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Wii Code:7772-0280-1154-0427
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Cort put together something special for all of you this Monday morning. Now that Calling has officially been announced, Cort can talk about some impressions of the game! A little behind-the-scenes action with his Hudson buddies netted him eyes-on, and he's got the goods for you. You enjoy that while I sneak off to bed. See you all in a fews, short hours.
At E3, Hudson invited me to a very special "suite" appointment in a hotel near the LA Convention Center. Why was it so special? Because they were only hosting a handful of people for individual appointments, and they were to be shown some exclusive unannounced games, some of which would really surprise most people that they are coming from Hudson. I was one of those lucky few, because they love all of you and wanted to show it by sharing.
The first of those games I can talk about is known as Calling, and might be familiar to a few of you who remember some footage that leaked last fall (and in fact, I hear you can still find this footage on YouTube if you look hard enough). Calling is a survival horror game that takes things back to some of the genre's roots, eschewing what has become the standard blood and gore fest of American horror with all its zombies, mutants, rocket launching semi-automatic uzi tazer guns, and violence for what was described to this gaijin as a more Japanese approach to horror: using actual suspense to build an emotional reaction.
For example, instead of facing a hoard of mucus-frothing zombies all lurching at you with brainlust, you might be surrounded by darkness with only your cellular phone and a flashlight to figure things out when a strange sound comes from out of sight. Turning to check it out, you see something that quickly vanishes.. was it a hand creeping out from under a bed, or a face around the corner?
The scene of a typical evening stroll along Geary Blvd in San Francisco
I've never been a fan of American horror with its over the top goriness, zombies or violence, so to hear there's a game that I can finally enjoy in the genre is a great feeling. That it's a game on the Wii and takes advantage of the platform's strengths is a bonus. On the note of Wii-fashioned games, some may be quick to criticise the game for having an unoriginal story, for possibly being "on rails", or for hopping on the "Wiimote as flashlight/communication device" bandwagon; but the truth is none of us really know enough to make those kinds of judgement calls yet. All I know is that it looks like a game I might actually enjoy playing, which says a lot for someone with the tastes described above.
One of the things that really stood out for me when watching the 5 or so minutes of footage and developer interviews was that it looks substantially better than what leaked last November. That doesn't mean it's perfect or polished for release... just better overall. I tried to wrangle another chance to watch it before writing all of this in the hopes that Hudson might also let me share the updated videos with all of you as proof, but it seems they're hard at work taking things to the next stage, so you'll have to hold tight and take my word for it now :)
We should hopefully be hearing more about Calling and the other games I got to see soon... Hudson is really stepping out on a limb to expand their horizons a bit; I know I was pretty surprised by all of it, so hopefully you'll enjoy it just as much! —cortjezter
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Indeed. I want all three to do well so we can see a healthier amount of survival horror games that focus on the survival and horror, not more third person shooters that disguise themselves as horror games. *looks at RE5* Gah, I like RE5, I really do, but the game was NOT scary in the slightest. Same goes for Dead Space, it wasn't really very scary, but at least Dead Space offered more potential for the scares than RE5 did (it did make me jump at least 2 or 3 times). I like both games... but they're just not scary, and really feel more like shooters than anything.
Silent Hill: Homecoming was the least scariest Silent Hill game. The game was still good and all, but the game just didn't give me the same chilling feeling the other games in the series do. Shattered Memories looks like it'll really get the heart pumping since you have to run from the monsters and can't defend yourself with any weapons.
Anyway, looking forward to The Calling coming out next year in North America.
Where did you get that information? As of now, there has only been speculation based on the leaked footage.
I'm sure there are plenty of scripted events to build the suspense mentioned, but I'm reasonably sure it's NOT going to be on rails because a) it's not a shooter b) there appear to be explorative/puzzle elements that would require freedom for the user.
Maybe it is a linear story and game progression, but that is vastly different from the "rails" some people seem so vocally against.
If it is, then I'm definately very interested in this game as the footage looked pretty good.
Popple
well, the "ju-on/Grudge" game is also : a) it's not a shooter b) there appear to be explorative/puzzle elements, but the game its on rails.
but i hope with all my gamer soul that "the Calling" its free Roam and i CAN Choose where im going.
There doesn't seem to be any confirmation about Ju-On being on rails either. From what I can tell, it's a first person horror game that uses the Wiimote only. The control scheme is you press B for moving forward, D-pad down for moving back (I'm getting this information from an older news story that reported on the game using a rather "odd" control scheme) and you move where ever the flashlight is pointing, and the flashlight is controlled by tilting the Wiimote. If anything, Ju-On MIGHT be on rails, but the Killer 7 kind of on rails, not the House of the Dead kind.
From what I can tell about The Calling, we honestly have NO confirmation as to it's type of gameplay as well. Like Hanzo pointed out, it could actually be a point-and-click game, which is what the recent screenshots lead me to believe. Heck it may even be like Metroid Prime and be "first person adventure." Truth is that we're kinda just jumping to conclusions here without the official confirmation from Hudson on the matter. Could it be on rails? Maybe, but that's all I can say. Remember that a lot can change over the past few months since the beta footage was leaked.
