I, for one, feel that vampires have always garnered way too much attention in the world of video games, and werewolves have subsequently been given the short end of the joystick. Alex and Mark of Diehard GameFAN agree with me, and have posted an article where they ask: Where Are All the Werewolves? They discuss six games that give lycanthropes their due, ranging from Altered Beast to The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Can anyone out there think of any other games where you play a werewolf?
As we’ve mentioned a fewtimesbefore, the forthcoming Sonic The Hedgehog game, Sonic Unleashed, will feature a “night mode” where everyone’s favourite spiky blue mammal turns into a werewolf (referred to informally as a “were-hog”). Kotaku has posted a new trailer which features extensive footage of this style of game play. Werewolf Sonic moves slower than regular Sonic, but boasts some punishing physical combat moves, which seems like it might lend some balance to a game that otherwise looks like it consists largely of running as fast as you can through beautiful terrain. Check out the video below:
Say what you want about where Sega has taken the Sonic franchise in the last decade, but this looks pretty damned cool. As previously mentioned, Sonic Unleashed is being released for PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on November 18th 2008. An alternate version for the Wii will be released at the same time.
Word is once again making the rounds about Legendary, the “you opened Pandora’s box and now werewolves and gryphons are attacking the city” first-person shooter from Spark Unlimited. It was recently shown off at PAX, and by all accounts it’s actually exceeding expectations.
CVG has posted fifteen new Sonic Unleashed screenshots, officially released by Sega as part of their continued effort to show that for the first time since Sonic & Knuckles, they’re trying really hard to make a Sonic game that doesn’t suck.
The game’s not out yet, so I can’t attest to the game’s playability, but from the looks of the screenshots, it’s gonna be gorgeous. As an added bonus that makes the game relevant to this site, ten of the fifteen screenshots show Sonic in his werewolf form, whomping the hell out of his foes.
For those who don’t know, Sonic Unleashed is being released for PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on November 18th 2008. An alternate version for the Wii will be released at the same time.
This is a good week for preorders! If you’re interested in Legendary - The Game (formerly Legendary - The Box), it’s now available for preorder. If you’re interested in battling and, apparently, herding werewolves (among other supernatural creatures), you can pick it up from Amazon for Playstation 3, Xbox 360 or Windows (2000, XP or Vista). It ships November 4, 2008.
If you’re interested in the werewolves in Legendary The Game (formerly Legendary - The Box), Kotaku has a great werewolf-centric screenshot gallery up. The poster, Mike Fahey, mentions that the werewolves look exactly like the ones that plagued his childhood nightmares, and many of the commenters on the gallery express similar sentiments. Did any of you have werewolf nightmares when you were kids?
Ninja Gaiden II, the sequel to 2004’s Ninja Gaiden for the Xbox, contains werewolves. Lots of them. In fact, one might infer from the available screenshots that the game’s main activity consists of decapitating lycanthropes as flamboyantly as possible, with requisite Monty Pythonesque gouts of blood. Yet despite their disposable nature, the lycanthropes in Ninja Gaiden II seem to have a great deal of care and attention to detail in their design. Here are two particularly noteworthy images from GameSpy and IGN. Read more…
Do you like first-person shooters? Do you like bloodthirsty werewolves, pedestrian-munching gryphons and giant tentacles that destroy police cars? Then you may like Legendary - The Box, a new game for Xbox 360 and PS3. The premise? Next Generation summarizes it nicely in their preview of the game:
Bad news. Charles Deckard, gentleman thief, has opened Pandora’s Box. The real one, which turns out to have been quietly on display in the New York Met all these years. The consequences? An eruption of mythical animals flowing through Manhattan, and reducing the world to a crumbling, September 11-influenced wasteland.
What makes Legendary stand out, from all reports, is the game’s AI– the process that controls your opponent’s actions. The werewolves don’t discriminate: they’ll eat you, but they’ll make a nice snack out of your foes, too, which is a dynamic that provides a high degree of challenge and entertainment. From MTV Multiplayer’s account of the game:
I shot off the lock. The werewolf systematically took out everyone in just a few seconds. The problem: He didn’t commit suicide afterwards. I had to deal with him.
Legendary is being developed by Spark Unlimited and published by Gamecock. You can visit the official site here.
Nibris, a game studio based in Cracow, Poland, is getting ready to release a game titled Sadness for the Nintendo Wii. Set in Europe during the 1910s and presented entirely in atmospheric black and white, Sadness is a psychological horror game for adults. According to concept art and comments made by the game developers, many of the creatures in the game are inspired by Slavic mythology. And what does that mean? Why, that means werewolves, of course!
According to Gaming Today, the werewolves in Sadness “will not have a whole lot in common with the more traditional aspect of werewolves. In the game, the werewolf is born human and when mature they will change during the full moon and will not regenerate after death.”
Not much else is known about Sadness at the moment. Game news sites like GameSpot and IGN are maintaining game overview pages that have been largely stagnant since 2006, but yesterday’s announcement by Emergent Game Technologies (who are providing the development platform for Sadness) has stirred up interest and some new information.
Players will need to confront their greatest fears and protect themselves in hopes of not getting trapped inside the main character’s nightmare. The game has eight different extreme endings each with their own premise, which are assigned to a player based on specific factors during the game. To compliment the intense gameplay, the Wii-mote and Wii Nunchuk control the main character’s hands so players feel as though they are in the psychological thriller.
Watch the game’s official site, sadness-wii.com, for further press releases about what sounds like a groundbreaking game.
The latest issue of the Official Nintendo Magazine has an interview with Yoshihisa Hashimoto, lead designer of Sonic Unleashed. Hashimoto confirms the presence of a “Were-Sonic” mode, which offers gamers a slower but more physical method of playing through the levels. From the interview:
[Were-Sonic is] a slightly slower and yet more agile beast. Where Sonic dodges past obstacles, Were-Sonic manhandles them out of the way and can toss enemies around like nobody’s business.
You can read the full interview in Official Nintendo Magazine issue 29, which went on sale last Friday. If I can find scans of the whole article, I’ll post ‘em here.
I, for one, feel that vampires have always garnered way too much attention in the world of video games, and werewolves have subsequently been given the short end of the joystick. Alex and Mark of Diehard GameFAN agree with me, and have posted an article where they ask: Where Are All the Werewolves? They discuss six games that give lycanthropes their due, ranging from Altered Beast to The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Can anyone out there think of any other games where you play a werewolf?
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