Blood Bowl 2009

Blood Bowl is a fantasy football video game loosely based on American football, and adapted from the board game of the same name, which was produced by Games Workshop, using the Living Rulebook 5.0’s ruleset. The game could be considered a remake of a 1995 adaptation, though the production of the two titles are unrelated.

Gameplay

Gameplay screenshot.
The game involves two teams of 11 players that is a dark fantasy version of American football. The winner of a match is the team that scores the most touchdowns (i.e. gets the ball into the opposition’s end zone), though it is possible to win by violently eliminating the other team's entire roster. The game incorporates both real-time and turn-based strategy elements. Players may choose to play the game in either mode. The Special Play cards will not be included in the main game.
During the main career mode, the player must start from scratch and build a team; the career mode can go on ad infinitum. As the team goes up in ranking on the tournament ladder, a player will sign better players for their roster. If one or several of the roster players are injured or killed during a match, the player needs to replace them for one or several of the next matches until they are ready to go back to the field. If the player lacks money to heal them, they will still be able to play the injured player, but the chances that player is killed increases.
Roster players take part in tournaments, where they gain experience and level up. The player can assign skill points to buy new abilities that will affect the player's performance, such as improving their dice rolls, have a second chance on a bad roll, and other bonuses along those lines. Leagues are completely customizable: there are 25 elements can be edited by the user, such as teams, races, players, and championship rules. Players may also set up online tournaments with others in the online community, which also allows players to gain experience as with the single player mode. Tournaments may have a minimum of four participants, and a maximum of 24; none of the teams may be AI-controlled. A player may play with a solo franchise team online, but may not use it in online tournaments or leagues. Players may not switch between RTS and turn-based modes mid-tournament. Players may create custom logos for their teams.

DS version.
The Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable versions lack career league play and customization options. Multiplayer involves turn-based hotseat gameplay on the handheld versions, though the PSP version also includes wireless multiplayer as well.
Included Teams
There are 8 races to be included in the initial release.
1.Humans
2.Orcs
3.Dwarves
4.Lizardmen
5.Skaven
6.Goblins
7.Chaos
8.Wood Elves
"Classic" Blood Bowl team rosters will be included, featuring such teams as the Reikland Reavers, Orcland Raiders, and the Skavenblight Scramblers. The player will face these teams as they advance in the game. However, they will only be playable in exhibition play. There will be one star player per race, such as Griff Oberwald.

Expansions
Expansions are planned but have not yet been determined.

Development
Cyanide created a similar title, Chaos League, in 2004. The amount of similarity between Chaos League and Games Workshop's Blood Bowl led to a lawsuit, which was settled out of court. One of the terms of the settlement was that Cyanide would receive a license to develop a new title using the official Blood Bowl property.
In August 2007, Cyanide announced that a new game for Microsoft Windows computers would be developed, due to be released in 2008. On November 14, 2007, the Nintendo DS, PlayStation Portable, and Xbox 360 versions were announced. It was originally believed the game would be on Xbox Live Arcade, but it was revealed to be a store release title. The game is currently in PC beta testing, and a limited playable version was demonstrated at the Blood Bowl Grand Tournament in Nottingham over the weekend of the May 10, 2008. On December 18, 2008 it was announced on the Cyanide Blood Bowl forum by a Focus employee that the release date had been further pushed back to Q2 2009 (June).
On June 25, 2008, a trailer was released featuring the opening cinematic and some gameplay.
Cyanide Studios received permission from Games Workshop to include a real-time mode in the game, providing the developer strictly adhered to the Living Rulebook 5.0’s rules; it was Cyanide's success with Chaos League that gave Games Workshop the confidence to allow them to adapt the rules to real-time gameplay.

The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay

The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay is a first-person action game developed by Swedish company Starbreeze Studios and published by Vivendi Games. It is part of the Chronicles of Riddick franchise. The Xbox version was released in June 2004 to coincide with the release of The Chronicles of Riddick film, and a Microsoft Windows version of the game was released later that year.

The likeness and voice of the movie's lead actor, Vin Diesel, are also used for Escape from Butcher Bay's main character, Richard B. Riddick. Set before the events of the films Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick, the game follows Riddick in his attempt to escape from Butcher Bay, a maximum-security prison.

The game received widespread critical acclaim upon its release. It was lauded for its implementation of different gameplay elements as well as its graphics. Common complaints included the lack of a multiplayer mode. A follow-up, titled The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena was released in 2009 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. It also included an enhanced remake of The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay.

