Every time we meet with the guys from High Voltage, the wonderful people bringing us The Conduit, they’re constantly telling us that they love reading about what we think of their games so they can dive back in and make changes. It’s one of their two constant tenants, the other being to give players as much choice as possible in control and presentation. With that in mind I’m going to be harsh on the very, very early build of Gladiator A.D. I saw behind closed doors at E3.

In case you didn’t know, High Voltage announced two new games in production for the Wii the week before E3. They were Gladiator A.D. and The Grinder (eyes-on coming tomorrow). Both are relentlessly mature games operating off of High Voltage’s amazing engine that lets them pump out those impeccable graphics on the Wii. Both are in their very early stages, though Gladiator A.D. shows it a little bit more.

This may be because the game isn’t up the same alley as The Conduit. It’s a fighter and it is definitely taking a different approach to the genre by infusing a hefty story and some pretty strong RPG elements into the game. We didn’t get to see those, but we did get to see some fighting.

The real problem with seeing only the fighting at this early stage is that there wasn’t much to bite into. I watched as Matt Corso, Art Director at High Voltage, started duking it out with his gladiator versus another — using a Wii Remote without Wii MotionPlus. Swing, punch, dodge, block, waggle, possibly a few grabs. The initial impression was that of a pretty shallow fighter with some pretty stiff looking controls and movements. The game just didn’t look like it was much fun in the state it was in. It didn’t even seem that overly bloody, as I was personally hoping, except at the end when Matt delivered a finishing blow with a simple wag of the Wii Remote that lopped off his opponent’s arm and head. Graphically the game looked sound (the screens we have look better than what I saw, it was an older build), but still very rough and nowhere near the quality of what we’ve seen from The Conduit. But this in an immensely early build, and my lack of excitement over what the game was at the moment quickly became eclipsed by what it could be.

So, what are we possibly looking at if everything High Voltage is looking for shows up in the game? Well you won’t be delivering massive amounts of combos, and plowing through rounds like in Street Fighter. Eric Nofsinger, Chief Creative Officer at High Voltage, says the game’s style of fighting is geared more like Bushido Blade or Fight Night, meaning that well timed and strategic attacks are going to trump out ridiculous combos and super moves. We’re not talking the simplicity of Punch-Out!!, which isn’t always a bad thing, but this will definitely be a different style of fighter than most.

It might not be the fight style that differentiates it the most though. The guys at High Voltage are very intrigued by RPG-light infusions into games and allowing the player to really decide how they want to play it. This shows up in two ways. The first is that Gladiator A.D. will have a robust RPG background, where players will be able to design, upgrade and equip their player with a plethora of different types of weapons and armor. The gladiators we saw demoed both carried shield and short swords, but there will be options to play dual wielding, with heavier armor, with longer or shorter weapons, etc. Within the fights, items can be damaged too. We saw the opponent’s helmet get knocked off after several severe blows, leaving him open to taking more damage from attacks to that area.

The RPG elements don’t stop at your stat building and equipment. The game is going to feature a robust (for a fighter) storyline that changes depending on the player’s decisions in battle. For instance, at the end of each fight the player can choose to kill or be merciful to his now defeated enemy. Kill the guy and you never have to deal with him again, though it could come back to haunt you in the end. Don’t kill the guy and he might come back later in the game to get revenge, or maybe he’ll be thankful and help out some way. It is also possible, via a hub world, to get sponsorships and do deals with NPCs. Players may get a sponsorship from a rich Aristocrat and be able to buy better weapons, but it could create problems for you in the future because of your allegiance to him. It’s this angle to the game that really stands out, and sadly that we saw absolutely none of. Having a battle actually have consequences to the game is awesome, especially if you’re like me and feel that $50-$60 is far to much to pay for a game that just pushes you from match to match.

The second way the devs are choosing to allow the player as much control over the game as possible is by giving them plenty of options to control and view the game. We we’re demoed a few stages (all round and relatively the same size) and I asked why they decided to go with what seemed to be the slightly awkward angle of third person. Turns out it’s not what they chose because they didn’t choose anything. Nofsinger says the player will have complete control over where he wants to play the game from, and while they’re still tweaking which angle will be the default, it will be up to the player to choose how they want to play the game.

So, as I said, what I saw was what looked to be a very shallow fighter, but what I heard about, and, if The Conduit is any indication, what High Voltage will deliver in the end is going to be something very interesting. A final thing I heard about but didn’t get to see is that there will in fact be other elements in battles than just the two fighters (what’s a gladiator game without lions?), which should be cool. However, if the fighting doesn’t pep up a bit then it will all be for naught as that is obviously the main draw of the game and we don’t want to end up with another Castlevania: Judgement on our hands. Uggg, just typing the title makes me shudder.

