With crowds of costumed hootchies, armies of dorks, walls of video and speaker horns blaring gunblasts, it's hard to keep focus at E3. That's why we sent MTV's trend watching minions onto the floor to sniff out the latest in gaming. Check out our reports on games from around the world, the crime wave sweeping consoles and more.
The Unites States has long been a powerhouse of video gaming goodness, but countries like Australia, the Ukraine and Croatia are starting to make games with their own distinct flavors. From Croteam's famously overwhelming first-person shooter Serious Sam to SimiTek's seriously bizarre GTA-style Pizza delivery game, international game development is hot. Forget the British Invasion, games are a global affair.
- Brian D. Crecente
HotDogs HotGals
Australia
Fuzzyeyes Studio's fast-food sim seems to be more about ogling women in tiny bikinis than actually selling food, not that there is anything wrong with that. The Brisbane developer's HotDogs HotGals features a baker's dozen of scantily clad restaurateurs and tons of bikinis to put them in. The object of the game is to dominate your market and you do this by hiring hot women, buying them nice clothes and playing mini-games... how else?
Pizza Boy
Taiwan
When SimiTek isn't designing simulations systems for the military, like their popular tank and wheel vehicle trainers, they're developing video games. The best so far is Pizza Boy, a sort of Godfather-Grand-Theft-Auto-Taxi-Driver game that has you roaming the streets of a near-future New York delivering hot pies to the masses and avoiding the wrath of the mob. The game lets you carjack, buy weapons and mug people all in the name of speedy service.
Tony Tough 2
Italy
Anyone can make industrial robots, but it takes that special Italian touch to whip up robots and computer games. Multi-million dollar Italian conglomerate Prograph Research has been making some of Europe's best adventure PC games since the late 90s. But it isn't until this year that the U.S. gets to taste some of the wonder that is Tony Tough.
Girlzz: Life is a Party
Scotland
The Scottish aren't exactly the weak sisters of gaming. After all, Rockstar North brought us Grand Theft Auto, so really the country could take the rest of the century off. But instead lesser known Scots are taking to development. Genuine Games Ltd. specialize in "gender inclusive" video game development. Their second game, Girlzz: Life is a Party, teaches women the important roles shopping, gossip and partying have in securing popularity. Oh, and extra Zs, you gotta have extra Zs.
Pirates of the XXI Century
Ukraine
What do you get when a game development company hires up out of work researchers from the former USSR's largest military scientific centers and weapons design programs, why a PC action-shooter about futuristic pirates. Pirates of the XXI Century from DIOsoft is a first-person shooter that take lets you take to the high seas as a pirate, Triad or Marine.
Officers
Russian Federation
Those crazy Russians and their war games, you gotta love 'em. Game Factory Interactive is one of the leading game publishers and developers in the former Soviet Union and East Europe. Officers is a story-based role-playing strategy game set during the events of World War II. You can play as Germany, the Allies or the USSR. Wha?
Serious Sam 2
Croatia
Sometimes having no funds or government backing is a good thing. Croteam was forced to design their own graphics engine for their first-person shooter, Serious Sam, because they couldn't afford to license anyone else's and the rest is history. The team is currently working on Serious Sam 2, which will feature exploding Parrots, bigger end-bosses and a wider selection of bizarre weapons.
Theseus
Greece
Track 7 Games' Theseus is an adventure game that has you exploring the cultures and mythology of Greece, as an engineer. What? Engineers can be heroes too. In the adventure game you get to travel to exotic locales like Hades and an assortment of neo-classical buildings. That's what gaming needs more of: neo-classical buildings.
Fallen Lords: Condemnation
Spain
The epic battle between good and evil isn't just relegated to Spanish soap operas anymore, now you can choose sides in a Barcelona video game. Fallen Lords: Condemnation lets you choose between battle on the side of angels, devils or the disinterested, I mean the lost souls stuck in purgatory.
Popcornification
Crime Plays
Crime Plays
CRIME PLAYS
Crumbling brick facades, hissing neon and tipped-over trash cans made us feel like we were in downtown Detroit rather than inside the LA Convention Center at E3 2005. We even saw actors dressed as pimps and 'hos. Since the advent of the Grand Theft Auto, the gaming biz has been obsessed with virtual worlds that let us to do the crime without doing the time. So crack a forty, don your best bling, twist your cap sideways, and check out these six future discs destined to give the parents an aneurism.
