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Watchmen video game is only available online
Photo Courtesy of Fortyseven Communications
Watchmen: The End is Nigh is a prequel to the movie Watchmen, which was released last week. It’s set in the 1970s, when Nite Owl was an active superhero and Rorschach had not yet gone too crazy.
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Published: March 12, 2009
Updated: 03/11/2009 10:10 pm
Unlike most video-game versions of movies, Watchmen: The End is Nigh isn't coming to a store near you. The game is available for download on Xbox LIVE Arcade and the PlayStation Network, or for the PC through www.steampowered.com.
The game is a prequel to the movie Watchmen, which was released last week. It's set in the 1970s, when Nite Owl was still an active superhero and Rorschach had not yet gone crazy … well, at least not as crazy as he later became (The movie itself is set in 1985). Both characters are playable and have distinct combat styles. Players can play one character and let the computer control the second character, or enter a split-screen co-op mode to play side-by-side.
Patrick Wilson and Jackie Earle Haley, who play the characters in the film, provide the voices for the game version. Alan Moore, the writer of the original Watchmen comic book, is not involved, but two people associated with the original comic are involved: Dave Gibbons, the comic's artist, was an adviser and Len Wein, the editor of the comic, wrote the story for the game.
The creators of Rock Band have chosen Sept. 9 -- or 09/09/09 -- as the North American release date for The Beatles: Rock Band, the first edition of the popular video game to be engineered around the music of a single act.
It is being described as an "experiential progression through and celebration of the music and artistry of the Beatles," rather than simply a regular edition of Rock Band using the Fab Four's music. It will be released in configurations for Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii units.
Part of the experience will come from game controllers that copy instruments played by the group. The complete package will carry a list price of $250, but owners of earlier versions of Rock Band will be able to purchase just the new guitar controllers in a stand-alone bundle for about $100 and the Beatle-centric software for $60.
There is still no word about which of the group's 200-plus original studio recordings will be included, but given the release date, it wouldn't be a stretch to anticipate at least one track from the Let It Be album: "One After 909."
More than two years after the launch of the Wii, most game publishers are still wrestling with the question of how to appeal to the broader, more casual audience that Nintendo has brought to the industry. Not Sega, though, which has this year's most impressive lineup of Wii releases -- to some extent, more impressive than Nintendo itself.
"Sega was the first third-party publisher to believe in the Wii," says Sega of America President Simon Jeffery, and that head start gave it a big advantage. In particular, it allowed Sega to team up with Nintendo on Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games, which sold more than 10 million copies worldwide.
Jeffery says that Sega's games "tap into the same market that Nintendo opened" -- particularly the lighthearted Sonic the Hedgehog series, which gets a new Wii installment this week called Sonic and the Black Knight. "We understood Nintendo's premise of attracting casual gamers."
That said, Sega is still trying to appeal to hardcore gamers who have felt neglected by Nintendo. Jeffery estimates that "70 to 80 percent of Wii owners are young males, and there hasn't been much fodder for them on the Wii." The solution: grown-up action games like the gory brawler MadWorld (out this week) and the first-person shooter The Conduit (due in June), built from the ground up with the Wii in mind.
Whether the broader Wii audience will take to an ultraviolent spectacle such as MadWorld is still in question. But all those people who bought the first Mario & Sonic mashup will still be happy: The mascots will reteam next year for Mario & Sonic at the Winter Olympic Games, due just in time for the festivities in Vancouver, Canada, next February.
Nintendo's big Wii game for spring is Punch-Out!!, the long-awaited revival of the goofy boxing game that was on everyone's Nintendo Entertainment System back in the 1980s. We finally have a U.S. arrival date: May 18. Before that, though, the company is squeaking out ExciteBots: Trick Racing, which may give you a reason to dust off your Wii Wheel.
Also, fans of the supercute can get psyched for the U.S. debut of The Legendary Starfy, the undersea adventures of a 7-year-old starfish.
Sony, meanwhile, is countering the impending launch of Nintendo's new portable DSi with a renewed push for the PlayStation Portable.
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