Gameplay
Escape from Butcher Bay is generally played from a first-person perspective,[1] and incorporates elements from several video game genres, including first-person shooter, adventure and stealth. The camera occasionally transitions into a third-person perspective, such as during cutscenes. Players take the role of Riddick, a recently incarcerated inmate in the Butcher Bay prison. Riddick's goal is to escape Butcher Bay, and along the way he has the opportunity to interact with other residents of the facility. He can receive quests from other inmates to gain information, tools, and other rewards. Bonus materials in the form of concept art and video files can be unlocked by finding packs of cigarettes scattered around the levels.


A screenshot from the Xbox version. Riddick is in combat with a prison guard.Riddick's exploration of Butcher Bay often leads to violent conflict with guards and other inmates. In combat, Riddick has access to a variety of homemade and improvised weapons, including shivs and clubs. He can also use his fists to attack opponents with a variety of punches that can be strung together to create combos. If Riddick is defeated, he does not die but instead is dragged back to his cell.

For the initial portion of the game, firearms are unavailable to Riddick. Prison guards carry rifles, but they are equipped with technology that emits an electrical discharge if touched by someone whose DNA is not registered as a guard in the prison's database. As he progresses through the prison, Riddick eventually acquires a limited inventory of firearms, but ammunition is sparse. Health can be replenished by activating adrenaline injection stations found throughout the prison.


Riddick stalking an enemy with a weapon equipped.In addition to combat, enemies can be dispatched discreetly by stalking them from shadows or dropping on them from above. The player, by crouching, can toggle a "stealth mode" that allows Riddick to move silently. While in stealth mode, Riddick can drag corpses out of sight to avoid discovery by guards and can move silently past enemies. Stealth mode also grants Riddick additional attacks that allow him to kill opponents quickly. Later in the game, Riddick gains an "eyeshine" and the ability to see in the dark. The eyeshine ability must be managed by the player because using it in bright light renders Riddick blind.

Escape from Butcher Bay is played without a heads-up display, a convention of first-person shooters. The only on-screen indicators are quick flashes signifying a weapon change,[8] or small white boxes that display Riddick's health when he is injured. Stealth mode is represented by a blue tint on the screen, indicating that Riddick is effectively invisible to enemies.


Plot

Setting
Escape from Butcher Bay is set in a futuristic science fiction setting portrayed in other entries in the Riddick franchise. The game's story takes place in the eponymous Butcher Bay, a maximum-security prison located on an off-world penal colony. No prisoner has ever been known to escape from Butcher Bay. The facility is composed of several different wings with increasing levels of security, as well as a subterranean mining area inhabited by aggressive creatures.


Characters

Riddick in conversation with Abbott and two prison guards.The protagonist of Escape from Butcher Bay is Richard B. Riddick (Vin Diesel), a criminal who has recently been apprehended. Riddick is a psychopathic murderer; he is also resourceful and committed to breaking out of Butcher Bay by any means necessary. Riddick has been captured and brought to Butcher Bay by a bounty hunter named William J. Johns (Cole Hauser), who has had previous encounters with Riddick.[8] The warden of Butcher Bay is a man named Hoxie (Dwight Schultz), who paid Johns the bounty for Riddick. Abbott (Xzibit) is one of the guard officers, and is not popular with the inmates. Pope Joe (Willis Burks II) is a mentally unbalanced old inmate who helps Riddick after an injury and is purported to have given him his "eyeshine" ability.


Story
Upon arriving at Butcher Bay, Johns escorts Riddick to his cell in the "single-max" security area. John then meets with the warden, Hoxie, to negotiate his pay. After learning his way around the facility, Riddick eventually instigates a riot and manages to escape into the prison's sewer system during the confusion. Fighting his way through mutant "dwellers" in the sewers, Riddick eventually comes across Pope Joe, a hermit who resides in the tunnels. Riddick helps Joe by retrieving his radio lost in the sewers and upon his return, Riddick gains his trademark "eyeshine" and the ability to see in the dark. Shortly afterwards, a mysterious voice belonging to a woman named Shirah (Kristin Lehman) tells him he "has been blind too long." Afterwards, Riddick accuses Pope Joe of tampering with his eyes, who states he merely repaired Riddick's bleeding arm. Riddick then continues with his escape plans, using the eyeshine to his advantage.