No release date has been set yet, and High Voltage is keeping mum on online capabilities, but considering they’ve already had experience with the Wii’s online service, we’re assuming it’ll be there.

We conclude our E3 Roundups for the week with a look at previews for Fallout 3’s latest DLC, Point Lookout.

We’ll begin at Planet Fallout, who sent one of their members, Ixon, to E3. Here’s an excerpt from his preview:

“The locale was also visually stunning. I would relate it to a darker version of Coney Island after lapsing into disuse for about eighty years. As you pull up, you get an overlook of the dock area of the main landing for Point Lookout and can easily see the mansion in the distance. The rustic look permeates everything about it and though I didn’t get a chance to see it, the swamp areas are supposedly to be incredibly creepy.”

Ixon also has an interview with DLC Producer Jeff Gardiner. Read it here.

Speaking of interviews, Revision3 chatted with Todd Howard at E3. The clip starts around the 19-minute mark.

More previews for Point Lookout can be found at the following sites:

• Shacknews
• GameDaily
• Gamespot
• Destructoid
• Team Xbox
• IGN
• 1Up
• GameSpy
• Aeropause
• The JRE
• bsn*

Point Lookout comes to Xbox LIVE and Games for Windows LIVE on June 23rd, and later this year on PlayStation Network. If you haven’t checked out the trailer yet, you can view it on the Fallout 3 Official Site.

Continuing from the sadness that took over the head of Activision a few days ago, we now at least have some sort of answer as to why Sony didn’t announce any price cuts at E3: it just wasn’t the appropriate place to do it. “From our perspective, this show is all about content,” said Peter Dille to Kotaku, “We believe that our content story is unrivaled. It’s really a relentless line-up of great exclusive games that will speak volumes to the value inherent in the PS3. Obviously people come to E3 expecting all sorts of announces. We’ve got a plan in place for the platform. A price drop at the show wasn’t part of it.”

In the meantime, we’ll just have to wait for Sony to decide the proper place to drop some prices. Sony may have the most expensive console on the market but with a strong line-up for the future, including some promising motion controls, it should perform well against its competitors even if they are less expensive.

Microsoft surprised fans of zombie survival horror co-op shooter, Left 4 Dead, by showing off a trailer for a sequel. I squealed with delight and felt myself become faint as I witnessed this video clip.

Set for release on November 17, the title adds melee combat to enable deeper co-operative gameplay, with items such as a chainsaw, frying pan, axe, baseball bat, and more.

Introducing the AI Director 2.0, L4D’s dynamic gameplay is taken to the next level by giving the Director the ability to procedurally change weather effects, world objects, and pathways in addition to tailoring the enemy population, effects, and sounds to match the players’ performance. The result is a unique game session custom fitted to provide a satisfying and uniquely challenging experience each time the game is played.

Featuring new Survivors, boss zombies, weapons, and items, Left 4 Dead 2 offers a much larger game than the original with more co-operative campaigns, more Versus campaigns, and maps for Survival mode available at launch.

Left 4 Dead 2 is slated for a November 17 release on PC and Xbox 360. Check back here at GamesAreEvil for more Left 4 Dead 2 and E3 2009 coverage.

New yoga and strength exercises will be included and there will be new ways to combine activities for maximum effect. Also included will be 15 new balance games including one where you jump over logs and dodge swinging cannon balls. You now get to feel what it’s like to be Mario! Wii Fit Plus will be sold with the Wii Balance Board and on it’s own for those who already own Wii Fit.

While all the new exercises look fun and will help people get off the couch, diet and eating habits are still not addressed. You can work out all you want but if you continue to turn around and eat badly, your Mii will remain overweight.

So E3’s biggest events have come and gone. I am speaking, of course, of the big three’s press conferences, Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony. What can be learned from them, well a lot really.

The first and biggest thing that I came away with from watching the press conferences was that EVERYONE wants to do some sort of motion control and bit off piece of Nintendo’s money pie… even Nintendo themselves! What! Yeah I said it folks. Even Nintendo wants more motion control. Since I brought it up, let’s start with them first.

Nintendo two years ago was the under dog coming into E3. The other companies had released their big new machines or at least the specs and what not, and were ready to put Niddy out of the race, like they had done with SEGA. Nintendo shocked the world with the unveiling of the Wii, and making a firm stand that they weren’t going to do the flashy graphics of the other two and decided to just innovate on almost current technology they had been using in the Game Cube. Sure it had motion control, it was kiddie, and almost gimmicky, but no one could have expected the Nintendo Wii to sell as well as it did.

