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[Drinky Crow]

Just played the demo in the recent OXM and HOLY SHIT WHY AREN'T YOU FUCKERS HYPING THIS GAME.

It's a great -- GREAT -- combination shooter/beat-em-up with flawless controls and a perfect 2D-esque camera. Even the whole alternate-reality "Russia with magic" vibe is keen. Forget that it's from Acclaim and give this bastard a try; it just reeks of polish and smart design. Obviously the cats who developed it have spent a lot of time playing Treasure games, only they left the crap at home and wedded two kickass old-school genres together really well. Best of all, they understand the single foremost design principle governing the best action games: SHIT BLOW UP REEEEEEAL GOOD.

I'm freakin' sold. Good stuff.

 

[Meier]

Lots of people have been giving it pretty major hype since E3. Turned a lot of heads.

 

[Soul4ger]

Wow, awesome. I thought this game sounded cool, I'll definitely check it out now!

 

[Wario64]

They had a preview of the game a couple weeks ago on Xplay. Never heard of it before at the time and it did look pretty interesting

 

[NotMSRP]

We did showed interest in it. The creator bitched at Acclaim to keep them in line from making another Acklame. There's little hype cause there's little media and info. I'm interested but I need more info first.

 

[Drinky Crow]

Only complaint: the last boss in the demo is a total pushover (the giant mechanized trooper with the saws) just get range from him and shoot to make him go into his force field attack. He'll stay put while your gun recharges and never really move. Hopefully, they'll make him weather a few shots to close with you in the final version.

 

[kaching]

Forget that it's from Acclaim...

Or, alternatively, remember that Acclaim did publish the first two Burnout games. They do poke their heads out of the muck every once in awhile.

 

[Drinky Crow]

The tragedy is that you KNOW this game'll get great reviews (8 or so average across the board) but it won't break 80K units across both formats. They should change the name to S.O.C.O.M. 3 and pack in a free "Semper Fi" skull tattoo for the faggoty wanna-be military immersion types who can't play old-school games with original themes unless tricked into it.

 

[MoxManiac]

Latest OXM you say? I'll have to check it out.

 

[Mejilan]

Both formats?

 

[GDJustin]

Acclaim is putting all their marketing dollars behind juiced. Acclaim just doesn't have the money to market it the way that it deserves, and thinks that Juiced has a better shot at mainstread success.

Anyway, I thought I would also chime in to say that The Red Star fucking rocks the house. Played the updated demo about 2 weeks ago, and it was really awesome. Acclaim says it's too much of a niche title to market, no matter how good it is. If they wanna market that shit, market it as a game for gamers who loved contra. Even the most casual gamer remembers and loves contra.

 

[Wario64]

Acclaim is putting all their marketing dollars behind juiced. I heard from some guys within the company that The Red Star is *literally* getting 0 marketing dollars. Acclaim just doesn't have the money.

cue BuddyChrist's sad.gif animation

"TITS UP, CLUTCH DOWN, PEDAL TO THE FLOOR!"

 

[NotMSRP]

MK2 for SNES was the last Acclaim title I bought.

 

[drohne]

indeed. i'm shocked that such quality is coming from acclaim's internal studios, who to all the world have looked talentless for the last...nearly 20 years. makes you wonder if there aren't designers and development teams all over the place who could do brilliant old school action games if only the suits would let them. anyway, i'll buy it the moment it comes out.

edit: oh, and be sure to poke through the menus and note the little hand to hand combos each character has. i've probably played through that demo a dozen times.

 

[ScientificNinja]

Red Star is too hardcore and too old school to have any kind of mainstream appeal. That's great for us, but useless otherwise. It certainly does appear that Acclaim is putting all of its marketing dollars behind Juiced which, in light of the competition, is not going to enjoy any kind of great success. Besides, Acclaim's continued solvency has been the subject of our office betting rounds. They'll be lucky to release anything.

 

[chespace]

i have been hyping it, bitch!

look through any XBN's lately?

edit: that question is for doug.

----

http://chespace.1up.com

 

[NotMSRP]

Nope.

 

[AeroGod]

The tragedy is that you KNOW this game'll get great reviews (8 or so average across the board) but it won't break 80K units across both formats. They should change the name to S.O.C.O.M. 3 and pack in a free "Semper Fi" skull tattoo for the faggoty wanna-be military immersion types who can't play old-school games with original themes unless tricked into it.

ROFLMAO

I might check this game out. It looks pretty cool.

 

[Drinky Crow]

Che, I'll rectify that shortly. OXM has the demos I crave, but the writing is slowing turning my frontal lobes leprous.

 

[Drinky Crow]

Well, at least the good scores will guarantee the designers and devs jobs at better publishers when Acclaim inevitably goes tits up.

Why the fuck does Juiced exist again?

 

[Brandon F]

It's a very cool demo with a lot of promise, but I had trouble getting grips on the lock-on shooting. Then again I only played through the demo once with the russian chick, but I spent most of the time memorizing and pulling off the melee strings. (The dashing grapple cut is my favorite) Probably just need practice, but I was all over the place trying to get my aim locked on specific targets when it came to gunplay.

