61 Frames Per Second

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• Deus Ex Machiwuhuh: Where is Warren Spector?

  Warren Spector is what we here at 61 Frames Per Second call “a mule of epic proportions”. His mulishness can be measured by a number of standards. For example: how many people could make a decent videogame about Mark Hammil dogfighting giant space cats? How many people could make a medieval stealth game and actually have it feel speedy and good? How many people could make Deus Ex? Precisely one person. He rules, but it's been quite a long time since we've seen him 'round these parts. Read More... Posted Mar 25 2009, 06:30 PM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: disney, will wright, deus ex, thief, eidos, wing commander, deus ex3, junction point studios, pixar, david perry, mark hammil, mickey mouse, Disney interactive

• Anything Less Than the Best is a Felony: Arkham Asylum Might Be the Best Batman Game Yet

  Batman is awesome. I would never say that Batman wasn’t awesome. Batman is only a tool though. A conceit, a platform, a set of rules to tell entertaining stories with. There’s something people tend to forget every time a new Batman game gets announced. Bats hasn’t had a very good videogame career, but everyone seems to think it has to do with the medium. It isn’t that videogames starring Batman are usually bad. It’s that everything starring Batman is usually bad. There are three good Batman movies to four terrible ones. There is one good Batman cartoon, and four others that can physically damage three out of five human senses. There are a number of very good Batman comics. There also happens to be over one thousand Batman comics that suck. As of 2009, there is one excellent Batman videogame (NES), a handful of okay Batman games, and close to twenty that are trash. Not trashy. I mean the sort of thing you put in the garbage. After watching a playthrough of Batman: Arkham Asylum’s first twenty minutes, I’m willing to say that Rocksteady Studios has the potential to make the first great Batman game. No fanboy hyperbole here. It actually looks that good. Read More... Posted Mar 03 2009, 08:30 PM by John Constantine with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, gears of war, metroid prime, eidos, yakuza, batman, rocksteady games, arkham asylum, harley quinn, epic, wb interactive, the joker, commissioner Gordon, batman arkham asylum

• Millions of Disappointing Tomb Raider Sales for Eidos

  Tomb Raider: Underworld was one of those games I was a little bummed about missing out on over the busy 2008 holiday season. I'd pretty much abandoned the series after the second installment, but flirting with both Tomb Raider: Legend and Anniversary over the past few years proved to me that the series might once again deserve my full attention. Because I was without some sort of device used to stop time, though, my winter break was filled to the brim with other games, some of which I really shouldn't have been playing. So I couldn't help but feel guilty after hearing multiple reports on podcasts, blogs, and websites about the disappointing sales of Underworld; did my lack of care doom this underdog series to an undeserved death, just when it was getting good again? Well, according to Gamasutra, the rumors of Tomb Raider: Underworld's retail death have been greatly exaggerated: Although Eidos previously admitted disappointment with Tomb Raider: Underworld’s sales, the title racked up 2.6 million unit sales in the period, with a faster rate of sell-through than either Tomb Raider: Legend or Tomb Raider: Anniversary. It's unclear what exactly Eidos would consider "not disappointing," but it's safe to assume at this point that Tomb Raider: Underworld has made a very healthy profit--unless they happen to be supplying their development team with an endless supply of cocaine and high-class prosititutes. Read More... Posted Mar 02 2009, 12:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: tomb raider, eidos, bob mackey, sales, recession, economy, tomb raider underworld

• At Least Batman: Arkham Asylum's Story Will Be Good

  It’s been pretty disheartening to see so many people losing their game industry jobs these past few months. First and foremost, it’s terrible to see thousands of talented people out of work. It’s also tragic to see so many games get cancelled. I’m still upset that Free Radical’s Star Wars Battlefront 3 will never come out. That game looked unbelievable. That’s not always the case with cancelled games though. For example, I think the world’s a better place now that Pandemic’s The Dark Knight tie-in won’t clog up shelves across the land. From the sounds of it, that game was troubled with a capital OUBLED. It’s cancellation also means that Rocksteady Games’ original Batman game, Arkham Asylum, will have a much better chance of getting noticed by the millions upon millions of people obsessed with Bruce Wayne and Joker. This new trailer doesn’t have any play in it, so it’s pretty useless for giving an impression of Arkham Asylum as a game. What it does have is plenty of story. Competently written and awesomely voiced story. Read More... Posted Jan 29 2009, 08:30 PM by John Constantine with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, playstation 3, trailer review, xbox 360, PC, playstation 2, the dark knight, eidos, batman, urban chaos, rocksteady games, pandemic, arkham asylum

• If This is True, RIP Eidos

  The Silicon Valley Insider reports on a rumor that Lara Croft may be shedding some clothing in order to boost sales in upcoming installments in the longsuffering Tomb Raider franchise. Read More... Posted Jan 13 2009, 05:00 PM by Cole Stryker with | with no comments Filed under: cole stryker, tomb raider, rumor, eidos

