Category: EGM (Electronic Gaming Monthly)


The Creators/Cast of Nickelodeon’s Classic TV Show Pete & Pete to Reunite for One Night Only

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July 20, 2012

Only Petunia Might Not Be There

Like most children of the 90s, growing up I had my TV constantly glued to Nickelodeon. Whether it was watching Stick Stickley in the afternoons introduce cartoons like Doug, Rugrats, or Ren and Stimpy, game shows like Legends of the Hidden Temple or Double Dare, or live-action shows like All That or Salute Your Shorts, I could not get enough of the channel. One of my all-time personal favorite shows though was The Adventures of Pete and Pete.

Dozens of classic episodes, like when the younger Pete went for the world flashlight freeze tag record with his friends, when the entire Pete family had to strip down naked to win the unspoken ‘King of the Road’ challenge on a family vacation, or when the younger Pete tried to figure out the conundrum of where Mister Softee went when the summer ended, Pete and Pete was another example of unique Nickelodeon programming that somehow found an audience with kids.

So, if you were a fan like me, you probably wonder what happened to everyone from the show. Well, if you live in the Los Angeles area, you’ll have a chance to find out.

On August 28th, at Downtown LA’s Orpheum Theater, for one night only as a part of Cinefamily’s Everything Is Festival, almost everyone involved with the show will reunite for a lengthy discussion about the show.

If you’re interested in checking the show out, tickets are on sale now if you’re a member of Cinefamily. Tickets go on sale to the general public on July 21st. General admission tickets are going for $25 a pop and VIP tickets are going for $75, which not only gets you better seats, but gives you the chance to meet everyone who will be on stage at the after party. Maybe then you can finally see if Artie is indeed the strongest man in the world.

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EGM Review: Heroes of Ruin

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Need a dungeon-crawling hero on your 3DS?

When gamers think of expansive dungeon-crawling action-RPGs, they tend to think of games primarily on the PC. And with the popularity of these titles as of late, it’s no surprise to see Square Enix throwing their hat into the ring, too. With the help of developer n-Space, they’ve given us a hack-n-slasher that still provides that sense of collecting loot, leveling up, fighting off swarms of bad guys, and teaming up with friends—but, in this case, it’s on the 3DS.

Heroes of Ruin tells the tale of a world ravaged by war until nearly all-powerful Lords rise up and broker a temporary peace. When Ataraxis—who happens to be a Sphinx and one of the fabled Lords who rules the city of Nexus, which also serves conveniently as a hub world—falls ill, heroes far and wide are called upon to find a cure. And, of course, in the process, they’ll also uncover a sinister plot.

From the start, you can choose from four classes. The Gunslinger is your standard ranged badass type; the Vindicator looks like Lion-O from ThunderCats and swings a massive sword like him, too; the Alchitect is your typical mage character; and the Savage is your brutish tank that likes to get his hands dirty. Once you choose your character, you can do some minor customizing before your adventure starts, but as you start to collect bushels of loot, your character’s look will definitely change further as your progress.

Once you actually begin your quest to save Ataraxis, you’ll quickly recognize that each character has stat sheets that basically translate to “attack,” “defense,” “magic,” and so on. You’ve also got several slots in which you can equip items to bolster these stats, ranging from torso and leg armor to belts, rings, and shoulder pads. You also have three different ability trees, and you can assign one from each to the three corresponding face buttons. If you’re like me and play as the Gunslinger, you’ll find you can throw flasks that act like flashbangs and stun enemies from one button, while you can perform a sweeping arc of fire from your guns to perform a large area-of-effect attack with another.

In terms of gameplay, this is indeed your basic dungeon-crawling RPG, and it does little to differentiate itself from the crowd. If you’re expecting something on the level of Diablo out of this top-down action-RPG, you’ll certainly be disappointed—but, of course, if you were actually expecting Diablo, you might also be certifiably insane. Heroes of Ruin looks nice for a 3DS game, but compared to what you can get on your PC, it obviously pales in comparison. The same goes for the audio, as the voice acting and music push the 3DS’ tiny speakers as far as they can go. I probably could’ve done without the enemies respawning every 30 seconds as well, considering the backtracking required to complete a lot of quests. At least this leads to quick leveling and more new powers, though. So, on the surface, little stands out in a positive way about Heroes of Ruin—though there are also very few outright negatives, either.

