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Here are some things you may or may not have heard!
- Gazillion Entertainment has announced they're working on Marvel Universe MMO and released its name: Marvel Super Hero Squad Online
Basically, the pitch is something similar to Pokémon meets Marvel in a social MMO setting. You'll be able to collect over 5000 different types of heroes and be able to upgrade them. Instead of classes, which wouldn't work well with superpowers, the upgrades will consist mainly of attack customization and such.
This MMO will be browser based and have players go through all the known Marvel universes. You'll battle through the lairs of villains such as Dr. Doom or Dr. Octopus or other physicians who don't want to live up to their Hippocrates oath.
Players will be able to meet up and form squads together in other known Marvel worlds, such as the Fantastic Four Building or the X-Mansion. They'll also be able to interact with each other through several emotes, custom to their respective hero.
The story will be woven into each other through missions, which players can embark on. These should be short and sweet with simple combat settings. One button for regular attacks and another for special moves will see players mashing through tons of bad guys. There's no real death, as a player will stand up after getting knocked down. This will however affect a ranking system.
Marvel Block Party in effect *click to enlarge*
Yours truly is really excited about this, for one. Although many will find the style of it to be too childish, I don't think it will take away from the games charm. We adore a lot of other games that are dubbed 'kiddie', so why would this be different? And let's face it: You too want to have a free-for-all with Storm and Warsuit, while Iron Man raises the roof with some beats. It's party time in the Marvel universe!
The only thing that might be a deal maker or breaker has not been released yet by Gazillion. For, although this will be a browser based game, there has been no mention whether this will be free or with a fee. I think they'll draw a much larger and interested crowd if they release a free version with paid extras. There are enough fans of the series who will be interested in contributing for premium content. This way, casual Marvel enthusiasts can be persuaded to join and become a potential customer. Perhaps a system like Battlefield Heroes can be done in a similar fashion.
For more shots about this potential hit, you can go here.
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On to the next piece of juicy news bits:
- Activision has just released a daring commercial for their upcoming title BLUR.
Known for their bold moves in the game world, Activision now takes a swipe at one of the biggest players around: Nintendo. After getting sued for misuse of characters in their music games by names like No Doubt and Courtney Love, one would wonder if it was already time to go stomp on someone else. Apparently they thrive on getting flak, such as they did for their works on DRM. They are not in this game business to make friends!
The ad pictures a child-friendly racer starting up when suddenly one of the bored racers spots something in the distance. He marvels at the cars driving and crashing and envies their excitement. When his friend tries to tell him that racing is not about winning, he swiftly punches him in the stomach. The commercial also tells us to race 'like a big boy', sneering at the kid appeal of other racers of its genre.
Although it could easily blend in a genre such as the Burnout franchise, BLUR is looking to elbow their way in a whole different genre. Party racers such as Mario Kart have mostly been family friendly games with a cartoon-like appearance and BLUR is looking to change that.
All this boasting and tough words might look like a good idea now, but let's hope it doesn't come back to haunt them. Because you might be able to mock a game or even a franchise, but if you don't topple them in expectations, the backfire will be tenfold. And mocking the biggest of them all is quite a task to live up to.
I wonder how they think about this over at camp Mario. Although, history has told us that Nintendo usually is pretty introvert. They don't really rely on outside feedback and perhaps that's exactly what they'll think of this.
One thing is for sure and that is that expectations are now set too sky high!