Features & News

The Gathering: THQ Press Event 2010

July 12, 2010, Author: Andy Knight

Truth or Lies
Truth or Lies is a party game for the 360, PS3 and Wii and has the potential to cause a whole load of issues if played in the correct manner. This game is basically the console version of the teenage party classic truth or dare, only I hear you ask “how can a console dare you to do anything, and then gauge you’ve completed the usually humiliating act of that dare?” Well simply it can’t, so they’ve ditched the dare and traded it for a game mechanic that can tell if you’re lying or not.

I was wise enough to let James play this game as I preferred to watch and ask questions, I don’t need a machine revealing all my lying traits to the world. So James was signed up to be quizzed, but first things first, the game needed to be set up. How it works is with the use of a microphone and you simply calibrate to the game by answering a set of questions in a certain manner. Firstly, you answer three questions being truthful, and then you purposely lie three times. I figure this is so the game can read the voice tones of your answers and can then calculate to know when you’re lying. So James did this and the game was on.

Always a tricky one to answer

The game itself has two modes, a standard version where the game will pick a random question from its 3000+ question database, or you can choose the Hot Seat mode where the party of people you are playing with get to make up questions for you to answer. We played Hot Seat mode and I got to ask the questions, luckily they provided a bowl to pick questions from, so I did that. It was quite a laugh, but I feel it would have been more fun in the company of people we knew. James answered three questions and the game told us he lied on two of them, but he swore he told the truth each time. To be fair to James the questions were a bit random, one of which was “Would you rather have a house fall on your car, or a car fall on your house?”. Yeah, not the best questions really.

Hmmm, that's a thinker

Truth or Lies can also be set up for different kinds of group play, such as family, couples, adults, and teens. By doing so it will only ask questions to suit the audience and group playing along, so parents will need to set the parent lock to stop their fourteen year old daughter being asked if she enjoyed her first sexual experience. My impressions were that it looks fun and could also cause a riot, but you need the right people to do so. However, what was weird to me is that the game is stand alone and doesn’t come supplied with the required mic needed to play the game. They stated, most people have games like Rock Band, Guitar Hero, Lips and Singstar which provide a mic, and that’s why they decided not to add the peripheral with the game. There is no set release date, all they could say was September 2010.

At this point I’d like to say not all sailed smoothly with the event. It seemed the game Wheel of Fortune was having issues, as the booth it was set up on was constantly telling you there was a controller problem. To me that was because there wasn’t one about to enable you to play it. The only sighting of the new De Blob game was on a TV running a montage of trailers, also Marvel Super Hero Squad 2 to was a very early debug code and that was horribly broken. There were a bunch of console booths set up with nothing on them, and not that there was a problem with it, but they were also showing UFC Undisputed 2010 which is already out to buy. Also a big mystery to me was why there were no sign of a Playstation 3 in the place, it was all Wii or 360.

WWE All Stars
That only leaves me with one more game to experience, but for me it was the best on show. As I said above, the WWE Smackdown franchise has always been a simulation style game, and unless you’re really into your wrestling you’re not going to be interested in escapades of John Cena and Triple H exchanging wrist locks. So how can WWE and THQ draw in the causal gamer who likes the fighting without the fuss? WWE All Stars could well be the answer.

Chiropractor required!

WWE All Stars is an over the top, fast paced brawler, where outrageous over inflated characters pull off moves you only thought Superman could do. What THQ have done here is strip right back the elements of the wrestling game genre and pieced them back together with a “bigger is better” attitude. The wrestlers look like the Incredicable Hulk without the green, and with their skin stretched to tearing point as it tries to contain the bulging muscles which could burst out at any moment. The faces are stylized in almost a cartoon fashion, it doesn’t look silly though, it looks fun!

It isn’t just the wrestler models that are oversized, the motion and movements within the ring are exaggerated to the point of ridiculous. You’d think a Smackdown Versus Raw purist would baulk at the apparent stupidity of it, but they won’t, because it looks awesome. It is awesome! The game is fast paced and the moves are minimal, simple to pull off, and easy to learn. The shear joy as your guy suplexes his opponent and leaps 10-20 feet into the air to do so. Then the oh so satisfying feeling as that opponent sends out systemic waves as he crashes back into the canvas with a sickening thud; it’s ludicrous but hilarious.

Fancy a dance?

Where All Stars comes into its own, though, is the reversal system. Where in Smackdown you can string together about three reversals max, here in All Stars the reversals between you and your opponent seem to be countless provided you can counter in time. James and I strung together reversal combos of up to six, seven, eight at a time, but it didn’t get boring; it was just so much fun. This was in a demo with only two playable characters, just think what the final game will feature in terms of both current wrestlers as well as the legends of WWE’s past. That’s a heck of a lot of different moves and reversal moves just waiting to be pulled off.

Yes, I’m probably a bit biased because I’m a wrestling nut, but it is just so much fun. I can totally see non wrestling fans enjoying the combat if they’re willing to give the game a chance. This was the early E3 build, so this will only get better, and it’s already pretty awesome. Not out till 2011, but with it being across all platforms, this will surely be a winner.

The verdict
With that, it was time to end my day at “The Gathering” and head home, and as it took me nearly four hours to get back, I had plenty of time to reflect on the games I had seen and what I made of the event as a whole. I had a great time, met some nice friendly and approachable people. Mischief set everything out nicely, with a relaxed atmosphere where you could wander about and take in things at your own pace, and with all the demo reps giving as much information possible I have nothing but good things to say about my first (hopefully not my last) press event. THQ’s games were all very solid with the WWE ones obviously whetting my appetite for the coming months.

Oh yeah… the cool press pack I was given is pretty awesome too…

USB press pack, very nice touch!

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