This one may be a little on the political side of gaming. And to be honest I dont know if we’ve ever weighed in on this issue. Namely the issue of “dead software” being resurrected by fans. In this case, a group of fans dedicated to creating a sequel to King’s Quest, that eternal classic set of games from Sierra (Now Vivendi Universal).

Now, they seem to have gotten along a ways (near the end even), and Vivendi has shut them down. I can’t say I blame Vivendi. They do still hold the rights to everything around King’s Quest, however I also feel that if a group of fans were willing to put in alot of love and time into trying to make a great sequel, perhaps Vivendi could have struck some sort of deal. Like:

“We dont shut you down, and we won’t help you at all, but in return , we own it, you distribute it for free, and our brand will get a free boost. Oh.. and if it sucks, you have to change the name.”

Also as a fan of the original series, I would love to see more of these games. Hell, couldn’t Vivendi just allow them to release it with a nice disclaimer that it is a fan work?

Well, at any rate, I’ll at least pass on to YOU the gaming world, the note I got, and let you decide what you want to do:

Russell,

I ran across your site monkeygames.org, and since you write about the gaming industry, I thought you might find this story of interest.

Are you familiar with the King’s Quest games by Sierra? They were very popular adventure games from the 80’s & 90’s.

After Sierra (now owned by Vivendi) decided it wasn’t going to make anymore adventure games, some fans got together to make their own King’s Quest fan game. After it was finished, they planned to offer it as a free download to anyone who was interested. These fans were doing this for no other reason than they loved King’s Quest, and they wanted to pay homage to the series.

http://www.kqix.com

After over three years of work, they were about to release it in December. However, just a couple of weeks ago, Vivendi issued a cease & desist letter — essentially shutting down the game.

A group of fans, including myself, got together to try to save the game. We recently launched a website.

http://www.savekqix.org

What we’re really trying to do right now is get the word out about both the game being shut down, and our effort to save it. If you find this story of interest, please feel free to blog about it. If you have any questions, I’m happy answer them. Feel free to email me here.

Thanks,

Matt Compton

P.S.

Hey Matt, if you can’t save the game. Just change all the names, and alter anything originally relating to Kings Quest(tm) and release it as your own universe. Remember, while they can trademark a name, and a brand, no one can copyright gameplay.

Don’t miss the movie… it has even more info than in the main site itself:

• Main Site
• File Planet
• File Shack

Damn.. that was sweet.

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/burningcrusade/

Well, if you don’t know by now, I am a raging WoWaholic. And all the rumors have been circulating of late.. but its finally arrived. The first WoW expansion has been annouced. Here’s the brief:

• An increase in the level cap to 70
• Two new playable races, including the magical Blood Elves
• New starting zones in Quel’Thalas and beyond
• The entire new continent of Outland, reachable through the Dark Portal
• Many new high-level dungeons to explore in Azeroth, Outland, and elsewhere
• New flying mounts in Outland
• Many new and dangerous monsters, including epic world bosses
• Hundreds of new quests
• Hundreds of new items
• A new profession: Jewelcrafting
• Socketed items
• And much, much more…

Oh yeah.. that last point rocks!! (stupid marketing).

Well I for one will be all over this expansion.

Here, to answer some of your questions.. is some the offical FAQ:

Q: Will there be a public beta test of the expansion?
A: We have not yet determined whether we will hold a public beta test for the expansion. If we decide to conduct a beta test, we will post details on the official World of Warcraft website.

Q: When will the expansion be released? How much will it cost?
A: We have not yet announced a release date for the expansion set. However, we expect to announce further details, including the release date and price, on our community website in the months ahead. Please stay tuned to www.WorldofWarcraft.com for more information.

Q: What are the system requirements?
A: The system requirements remain the same as for the original World of Warcraft game.

Q: Will the expansion be released globally at the same time?
A: We will make every effort to release the expansion simultaneously worldwide. More details on this will follow at a later date.

Q: Do you need to own the expansion to play with friends who have it?
A: There will be many aspects of the expansion that are available to all players. However, in order to experience certain content, such as the Outlands, or be able to play as one of the new races, players will have to purchase the expansion.

Now, you will note that they have not announced the new Alliance race. The scuttlebut on the boards is that this race will in fact be the “Dranei”. The Dranei are the original inhabitants of outland, along with the Orcs. So Wow will add a pretty race to the Horde, and an ugly race to the allies. Makes sense.