But there’s one aspect where the game really shines, and that’s in the social and multiplayer aspects. The game features seamless 4-player drop-in, drop-out co-op and the ability to perform daily challenges via SpotPass, which helps with leveling as well. The most impressive feature, though, is the use of StreetPass to access Traders Network, where you can swap items you pick up as you play. If you’re playing by yourself, this encourages you to be a little social, as you’ll accrue a lot of loot for classes you aren’t using. Instead of just quickly cashing that loot in for a few gold coins, you can get its full value or an item of equal or greater use if you put it on Traders Network.

Overall, Heroes of Ruin won’t disappoint fans of dungeon-crawling RPGs. In fact, it’s a solid effort for a 3DS entry considering the scale and scope of the adventure; the game really only falters from its lack of originality and the fact that anyone expecting more from the hardware will likely end up migrating back to their PC sooner rather than later. If you’re looking to kill a few hours with a hack-n-slash dungeon-crawler that shines brightest when it links up with three other 3DSes for 4-player co-op, though, this might be a good way to get your fix on the go.

SUMMARY: Heroes of Ruin is a pretty game by 3DS standards, with a compelling story wrapped around unoriginal combat, quests, and leveling. 

  • THE GOOD: Seamless 4-player drop-in, drop-out co-op
  • THE BAD: Unoriginal story and gameplay
  • THE UGLY: Never-ending streams of respawning baddies

SCORE: 7.0

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The Sleeper Hold – Episode 5

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With Money in the Bank now behind us and Dolph Ziggler and John Cena the holders of the most coveted contracts there are in the WWE, things began to actually settle down a little as we move forward to next week’s monumental 1000th episode of Monday Night RAW. Several plot lines were tied up as several new ones started. And others took interesting twists in the hopes of making next week’s RAW the most historic episode ever. But before next week gets under way, we needed to get through this week first!

Main Plot Overview: After CM Punk’s successful title defense at Money in the Bank, he came out to tell the folks in Vegas that it was a year ago at that venue when he dropped his infamous pipe bomb and has reigned as WWE Champ for over eight months now. Interrupted by the Big Show though, Punk was reminded that John Cena can cash in his Money in the Bank at any time and if Show were to knock Punk out that evening in their main event match, that would be an awesome time to do it.

Flash forward to the end of the night and many thought that is just what John would do after Big Show DQ’d himself by hitting the referee and continued to swing away on Punk. Mind you, if this match had carried to a natural conclusion instead of a build up to next week, it was a strong contender for Match of the Night. Anyway, those of us who knew better that John would not cash in the briefcase because he is so honorable and righteous and…

…

Sorry, I couldn’t finish that last sentence without throwing up in my mouth a little. I’m good. I’m good. Back on track. But yeah, Cena instead gave Punk a week’s notice that at the 1000th episode of RAW the main event would be him and Punk for the WWE Championship, setting himself up as possibly the first man to lose his title match after winning his Money in the Bank contract match.

Match of the Night: This was very tough as few of the matches that went on were actually worth our time. The mixed tag match between AJ/D-Bryan vs Eve/The Miz was solid, but it was predictable for the most part and had only a couple of nice spots. The match that really impressed me, but wasn’t technically a match since the bell never officially rang, was Ryback vs. Jack Swagger.

First, thank you WWE for finally starting to push Ryback against real competition as I’m tired of watching him powerbomb some 130lb weaklings in a ‘handicap’ match. At Money in the Bank he had a handicap match against real wrestlers in Tyler Reks and Curt Hawkins and then tonight he had some really good spots with Swagger.

Swagger started things off quickly by hitting Ryback as soon as he got into the ring. After tossing him around for a while and even hitting the Swagger-bomb for the first time in nearly forever, he tried to perform the ankle-lock. Twice. But Ryback countered each time and continued to show off his impressive power as he performed a TRIPLE powerbomb on Swagger before starting his chant ‘FEED ME MORE’ once again. Most impressive.

Promo of the Night: Another night of solid promos from several folks, but again Dolph Ziggler stole the show when he decided to ‘show-off’ his microphone skills talking about he’ll be the greatest undisputed world heavyweight champion of all-time. Better than The Rock, Stone Cold, and Bret Hart. Then Chris Jericho showed up.

But for the first time I can ever remember, Jericho didn’t say a word as Ziggler belittled him, saying no one even remembers the last time he won a big match as he’s been on the losing streak of a lifetime. And basically, he’s lost it. After several long minutes of being verbally broken down by Ziggler, it was like Jericho’s eyes started to glaze over…and then he hit a Codebreaker and walked out of the ring. I don’t know if it’ll actually lead to anything, but it was a great job by both men as Ziggler continued to cement himself as a great mic man and Jericho’s presence only helped intensify the entire promo.

