Mongo Nation

We get some hands-on time with Dark Void, and talk to Senior Producer Morgan Gray.

By Jeremy Azevedo

Of all the games scheduled for release early next year, few are as eagerly anticipated as Dark Void. We’ve watched this title evolve over the last couple of years into what is shaping up to be a genuinely unique experience, so it was with great pleasure that we got some play time with the latest build of the game.

The first thing you will notice when you pick up Dark Void is that it is remarkably easy to control, despite the many different operations that you have to manage at any given time. It seems daunting at first, juggling your movement, jetpack, hover abilities, combat, etc. But minutes into it, you’ll wonder why it took someone so long to take the ceiling off the shoot-em-up.

There are so goddamn many ways that you can tackle any given level that it’s almost retarded. You can strafe your enemies from above like a one-man airstrike. Or you can hover over the battlefield tossing grenades, or fly up to a high vantage point and snipe enemies from there. Or you can rip the pilot out of his/her/it’s UFO, hop in and crash that motherf**ker into a crowd of bad guys like some kind of intergalactic Bruce Willis. Or you can get down on the ground and use the excellent cover system to blow your enemies to hell like in Gears of War. You get the impression that there could be an enormous replayability value to Dark Void, if for no other reason than that you aren’t really locked into any one particular method of combat. On some of the vertical combat sequences, for instance, a really good jetpack pilot could conceivably speed run through them and rocket straight to the top. Most people would probably splatter on one of the platforms on the way up but the option is there if you care to risk it.

One way to totally disrespect your opponents is to pinch a loaf on them from above.

Best of all, the camera system is near perfect. I can’t stress the importance of this enough, as it could have really been a deal breaker for the title. I shit you not, the camera in Dark Void is so intuitive to where you are and what you’re doing that you don’t even have to control it with the right thumbstick like in most other games that feature a wide range of movement. This frees your analog sticks up for a myriad of aerial maneuvers, and keeps you focused on steering, which is great. I don’t really know how to explain it, but somehow they managed to find a sweet spot in the perspective of the character and the scaling of the environment that most other titles don’t even approach.

But perhaps it’s better to show you Dark Void than to tell you about it, or at least have someone with more experience do it. Check out the following gameplay walkthrough/interview with Dark Void’s Senior Producer, Morgan Gray. Morgan shows us some of the different approaches to combat, a few of the sweet weapons at your disposal and goes over the story and characters a bit as well. There’s even a little bit of conversation about the movie, so watch for that as well!

We interview Capcom’s Seth Killian before whupping him at his own game!

By Jeremy Azevedo

If you’re a Wii owner, you probably feel just a little bit left out after watching SFIV, Super SFII Turbo HD Remix and Marvel Vs Capcom 2 all pass you by without so much as a wayward glance in your direction.

But clearly, Capcom hasn’t forgotten about you, as Capcom Vs Tatsunoko: Ultimate All-Stars is not only one of the freshest 2D fighters in ages, but is also exclusive to the Wii.

We talked to Capcom’s Community Manager Seth Killian about the decision to develop for the Wii, the challenges of importing the Tatsunoko licenses to the States and circumventing the infamous “friend code” to streamline online play. Check it out!

After chatting with Seth for a bit we set down to a few matches of Capcom Vs Tatsunoko against the man himself. At first glance, it appears as if there are a few too many Gatchamaen/Yattermen/Tekkamen/whatever for the game’s own good, but as it turns out, they all actually play incredibly different. Fans of Marvel Vs Capcom 2 will feel most at home with the speed and flashiness of the gameplay. Combos do billions of points of damage, super moves fill the entire screen and there are enough flashing lights to give a Pokémon a seizure. And yet, I didn’t notice a hint of slowdown or jagginess. Now I’m aware that the Wii isn’t necessarily designed for hardcore graphics rendering, but when it comes to top shelf 2D animation like this, it kills.

All of the characters were a lot of fun in their own way. Frank West in particular was a blast to play as, summoning hordes of hungry zombies to sick on my opponent (who I’m pretty sure was half letting me win/half getting his ass whupped by me fair and square). His timing is a little weird but his super combos are pretty rad. My favorite involves slamming a Servbot mask over your opponent’s head and exploding them ass-over-teakettle. The Street Fighter characters play as expected, but I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by Viewtiful Joe and Kaijin No Soki from Onimusha 4. They’re great new additions with really unique play styles.

On the Tatsunoko side, I’d have to go with Yatterman or Karas as my favorite. Yaterman is both agile and strong, with some really psychedelic super combos. One of them was like a giant robot dog that barfs up exploding lizards or something like that. It’s weird. Karas is just a straight badass, type character, sort of Tatsunoko’s “Akuma” if I had to compare him to someone. Maybe best of all, though, is the titanic Gold Lightan. He’s so big that you don’t get to have a partner when you use him, and it requires the entire stage to scale to his size. It almost seems unfair how big of a size and reach advantage he has, but somehow the balance remains pretty even, especially when you’ve got two other characters teaming up against him.

