and Alpha 2 are favorites). The article stated that the head of GGPO stopped by the Backbone offices to consult about the online netcode for Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix. Capcom getting the multi-year license of GGPO for future games like the console versions of Street Fighter IV and other games is a good thing for the fighting game community that wanted near-perfect online play for their matches. This is another reason why Capcom has been perhaps the best Japanese based publisher / developer now delivering on solid products, listening to the fanbase, being one of the ambassadors for downloadable games (Bionic Commando Rearmed), and bringing back the franchises people care about (Strider could be next). Imagine the possiblities with GGPO on Capcom's side, they could finally release my dream of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 HD Remix with lagless online play if they could get the Marvel rights back. To celebrate another victory for Capcom fans, I posted another Street Fighter IV match with Ryu and Dhalsim (the Dhalsim is pretty good using the telports to his advantage).
Slightly off topic but SF4 related: Check out the blog links here for The Street Fighter Blog for more on my most anticipated game with new footage of playable Akuma with two versions of his Raging Demon as his super and ultra as well as his ending possibly hinting Gouken as another secret boss / playable character.
TNA Impact is on less than a hour here at the West Coast on Spike and I have been on the fence for the TNA game, which comes out September 9th. I understand this first TNA game from Midway wants to establish the engine and gameplay for future games if they plan on doing that which seems likely. The thing that is making me skip this (I do love TNA better than WWE lately despite its crappy storylines, their roster is better) is the lack of content for the final game, hence why I made the point earlier of Midway establishing the foundations and then adding more in future games. The only way I think it will compete with the Smackdown games is the roster itself. I would rather play as Samoa Joe, AJ Styles, Christopher Daniels, Kurt Angle, and so on compared to Batista, John Cena, Triple H, and so on with the WWE. The lack of modes is the start of what is missing from TNA Impact as well as missing signature moves like Kurt's Ankle Lock and Sting's Scorpion Deathlock (word from the streets). Also, the presentation is also not to par with the Smackdown games especially with the short enterances for the wrestlers (at least their music is accurate). Hopefully the gameplay shines from everything else when the game comes out in two weeks. Here's the commercial as well above.
So Rush's "Moving Pictures" album still has not come out for Rock Band as Harmonix said they will delay it for a bit. On the other hand, more albums are announced as DLC for Rock Band 1 and 2 which is likely for the remainder of the year from Entertainment Weekly and some of these I would buy in a heartbeat (Story is at Joystiq).
Foo Fighters - "The Colour and the Shape"
Red Hot Chili Peppers - "Blood Sugar Sex Magik"
Jane's Addiction - "Nothing's Shocking"
Megadeth - "Peace Sells... But Who's Buying"
Stevie Ray Vaughn - "Texas Flood"
No Doubt - unannounced album, but likely a greatest hits compilation.
Yes at Foo Fighters, RHCP, and No Doubt, but we'll see on the others. One of the songs from the five confirmed albums are in the Rock Band 2 disc, so at least players on the fence of buying those albums can play "Everlong," "Give It Away," "Peace Sells," and "Mountain Song" to see if they like it.
UPDATE - Even the free songs for Rock Band 2's launch are pretty good (from NeoGAF and the RB forums).
Honest Bob - Tatooine
Against Me! - Stop!
Static-X - Push It
George Thorogood - Bad to the Bone
Blink 182 - Dammit
Free - All Right Now
Dead Kennedys - Holiday in Cambodia
Hot Hot Heat - Bandages
Bad Religion - Suffer
Turbonegro - All My Friends Are Dead
The Haunted - Shadow World
Pennywise - The Western World
Rancid - Fall Back Down
Sublime - Santeria
Taking Back Sunday - What's It Feel Like To Be A Ghost
The Breeders - Cannonball
Sepultura - Refuse/Resist
Queens of the Stone Age - No One Knows
The Killers - Somebody Told Me
Harvey Danger - Cream and Bastards Rise
Speaking of Rock Band 2, here's a preview of pretty much the last tier of songs on guitar and vocals on Expert.
Japan has the Amusement Show every year where people show what's next for Japanese arcades (sort of like E3 or Leipzig GC for the arcades). Some of the highly anticipated games will be there along with some surprising additions like Tekken 6: Bloodline Rebellion (aka Tekken 6.1) being shown for the first time at this year's show. Great, Tekken 6 is already out for a year and another version is already planned for late 2008 release. Could Bloodline Rebellion be the PS3 version of Tekken 6? Seems likely at this point and I hope so because I don't know if U.S. arcades would double dip for BR especially how expensive the official cabinet for Tekken 6 was.
King of Fighters XII (pictured on this post) is expected to be one of big games shown at AM 2008. It was announced nearly a year ago at the same show (or Tokyo Game Show). The new graphical art style is already pleasing fans as this one could be the best looking 2D fighting game now giving BlazBlue some competition. Of course Sega has new arcade games to show as well like a new House of the Dead and other sports games that would never appeal to the U.S. audience. The Amusement Show at Japan is sometime next month before TGS.
EA's Facebreaker is out next week and more celebrities are putting their faces in the game asking to be owned. Here's Heidi and Spencer from The Hills on the game in this clip. For a crappy game like this (early reviews at magazines think so), getting celebrities in the game thanks to camera support for 360 and PS3 is pretty desperate. If this is EA's way to sell Facebreaker because the actual game sucks (play the demo and see for yourself), then it would likely bomb and you would rather wait for a proper boxing game with Fight Night Round 4 next year.
Off-topic: I beaten Castle Crashers already today (the game came out today) doing it solo. Various forums seem to say the online is pretty much busted, so I'm not going online till tomorrow to see for myself if they are right. Review of this hopefully in the weekend.
