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AICN Games: E for All Days Three and Four! Contra! Medal of Honor! Guitar Hero Craziness!!
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. Monki's final E For All report came in while I was having my Budapest adventure (more on that later) and now that I'm newly returned I see that it has yet to be posted, so please accept my apologies on the tardiness of getting this report to you folks. Enjoy Monki's wanderings from the event!
Greetings humans, Monki here wrapping up my experiences at the first ever E for All.
The first ever E for All is now over and done...and personally I think it was a success. Gamers begged for years to get access to E3...well...E3 is dead and E4 has replaced it and given gamers just that...access to titles they won't see for a few months...chances to show off their talents to random strangers...opportunities to meet "gaming celebrities" and producers...
My favorite experiences from E4 came from things that you would have never seen at E3...the Guitar Hero 2 tournament was incredible.
From the hundreds of people that tried out only about 8 made it to the finals...those 8 then did their best to get the audience pumped and burn their way through an expert track. Alex Lerner, the guy who took first place played almost the entire track without looking at the screen. As a matter of fact, he played a portion of the song blindfolded...truly incredible. Here is a video of him playing his way towards the finals. (This wasn't his final performance...and no I didn't shoot it.)
Another guy started his run without a shirt on and finished in only a banana hammock...that was...well...ahem...he came in third.
These guys doing their damnedest to get the crowd going in their favor was what the heart of E for All was about...celebrating gaming. I love that idea and I hope they bring back the festival next year.
Oh, and everywhere you looked was craziness. If it wasn't a girl dressed like Judy Nails walking around...it was Jack Sparrow singing Say It Ain't So on a stage...
All walks of life in the gaming world were covered..from Fata1ity and his insane rail gun skills on Quake 4 to the kids playing Ms. Pac Man. There was something for everybody.
I know E4 caught a lot of shit for having a much smaller footprint than it's E3 predecessors...I know I gave it shit for that...but in all honesty, the vibe at the fest was much greater than I would have expected...I'll be back for sure.
Game Impressions
The two days I'm writing about in this column were Saturday and Sunday which were much more crowded than the Thursday and Friday show days. That being said, I spent more time walking around and getting general impressions of everything than a lot of individual games...but the ones I did play I'll go over here.
Contra 4
I held off on playing Contra 4 for a while...I mean, it was a DS title...I was hoping for some big crazy run and gun action...something I've never really found in a DS title.
How wrong could I be?
Holy crap this game kicks ass. It is such a throwback title...the graphics are old school...the difficulty level is almost impossible, just as a Contra title should be. You still want to get that S icon when you see it and mop up with the spread gun. Oh man, SPREAD GUN!
I talked with a producer on the title and immediately we hit it off over our love of all things Contra. Our discussion ranged from "Is the Konami Code in the game?" which drew a "I cannot confirm or deny that," followed by a big grin...to our love for the Minibosses (the band...not the boss characters in the middle of stages).
It makes me happy to see someone so jazzed about a title actually getting a chance to work on it...it's like what would happen if you put Quint in charge of the next Dead or Alive Extreme title.
The game itself plays just as you'd expect a Contra title to play. You go from left to right shooting anything that moves and picking up special weapons along the way. The left and right bumpers at the top of your DS swap back and forth between weapons...so if you pick up a flame thrower (which does that cool spin thing) then switch to your other weapon and pick up a laser you can then go back and forth between the two. Oh, and you don't lose the weapon that wasn't selected when you die. So if I died with the laser out and my spread was still stashed away, I'd still have the spread available to me. I love the spread. You also have the normal jump button and a grappling hook button (Y) to get to those harder to reach places.
The difficulty is ramped up to an insane level. I played on "Normal" through the first stage and it took me about three tries just to do that. The good thing is, it's difficult...but not annoyingly so. Balanced exactly how you'd like a game.
The bonus features are fucking incredible...the ENTIRE GAME OF CONTRA is on here...I mean, the original title...oh, and Super C is on there as well...and all kinds of comics that were created for the various titles...bonus art, interviews, extra playable characters...Oh, and you can play over wi-fi for some co-op fun which is pretty fantastic. No internet co-op though. When asked why the producer told me about latency problems but really it came down to the fact that it's better to have your partner next to you to punch in the arm when he steals your spread weapon or doesn't kill someone he was supposed to. Makes sense to me.