As the newest member of the 3rd Street Saints gang, shop for threads by day and rob your dough back from the store by night. Or whack a nearby pimp, take over his stable and fend off rivals with a grenade launcher. There's a lesson in here, somewhere mom...
Climb the ranks from struggling actor to weed peddler to Tony Montana-style blow dealer.
Sound like GTA: Vice City? Not quite. In this real-time strategy game you knock off rivals in a gentlemanly card-based battle system.
It looks like your average dime-store brawler... until you realize it's all about manipulating the public for cash; Bet big on yourself to win, then let your opponent beat the snot out of you for a couple of rounds. With odds long against you pull of the ultimate comeback and cha-ching!
You're Tre, a member of the Outlawz gang, looking to wrestle control away from rival Headhunterz. Up your rep via vandalism, robbery, shoplifting, and occasionally busting caps in some random fool's ass. Street cred provided by D-12 soubndtrack and gang names ending in 'Z.'
Play a fugitive not only from the law, but also from the your fellow drug cartel bad-asses. The gameplay: beat the living daylights out of everyone you come across and recruit them for your gang... if they survive. Should they beat your ass first, why pop into the bar for a healing belt of booze.
It's a gang simulator that uses the Gizmondo's built-in GPS to let you know when a rival is stepping on your turf. Use virtual graffiti tags the device's built-in camera to put your mug in the game.
The UN of Gaming
Popcornification
Popcornification
POPCORNIFICATION
While games with movie tie-in heroes like Indiana Jones, Han Solo and Morpheus are a no-brainer, imagine an interactive version of the Tony Montana saga, Scarface or a playable sociopathic cabbie, Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver? In an effort to mine Hollywood for every nugget of easily licensed property, the games industry has hijacked even your parents' favorite flicks. It seemed every other booth at E3 showed off a game based around a classic movie, most even featuring the voices and/or likenesses of the original actors. We can't wait for the PS3 versions of Saturday Night Fever and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest...
Publisher: Vivendi Universal Games
Release Date: 2006
Platform: PS2, Xbox
This sequel puts you in the very frickin' expensive shoes of drug kingpin Tony Montana, allowing you to escape the character's climactic big screen demise. You'll then rebuild your empire one gram of coke at a time. The open-ended Grand Theft Auto: Vice City-styled gameplay is peppered with pastel shirts, big guns, speedboats, exotic cars and a seaplane. Pump up the volume for 80's-inflected tracks rumored to be produced by Jay Z and a nonstop onslaught of profanity and violence, mahng.
The makers of Manhunt and GTA are putting their bloody stamp on director Walter Hill's 1979 cult classic. Wrongfully accused of murdering the leader of The Riffs, the seven members of The Warriors must survive a 20-mile trek through New York City, while battling 100,000 thugs. The game will update 2D fighting classics like Streets of Rage and River City Ransom and utilize huge open levels and weapons guaranteed to cause maximum carnage. "Come out and plaaaay!"
Publisher: Majesco Entertainment
Release Date: August 2005
Platform: PS2, Xbox, PC
It's been 30 years since Steven Spielberg's movie freaked-out beach-goers everywhere, and it's finally safe to go back in the water. Especially when you're a great white shark like the one you play in this game, returning to Amity Island to feast on the summer population. The game allows you to hunt down orcas, giant squid and of course, the other white meat... humans! Chomp swimmers, boaters and oil rig operators and leap out of the water for spectacular kills.
Publisher: Majesco Entertainment
Release Date: Spring 2006
Platform: PS2, Xbox
This videogame sequel to Martin Scorsese's 1976 vigilante film sends Bickle on a hunt for the killer of his unrequited love, Betsy. Armed with an arsenal of weapons and his combat skills as a war veteran, Bickle takes on drug dealers, pimps and organized criminals. A far cry from Sega's Crazy Taxi, though gameplay does involve picking up fares for cash, and using the cab as a weapon along the way.
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Release Date: Fall 2005
Platform: PS2, Xbox, GameCube
What if James Bond could gulp martinis, chase exotic women and gobble caviar without ever growing fat, drunk or old? Apparently, he can, as Sean Connery here reprises his role as James Bond, 007 in all his youthful, hairy-chested glory of the 60's movie. There are toys like a jet pack and a remote-controlled Q-copter to play with, and the requisite cool cars, hot chicks and an original ending liven up the story further. Plus you can customize Bond's outfits, guns and gadgets for missions.