I was mostly impressed by the presentation though, usually quality control on this level is reserved for proven franchises like Contra. Hopefully itys a sign that Acclaim may really try hard to get this fledgling IP to succeed...

Oh and that Medal of Vietnam demo that the disk gave cover honors too was total crap.

 

[Drinky Crow]

I think the lock is for specific targets -- I never really had to use it save to shoot down a barricade as indicated and to lock on the jet fighter boss.

 

[belgurdo]

So is it like one of those Psikyo/Cave "bullets everywhere" shooters?

 

[Brandon F]

I guess my conditioned brain to lock-on shit instead of just going full on manual bullet spray in this day and age has hampered my abilities to play Red Star properly. That little reticle kept popping up indicating my shooting direction, but I spent more time trying to get the bloody thing to stay centered on my foe (particularly the various appendages the final boss cycles through) rather than on slaughtering shit with Contra-esque strafe and turret control. I got killed real fast like in that battle for trying to be all technical.

But the melee is really damned cool.

 

[Drinky Crow]

SOMEONE'S BEEN PLAYIN' TOO MUCH CANNON SPIKE

 

[JackFrost2012]

I met the producer at the Sony party at E3 this year. We talked for a bit, and he was like "come by and see the game, it's a really good old-school action title. Our team is heavily influenced by classic Japanese shooters." I was like "yeah, yeah, uh huh, sure ... FROM ACCLAIM."

M. Night Shamalayan-esquetwist ending:

Spoiler

But when I saw it it fucking rocked!!

Hopefully it will sell a decently small amount as opposed to just megabombing off the charts.

 

[Drinky Crow]

It's got bullets everywhere, but there's no "gimmick" (Reflect Force et al) to deal with them other than good old fashioned dodging. Controls are tight and the enemies telegraph their attacks pretty well, so the bullet/laser floods shouldn't be an issue.

 

[JackFrost2012]

It's got bullets everywhere, but there's no "gimmick" (Reflect Force et al) to deal with them other than good old fashioned dodging. Controls are tight and the enemies telegraph their attacks pretty well, so the bullet/laser floods shouldn't be an issue.

That's what I like most about Red Star. It's a shooter! You shoot things! The way shooters used to be.

Gradius V also has that "what if we made a game where the player tried to shoot cool-looking things while dodging a large-but-not-impossible number of bullets" vibe going on. I approve of this new trend in accessibility!

 

[Drinky Crow]

Plus SHIT BLOW UP. Seriously; mesmerizing, mandala-esque bullet patterns are great with the right drugs, but at the end of the day I have testosterone and I need BIG BASS-DRIVEN FUCKIN' EXPLOSIONS.

 

[GDJustin]

I met the producer at the Sony party at E3 this year. We talked for a bit, and he was like "come by and see the game, it's a really good old-school action title. Our team is heavily influenced by classic Japanese shooters." I was like "yeah, yeah, uh huh, sure ... FROM ACCLAIM."

M. Night Shamalayan-esquetwist ending:

Spoiler

But when I saw it it fucking rocked!!

Hopefully it will sell a decently small amount as opposed to just megabombing off the charts.

Indeed. I'm friends with a couple of guys on the dev team, and after day 1 they were like "have you checked out the red star yet?" and I hadn't, but I didn't want to say tell them that so I was like "yeah, it looks ok." So then when I finally DID get around to playing it I had to quickly find them and recitfy my statements from the previous day

It's a crying shame the game is coming out when it is. I mean, not ONLY is it going to go completely overlooked by casual gamers (this is a given), it's also going to be passed over by many hardcore gamers, like the typical GAF poster as well, b/c of it's release date. I don't have anything to back this up, but I'd bet anything that most hardcore gamers will be like "wow... this looks awesome" but then buy Pikmin 2, Halo 2, MGS3, Donkey Konga, etc instead.

I mean hell, I really want the game after talking more w/ my friends and playing the demo, but I don't even know if I'm going to be able to afford it this fall

 

[Swordian]

Acclaim is putting all their marketing dollars behind juiced. I heard from some guys within the company that The Red Star is *literally* getting 0 marketing dollars. Acclaim just doesn't have the money.

$9.99, here we come!

 

[NotMSRP]

You should tell the devs that it's a great game honoring old school gameplay but will be totally shafted in sales cause of Acclaim.

 

[GDJustin]

Like most artists they're much more critical of their own work than the public is, but they do know they have a pretty damn good product. They're also more or less resigned to the fact that it's not going to be a blockbuster.

 

[Father_Brain]

In all fairness, even if Acclaim did try to market it, they'd still have a tough time -- an old-school shooter/beat-em-up in an alternate-reality fantasy/sci-fi Russian setting isn't exactly the easiest sell.

 

[GDJustin]

In all fairness, even if Acclaim did try to market it, they'd still have a tough time -- an old-school shooter/beat-em-up in an alternate-reality fantasy/sci-fi Russian setting isn't exactly the easiest sell.