Riddick is eventually recaptured and transferred to the "double-max" security area of the prison, where he infiltrates a mining facility. While in the mines, he comes across Jagger Valance (Ron Perlman), a fellow convict with a large amount of influence in the mines who wishes to escape alongside Riddick. During the escape, Riddick is discovered by the guards and is apprehended. While being transferred to another area, an outbreak of large beetle-like creatures wreaks havoc in the prison and gives Riddick the opportunity to escape with Valance. His plans are foiled again and Riddick is delivered to the "triple-max" level of the prison.

Here, inmates are placed in cryonic sleep, and are awakened each day for 2 minutes of exercise. Eventually, Riddick discovers a flaw in the system and escapes. Shortly after, he hijacks a mechanized robot and fights his way through the offices of Butcher Bay towards Hoxie. With the help of the bounty hunter Johns, Riddick eludes the guards and tricks them into killing the warden. The two then steal a ship and escape the prison.


Development
Escape from Butcher Bay was announced in March 2004 as an Xbox video game entry in the Chronicles of Riddick franchise, owned by Universal Studios. Universal Studios Consumer Products Group granted the Riddick license to Vivendi Games; both companies were owned by Vivendi Universal. The game would be developed by Starbreeze Studios and published by Vivendi Games in association with Tigon Studios, the game development company created by Vin Diesel. It would serve as a prequel to the events of Pitch Black and Universal's upcoming film, The Chronicles of Riddick. Tigon Studios' Cos Lazouras said "[The game] features an original storyline that provides insight into how Riddick evolved into such a complex character."

The development team was interested in exploring the character of Riddick by making a game focused on a prison break, with movies like Escape from Alcatraz as inspiration. Starbreeze specifically didn't want to create a "see-the-movie-play-the-movie" experience that had been emulated in other movie tie-in games. The star of the film franchise, Vin Diesel, was involved in the game's creation. In addition to providing his voice and likeness for the character of Riddick, he contributed to the game's storyline and character design, along with film director David Twohy. The game's story was developed in conjunction with the film's. Diesel offered guidance to the game's lead writer during voice recording sessions, including rewrites of dialogue to reduce Riddick's lines, as he felt the character was speaking too much. The designers intentionally left the details of the origin of Riddick's eyeshine vague, as they were given instructions by the filmmakers to leave it a mystery.

The game's developers relied on other video games for inspiration. The opening sequence, showing Riddick being escorted into Butcher Bay,[24] was a tribute to Half-Life. Other sources included Goldeneye and the Splinter Cell series. The hand-to-hand combat was inspired by Punch-Out!!. Like Doom 3, Escape from Butcher Bay makes use of a technique called normal mapping, which allows complex graphical details to be drawn on models with lower polygon counts. This permits the game to run at a higher speed with the enhanced visuals.

Starbreeze originally intended for the game to have more roleplaying elements, but feedback from Diesel and problems with focus testers changed their minds. Starbreeze senior producer Peter Wanat referred to the role-playing elements of the game as "RPG-lite" and said "We tried to limit the number of really hard or really intricate RPG elements, and that was a choice because we wanted the game to be playable."Other features were cut from the final release of the game, such as a 25-minute final boss fight and an electric bullwhip for the guard Abbott. The game did not include multiplayer because Starbreeze was only interested in developing a single-player campaign. The company felt that a multiplayer mode would require a design team twice as large and another year of development.


Escape from Butcher Bay's star, Vin Diesel, promoting the game at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in 2004.Escape from Butcher Bay was completed in 18 months. Vin Diesel promoted the game and the accompanying movie at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) video game convention in May 2004. The Xbox version was released on June 1, 2004 in North America, shortly before The Chronicles of Riddick. It was released on August 13, 2004 in Europe. North American customers who pre-ordered the game were given an additional DVD, which included promotional items such as an interactive walkthrough for a portion of the game and footage from the corresponding film. The game's soundtrack, composed by Gustaf Grefberg, was released by Vivendi as a free download on June 24, 2004.


Windows version
In response to rumors, Vivendi confirmed the development of a Windows port of Escape from Butcher Bay in July 2004. In October 2004, Vivendi Games formally announced the PC version, subtitled Developer's Cut. The game featured a higher resolution, additional cigarette packs, and new levels allowing Riddick to wear mechanized riot gear. It also came with a commentary by the development team detailing the creation and design decisions of the game. The PC version was released on December 3, 2004 in Europe and on December 8 in North America.