It also bears mentioning that we were playing on an official-looking arcade style joystick, which worked wonderfully. I’m quite a bit more used to standard controllers by now (as are most people), but there’s something to be said for a joystick setup when it comes to fighting games. When you pick up a copy of Capcom Vs Tatsunoko: Ultimate All-Stars next year (as you very well should), you should probably also consider getting a joystick to go along with it. You’ll be glad you did. Fewer blisters.

Capcom Vs Tatsunoko: Ultimate All-Stars will be available for the Wii on January 26^th, 2010.

Once again, Capcom targets our nostalgia with another pitch-perfect NES throwback.

In anticipation for Dark Void, the jetpack flying, zero gravity action adventure title that we’ve been waiting so long for, Capcom has unveiled a supplemental title exclusively for the Nintendo DSi. Dark Void Zero is a vintage throwback title in the vein of Mega Man 9, and looks to capture the spirit of the early days of gaming beautifully. Of course, Capcom is playing this off as if the game had existed all along, sort of a “lost” game from the Capcom vault of history.

Official press release:

“As the ‘80s were drawing to a close, the developers at Capcom began work on a top secret project that aimed to set new standards for the platformer genre.  That game was called “Dark Rift”, and it blended the intense shooting action of Section Z™ with the latest innovations in platform jumping from Mega Man.  In order to properly fulfill the producer’s vision for Dark Rift (later renamed Dark Void), the hardware engineering team at Capcom was enlisted to design and produce an all-new chipset that would be included in every cartridge, enabling huge numbers of sprites and never-before-seen special effects to be displayed on the aging NES® platform and the PlayChoice-10 NES arcade cabinet.

Alas, time waits for no man and game developers are no exception. The dawn of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System® made the additional hardware requirements for Dark Void redundant. Capcom suspended development on Dark Void as it began to evaluate the SNES. Before long, the game was shelved and drifted into the annals of gaming history. Even the internal tape-based archives were lost due to an unfortunate magnet incident which even today is best left un-discussed. Dark Void became a legendary “lost project” at Capcom…until now.

Nearly twenty years later the next gen version of the game, Dark Void, is back on the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC!  But to commemorate the game’s humble origins, Capcom has commissioned this recreation of the original 8-bit classic, now re-titled “Dark Void Zero,” on the DSi platform.  You play Rusty, the first human born in the Void, who must take on the Watchers in a quest to stop their domination of Earth. With the aid of Nikola Tesla, and his state-of-the-art rocket pack, Rusty must take down the Watchers and their minions across three intense levels of action and intrigue.”

Check out the trailer and all the screens below!

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Final Fight and Magic Sword, coming soon to XBLA and PSN!

When I saw the announcement for Final Fight: Double Impact, I immediately thought (as any rational person might) that this would be a packaging of the first two games in the series. Or maybe they threw in the NES version, “Mighty Final Fight” just for laughs or something. I pretty much expected any pairing of Final Fight titles other than Final Fight and Magic Sword, a game that has absolutely nothing at all to do with Final Fight and probably doesn’t even have a buff dude with a mustache in it or anything.

Not that I’m complaining… I actually love Magic Sword. It’s one of my favorite games. I can even overlook the fact that this will be like the third time I’ve purchased both of these games on various systems throughout the years, because that’s just how timeless they both are. The graphical update (similar to the one applied to Marvel Vs. Capcom 2) doesn’t hurt the games’ chances any, nor does the slick arcade cabinet style presentation, which really bumps up the nostalgia factor for me.

For the uninitiated, Final Fight was the beat-em-up that really kicked off the genre, as well as setting the stage for the one-on-one fighters to follow. In fact, Final Fight characters have made several appearances in Street Fighter games to date, the latest of which is the announced addition of Guy and Cody to Super Street Fighter VI. Magic Sword was sort of a fighter/action RPG in which you beat the shit out of lizard men and manticores through 50 levels of a dark tower, collecting various weapon upgrades, armor, power-ups and followers as you go. Both games also feature the ability to make chicken appear on the floor by smashing barrels, and then eat it to regain lost health.
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I sure hope you like robots…

So Capcom unveiled the US cover art for Tatsunoko Vs Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars today. And I’m looking at it, and I’m thinking, “Wow, there are an awful lot of nearly identical robots, and dudes dressed like robots, nearly all of whom are white with red accents. Is this what 40 years of Japanese animation history looks like?” I would have at least tried not to showcase the sameness of the characters as much as this cover does. It’s a bit underwhelming.