With each day of E-3 that passes I am more and more convinced that Los Angeles has it out for me. After spending forty-five minutes waiting in line to park my car I ran as fast as I could to make it to the SNK booth in order to see their line-up for the ’05. First off the major thing to note about SNK is their commitment to online gaming. Every title I’m about to talk about is for X-Box and is compatible with X-Box Live in some fashion. First up you’ve got
Samurai Showdown 5. After a seemingly endless number of delays SNK employed Palo Alto based Signature Devices to work on the game for them. After a few minutes with the game I can attest that the game is in good hands. Signature Devices is taking the time and effort to make sure this game meets the quality of past Samurai Showdown games. A cool addition to this game is that it will feature a tournament mode that will allow you to compete with other X-Box Live players. The game will feature all of the cast members present in the arcade version and is looking at an October ’05 release date. Signature Devices is also going to responsible from bringing the revamp of the classic King of Fighters game,
King of Fighters ’94 Rebout. This title will also feature the X-Box Live tournament mode and will ship in November.
For those of you who like your King of Fighters games to be more current, SNK will also be bringing out
King of Fighters 2002/2003 for the X-Box with tournament mode for 2003 only, and if you don’t like your fighting games in 2-D then you’ll be happy to know that
King of Fighters: Maximum Impact Maniacs will also be released for the X-Box with a few new features. For starters there were a lot of people, myself included who weren’t to keen on the English language track for the PS2 version. For those of you who dig your fighting games in Japanese then you need not look any further as a full Japanese voice track has been added. There is also a profile mode where you can pause the game and take screen shots of the action. Lastly the newest addition to the King of Fighers series, KOF Neowave will be hitting the X-Box later this year as well.
Now let’s say you’re not a fan of fighting games but instead are a shooter kind of guy. SNK has the Metal Slug series behind them. For starters, the original Metal Slug that started it all will be hitting the GBA, and in a radical new move Metal Slug will be making a move to 3-D in the new title
Metal Slug Evolution which will hit the current generation of platforms. For those who aren’t all that patient and want their Metal Slug fix now then be sure to check your local game store next week as
Metal Slug 4 & 5 will be hitting the PS2, with the X-Box version dropping later this summer. The X-Box version will also contain online leader boards. And in a twist of something new, the arcade shooter/puzzler hybrid
Twinkle Star Sprites will find its way to a console near you.
A short walk over to Capcom was in order as I just had to get my hands on
Killer 7 for a second time, and I must say I was just as wowed then as I was today. The game has so many different things going for it that I could spend the rest of my space here talking just about this game, but let’s keep it short and sweet since the game is coming out in the midst of June. First off the graphical style is so unique that it’s at times frightful and refreshing, the cel-shading style and interesting use of colors make this game stand out far and beyond anything I have seen on this current generation of hardware. You’ve also got the interesting premise of being in the mind of an assassin and seeing the seven personalities that exist, each with their own sets of skills and stats. Game play is no slouch either as the on-rails shooter game has gotten a much deserved over-haul. As an on-rails shooter you were always destined to follow one path. In Killer 7 it is much different as you can back track through areas and have varying paths that you can take. In order to move you hold down the X button for PS2 or A button for GameCube and you use the left analog stick to select the paths you will run as you explore each mission. Look out for this game in June as it is hands down my Game of Show.
Page 4 of 10