• F**k Your Future: Mirror’s Edge, Blade Runner, and the Future City

  The image above is a little bit of Deus Ex 3 concept art from Eidos Montreal, the crack design team who broadened our sexual horizons with Fear Effect and taught us that controlling sociopathic murders is boring as sin with Kane & Lynch. I can imagine the dialogue between the artists and producers when this image was submitted for approval: "What do you got for us today, concept artists?" "Check dis!" "This isn't Deus Ex! This is just a screencap from Blade Runner with the guy from Deus Ex 1 smoking in front of it!" "I'm fired aren't I?" "No! It's perfect! That’s all these nerds want anyway." I kid. There is no Deus Ex without Blade Runner, after all. While its influence isn’t quite on the level of Aliens, Blade Runner’s vision of a nightmare cityscape in the far-flung-but-familiar future is a close second. Read More... Posted Nov 18 2008, 02:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: ea, dice, blade runner, contra, mass effect, deus ex, aliens, eidos, soul bubbles, mirror’s edge, abe’s odyssey, syd mead, abe’s exodus, flashback, deus ex 3, shadowrun, oddworld

• Whatcha Playing: Bubbles, Bubbles, Bubbles!!!

  It's always a curious thing when games are sold exclusively at one chain of stores. I can understand if, hypothetically, Big Box Store shells out big bucks to have the exclusive sales of Frat House FPS Sequel. The built-in fanbase will want the game and rush to the nearest Big Box Store, that store makes enough money to profit from their initial investment, and the publisher still got their game out there to the masses and made some extra cash while they were doing it. What bothers me is when smaller, somewhat unknown or niche games are exclusive to one store, making it harder to find and less likely that curious gamers unfamiliar with the property will give it a chance. I was worried when this happened last year with the long-awaited Chibi-Robo: Park Patrol which found its way exclusively to Wal-Mart shelves, but thankfully that game turned out wonderfully. And so now, some three months after its release exclusively to Toys R Us, I have finally gotten my hands on a copy of Soul Bubbles for the Nintendo DS. I can't say whether it was worth added trouble of having to go find it, but I can say that so far it is one of the most enjoyable DS titles I've played in months. Read More... Posted Sep 23 2008, 03:00 PM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with no comments Filed under: whatcha playing, boom blox, nintendo ds, derrick sanskrit, lost winds, eden, eidos, soul bubbles, locoroco, mekensleep

• Where Will You Go, Tecmo? What Will Happen to Our Love?

  This has been something of a tumultuous year for Tecmo. In the past twelve months, they’ve shipped just four games, three of which are Ninja Gaiden games. The fourth, Fatal Frame IV for Wii, wasn’t even developed in house (it was handled by Suda 51’s Grasshopper Manufacture.) None of these games were actually published by Tecmo, relying on companies as diverse as Eidos, Ubisoft, Microsoft, and Nintendo for distribution. In June, their public face and star designer, the outspoken, boozing womanizer Tomonobu Itagaki, quit the company days after Ninja Gaiden II released to middling reviews. In August, their president resigned and Square-Enix tried to take over the company. Today, Tecmo announced they’ll be the latest Japanese company to find refuge from shrinking domestic business by consolidating. Their new partner will be Koei. Tecmo, I’m worried about you. Times are tough for Japanese developers developing traditional games for home consoles. We’ve had wonderful times together and I’m still looking forward to Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff this fall. Remember all the good times we had with Tecmo Bowl? Yeah. Corporate mergers are a good thing for Japanese developers. Why, just look at previous successes! Read More... Posted Sep 04 2008, 06:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: nintendo, microsoft, final fantasy, ubisoft, sega, square-enix, ninja gaiden, koei, dynasty warriors, tecmo, namco, eidos, tomonobu itagaki, fatal frame, Bandai, sammy, team ninja

• The Uncanny Valley: Tomb Raider and Lara Croft Are Starting to Freak Me Out

  The world has seen a lot of Lara Croft. Back in the mid-90s, it was downright hard to avoid videogames’ so-called first sex symbol and even more difficult after the Angelina Jolie “films” started coming out in 2001. Lara as ridiculous-looking-game-character has always been more of an icon than Lara as actual-human-being. Of course, that hasn’t stopped Tomb Raider’s publisher Eidos from paying models to dress up like her from the beginning. It was pretty silly back in 1996; Lara Croft looked more like the freakish offspring of Barbie and a Dire Straits video than a woman. The only thing the model had in common with the character were guns and leotard. But as technology has advanced, and photos of models have gotten more photoshopped, over the past twelve years, the real and fake Lara’s have been getting more and more similar in appearance. Frankly, it’s starting to freak me the hell out. Let’s take a look at the eight Laras that coincide with the soon-to-be eight Tomb Raider games. See if it freaks you out too. Here’s Katie Price in 1996 for Tomb Raider 1. Like I said, pretty silly. Read More... Posted Aug 12 2008, 12:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, uncanny valley, tomb raider, lara croft, scary internet, eidos