Shocker of the Night: For once, AJ and the drama that follows her is no longer the shocker of the night although her and Daniel Bryan getting married next week was a close second. No, the shocker of the night was the long awaited return of the master of the 619, Rey Mysterio.

After Zack Ryder served as a jobber to let Alberto Del Rio take his frustration out on after blowing another title match against Sheamus at Money in the Bank, Rey Mysterio came back after almost a year ‘hiatus’ caused by Del Rio supposedly injuring Mysterio’s arm. To a huge ovation, Mysterio and Del Rio went back and forth for a short while before Del Rio set him up for and hit the 619 to start a new rivalry between the wrestlers. It’ll be interesting to see where it goes from here as both are very strong in the ring as well as to see how crisp the now 37-year old Mysterio is after such a long break.

Cheap Pop of the Night: What will likely be the last time this happens, Heath Slater took on another WWE Legend. Of course, the legitimacy of him as a legend as much as his bloodline being legendary is questionable, but the return of Rikishi was a nice moment for sure.

As has been the motif the past several weeks, Rikishi dominated and hit all his signature moves including the Stink Face as Slater did a nice job of putting an older wrestler over. The nicest thing about this moment though was when the lights went down and The Usos, who happen to be Rikishi’s twin sons, popped out and danced with their poppa. Definitely that moment alone made this worthy of the cheap pop of the week.

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EGM Book Review: Darksiders: The Abomination Vault

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Nation of Abomination

Many major gaming franchises have found numerous ways to break out of their digital worlds and continue to permeate the pop culture between game releases. This cross-medium promotion helps franchises like Halo, Gears of War, Assassin’s Creed, Mass Effect, and many more stay relevant while also expanding on the fiction started in games.

Another of these franchises is Darksiders, which had a comic book one-shot around the release of their first game. With Darksiders II just around the corner though, author Ari Marmell brings us a lot more words and pages (no pictures though) depicting the Darksiders universe in the new novel Darksiders: The Abomination Vault.

The main plot of the book revolves around Death who has just returned from exile for some unknown reasons and the secrets that he has kept hidden for millennia, back when his kind were a dominant, realm conquering species. Only with the help of key angel allies and his brother War can Death hope to keep these secrets safe from those would use them to pick up where Death’s people left off and once again bring pain and suffering to all beings in existence.

If you are a fan of the Darksiders game, this book does a tremendous job of laying a foundation for Death before you get a chance to play as him in Darksiders II. You learn about Death’s personality, his powers, and the lengths he is willing to go to reach his objectives. You also appreciate the brotherly rivalry he has with War as the two play off each other’s strengths in and out of battle very well and very often and it strongly establishes their relationship before you see Death go to battle for his brother in the upcoming game.

But this book isn’t just about building hype up about the game as it stands up as a wonderfully action-packed tale all on its own. The descriptions of the battles that take place and the sinister villains who rise up to face-off against Death and War are brilliant and fans of this kind of fantasy will not be able to put the book down as the pacing is intense and adrenaline fueled.

The only real downside I felt from this book is that there are four horsemen and although it was nice this book wasn’t a Death only adventure, what with War playing an integral part, I would have enjoyed more interaction with Fury and Strife, the other two horsemen in the Darksiders universe who really only had small cameos. Their descriptions were intriguing and their personalities were definitely different enough from War and Death to make them stand up on their own, so for them to never really factor into this grand, realm threatening adventure was disappointing.

All in all though, fans of Darksiders should blow through the 351 pages this book entails in no time once it becomes available July 24th as it’ll serve as a tantalizing appetizer to Darksiders II in August. If you have $15 to spare, this book is definitely a fun and enjoyable read and should be considered if you’re looking for a new fantasy book to pick up.

SCORE: 9.0

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SDCC 2012: EGM Preview: Family Guy: Back to the Multiverse

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Lucky there’s a family guy!

Note: Some language used may seem offensive, but it comes directly from the game and TV show and should be taken in context of such. 

When we first learned that we would be getting a full-fledged Family Guy game for consoles, all us fans of the hit animated sitcom jumped for joy. And when we learned it would revolve around the idea of Brian and Stewie bouncing around parallel dimensions once again like the classic Season 8 episode that introduced the Multiverse, we were ready to crack open a Pawtucket Patriot Ale and start playing.

Obviously, we’re still a couple months away from release though, so you can imagine how we’ve been chomping at the bit to see more of this game, especially after our brief view of the Amish level at E3 only whetted our appetites. So, when given the chance to hop on the Family Guy bus at San Diego ComicCon to see another new dimension, how could we refuse?