Contra 4

Contra 4 is a 2D action game for the Nintendo DS and the eleventh original installment in the Contra series. The game was released in North America on November 13, 2007. Contra 4 was produced by Konami Digital Entertainment in America and developed by WayForward Technologies, making it the first Contra game handled by a western team since the Appaloosa-developed C: The Contra Adventure in 1998, as well as the first original Contra game for a portable platform since the 1991 Game Boy game Operation C. As the game's title indicates, Contra 4 was designed to be a direct sequel to the Contra games for the NES and SNES (Contra, Super C and Contra III: The Alien Wars), with a gameplay model similar to those games.

A Japanese version has been released on March 13, 2008 under the title of Contra: Dual Spirits (魂斗羅 デュアルスピリッツ ,Kontora Duaru Supirittsu?).

Gameplay
Contra 4 is based on the same 2D gameplay system featured in the series through Contra III: The Alien Wars, ignoring many of the game mechanics introduced in later games such as the fixed weapon configurations in Contra: Shattered Soldier and Neo Contra, returning to the old method of picking up power-up icons to obtain new weapons. The play controls are similar to Contra III, including the ability to hold two weapons in inventory. The action spans both screens of the Nintendo DS system and a grappling hook can be used by the player's character to latch onto railings, allowing the player's character to move from one screen to the other. Similarly to the arcade version of Super Contra, the player can pick up the same power-up twice, giving them an improved version of the same weapon. The player can also discard a power-up, allowing them to try out a new weapon without losing a previous one, or give the power-up to another player.

In addition to the standard side view stages, there are also tunnel stages similar to the two "3D view" stages from the original Contra, in which the perspective shifts behind the character's back. The action in these stages is displayed solely on the upper screen, while the bottom screen is used to display the stage's map and the locations of power-ups. Other than using both screens and two-card ad hoc cooperative play, Contra 4 makes no usage of the DS' special features such as touch screen (besides navigating the main menu), microphone, or single card multiplayer.


Arcade Mode
Arcade Mode is the main portion of the game, which is composed of six standard stages and three tunnel stages, for a total of nine stages. The stages pay frequent homage to Contra, Super Contra (Super C on the NES), Operation C and Contra III. Three difficulty settings are available: easy, normal, and hard. Easy is intended to be accessible to novices by providing the player with plenty of lives and credits, as well as making all power-ups upgraded by default, but does not give the player access to the final two stages nor the ending. Normal is a moderate setting described to be "as difficult as the original Contra", whereas Hard features faster moving enemies and enemy fire, with less lives. Hard mode also features a different ending from Normal. Arcade Mode can be played cooperatively with a second player via ad hoc.

Weapons
The player's default weapon is a "pea shooter"-type rifle similar to the first two Contra games, as opposed to the autofire machine gun that became standard with Operation C and Contra III. The player can upgrade to the machine gun or any of the other following weapons, by picking up the letter-based falcon icons hidden in flying capsules or on sensors of the wall (enemies in the Tunnel stages will also drop weapons). Picking up the same power-up twice will yield the player an upgraded version of the same weapon. In Easy mode, all weapons are upgraded by default.

Challenge Mode
After completing the main game (Arcade Mode) once on any difficulty setting, a Challenge Mode will be made available in the main menu. This game mode is composed of forty different challenges in which the player must complete a certain level from the main game while fulfilling certain requirements.

Plot
Story and setting
The plot is set in 2638, two years after the events of Contra III and three years before Contra: Hard Corps. An alien entity calling itself Black Viper begins launching attacks against the human race, causing mass destruction over the planet. After strange readings are detected at the Galuga archipelago (the setting of the original Contra), the Earth Federation sends their four strongest commandos on a final strike mission to destroy Black Viper.

The continuity of Contra 4 is based on the Japanese canon that was adapted into the English localization of series with the release of Contra: Shattered Soldier. However, the game's producers took a number of liberties with the established canon by integrating elements of the American localizations of the older games. The alien Black Viper was originally mentioned only in the American manual of Operation C, whereas the original plot of that game (released as simply "Contra" in Japan) was about an unnamed superpower creating new weapons using an alien cell. In the timeline presented in the manual and official website, the events of Operation C are interpreted as a previous mission of "Mad Dog" and "Scorpion"--two new characters created specifically for Contra 4--against Black Viper. In actuality, "Mad Dog" and "Scorpion" were the names used for Bill and Lance for the U.S. NES games (see playable characters section for details). Additionally, Operation C was originally a solo mission of Lance Bean (as the game was one-player only).

