– Hints at sea travel, big sound element, vehicles
– Director: “Within the world of computer graphics, the feeling of water is remarkably beautiful.”
– Water usage in the world – a waterfall in a cave, larger river in the middle of town, and “the seas upon which the main characters head out.”
– Director feels that sound is necessary to give life to the world: “I believe we’re progressing well with sound effect production. We placed importance on it from the start, and while it is out of the ordinary from a scheduling standpoint, we started sound development simultaneous with the start of production. In the ‘world,’ there exists ‘sound’ that has been running in parallel for a long time. The influence of this will pull the gameplay and cinematics in good directions, I believe.”
– “‘Water’ and ‘Sound’ — while in the supporting role, they’re also primary players.”
– Ruli has canals, effects people’s lives
– Producer: “The canals lead to the sea, and the sea teaches people that in order to head out on adventure, they need ships.”
– Vehicles might be in the game (or at least ships)
– Producer: “The world in an island will expand with the use of ships. Vehicles in a fantasy world are an important tool for getting you excited.”

Source 1, Source 2

Update: Make sure to check out the Japanese trailer, which shows a bit of additional footage.

“The expansion of Grinder to 360 and PS3 and its subsequent change in gameplay and perspective has been somewhat misinterpreted as a universal change across all platforms. We still genuinely love the Wii and would ideally like to see a publishing partner pick up both a FPS Wii version and a third-person action version specific to the 360 and PS3. We have invested more than year into the Wii; the game is extremely fun, and frankly, we wouldn’t want to see that work ‘thrown away’. But when we decided to add the 360 and PS3 platforms it didn’t seem to make much sense to jump on the rainbow chasing treadmill of trying to do the same game for such dissimilar consoles and end up short changing one or the other.” – High Voltage’s chief creative officer, Eric Nofsinger

I don’t know why High Voltage didn’t say this weeks ago! Many gamers were beginning to assume that the Wii version would also be a top-down shooter, while others suspected that it had been canned. Personally, I’d prefer to play The Grinder as a FPS. What about you guys?

Source

480i vs. 1080p

480i vs. 1080p

Thanks to Johannes for the news tip!

Source

Make sure you pick up this month’s issue of Nintendo Power for a bunch of additional screenshots!

Thanks to Blake S for the news tip!

Put Monster Bucks in Your Crosshairs with the TOP SHOT Hunting Peripheral

Minneapolis, MN – March 30, 2010 – Activision Publishing, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) announced today that Cabela’s Monster Buck Hunter is available now for Wii™. The game brings a fast paced and fun arcade-style experience home for the entire family and comes packaged with the TOP SHOT hunting peripheral that revolutionized the genre and made Cabela’s Big Game Hunter 2010 one of the best selling games of 2009.

In Cabela’s Monster Buck Hunter, you can test your shooting skills in 12 expansive shooting galleries where you can bag loads of big game, small critters and flying birds with an ample supply of ammunition for non-stop hunting action. Take the TOP SHOT challenge with friends and family in 2- to 4-person turn based multiplayer games and use up to seven different power-ups to gain the advantage. The game also features 96 heart pounding missions that start you at the most critical part of the hunt. Your journeys will take you across 24 states and provinces from the bone chilling Yukon to the scorching Sonoran Desert. Hunt 36 species of trophy game including North America’s most sought after Trophy Deer species.

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This information comes from Nintendo Power. The quotes are from producer Josh Olson…

– Team acknowledges that the first game had the player doing “the same thing over and over and over again”
– Want to do more with level design, gameplay design
– Embracing sci-fi element
– Game starts off with thunder, torrential downpour, you’re in a huge oil derrick in the middle of an ocean
– Picks off immediately after the original when you enter the portal
– Not sure where you are when you enter the portal and land in the ocean
– Derrick’s occupants begin to shoot at you
– Game will have some “big vistas and multi-tiered areas”
– Multiple paths, team wants the game “to feel bigger and give players the sense that there’s more going on”
– Sea serpent attacks the facility
– “Having those types of ‘wow’ moments is really important”
– Quantum 3 engine still being refined
– Ford continues to go through the oil derrick, fights with the leviathan one-on-one
– Have to use one of the derrick’s mounted defense targets since normal weapons won’t work
– Serpent targets you and generator that powers the turrets
– Need to find the serpent’s weak points, stun him, then impale him with a harpoon from a turret
– Game has an airborne chase scene, take control of a ship’s rear gun emplacement, shoot pursuers (one enemy type is jet pack-equipped soldiers)
– More NPCs, Ford can interact with them
– There are other aliens besides Adams around the world who control territories
– Adams has been particularly successful, wants to take over the world
– Ford needs to get the help of the other aliens
– Atlantis is the hub, portals to other areas are there
– Some freedom in terms of which stage you’ll take on next
– One mission has you going to Washington DC, need to recover important artifact from the Smithsonian
– More alien growth in the city than in the first game, Drudge and Trust still fighting there
– “AI vs. AI vs. player now”
– Will come across fights already happening
– “The AI in particular has been a big focus for us. We really want the enemies to come across as intelligent. In the first game, they just sit there waiting for you to show up. This time, we want it to feel like a living environment, like everyone was doing something before you got there.”
– Interactive elements in the environment (stuff moves, objects break, enemy knocks over soda machine for cover)
– Wider variety of hostiles, some specific to a location
– Atlantis: 30-foot-tall Guardians
– Siberia: Robotic wolves
– Differences between human soldiers, can carry any weapon (affects AI)
– SEGA/High Voltage will be holding a contest: Can get your name/face on a Missing Person flier or a Wanted poster
– 18 firearms from the original
– Have to tune the Phase Rifle by twisting Wiimote
– Deployable Turret: Set it down, control it with handheld display, can pull the trigger and have it autoaim or target manually
– Regarding the AsE: “…more puzzles and hacking minigames. It’s also a bit more of a detective tool now, we’re trying to put a lot more conspiracy objects and secrets in the environments to give you more reasons to use the ASE. Once you’ve scanned an object, you’ll be able to learn more about it in the game’s new data log. So it really plays into us trying to tell a deeper story.”
– ASE tied to Atlantis
– Using the ASE, can have a bit of control over the Guardians
– 12 players online
– Releasing this fall

Huge thanks to Johnson for the news tip!

This information comes from Nintendo Power…

– Mostly side-scrolling, but sometimes can move to the foreground/background
– Belly dances will allow Shantae to transform into a monkey, elephant, or mermaid
– Hair whip upgrades, can upgrade for animal forms
– Fireball, pike ball, crush puff magic
– A lot of humor
– Game is about 4.5 hours

Source