The level we saw, the third of the game’s ten dimensions the game will ship with, is a world where cripples are in charge. Every parking spot is handicapped, all sidewalks have ramps, and everyone rides the short bus (which also happens to spawn enemies from). And of course, Joe Swanson is something of a big deal here.  In fact, the menacing ‘Crippletron’ from the infamous “No Meals on Wheels” episode returns with Joe taking his prime spot once again as the head of this monstrosity comprised of hundreds of wheelchair bound enemies.

In terms of the game play, we saw Brian and Stewie effortlessly switch back and forth in mid-level to rain death and destruction upon those who traded in their crutches (one of them anyway) for AK-47s and others who had outfitted their wheelchairs with rockets to reach true ramming speed while carrying guns or clubs of their own.

Luckily, Brian and Stewie have plenty of tricks of their own up their not paralyzed sleeves. We saw everything from sniper rifles, assault rifles, automatic shotguns, flamethrowers, and laser blasters, all of which could be upgraded by earning cash from causing destruction in the environment and laying waste to your enemies. We also saw a variety of special items on the game’s item wheel, including golden eggs that hatch into fighting chickens and Stewie’s patented diaper grenade, to help Brian and Stewie move their way through these new and unusual worlds while also paying their own little tribute to some of the TV series’ best episodes.

One of the nicest things we saw with the demo though was how in just a short month the game’s look and feel seems to be a lot cleaner and crisper than the demo we saw at E3. And when you combine that look which falls directly in line with that of the show, some solid third-person shooter action, and some absolutely hysterical writing, as the game is being written by the folks at Fuzzy Door and everything is approved by Seth MacFarlane himself, its very easy to see how fans of Family Guy should start getting excited about this game. The only question now is what other dimensions besides the Amish and Handicapable worlds will Brian and Stewie travel to? We’ll just have to wait until September to find out.

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SDCC 2012: Hands-On: Transformers: Fall of Cybertron

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More Than Meets the Eye

Some franchises are what Comic-Con was made for. That perfect pop culture blending of action figures, video games, comic books, cartoons, and movies ensuring that they resonate with fans of all kinds on at least some, if not all, of those mediums. Transformers is one of those franchises and they kicked off SDCC 2012 with a bang.

On the heels of their major announcement that they’re actually moving Transformers: Fall of Cybertron’s release date up a week to August 21st, High Moon Studios and Activision invited us for a chance to go hands-on with not only some of the single player campaign, but dive into their revamped multiplayer modes and new Transformer customization feature for the first time. And this new time with the game only makes me wish they moved it up even further because Transformers: Fall of Cybertron looks to hit every major note with fan boys and hardcore gamers everywhere.

I started my evening by jumping into the single player campaign and trying my hand at some missions midway through the game. My first mission threw meright into the pilot’s seat as I went flying for the first time with Combaticon Vortex through Cybertron and mowed down Autobot grunts with machine guns or dropped some devastating bombs on them that wiped out chunks of the battlefield. What was amazing about this mission though was how critical Vortex’s vehicle mode was as the battle took place across platforms of varying altitudes. As I transformed and let out a circuit shattering shockwave, I immediately had to leap and seamlessly transform back to vehicle mode and start climbing to take down grunts with rocket launchers before switching back to robot mode and moving further into the base. It was crisp, clean, and felt damn good.

I then skipped ahead a little further and if Vortex felt good, playing as Megatron felt down right badass. With his massive tank cannon I turned countless Autobots to slag as their puny pistols bounced off my frame. And then with his new hover mode’s stomp ability, I was able to literally crush them beneath my heel as I continued on my path to counteract the Autobots master plan.

After getting only a taste of the campaign, I hurried off to Team Deathmatch. But before I even had a chance to explore one of the ten maps the game is shipping with, I played around with the Transformers customization mode where I mixed and matched different body parts on one of the four returning classes to make a Transformer truly unique to my style. And announced at SDCC was the Insecticon and Dinobot customization DLC pack that would add features to this mode. While it may sound like a costume pack, which I admit isn’t something I typically get excited for, to make my own personal multiplayer avatar look like one of these iconic Transformers definitely piqued my interest.

So, once I made a red and blue Autobot Infiltrator with a Short Fuse EMP Grenade and some massive shoulders, I rolled into combat and wreaked havoc (I was match MVP with 15 kills to 7 deaths with 6 assists, but my team lost 33 kills to 30 before time ran out) in what is still a tremendously tight mode.