As of right now, this is my most anticipated title for the DS. It comes out November 13th.
Medal of Honor: Heroes 2
Nintendo had set up an entire row of titles that use the new zapper attachment for the Wii. The one I got a chance to play with was Medal of Honor: Heroes 2.
As with most Wii titles, the controls were relatively simple. You point your Wii Zapper at the screen and a cursor appears where you will be shooting. To reload you just aim off screen like you would at an arcade. The Z button (or is it C? The trigger on the Nunchuk...) zooms down your scope for more precise shooting and the trigger shoots...imagine that.
After playing some Team Fortress 2 and Quake 4, jumping to the graphics on the Wii was a bit of a shock. I mean, we're talking some PS2 era character models here...kinda sad.
I didn't get a chance to hear the music for the game as it was in a crowded hall full of geeks and booth babes, I'm sure it's pretty good though as most of the Medal of Honor titles have always had fantastic sweeping music. Don't quote me on that one though...I'll have to try it out in my house on 5.1 before giving a final verdict.
Overall though, the zapper attachment made for a fun shooter. The aiming wasn't difficult and the was pretty simple to master. The zapper itself is very firm and was a lot better than I thought it would be. It just seems like a natural fit to place the nunchuk and Wii-mote into that position.
Finally it seems like the Wii is going to be more than just a Wii Sports machine after the next few months.
Wrapping it Up!
I also got a chance to get some play time on Metal Gear Solid 4 and talk with producer Ryan Payton, but that will be going into a column all by itself. Look for it in the next few days.
On a personal note, I had a great time out in California meeting some readers and wandering the floor in general video game bliss. One of my highlights came when I actually won a Minesweeper tournament. That's right...your's truly took home first place in a Minesweeper tourney...don't tell my bosses at work though.
Here are the final pictures of the chalk drawing that went on during the entire expo...
I have no idea where this thing is going, but it is really quite beautiful.
Alright kids, I have a lot of catching up to do including finishing off the autographed Wii contest (I swear to god it'll happen this week) and checking out some new Wii titles including Table Tennis...should be good times. Until then though, back up the tree I go!
-Monki
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+ Expand All
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But Guitar Hero really is the bee's knees. I kill at Thunderkiss '65.
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My only justification for buying a DS, that and the Casltevania shit.
Konami is best known for three kick-ass franchises. Let's hope they don't fuck up the upcoming Castlevania game for the PS3 and 360. (Via outsourcing their properties to European programmers.) As for the hype that is Guitar Hero, I love rock music (specifically punk, Industrial and thrashcore)but I'm not one to live out his fantasies by playing aplastic piece o' shit controller that's shaped like a guitar. I'm sure a Gangsta Rap version (included with mic, sans gat and Karaoke tracks) will surely follow.
*shudders* -
But this Monki guy somehow makes videogames seem even more lame. He sucks. If I were a Gamepro editor, I'd give him a really calm, blue face.
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I did the big one on 89 seconds once years and years ago.
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And damnit now I need a copy of Contra DS.
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That's XBOX 360.
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You send a guy to cover an event like this and they can't even get a report in until a week later? Either put this column out of it's misery or let someone with more time take it over. If this had been my responsibility, I would have had daily reports ready to go each night of the event, if not more frequently. Seriously, Harry, if AICN isn't going to take video game news somewhat seriously, then please just stick to movies & TV.
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It runs on EA Nation or whatever, so there are no FCs, you just jump into a match.
Also, I find it really funny that Monki doesn't seem to know that he only played a side-mode of the game. Seriously, can we get a real gamer writing this? Or are we just going to be stuck with this uninformed imbecile? I try to keep track of all the errors he makes in each article, but I lose count every time. He simply doesn't know shit about what he's meant to be covering. -
It was Contra III: The Alien Wars. Hence, Contra 4.
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E for All was held at the LA Convention center and Contra 4 is an entirely new game, as Salsaman said, Contra III: The Alien Wars was the top-down SNES shooter you are thinking of.
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Because Monki's article was published a week late, but it's all good. That GH dude was quite the nutter.
Burrrrned, Jack!
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