A lot of this episode revolves around the 30th anniversary of the classic fighting game in this week’s Gaming Flashback, Street Fighter II. The episode also looks at a lot of the hot news around the industry.
The news includes:
Let us know what you think.
Electronic Arts has announced SimAnimals, a game where you play the godlike hand and control the lifestyle of over 60 animals. In the game you’ll play the role of a disembodied hand which moves around and life animals, pick flowers and interact with the environment much like a past Lionhead Studios game: Black and White.
EA’s not exactly being the most creative with this Wii and DS game based on the sounds of it so far, as it clones a lot of the features in Black and White, including how “animals react” when you treat them a specific way. However, we’ve not had this style of game on the Wii or DS, both very “touchy” in methodology.
Black and White had the touch sensitive control scheme using tactile feedback with the mouse implemented with Immersion technology. This brings the style of gameplay to a new level, but nothing we’ve heard thus far makes us think originality. Cute and cool, perhaps but it’s nothing new. Of course, who said it had to be new?
We know old gaming concepts sell well at this point!
This week we’re flashing back to Zaxxon and into a bit of a reflective history on the NES Satellite accessory. We reflect upon how bad Don sucks at Mass Effect and get tips from the community. We’re also checking in on some news this week including:
Microsoft Xbox 360 Outsells PS3 and Wii in Japan We’re also asking a few questions of the week, you can answer them all, one or none (but we’ll give you sad face)! What’s your favorite video game accessory since you started gaming, what actor can make a video game movie a success?
Tech Cruch is reporting that Electronic Arts is about to acquire casual games giant Popcap Games for a cool $1 billion, which would exceed EA’s market cap by over 13%. If true, this would be EA’s definitive entry into the casual games market, a field they broke into 7 years ago.
Despite consuming a significant chunk of EA’s reserves. buying Popcap would bring them IPs such as Bejeweled, Plants Vs. Zombies, Peggle, Zuma and Bookworm.
We’ll keep an eye on this deal as it happens.