Admittedly angry over my team’s loss, despite my personal domination, I tried out the Conquest mode next. Set up as your standard Capture the Point match, we were required to capture three possible stations and scored points every few seconds for each of the three we had. First to 400 points was declared the victor. Again, a very tight take on a classic versus multiplayer mode, but this time my team was victorious although my K/D was a lot worse. I shared the MVP award this time with EGM News Editor, Eric L. Patterson as I captured the most points, but he dominated on the K/D front.

Finally, we moved over to the revamped Co-op mode, Escalation. Although featured in War for Cybertron, this Transformers take on Horde mode has a new twist in that each player is required to fill one of four positions. Only one person can be a healer, one can be a gunner, one can be a shield, and one can deploy ammo. This forces a lot more teamwork and communication than in the previous version of the mode and deters anyone from being a lone wolf. Eric and I found this out the hard way as we couldn’t even get past 10 waves before succumbing to the Decepticon onslaught. Traps of all kinds littered the battlefield that we could activate for a price, and each unit had a special power to help turn the tide of battle, but even on Easy Mode, if you don’t work as a team, you’re just booking yourself one way tickets to the scrap heap.

When all was said and done, I don’t think I could have been more impressed with Transformers: Fall of Cybertron as a whole. I can’t wait to see the full campaign and how everything ties together and I really can’t wait to spend a night just making a dozen different personal Transformers for multiplayer. I think that any and all Transformers fans out there, no matter what medium may have drew them into the franchise, will find something to love about this game and am really looking forward to getting my hands on the full thing next month.

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EGM Game Over Podcast 004: Surviving San Diego

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July 15, 2012

EGM Game Over Podcast 004: Surviving San Diego

The EGM crew brings you the Game Over Podcast, our end-of-the-week conversation where we discuss some of the biggest recent events in gaming.

[Hosts] Brandon Justice, Ray Carsillo, and Eric L. Patterson
[Date] July 13th, 2012

[Special] Brandon, Ray, and Eric travel to the San Diego Comic-Con 2012, and talk about the first few days of the show, Tomb Raider, Injustice, Fortnite, Beyond: Two Souls, the ups and down of cosplay, bringing babies to conventions, and much more.

If you’d like to hear the previous three episodes you can check them out on iTunes below.

[Subscribe via iTunes] http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/egm-radio/id538629924
[Subscribe via Feedburner] http://feeds.feedburner.com/EGMRadio

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The Pullbox – Issue #4.2

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July 9, 2012

Another slow week for the most part, most likely because of the July 4th holiday, but the comics that did come out were mostly quality. So let’s see what we grabbed in this week’s Pullbox! Quick note: With EGM storming SDCC next week, the Pullbox will be taking a week off!

Marvel – Amazing Spider-Man #689 – Spider-Man, along with help from the living vampire, Michael Morbius, has found a way to once again supposedly cure Dr. Curt Connors of being The Lizard. What neither knows is that although they’ve cured him of the physical affliction of being The Lizard, Connors’ brain is still that of his reptilian alter-ego and sets plans in motion to continue his quest to make all of Manhattan populated by lizard people!

For the most part, I refuse to read Spider-Man comics ever since the worst storyline I’ve ever read in my comic book loving life in One More Day. But in honor of the new movie (which was awesome by the way) and new game (also really good) I figured I’d buck the boycott for one week, especially as it involves the Lizard. What perfect timing that he’s the main bad guy in the movie (sarcasm)! Seriously though, this was a solid comic if you’ve stuck with the wall-crawler through his ups and downs then you’ll enjoy the action as it sets up an epic storyline between Spidey and one of his all-time great foes. And Michael Morbius’s presence is the icing on the cake.

Marvel – Wolverine #310 – After being out of Wolverine’s spiky hair for some time, Romulus has found a way to escape out of Cloak’s darkness dimension and has also found a way to bring Sabretooth back to life. But was Sabretooth ever dead to begin with? Going back to where his most heinous memories originate, Wolverine searches Silver Fox’s cabin and the Weapon X facility and realizes he’s stumbled into another nightmare, a Sabretooth clone factory.

You knew it was only a matter of time before both Romulus and Sabretooth came back. The idea of clones though is probably the least interesting way they could have done it. Still, Jeph Loeb is one of the few people I trust with this and the set-up so far has been tremendous. Lots of action and making Cloak and Dagger major players will be interesting if they stick around for the whole of the arc. All in all if you like Wolverine, this will have everything you love about him in it, bub.

DC – Batman: Detective Comics #11 – Mr. Toxic’s true identity is revealed as…Hugh Marder?! The man Batman has been trying to save is also the same man who is trying to kill him and so there is a lot more science involved debauchery going on as the on going theme this week seems to be clones.

