Last week was Bandai Namco Entertainment’s 2015 Global Gamers Day Americas, where they showed off a bunch of new titles that they have in the pipeline for consoles, handhelds, desktop and yes, even mobile. As with most events thrown by gigantic companies, the mobile stuff was a bit scarce with the majority of the focus going towards console and desktop titles. That said, there was still a few noteworthy things in the works for our little mobile devices.
Pixels
Probably the biggest new game on hand, and also the one that was the least finished, was a tower defense title called Pixels. In case you didn’t know, Pixels is a movie coming out this summer starring Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Peter Dinklage, and Michelle Monaghan. Basically, the movie is an action comedy about a giant Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Q-Bert and more attack Earth and it’s up to Adam Sandler and company to stop them. Here’s the trailer.
So the Pixels mobile game is a tower defense game based around the “Arcaders", the main heroes of the film, defending Earth from the invading iconic video game characters. The setup is pretty standard. You’ll have designated spaces where you can set your towers, but the Arcader characters will be available to move around as you please and help defend against the incoming waves of enemies. The enemies are perhaps the coolest part, as it’s a laundry list of classic video game characters like the aforementioned Pac-Man and Donkey Kong, but also characters from Dig Dug, Centipede, Frogger and many more. Here’s an early screen from the game.
As mentioned, Pixels was in an incredibly early state when we saw it last week. According to the game’s producer, the team has been hammering away night and day so that the game will be ready to launch in time for the movie’s premiere July 24th. Even in its early state Pixels was looking really cool, and I actually think a tower defense game is a perfect way to tie into the movie.
Pac-Man 35th Anniversary
Hey, do you want something to make you feel old? Pac-Man was released in arcades in 1980, which was 35 years ago. Specifically, his birthday falls on May 22nd, and Bandai Namco have all sorts of stuff planned for the little yellow dude’s 35th. That’ll involve Pac-Man showing up in cameo appearances all across Bandai Namco’s products and games, but specifics on exactly what and when were not available. Just don’t be shocked if you start seeing him show up in all sorts of places over the next couple of months.
One major event that they were showing off to celebrate the 35th anniversary is a major refresh to the iOS version of Pac-Man ($3.99). Pac-Man on iOS has been around since the dawn of the App Store in mid-2008, which is basically a million years ago. It lived a long happy life being a competent port of the classic that played fairly well on the touchscreen, but in late 2013 Bandai Namco started giving Pac-Man some serious update love.
They created brand new levels for the game, which is pretty crazy if you think about it given how much of a classic Pac-Man is, and released them as IAP to the game. They’ve also added MFi controller support, widescreen support, landscape orientation support, additional touch control options and more over the last year and a half or so. With Pac-Man’s 35th anniversary, that will continue in the form of a new 35th Anniversary level pack. In addition, they’ve completely revamped the UI to make it easier to see which levels you’ve bought, and they’ll be adding in the online Tournament mode that’s been in the Android version of the game for a while. Oh, and that Pac-Man Championship Edition DX that soft-launched as a free to play game last September? That’s being reworked as a paid game and should finally be launching worldwide later this year. Expect all this stuff to begin hitting around Pac-Man’s May birthday.
CineMagic
One game that I didn’t expect to enjoy so much was CineMagic, which was announced at E3 last year and soft-launched in select territories this past February under its previous name Cinemazing. It’s a matching game built around creating your own movies. I know matching games aren’t the easiest thing to get excited for, but CineMagic is so well done and chock full of silliness that it’s like a breath of fresh air for the genre.
Essentially, you’ll have a simplified storyboard off to the side of the screen which needs to be filled in wit things like plot, setting, actors and events. These pop up randomly at the bottom of the screen and the different blocks in the game act as a way to build resources to use them in your storyboard. The game is stuffed with parodies of many famous actors, and the game will give you hints as to which actors work well in what genres. You’re only given a limited amount of moves so you’ll need to try and squeeze the best of all types of elements out of the matching portion in order to fit them into a hit movie. Of course, this is easier said than done, so don’t be surprised if you produce some serious flops during your CineMagic career.
That’s all part of the fun though, as the game does an excellent job of piecing everything together and giving your movies silly titles that literally had me laughing out loud. One of the biggest problems CineMagic has faced and one of the reasons it isn’t fully launched yet is the game’s developers have had a hard time explaining all the intricacies of the gameplay to new players. Even I have a tough time describing it here, but after just a game or two everything becomes clear and it’s really not as complicated as it seems at first. Most importantly the game is incredibly fun, so hopefully the team can crack that nut soon and we’ll all be playing CineMagic in the near future.