A while ago I read a preview or two on “Seven Sorrows” - the next installment of Gauntlet which aims to reinvent the series. The biggest change, they said at the time, was that you and your friends could ease into the comfort of your couch’s personalized butt-groove and cooperatively work through the game on XBox live. I’ve been a fan of the Gauntlet series ever since I was a kid, so this news sprouted visions of drinking beer in the late night glow of my Wega as Beauchamp and Miner shouted frantic orders in my left ear. But in the last decade there hasn’t been a Gauntlet game that floored me, so I sorta let the game slip off the radar. That was 6 months ago or so.

But today I poked around the file shack media page and found the game’s latest trailer. It didn’t blow me away, but I gotta say it reminds me a helluva lot like a solid evolution of the Golden Axe franchise. Midway released the Double Dragon-esque brawler Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks already this year, and I think Gauntlet might be the second jab in their attempt to reinvigorate the arcadey slash genre. It’s not due out until December 14th, but it’s already on my Gamefly queue.

Gamespot has a Gauntlet gamespace, and of course the game has an official site.

~DDB

I have enough gaming goodness to worry about (AoE III, Civ IV, Shadow of theColossus) and Battlefield 2 still quenches my specifc FPS needs, so I held off purchasing the fps F.E.A.R. at its release.

But someone else here at the office picked up ‘F.E.A.R’ last week. He said that he enjoyed the game quite a bit, but it lasted only half as long as Half Life 2. Yikes. Also - he mentioned the game isn’t very replayable, and the multiplayer isn’t anything to write home about, either.

So if you’re looking to spend your 55 bucks on something with staying power, then you might want to look at some alternatives, and wait until F.E.A.R.’s price drops.

Just a heads-up.

~DDB

Hideo Kojima Has now made his blog availible in English! There are some very interesting posts from the creator of the Metal Gear series. My favorite thus far “It’s been meetings, meetings, meetings since I arrived this morning. At times like this it is unforgivable to waste time in idleness.”

A note from the Editor: We actually don’t have Editors here at Monkey Games. We don’t hand out assignments, either, so every once in a while we hit a situation where two of us write a review for the same game. Last night I spent a considerable amount of time laying the groundwork for this article below, and, unbeknownst to me, Chris was writing an article on the same game at the same time. So pardon the duplication of content. Chris - I’m not talking over you, but with you. This game is excellent. But enough crap — Bitta’s review:

The 3-3 Patriots had a bye this Sunday so I invited our football-crew over to play some console games to fill in the void. Beauchamp was kind enough to bring his copy of Shadow of the Colossus, a title he recently rented from gamefly. After a brief demo that completely floored us, we all immediately agreed that we didn’t want to play any other game that day. To be fair, after about two hours we fooled ourselves into thinking we needed a break from the game, so we fired up Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks and had a little stint at that. But even the great game that is MK:SM was easily eclipsed by our enjoyment of the Colossus, and we soon left MK for dead.

I missed the game’s opening cinematic so I don’t quite know the game’s exact story line, but after playing for a few hours the plot became relatively obvious. You act as God’s hand, or a god’s hand anyway, for cleansing the world of these giant colossi, for good or for evil. At the beginning of each level you stand in a temple as ‘He’ speaks to you from on high, commanding you to track down and slay the next giant in the series of the game’s behemoths. You’re given only a few tools including your horse (an amazing example of real time animation), a bow, and a sword which, when lifted into sunlight, casts a beam that guides you to the next giant’s hiding place. It also seems that your sword is the one and only weapon you useful for hurting the colossi (more on this later). Once you get the general idea of where you’re headed, you set out on a discovery trek through the game’s fantastic 3D landscape. On any given journey you pass over vast bridges, ride along a cliff’s edge, and continue on through forests in your search for the next giant. It’s remarkable how open and free this portion of the game feels. There are absolutely no minor monsters to act as fodder - it’s just you and your horse traveling the countryside. I know that this may sound quite… boring.. but the game is gorgeous, and it’s established early-on that you’re a bad ass (see below) so there’s no need to add further combat gameplay here. Instead you’re presented with a vast wilderness that compliments the quiet confidence of your main character. Also, the horse and rider animation is spot-on in this mode, and the general lack of UI adds to the truly remarkable cinematic quality of the game.

When you do eventually locate a colossus (they’re not wandering so their hiding areas aren’t too hard to find) you’re presented a cutscene that depicts the extreme size and girth of the opponent you’re soon to face. Some of these guys are huge, Statue of Liberty huge, or at least bigger than anything I’ve ever seen animated in gaming. And this is where the combat gameplay kicks in.