I understand that DC is still trying to build up Batman’s rogues gallery (for some unknown reason since it’s the most celebrated in comics already), but this story is a bit too sci-fi for me and Mr. Toxic looks like a bootleg version of the Atomic Skull. Honestly, so far this arc has been very forgettable and has done nothing to impress me and if it wasn’t a Batman monthly, I’d probably have dropped it from the Pullbox with a lot of the other ‘New 52’ garbage DC has tried to force down our throats. Hopefully this will start to pick up, or at least end quickly so that we can start a new arc that maybe I’ll care about.

DC – Red Lanterns #11 – The Red Lanterns continue their search for what has caused their power battery to become corrupted before it’s too late. The new human Red Lantern is lost in space and following his own trail of death, Bleez is trying to beat off the Star Sapphires, and Atrocius is still using blood prophecies to try locate his abomination that started it all. Who will find the source first though?

I liked that even though there was three different stories going on at once, the pace of the comic kept up throughout and there was just enough action to keep you intrigued about what might happen next with each major character and if any of them would finally catch their quarry. It does a great job of setting up the major confrontation in the next issue that we’ve been waiting for though and will hopefully end this ‘plagued’ Red Lantern Battery arc so we can get back to seeing what Red Lanterns do best and that is kick intergalactic butt.

IDW – The Cape 1969 #1 – Set in the midst of the Vietnam War, this origin story for Joe Hill’s The Cape sees how the main protagonist of that original volume comes into possession of the demonic piece of cloth and where it gets its power from as we watch his dad fight through 1969 Vietnam.

Joe Hill is one of the best comic writers of the day and seeing him branch out from his already amazing Locke and Key series is a real treat. What’s best about this comic though is that you don’t need to have read the original The Cape to pick this up and start enjoying it for what it is. This gritty, gruesome, swear word filled first issue will blow you away with its depth and action and make you forget that its supposed to be the origin story about a soul-consuming piece of cloth. Joe Hill definitely got his daddy’s writing genes.

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The Sleeper Hold – Episode 4

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This week’s Monday Night RAW saw the love triangle that has been AJ, Daniel Bryan, and CM Punk start to sink the champ and the number one contender. John Cena, Chris Jericho, Kane, and the Big Show are also starting to get into each other’s heads as MITB is right around the corner. Teddy Long was this week’s Interim GM and he put on the quite the show. Quick note folks: EGM will be down at San Diego ComicCon all next week and so The Sleeper Hold will be put on hold for a week. Thanks for understanding.

Main Plot Overview: With an opening promo that really set the two main storylines off and running, it’s hard not to start getting excited for MITB. Although John Cena continued to walk the company line and turn all negatives into positives, Chris Jericho and Daniel Bryan saved the day with a hysterical catchphrase battle with Jericho obviously winning as he has a much fuller repertoire than D-Bryan.

CM Punk also came to the ring though and talked about the irony of AJ being the special guest referee for his and D-Bryan’s MITB WWE Championship match, but soon Kane and Big Show joined the fun before all hell broke loose.

Clearly, the WWE knows the WWE Championship has the best players involved right now so by putting over both Punk and Bryan’s blossoming rivalry along with re-inserting John Cena and his rivalry with Big Show and Jericho and Kane into the picture, this is the reason why we continue to watch wrestling. And the best part is how AJ finds a way to always steal the show!

Match of the Night: In terms of match quality, this was one of the weaker RAWs we’ve seen in a while. Most matches ended in only a few minutes or didn’t even get started due to classic heel maneuvers. It was good to build characters up for the MITB PPV again, but if you were looking for any kind of wrestling, this definitely wasn’t the night to watch.

But if I had to choose, I was pleasantly surprised actually by the Mixed Tag Team match between the odd team of Sheamus and AJ taking on Vickie Guerrero and Dolph Ziggler. Obviously, this was mostly a match between Sheamus and Dolph as the two put on a really good show hitting very solid spots. If they had put on this good a match at No Way Out, I would’ve walked away a much happier camper than I already was from that PPV. The end was also solid as after Sheamus Brogue Kick’d Dolph out of the ring (just after Dolph did the cowardly heel move of tagging in Vickie), AJ came in, pulled off a couple of nice moves including her Daniel Bryan-esque kick to the head finisher and got the pin.

Promo of the Night: As good as the opening promo was, especially with Jericho and Bryan trading catchphrases, and a later catty one between Eve and AJ that was surprisingly solid, the clear winner for this is Paul Heyman’s interview via satellite with Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler.