I agree, but only to an extent. I was dicussing it with some friends recently and we all agreed an advertising campaign along the lines of "The Red Star -- a GAMER'S game. Weak reflexes need not apply" and then follow that up with some screens/video of the most fucking nuts bullet patterns in the game, and then some choice quotes/scores. It's got 4/5 essentially locked up, and if they're lucky might even get a couple very very good scores to stick in there.

That being said, it won't sell like hotcakes, but it could easily hit 100K with a campaign like that.

 

[Lord Error]

I've been hyping this game since the last month's OPM demo came out. Awesome stuff. I've played through the demo couple of times already. Still, as far as shooters go, Espgaluda is taking 90% of my play time right now.

 

[ferricide]

i've even had marginal trouble convincing other people at GMR -- the friend to all off-beat gamez -- that this game is worth paying attention to, just because it's an internal acclaim project. it got the coverage, but it's more about convincing people it's interesting. nobody wants to hear it. i guess that's what happens when you publish 90% incredibly shitty games for nearly 20 years!

 

[sprsk]

i keep seeing a video for this game at work. when i first saw it i was like "woah what is that?? why havent i heard of this game???" its nice to know that its actually good, cant wait to play it.

 

[Tellaerin]

It's a crying shame the game is coming out when it is. I mean, not ONLY is it going to go completely overlooked by casual gamers (this is a given), it's also going to be passed over by many hardcore gamers, like the typical GAF poster as well, b/c of it's release date. I don't have anything to back this up, but I'd bet anything that most hardcore gamers will be like "wow... this looks awesome" but then buy Pikmin 2, Halo 2, MGS3, Donkey Konga, etc instead.

FWIW, I'll gladly buy something like The Red Star or Alien Hominid over any of the titles you just mentioned. Those games will be on shelves forever, and I can afford to wait for them; something like this, on the other hand, I want right now. Hopefully there are still enough other gamers like that out there to make a difference once TRS hits store shelves.

 

[MmmBeef]

I know this is probably OT fodder but when I first heard about the game I looked up the comic it was based on. I picked up the collected edition (all ten issues of the first volume plus Run Makita, Run). It's really very good, (heck, even my wife read all 300+ pages in one setting and she normally could give a rat's ass about comic books). It's beautifully illustrated, well written and if the creators of the comic had any say in the development of the game, I think we're all in for a treat. +1 purchase right here.

 

[Rhindle]

Was the animation on display in the Red Star demo intended to be humorous? I can't tell, but some of it (especially how characters' walking animation) is hilarious.

 

[Teddman]

Drohne was the first guy I knew to hype this game up on the forums and at E3.

I was chatting with him & Fishie Flop on the last day of the show, talking about what we thought were the best games this year. Drohne's like, "Have you played 'The Red Star'? It's awesome! Game of Show!"

We were like, "Huh? 'Red' what?"

 

[nitewulf]

sounds great, any screenshots or anything? never even heard of it. on that note, there was this really cool looking shooter for the xbox at E3, i remember shots being posted here...looked fantastic, sorta like einhander, but had very funky camera angles. what game is that?

 

[ferricide]

people keep commenting that the developers at acclaim had to be goaded into not making a shitty game by the comic book creator -- as though that makes any sense. i'm sure his interest and concern in the development was helpful in keeping the project on track, but from talking to some of the guys behind this game at the studio and at E3, it's obvious that this is the kind of game they just wanted to make. they're hardcore gamers (the guy who does the bullet patterns is actually a big treasure fan. SURPRISE)

 

[drohne]

there was this really cool looking shooter for the xbox at E3, i remember shots being posted here...looked fantastic, sorta like einhander, but had very funky camera angles. what game is that?

xyanide. and it's unplayably bad. shame. :/

and i wouldn't even have remembered to play the red star at e3 were it not for d12m15. who i don't think posts here anymore. but i remember him hyping the game before i'd even heard of it.

anyway, it's good to see that the game's getting some attention. i would hope the journalists in this thread are just as enthusiastic about it in print, and the demos in this month's opm and oxm should build some interest.

 

[Flynn]

A friend of mine is working on this game. He's a total shooter nut and has been taking great pride in making The Red Star an excellent game.

It's nice to see early support. Let's home Acclaim either smarts up and holds the game until after the holidays where it will have a better chance to sell well or gives it the nourshing support it needs to build sales momentum.

 

[nitewulf]

xyanide. and it's unplayably bad. shame. :/

yes! just checked out some screen shots, and damn, thats a shame :/
looks really cool.

 

[brandonnn]

and i wouldn't even have remembered to play the red star at e3 were it not for d12m15. who i don't think posts here anymore. but i remember him hyping the game before i'd even heard of it.

D2M15's still here, and he's actually the reason my feelers are out for this one too.

 

[Optimistic]

SOMEONE POST SOME FUCKING SCREENS!!!

 

[nitewulf]