Backwards and Forwards or thereabouts

Christmas is coming up and the Games industry is sending out the usual surge before that overweight old man with the comical means of transportation alledgedly and entirely illegally trespasses on your property and attempts to give things to your children finally arrives on that frosty morning.

You are the controller (assuming you like to dance)

Did you manage to get hold of Kinect? Did you succumb to Playstation Move? Did you get that labotomy you promised yourself all those years ago? Do you have a mint copy of Panzer Dragoon Saga?

No?

...


If you fall into any of those categories then you are buying into what Microsoft and Sony hope to extend their format's lifespan by a slider of years. They believe that adding the option to become what are essentially HD and (arguably more precise) Wii will allow them to extend their market value. Personally, for what is currently available on Kinect, it is a tad overpriced. Somewhere around £100 would be better but at the moment Dance Central and possibly Kinectimals are the only ones pulling my interest. Sonic the Hedgehog? Nah, not worth the £40 from the review aggregate and footage I've been seeing.

Well, if none of those questions apply to you then you'll probably be playing Call of Duty: Black Ops until Activision drop next years rinse-repeat. While I don't mind you all getting Fidel Castro's knickers in a twist over one of his many attempted assassinations, I do wish you would sample a larger palette on the gaming smorgasboard. One would - if not correctly informed - believe steadfast that shooting games were the only titles being produced and to an extent, you would be correct. We live in a climate where online multiplayer shooters have taken over; from children who are technically not supposed to be playing but feel a need to just so they can call people older than them "fags" when they put a slug in their virtual brain to your elderly grandfather who just realised that games are actually quite fun and not - as the television told him - morally degrading.

...and hold it. I'm not saying that Call of Duty is a horrible franchise. I'm saying that to the people that read the tabloids, it is ridiculously popular. The same kind of people who wouldn't play Star Fox because the protagonist is a cartoon canid or they think that Super Mario is for five year olds. The same kind of people that wouldn't know their Shigeru Miyamoto from their Walt Disney or their Sid Meir from their Virginia Woolf. We all know these people and we all ignore them as hard as we can hoping that they will leave us to our consoles.

Oh and if you do happen to have that mint copy of Panza Dragoon Saga, you can send it to me and I'll promise not to shoot you and bury you under a patio in the suburbs of Liverpool, alright?

1935? We know what you are getting at with this picture, Walt XD

Epic Mickey is also out soon. It's a game that I have been monitoring for a while because I remember when Mickey Mouse made video games his bitch. These days, however he is almost entirely marketed to young children and it's about time Disney changed that. The most exciting thing to an avid Video gamer and animation enthusiast? Oswald the Lucky Rabbit is back.

After the simple cartoon studio in Kansas, after the Alice comedies (and the first incarnation of the Bear/Dog/Cat Pete) and before Mickey Mouse graced us was Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Disney lost the rights to this character however after he was refused a pay rise by Charles Mintz' back in the 20s. This caused the creation of a very famous mouse and Oswald was handed over to another Walter famous for a certain maniacal Woodpecker - Walter Lantz - which resulted in some pretty boring Universal-backed cartoons.
 

Capcom and Sega did right by Mickey

...but now Oswald is back under Disney and a Video game is the first medium in over eighty years to portray him in his creator's shadow. It's certainly the first time you are going to see him interacting with the upstart rodent that replaced him. You'd have to wonder what Disney would think about this. I'm sure he would have appreciated the interactivity in gaming. He was always looking for the next new thing in storytelling afterall and if Star Trek teaches you anything, it's that being the controller is definitely the future of storytelling. Remember Back to the Future 2? "You have to use your hands?" the kids scream. Think McFly, think.

Will Mickey return to being a legitimate gaming hero like he was in the 8 and 16-bit worlds? I hope so.

However, I digress. Next year is almost upon us and we have a lot to look forward to. The 3DS is very close on the horizon and it promises a strong opening night in the shape of some lovely exclusives. While these gems are mostly from who you would expect, including Nintendo's legendary banner flyer's like the previously touted Star Fox or the remake of the game of the twentieth century in the shape of the three-dimensional Ocarina of Time or Capcom's stable of strong intellectual properties like Street Fighter, Megaman and Resident Evil we also have some suprising showings such as Konami's Metal Gear Solid.

The PSP2 is also rumoured to be lanching next year with several improvements or refinements, including a touchpad and dual analogue sticks. Though, it will apparently be going commando without a UMD drive and be forced digital download only. While the UMD drive did drain the batteries quickly due to its moving parts and was roughly the volume of a man with a megaphone in the company of the Spanish Inquisition. Will Sony be able to launch this without physical media and succeed? Or will it go the way of the PSP Go? What do you think? Can you go without? Do you like having the boxes and paper manuals? Perhaps you trade in your games frequently?

Next year will also bring us Marvel vs Capcom 3. There are high hopes for this follow-up that took ten years to berserker claw its way back through all those licencing lawyers in Mephisto's domain. Maverick Hunter Zero and the She-Hulk were announced recently along with two characters making a return from the previous games - Jill "I'm a member of S.T.A.R.S!" Valentine and Doctor Strange (and bizarrely Conan the Barbarian) Cthullu wannabe, Shuma Gorath. This pair however will be DLC with Shuma most likely playing like his previous incarnations and Jill, now sporting her bleached hair and purple jumpsuit from Resident Evil 5 will most likely have an entirely new moveset due to Chris Redfield borrowing most of her munitions-based powers this time out.

Rogue learned to fly from Ms. Marvel

I'm still hoping for Ms. Marvel aka Carol Danvers. Already have Deadpool.

Which characters would you like to see appear in Marvel vs Capcom? Which games are you most waiting for next year or even this one if it somehow hasn't realeased yet?

In the meantime, enjoy yourselves killing insurgents in the 1960s, smacking down hollowmen with slightly choppy animation and the vocal talents of Britain, Assassinating allies to the Pope whilst rebuilding Roma, replaying GoldenEye without Sean Bean or whatever else takes your fancy this winter. This year has been a damn fine one for us.

Oh yeah, also I uploaded the full blip version of the Pokémon Heart Gold/Soul Silver review I did to youtube. All 13 minutes reunited at last. As Blackadder might say "get it here".

See you in 2002

Andy out