Back to the Future

Flash forward two years and here we are at E3 09 and Microsoft and Sony are BOTH playing catch-up with the Wii. Quite the turn of events. Not content to sit on their ENORMOUS mound of money and be happy, Nintendo reveals more info on Wii Sports Resort. A game that will surely out sell pretty much any title in existence to date, and here is why. People will buy it for the simple fact that the original Wii sports is STILL probably the game that most people fall back on more than any other. It also comes with a packed in Wii Motion Plus. This little square dongle attaches to the bottom of the current Wiimote, and give the player a 1:1 ratio of movement. Meaning that it will match almost exactly every movement that you make outside the game, with in game movement. That may not sound like much, but to watch it in action it will make a world of a difference in games.

Again Nintendo still not happy with just that will also have another add on peripheral to the Wii. This one will work in conjunction with the Wii balance board and the new Wii Fit Plus. In basic terms it is a camera that will watch you work out and be a sort of “virtual trainer”. The camera sees you (creepy) and can tell if you are doing what the on screen trainer is telling you to do. Not trying hard enough fatty to touch your toes, and you will get scolded for it. In demonstration it seemed pretty intelligent, but the question remains how well will it be able to keep you from just not playing the game AT ALL.

Nintendo also brought the fire with Mario. LOTS of Mario. The first game unveiled was The New Super Mario Brothers for Wii. Pretty much like the game of the same name on the DS with a slight twist. This version can be played with three other players simultaneously. It is sort of a competitive vibe but also has elements of Co-op play as well. You can help your friends get certain items, bring them back to life, or just sit back and watch em die. The next game featuring Mario was Mario and Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story. It’s the next in the line of the Super Mario RPG’s and sounds like something you would catch on the Biology channel. After that they revealed the next version of the Mario Vs. Donkey Kong series called “March of the Minis” and will only be available to those with the DSi, since it is a download only title. The final Mario game revealed was, Super Mario Sunshine 2… no wait, sorry. It was Super Mario Galaxies 2. That’s right its the follow up to last years award winning title on the Wii. Not much was said about it, other than you won’t get your hands on it until at LEAST 2010.

So Many Games

Other games were revealed like a Red Steel 2 (with pack in Wii Motion+), FF Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers (an “open world RPG”) a Kingdom Hearts for the DS called 358/2 Days, and A version of Golden Sun for Ds as well. The games kept coming and coming. Like “Women’s Murder Club: Games of Passion, based on the works of James Patterson, yeah I have no idea of his work either. What appears to be an on rails shooter game called Cop: The Recruit, Girls Mode that will apparently make me more “Style Savvy”. There was also a WarioWare game called WarioWare:DIY where as the title would lead you to believe, you get to make the micro games yourself, this will also be a DSiWare game. A few more titles of note… Dead Space: Extraction, and Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles, both are apparently on rails shooters for the Wii. Finally The Conduit which looks to be a high end FPS for the Wii, and one that I am looking forward to playing.

Next Satoru Iwata comes out to explain that he wants to know how we feel in games. He wants to know if games can relax us and if they excite us. How will he know that? Through in part, black magic, also through a new dongle that attaches to the Wiimote called the “Wii Vitality Sensor”. Basically you put your finger into it and it measures your heart rate and can tell the game if you are relaxed or freakin the hell out during a game. No mention of WHY that matters, or WHAT they plan to use this information for. Should be interesting if it gets used in more things that just Wii Fit Plus.

The closer for Nintendo needed to be BIG and I am pretty sure that they managed to deliver. No it wasn’t a reveal of the new Zelda game. It was however the a game that is that Team Ninja and Nintendo have been working together. On what… Metroid!! Metroid: Other M, to be exact. From the looks of the sizzle reel, it looks to be a return to the 3rd person Metroid of old, mixed with a generous helping of Ninja Gaiden. So long as it has the fun exploration of Super Metroid with out the frustration of Ninja Gaiden, this will for sure be part of my library.

What a way to close out the show. The one time underdog just came out of its corner and put up one hell of a fight, just like Lil Mac. The next year or so will be what really tells if Nintendo has the staying power of first party games to keep the Wii on top of the sales heap.

Jordan Fehr, you were dead on. Pretty much as you wrote about Capcom’s brand new trailer for Lost Planet 2, I was standing at a kiosk playing with three others as we made a valiant attempt at taking down one huge creature. I don’t like jumping to conclusions, but this was a damned good time.

What did this creature do to me? To others? I have no idea. I jumped in, and others were shooting it, so I did too. Frankly, reflecting on this whole thing is becoming more in-depth than I initially expected, but that’s ok. The playing was fun, and how it reflects on me as a person is irrelevant. What’s more pressing is that this giant thing, which seemed barely aware of my presence, was gigantic, and came impressively close to stomping me many times. I wasn’t alone, and so we all did the logical thing, we looked for the part of its body that was shiny, which happened to be its knees, and fired away. The whole while, you can’t help but admire the visuals and magnitude. The environment itself was relatively simple with some giant mountainous cliff sides surrounding, and then the creature which as about the size of a modest office building in a metropolitan downtown. “Damn,” is the general reaction.