The battles unfold in a deceivingly simple formula that hasn’t changed since the boss battles of Megaman, although to be fair the execution here is entirely different. The major flow of battle is this: 1. Determine the giant’s weaknesses. 2. Dodge attacks in order to get yourself in the correct position to exploit said weaknesses 3. Bring the b**ch down. Don’t let the simplistic list fool you, and don’t believe the progression through this list becomes mundane after a few battles. The three steps are acts in a large battle. Where as a traditional side scrolling boss-battle from yesteryear might take 2-3 minutes, the tactics of these fights vary wildly, evolve through the various stages of the fight, and can take upwards of 30 minutes.

You see, each level doesn’t end in a boss battle, it is a boss battle. The main character you control is ohhh, say, about this: . tall, were as the giants range in relative sizes from this: 0 to this: {} That’s . vs {}, a disparity of scale that obviously negates any advantageous effects of double jumping or spread shot. And so the game doesn’t incorporate any of these standard arcadey maneuvers. Instead the title takes a pure approach to combat — It’s just you, your sword, and your grip to save you.

In most cases you bait the giant into attacking with it’s massive sword, feet, etc. The impact of these swings and stomps will crater in the earth, rumble the ground, and send your character and debris flying through the air. Dusting yourself off you have only a short amount of time to take advantage of the situation — you must turn around and run back at the monster - latch onto whatever body part you can, and hold on for dear life. Just as soon as you get your foothold you’re lifted high in the air by the giant’s recoil (the game has scale down to a T) , and it’s from here you must climb up the monster’s back, or whatever it has, as it tosses you around like a tiny rag doll.

Often it’s these initial scenes that’ll leave you gasping in awe at the game’s execution of graphical design, animation, sense of scale, physics, music, camera effects… everything. It all comes together perfectly to establish the immediate peril of the David and Goliath situation. This is one of those titles that’s just as fun to watch as it is to play. Your character swings and climbs for dear life as he grasps to fur and skin, and if you’re only spectating then you’re not entirely sure if the person in control latched on in time. It becomes this epic “holy crap that was close” ballet when the creature’s swaying body becomes an interactive background as you climb and leap across swinging arms, torsos, etc. How could this not be cool?

The monsters won’t win any Nobel Prizes, but they’re not dumb, either (well not most of them anyway), and they’ll try to shake and toss you off their backs before you reach their weak points. R1 controls when your character holds on for dear life, but his grip will last only so long as his stamina does. Intense shakes of the appendage your attached to bleeds stamina fast, so you have to take every advantage to rest on even footing while you can. Some of the monsters can see you coming, and when this happens their eyes change color as if focusing on you, and their body will shake frantically in attempt to knock you off. The path you chose to climb becomes a sub game in itself ( a good game is always made up of several smaller games), and sometimes it takes quite a bit of sleuthing to determine which body part you should hold onto when Bessy enters her frantic spasms, and which body part to avoid altogether. Thankfully a wrong move will simply land you on the ground with half health (or so, depending on height). Since your health recovers over time you’ll soon be ready to start the climb again. If you do end up dying then you begin the battle anew (you skip the horse journey part), but this isn’t much of a penalty since most of time in battle is spent determining the order of things and where to travel on the monster’s body, and not whittling down the health meter. The end goal - of course - is the monster’s weak point (denoted by a glowing rune on the head, flanks, etc) into which you shove you sword. Timing here is important, you must play the balance of a long wind-up swing versus the chance you’ll be shaken off the back. It takes numerous stabs to bring the monster down, between which you’ll bleed stamina as each shot sends the monster into a frantic shake fest. If you’re not careful you’ll run out of stamina, lose your grip, and be sent tumbling earthward. Also, the target rune switches positions after a certain damage threshold is achieved, so it’s not like the battle ends once you locate the first rune. Instead it evolves into various stages, and forces you to make your way to more exposed and difficult to reach body parts.

But only half of this allure of this game is the gameplay. The rest is sitting back and enjoying the game’s cinematic style. The camera shakes in varying degrees of intensity to ensure you don’t forget the size of what you’re up against. The fidelity of the character animation is also quite amazing as the hero reacts to the physics of the violent jolts of the creature beneath his feet. Finally, you get a distinct sense of movement from each of the lumbering beasts. Some seem bred for war, while others seem completely docile, and though all the giants do bleed black blood (in vicious streams), sometimes you can’t help but think that a few of these critters could be completely innocent. Certain battles leave you questioning ‘if you’re slaying these beasts for the greater good, or if you’re being duped into killing these as a pawn for some else’s greater plan.

