E3 - Hands On Impressions - Capcom 21
Slashdot Games is continuing to report on the E3 expo in Los Angeles, and we're working our way around the major booths, doing brief overviews of the major titles on each. Check out earlier stories for looks at Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony, and Sega, but now we turn our attention to Capcom. Read on for info on Gregory Horror Show, Onimusha 3, Viewtiful Joe, and more..
- Gregory Horror Show, which is a working title and seriously rips off the Rocky Horror Show logo in current form, was a seriously bizarre Japanese-ish PS2 title that can best be described as Resident Evil with macabre, weird, square cartoony characters. It certainly had nice graphics, but follows the interesting but odd theme we saw on a number of Capcom titles.- Dino Crisis 3 for Xbox does the obvious, or, uhh, maybe not, and goes for the 'dinosaurs in space' angle for this graphically good title. So you're stuck on a space station with mutated dinosaurs, and the game seems to stick with the more action-based formula showcased in the last Dino Crisis game.
- Viewtiful Joe for Gamecube was a seriously sharp-looking 2D platform title with plenty of 3D graphics and backgrounds. Reminiscent of titles like Klonoa or Pandemonium, but with added slo-mo blur action and crazed combos, this was another very Japanese-styled game (the main character is a masked hero with flowing cape) which looks great, but probably won't be a mainstream blockbuster in the States.
- Gotcha Force was an interesting Gamecube title, reminding us a lot of Virtual On with flying ninjas and dynamic lock-on action. It has a 2 on 2 team battle mode, and was clearly designed mainly for arena-based multiplayer tussles.
- Maximo Vs. Army Of Zin was a sequel to the much appreciated but hardly top-selling Maximo, and the basic elements of the original seem to have been carried over. We heard that Grim (the Reaper, that is) is a second playable character in the game, but didn't get a chance to check that out. Otherwise.. more of the same, in an arguably good way.
- Group S Challenge was a Project Gotham-style racing game for Xbox, which we hadn't heard much of before the show. The control seemed very solid, and there's a plethora of licensed cars.
- Onimusha 3 was only showing in video form on the bigscreen, but the trailer is gorgeous, and well worth watching if it pops up online anywhere. Set in both France of 2004 (with Jean Reno) and 1582-era Japan, the trailer starts with zombie ninjas being vomited out of an organic spacecraft into modern-day Paris, heh.
- PN-03 for Gamecube starred an extremely shapely female robot killer, in this basic action shooter. Plenty of auto-lock action with wrist-firing lasers, plus almost dance-based special moves.
- other games on the booth included Megaman X7 for PS2, with both 2D and 3D action sections and polygons a-go-go, a puzzler called Bombastic for PS2 which seemed to be an update of Devil Dice, Cinemaware's Defender Of The Crown for PS2, a surprise pick-up which uses the traditional Risk-like elements of the original, plus two leading titles, Onimusha Blade Warriors (think Power Stone with Onimusha characters!) and Resident Evil 4 (Leon Kennedy deep in the core of the Umbrella Corporation) which weren't shown on the floor. Oh, and the Steel Battalion controller is truly epic.
For further impressions, screenshots, and media, doing a search by title on Gametab News is working good for us, but you can also try IGN, Gamespot, and a whole buncha others. More hands-on impressions soon.
When I Hear Capcom... (Score:1)
Everything else is just ya-ya'ing.
Well except maybe Viewtiful Joe, I will pick that up on Gamecube.
Oh and first post biotches
Is it just me... (Score:2)
Anything?
Re:Is it just me... (Score:3, Interesting)
It is not at all uncommon to say that a partially finished game is "looking good" without meaning the visuals at all.
Re:Is it just me... (Score:1)
Heh, and I was going to complain ... (Score:1)
I dunno, I like the mini reports. Please keep doing them.
Lots of likely B and C level titles (Score:3, Interesting)
Of Capcom's upcoming titles, I'd say Onimusha Blade Warriors is the most intriguing. It's compared to Power Stone here, but is more often compared with Super Smash Bros. It'd be great if it falls somewhere between the two and plays well.
Of course, the next Steel Battalion game, which is supposed to be online, will be a special game.
Re:Lots of likely B and C level titles (Score:1)
Street Fighter (Score:5, Funny)
And here I was hoping for Street Fighter Gamma 3y+2x/pi Extra Super Platinum Special Edition.
Oh well, there's always next year's E3...
Re:Street Fighter (Score:1)
I'm looking forward to Viewtiful Joe and PN.03, but I'm not too optimistic as to their coming out in Australia... I'm still waiting for Animal Crossing!
Defender of the Crown (Score:1, Funny)
Gotcha Force (Score:1)
It reminds me more "Power Stone" (Dreamcast), because it's full of action and weapons, but here the mainly characters are robots. Here is a link to the trailer [ign.com].
Go cube
Gregory is... (Score:3, Informative)
Still no news about Catan (Score:1)
There's been almost no word on this one period -- I even wrote Capcom to find out what's up and they told me they couldn't tell me anything. Guess I'll have to stick to playing the Java version [northwestern.edu] for now...
Re:Street Fighter is dead (Score:1)
Maximo! (Score:1)
I loved the first game, though most people were put off by the higher than average difficulty level. I'm glad that Capcom is still going with a sequel despite the fact that the first one did less than great in the slaes department. Much of this though I blame on the early rental availability through blockbuster video. i think a lot of people had already had their fill with the game before it came out.
A great game and a worthy one to check out if you loved the old school acti