Heyman’s big announcement was that Brock Lesnar is waiting for the 1,000th episode of RAW to announce if he will participate in Summerslam (need to fill those three hours pretty badly now). But it wasn’t just this announcement, it was that he declared he had figured HHH out. That HHH wanted to be destroyed at Summerslam by Lesnar because then HHH could be a hero, the king carried off the battlefield on his shield and placed in the corporate suit he has desired for so long without losing any face with the WWE Universe or the wrestlers in the locker room. And he did with that classic Heyman venom that makes you appreciate how good a heel he truly is.

Shocker of the Night: Tyson Kidd’s quick upset of Tensai was in the running for this, but again this seemed to just be a way to build up hype and conflict between participants in MITB. But it was the frontrunner until the very end of the night.

At this point, AJ’s continued interference in matches isn’t something new or surprising. In fact, it’s getting close to the point of irritation now (I still love her though) and hopefully this storyline will start to wind down after the results at MITB. But how she decided to interfere in the CM Punk and John Cena vs. Chris Jericho and Daniel Bryan tag-team main event of the night was absolutely brilliant.

After all four men entered the ring for the standard chaos that ensues in these kinds of tag matches, Cena and Jericho fought each other up the ramp and out of sight. Punk and Bryan, the legal men, then put on a great individual effort with quick pacing, a few great spots with counters and high flying maneuvers, and then AJ made her appearance. When ignored by the two terrific tacticians in the ring though, she resorted to desperate measure and pulled out a table. Maybe like the Dudley Boys of yesteryear, she’s got a thing for wood. Anyway, she climbed to the top turnbuckle and made it seem like she was going to put herself through the table. Finally, Punk and Bryan’s attention was got and they moved over to convince her it wasn’t worth it. When in the right place, AJ then pushed them both through the table, started laughing maniacally, and started a ‘Yes’ chant all her own. My jaw dropped as my fellow New Jersey AJ native pulled one over on the WWE Champ and number one contender. Wow.

Cheap Pop of the Night: Continuing the trend leading up to the 1,000th episode, Heath Slater has been taking on WWE Legends. And for a good while I thought this would be the week the streak of this being the ‘Cheap Pop of the Night’ would be broken as Doink the Clown returned to a WWE ring…unfortunately. Lucky for Heath though as he finally broke his losing streak and emerged victorious. The cheap pop came though when DDP, Diamond Dallas Page, walked down to the ring to congratulate Heath on the win. After a hearty handshake, not surprisingly, DDP then hit the Diamond Cutter and the crowd erupted.

Honestly, DDP looked in bad shape. He was deathly thin and I thought he was going to hurt himself doing the Diamond Cutter and looked the worst of all the Legends to come out for this segment so far. I also wonder what sorry sap had to come to ring dressed as Doink as I highly doubt it was the original.

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EGM Interview: The Secret World’s Martin Bruusgaard

Filed under: EGM (Electronic Gaming Monthly), Written — Leave a comment

Set in a world just like ours, The Secret World asks what would be if all the monsters, myths, and legends we’ve told over the years were actually true…and gives you a chance to kick their butts. We sat down with Martin Bruusgaard, Lead Designer on The Secret World to pick his brain about it all as the game launches today.

EGM: Instead of your typical class or level systems, The Secret World touts being ‘highly customizable’ when it comes to your characters so there isn’t the standard level grind of a lot of other MMOs. How do you think this will affect the draw of your game to the more hardcore MMO player who is used to these systems and how does this customization feature work in powering up your character?

Martin Bruusgaard, Lead Designer: I think hardcore MMO-ers will find this as a very welcomed break from the norm. I think players have been waiting for a game where they’re not locked down to a class, but rather let the players forge their own play style. Remember that when you play a class, you are locked down to that class forever. If you want to try a new class you have to start a new character and then play through all the content you played before, while your friends are all in the endgame. In The Secret World you can swap out abilities whenever you want, except for when you’re in the middle of combat. This means that the different strategies to take down a difficult encounter multiplies thousand fold, and this has always been the design intent; To give players the freedom to make smart decisions, and reward them for it.

EGM: The game takes place all over the world in both real world locales and fictional settings. With the real world settings it is easy to draw inspiration from, but where did you get your designs for the mythical places your adventure in The Secret World will take you?

MB: What do you mean by fictional setting? Everything is true! Hehe, joke aside, we have a fantastic team who have investigated all types of myths and legends all around the world. We developed many different concepts for the different locations, and went with the ones that seemed most plausible in our real world setting. Since we are mimicking the real world, OUR real world, it’s very important that even the fictional locations are believable. We are trying hard to make it feel just like another place you can visit. What does El Dorado look like today? What is all this machinery doing in Hell? Play the game and find out!