@MrBubbles
Hey look on the bright side: IF it is on rails, then at least it's starting out that way and isn't something like "Lost Planet, which was a a linear third person shooter on the 360, PC, and PS3, will soon be coming to the Wii as an on rails shooter like House of the Dead." It's like House of the Dead, it's always been on rails so what does it matter?
I saw Grudge at E3 also, and while it seems guided and mostly linear, it's not on rails.
But like I said, nobody knows enough to say one way or another; I personally don't care.. it looks like fun either way.
You heard it here folks!
Random information: Ju-On's going to be $30, which sounds appropriate since the game is mostly being billed as a haunted house simulator, with the main focus on just scaring the player, no combat, and the puzzle solving is kept pretty minimal. Also it sounds like the game is only going to have about 4 levels. How do I know this stuff? I do research, that's how!
I just can not understand why there's so much hate towards on rails game on this site. There are 360 and PS3 owners on YouTube who say that they're jealous of Wii owners for getting games like Dead Space: Extraction and the Resident Evil Chronicles games. Not kidding, some of these said comments aren't hard to find, but they're typically downrated (most of the comments are usually stuff like "I want it on 360/PS3!" or "crap, it's Wii only
I suppose I need to find somewhere new to actually discuss rails games with fellow fans of the genre like me.
House of the Dead, Area 51, Star Wars arcade game, T2 Arcade, Resident Evil Chronicles, Dead Space: Extraction, Ghost Squad, Time Crisis, Killer 7, Ikaruga, Star Fox, Sin and Punishment, shall all help the rails stay well greased! (man, all this on rails talk makes me want to go to Six Flags and ride the roller coasters.)
Mad Dog McCree can be forgotten though, it wasn't even fun years ago when I played it in the arcades.
wow those ps360 fans either dont know about the game or are being sarcastic... i will trade dead space extraction for a new 3rd person Dead space any day of the Week, and im not even commenting on RE on rails vs RE 3rd person, there is no hate towards Rail shooters, the hate is when developers Take a game like "Resident Evil" and make it a rail shooter, because the system is Weaker than the others.
but about the Grudge game, i know it goes back and forward,so its guided... why? why not make it a REGULAR first person horror?
i hope "The calling" its on Rails OR Guided...
I'm not kidding. I'm a two system owner so I'm fine with what I'm getting. I already got RE5 earlier this year and got my fill of shooting infected natives in the third person viewpoint, now I'm looking forward to the sequel to one of my favorite rail shooters of this gen. I'm a big fan of RE2 as well, and Code Veronica is a little underrated in my opinion, so seeing these two games come together to bring me a new take on the both of them pleases me. I'm even playing through Code Veronica X right now so that way I can more easily point out all of the alterations made to the Code Veronica sections (I've already played the heck out of RE2 since it and REmake are my favorites of the classic RE games).
I just have a wider range of tastes than some people and I'm not as picky with what I get. Being a two system owner is probably what made me be this way, because now I'm not "jealous" that the other people are getting something that I'm not, because now not only can I have Resident Evil 5 and Dead Space, but I can also have the Resident Evil Chronicles games and Dead Space: Extraction as well.
I like fun! Eternal Rain I know is with me on this, I should say I'm with him because he has talked about it before me in this feedback section.
Blam blam! Zap zap! Pew pew pew!
Well I wouldn't really say that first sentence. I mean, yes I don't understand why people seem to hate on rails games so much on this site, even if the game/series was already on rails from the beginning. I love rails games, but I wouldn't really accuse someone of "not liking" fun because they don't like rails games. I wish some people would at least give the games a try first before saying "dis gme sux just becuz itz on railz, and evan tho i've nevar plaid it my opinion stil matars!"
There's a thing out there called renting people, use it if you want to try before you buy.
Getting a little drunk and then playing Ghost Squad with a buddy (particularly if they are more drunk than you) is a lot of fun.
Ah I see. Rail shooters are some of the best co-op games out there. Heck I play rail shooters alone all the time and I still have tons of fun. Dual wield mode in Overkill is pretty fun. I bet I'll be able to do something similar to dual wield in Darkside Chronicles since the game is dropping the nunchuck from the main control scheme (RE:UC needed the nunchuck, but Darkside Chronicles doesn't need it unless you want to play with the zapper shell).
That was before we knew about all of these games though. Once we finally heard about games like Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, The Calling, and Cursed Mountain (okay actually we knew about this game even before Winter, but at the time it seemed almost like Cursed Mountain was the only horror game North American Wii owners would get), most of us seemed to forget about Winter. I still hope it finds a publisher eventually, but considering the competition it's gonna have with Silent Hill (an established IP), and Cursed Mountain (a game that's getting a moderate amount of hype), both of which are also using the theme of "cold fear," it's gonna need to have some very interesting things behind it if it's gonna differentiate itself from it's other "cold-fear-Wii-horror" brethren.
i completely forgot about winter, the Gameplay video looked Good, and according to IGN they saw the "2.0" version and it looked even better, i hope that it gets released someday...
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