In the end this is a game that must be played by any owner of a PS2. Even those not interested in adventure games should spin it up. The cinematic of this title could easily capture the attention of anyone who is skeptical of video gaming in general, and its simplicity could convert those who believe that gaming is all about shooting cops or simplistic finger mashing reflexes.

And a special mention for the game’s dynamic soundtrack - it’s very well done, and might go unnoticed beneath all that screen shaking action. The only problem with the game is.. well, nothing. A 10/10.

Last week Sony released on of the most original and amazing games ever to grace the Ps2.

Shadow of the Colossus is a must play if your interested in seeing something new and creative.

This game tells the story of a boy whose love has recently died. He brings her body to a temple in a remote location. The boy quickly makes a deal, that burdens him with taking down sixteen Colossi as a tribute, to the temple.

From here you must head out on your trusty horse, guided by the beam emitting from your sword…

What makes Shadow of the Colossus such a refreshing game, quite honestly is how blunt and straight forward it is. You are doing this grad quest for one reason, spill Colossi blood, to save your love!

There are no random encounters as you go from battle to battle; the only puzzles you solve are woven into the Colossus battles themselves. It’s funny when you realized it, but this type of game play actually makes you stop and appreciate the world you’re in. It also fits the story of this game; you can tell this boy has traveled far to a location that is only occupied by demi-Gods.

The Colossi battles themselves are amazing; there is no other way to describe it. If you enjoy intense boss battles this is the game for you. Each Colossi has weak points on them, it is up to you to 1. Figure out where the points are, 2. Find a way to climb to each point on a beast that wants you dead 3. Kill it with your sword.
This chemistry is works so well, considering you are doing all these things with the same sword, bow, and hit points through out the game. You just get a feeling of accomplishment with each kill.

Each of the Colossi are varied in design and abilities, thus far my favorite battle has involve a flying Colossus. I love a game that has me holding onto a tail for dear life, as we whip around in the air. The point I am trying to get across all of these battles have an epic feel.
Now there are blemishes on this game, mainly the camera and controls. Sometimes the camera gets oriented in a way that you need to take a moment to figure out what direction the camera thinks up is. This is not a major problem, as it only happens from time to time, but when you’re wasting time as you strength dwindles it feels like a cheap fall.
Shadow of the Colossus, is a must play for anyone who is getting sick of the same game mechanics/design over and over again. This game makes a few leaps with its straight forward to the point game play and in my opinion it works well. Play it for yourself, I think you will enjoy it.

Just got this one off of bluesnews. Seems that the Collector’s Edition of Age of Empires III comes with an art book, and on the last page of the book is this image (click to enlarge). It shows Age of Empires 1-3 with art depicting their various time’s in history, but there are also entires for Age of Empires IV (modern combat) and Age of Empires V (futuristic combat).

Also according to this same msg board thread on Age of Empires Heaven.com, Microsoft has purchased the domains for ageofempires4.com and ageofempires5.com. They have not reserved ageofempires6.com. Obviously this lends some credibilty to the story.

Hot freakin’ damn.

Also Ensemble is hiring programmers with Massive Online Gaming experience. It’s uncertain at this point if the hirings are related to Age IV or a seperate project (hell, we don’t even know if Age IV really exists). Ensemble has also said that they’d like to move in new directions after the recent release of Age of Empires 3, which probably means that AoE isn’t going MMO. That would be cooler than **it though.

Wikpedia’s 4X page: eXplore eXpand eXploit eXterminate

Wow. This one came out of nowhere.

The developers of the Homeworld expansion ‘Cataclysm’ decided it was time to cut and run when Rockstar purchased their Vancouver offices. Not intending to go down the gritty path of a GTA-game, they instead left to extend their experiences on Homeworld into a full fledged 4x strategy game akin to Master of Orion. It’s looking pretty smacking good, too. I love the Anime-like feel of the ship battles. (note: this game has no connection to the RTS Homeworld)

The UI Shots in the second movie (at the bottom of the game’s official page) almost threw me into a spit-take. The first movie has better shots of the game’s 3D space battles. So colorful and clean. YES PLEASE!

There’s also an interview with the developers on Strategy Informer.

Enjoy.