EGM: Aside from these mythical locations, much of the game draws from various mythologies, local legends, and pop culture and even features time travel. How was it to try to strike a balance between these creative elements to make them still feel new and refreshing to players?

MB: As I mentioned, we have a great team that investigates all these different elements of our world, and a lot of the challenge are incorporating this into the game world in a believable fashion. I really hope players will appreciate the amount of research that has gotten into the game. Everything from NPC names, to item names to little snippets of information you can pick up through the lore system. Some players will probably enter our travel hub, and think “Cool, they have a travel hub”, but I hope most of our players will actually Google why it’s called Agartha…

EGM: A key to any MMO is PvP. Talk to us about how The Secret World‘s PvP works in a world without leveling and what makes it stand out from the competition. 

MB: First of all I should mention that we have 3 factions, The Templars, The Illuminati and The Dragon. Having three sides in PvP always creates more interesting gameplay. There’s never 2 sides just butting heads, but one always have to look out for that joker in the mix.

We have 3 different kinds of PvP. In each hub, we have a fight club, which is a free for all PvP arena. This is a perfect spot for players to practice dueling, or just to test out their builds. Players are also already making plans to host PvP tournaments there. In addition to that we have the Battlefields. These are legendary locations all over the world, which the secret societies fight over. The two locations we launched with are Stonehenge, and Eldorado. Stonehenge is a king of the hill type of match, where each of the three secret societies has sent a team of five players to battle over who gets to control the power of Stonehenge. In Eldorado, the secret societies have sent a team of 10 to battle over some ancient Mayan artifacts. This is a capture the flag type of gameplay, but the twist is that instead of bringing the flags back to your base, you have to pick a spot on the map and defend them with your life.

Finally we have the Warzones, which are persistent PvP playfields that can hold up to 275 players simultaneously. Players fight over control of different facilities, and the cool thing is that the bonus for controlling these facilities is distributed across the whole secret society, not just the ones fighting. So you can basically go in there, kick ass, and become the hero of your secret society, since they all benefit from your efforts.

EGM: Another thing that we noticed makes The Secret World stand out a bit is the audio. From the moans and groans of the undead to the citizens you try to help, it sounds like there is a voice actor for every character in the game! What went into the audio production in the game and how important do you think it is to setting the supernatural mood?

MB: We are putting huge emphasis on the sound in our game. We have gotten some fantastic music composed that really sets the tone perfectly if you’re walking in a back alley in London, exploring the forest in Transylvania or traversing the desert in Egypt. We have also gotten some world class voice actors to give life and soul to the various characters the players will encounter. We give out quests or missions as we call them, a bit differently in our game. The characters the players will meet in the game world will never ask for anything specific from the player, but rather tell them a snippet of their own life and the situation they’re in. Therefore it’s very important that their voices are first class, and that the players believe and empathize with them.

EGM: The elephant in the room is obviously you guys have a subscription base going in. You’re starting to see a lot of MMOs move towards the Free-to-play route. Was this ever an option for you guys? Is there a possibility of that happening in the future? What made you stick to this route?

MB: We’ve obviously considered several business models, and we concluded that the subscription model was the right one for The Secret World. There is definitely still room for the subscription MMO provided you can supply the level of quality both in the launch version as well as in the ongoing updates after launch.

EGM: You’re wrapping up the beta here as the game prepares to drop July 3rd. How important has the beta been towards making the push to the final product and making those last tweaks to the game world, especially so close to launch?

MB: It’s been incredibly valuable. We have had some fantastic testers, which actually focused on testing, instead of just playing the game for a couple of hours to see if they will buy the game at launch. We have reacted to their feedback continuously, and have patched very frequently. We have also set up runs with the testers where the developers went in as observers to see what issues the players were facing, what they could potentially exploit, measure the difficulty rating, etc.  It has been a very successful beta in our views, and we are very grateful to all our testers.

EGM: The game’s story does come to an end after a long and winding road, but are there any plans in the future for add-ons possibly already in the works or a fourth faction maybe to play as aside from the Dragons, Illuminati, or Templars? 

MB: We have lots of plans for the coming years! The story does not end, but a chapter finishes. It will give the players some closure and more understanding of The Secret World universe, but there are still questions to be answered. As the players play the game, they will realize that there are definitely other factions at play here, but if the players get to play as them remains to be seen. We will release our post launch plans, and our content update info relatively shortly after launch.

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