After a while, the creature made several attempts to crush, maim, and/or eat me. Shooting it, all of a sudden, became less of a moral conundrum. Time went on and we started to shoot off a few of its six legs. Writing in pain, it would wag its gargantuan posterior against a cliffside, which led to a roaring echo of a clash. Again, the magnitude is fantastic. Eventually, we had a chance to jump atop the thing and fire away at its weak exposed spots. Did this kill it? No. It sprouted new legs, my teammates jumped off, leaving me on an angry large monster by myself, and I was firing at new knees. Tired of being lonely, I jumped off to join my mates, only to frantically fire from a different angle. This turned out not being wise, as it wound up leading to our ultimate demise. Our screens went black, and in tandem we read “MISSION FAILED.”

To those familiar with the feel of Lost Planet, you’ll find everything pretty much as it was, right down to your grappling hook. The mech suit is something new, and will certainly add a tactical choice as well as a little bonus dose of badassery that you’ll all likely enjoy. Still, the real fun was working with three others to take the thing down. Even standing next to complete strangers, a compulsion to start communicating and working with them was taking hold, and so I did. That’s when I realized I could pay this game a compliment I don’t pay to very many: I’d play this with my friends.

Can’t wait to see if there’s enough variety to make this a lasting experience, and to just play the full game regardless. Based on what I saw… hats off to Capcom.

Brutal and stylish, High Voltage Software’s Gladiator A.D. is a brawler we can get behind. This is one of several games to come out or be announced recently for the Wii that are meant to up the ante when it comes to violence on console, like The Grinder or MadWorld.

Gladiator A.D. will be have a little taste of RPG to wet your customization whistle, with every character having their own “story” to see in cut-scenes before and after fights, and weapons and armor will be upgradable. Nothing has been confirmed about the playstyle other then it only being possible “on the Wii,” except the glorious brutality that comes with it of course.

Below are a bunch of new images to maul on and another look at the trailer, after the break.

Gladiator A.D. is coming to the Wii only in early MMX, or 2010 for fans of the arabic numerals.

Does anyone else want to ring the Nintendo press conference by its neck? Not once did Nintendo mention that Sin and Punishment 2 would be here at E3. One of the most coveted shooters of our time on the N64 and a major claim for the “Wii has hardcore games” argument wasn’t mentioned once during their world wide broadcast of the press conference. Thankfully, and to the surprise of most people at E3, Sin and Punishment 2 was on the show floor and is playable.

We headed over, shoved the innocents out of the way and grabbed a Wii Remote and Nunchuk to play what should have been one of the big games at this year’s E3. Does the running/shooter action work well on the Wii or was it best reserved for the unique controls of the N64? Treasure, the game’s developer, knows how to rock the shooter, but rocking the Wii can be very challenging. Let’s see what they’re doing.

I got my hands on an earlier part of the game and played through it twice, once with each character. Players can choose between Isa (the son of Saki and Airan, who made an appearance in the first game), and a young girl named Kachi to play as. They both feature different powers and move a bit differently, and while both have rapid fire shots, their charge shots work differently with Isa simply shooting a large charged blast and Kachi having multi-target locking when she charges up. Kachi also flies on a hover board whereas Isa flies with the help of some sort of hover pack thing. The two thus control a bit differently, though not in a very major way.

Playing through with Isa first, it was clear to see that the fluid motion of the original game was back in force, but with more options. Players can now take-off into the air whenever they want or run on the ground whenever they want (assuming there is ground to run on) meaning that the entire screen is open to movement for all of the game. It turns dodging and shooting into a multiple direction action fest instead of simply being left and right. Of course shooters aren’t about dodging they’re about shooting, and Sin and Punishment 2 does the logical thing by making all aiming done simply by pointing the Wii Remote at the screen. Turns out that, much like the original that could only be played with the N64 controller, this game could only really be managed with the Wii Remote. There’s just to much on the screen and reactions have to be too quick to for a direction pad or joystick to work.

The guys at Treasure have really nailed shooting action on the Wii down. In the level I played I was almost always ducking and diving my way out of enemy fire, at one point having to keep shooting enemies who were flying at me while also dodging large laser blasts from the side. It’s almost as if the plethora of years between the original and this didn’t exist and they just got right back on track. That goes for the difficulty as well (though if you’ve only played the original on the Wii’s Classic Controller you know Sin and Punishment to be even harder than it was on the N64). This is old school shooter action, where you’re going to die and have to retry a level plenty of times it seems — or at least I did that on this level, much to the chagrin of those behind me in line.

What really stand out though is that the game seems just plain fun. I only got through one level and one boss battle, but I could have played that level over and over again all day. Maybe it’s the best level in the game and the rest will suck, but I highly doubt it. Here’s to Nintendo ignoring what might be the Wii’s game of the show.