Playable characters
Contra 4 features the return of the original Contra duo, Bill Rizer and Lance Bean, who were last seen fighting together side-by-side in Contra III: The Alien Wars. Two original characters were also introduced named Mad Dog and Scorpion. Created just for this game, the characters take their names from the American localizations of Contra and Super C for the NES in which Bill and Lance were given the nicknames Mad Dog and Scorpion respectively. This is justified by portraying "Mad Dog" and "Scorpion" (the new characters) as having fought against Black Viper in the past (particularly during the events of Operation C), although this revision not taken into account in the Japanese localization of the game. There are no differences in terms of gameplay or ability between the four main characters, as they all use the same character sprite with a different color pattern for each. Bill and Lance are depicted wearing blue and red respectively, their colors from the NES versions, while Mad Dog and Scorpion wear green and purple, the colors Bill and Lance wear in the arcade version of Super Contra. The game was originally planned to allow up to four players in cooperative mode, but this was scrapped in the released version of the game.

In addition to the four main characters, there are also five hidden characters that are unlocked after completing certain numbers of missions in Challenge Mode. They include the Probotector, which is a palette swap made for the PAL versions of Contra up until Contra: Hard Corps due to concerns over the violent content of the games; Lucia, also known as Bionoid LCR, who is a female cyborg who first appears as the secondary playable character in Contra Shattered Soldier, taking Lance's place as Bill's partner-in-arms; Sheena Etranzi, the first female playable character in the Contra series, first appearing in Contra: Hard Corps; and Jimbo & Sully, sprite renditions of Bill and Lance respectively as seen in Contra III: The Alien Wars.


Bonus Content
In addition to the main game, Contra 4 contains a slew of extra features under "Bonus Content" in the main menu. The game begins with the "Museum" already available, but other contents are unlocked by completing the stages in "Challenge Mode". The bonus content are as followed:

Classic Contra - Emulates the original ROMs of Contra and Super C for the NES. Both games can be played with the original resolution or fit to the DS' screen. These two games cannot be played with another player via ad hoc. Instead, the game emulates the 2 Players mode by allowing the player to move both characters with the d-pad, with the Y and B buttons assigned to Player 1, while X and A is assigned to Player 2. The cheat codes from the original NES games works in these version too (with Y and B substituting B and A respectively).
Museum - The museum is a virtual gallery containing packaging artwork (both, domestic and overseas versions) and screen shots of all previous Contra games, as well as the regional titles for each game (although, the Japanese title of the arcade version of Contra is incorrectly listed as Gryzor). There's also an unlockable section containing assorted illustrations and promotional materials from the series, including conceptual artwork.
Comic Books - There are two unlockable comic books in the game. The first is an adaptation of Contra III: The Alien Wars by illustrator Atsushi Tsujimoto and written by Nobuya Nakazato, which was originally published in 2002 in the official Contra: Shattered Soldier website. The second is an adaptation of Contra 4 also illustrated by Tsujimoto and written by producer Tomm Hulett, which was created specifically for this game.
Sound Test - Listen to the game's music and audio score.
Interview - An interview with Nobuya Nakazato (the director of Contra III, Hard Corps and Shattered Soldier, as well as the producer of Neo Contra) detailing his involvement with the series.

Development
A development version of the game was leaked to the internet in ROM image form.

Music
The music and sound effects were handled by famed videogame music remixer Jake Kaufman, who also composed for Shantae and founded the game music remix site VGMix. The soundtrack consists of a few arrangements of music from previous Contra games as well as a lot of new material. When Arcade Mode is played on the Hard setting, an arranged version of the Jungle theme from the original Contra is played instead of the standard stage music. The standard Jungle theme is actually an enhanced version of a "Contra style" chiptune song previously posted on Kaufman's website, called "Vile Red Falcon."

A soundtrack CD has been announced by Konami to be bundled in the first print of the Japanese release of Contra: Dual Spirits, as a gift for preorders through the KonamiStyle shop. This deal is only available for Japanese residents. In addition to the music found in the game, a 4-minute live performance of the "Harbor" song is included as a bonus track. The song is performed by The Smash Bros, Jake Kaufman's video game tribute band.


Reception
Contra 4 has been hailed as a rebirth of the Contra franchise, returning the gameplay to the classic roots of the series. It has garnered multiple awards including IGN's "Best Action Game" and "Best Revival" of 2007, Gamespy's 7th best game of 2007, and one of Gaming Target's "52 Games We'll Still Be Playing From 2007".