After 36 hours of non-stop PC gaming at NVISION 08, some weary champions stumbled home, catching planes, trains and automobiles back to residences either temporary or permanent. Others passed out in not-particularly-comfortable chairs as they awaited a tremendous raffle at which thousands upon thousands of dollars in graphics cards, power supplies, motherboards were awarded. I? I went looking for my next story.

Just after I stepped into the NVISION exhibition room for the very first time, my eye was immediately drawn to a familiar red, blue and white color scheme. It was Mirror’s Edge… running on PC. There was no more and no less of the game than we’d seen up to now — I sped past the same solar panels and fence, overhanging pipe, structure, balancing act, wallrun and final leap of faith you see in the game’s brilliant original trailer — but for comparison’s sake, the demo suited my needs perfectly.

Though the PC build at NVISION demonstrated some vertical sync issues, it was otherwise (on an Alienware machine housing a pricey, but not outrageous Core 2 Duo E8500 processor at 3.12GHz, 3GB of RAM and a GeForce GTX 260) exactly what I’d hoped — smooth, quick, crisp and as intuitive as possible. First-person shooter fans will be right at home with movement on the standard WASD keys, Space to shift center of gravity upwards and Shift to shift it downwards, with Q and R bound to the 180° quick turn and Faith’s slow-motion focus ability respectively.

As I’d anticipated in our E3 preview, the addition of a proper mouse allows for that fluid first-person camera control that we found lacking in the PS3 build. Though we admit we haven’t seen PS3 in over a month, I got the feeling that all else being equal, these controls combined with the PC version’s notably higher resolution and smoother textures will give it quite the edge over consoles.

…and that’s before EA told me the official minimum system requirements for the game:

• Windows XP or Vista

• Processor: Pentium 4 at 2.4 GHz

• RAM: 1GB

• Video: GeForce 6 Series with 256MB VRAM or better

As always, there’s no telling exactly what kind of image minimum specifications will produce, but a volunteer at the show offered that the game might run on “medium” settings with a Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz thrown into that same mix. We’ll look forward to testing out the game’s scalability as soon as is humanly possible.

Being an NVIDIA event, there was no mention of equivalent AMD chips or graphics cards, but I can say that the ATI X1650 (or HD2400) graphics card, and the Athlon 64 2800+ processor are typically comparable to the P4/GeForce set listed. We’ve requested a full set of specs from EA as they become available.

In related news, 1UP reports that Mirror’s Edge will feature a new Time Trial mode where you can upload your own best freerunning times on certain short parkour segments to the online leaderboards, then challenge others by racing their ghosts to the finish. We’d much, much rather perform that feat in a synchronous versus online mode, but hey, what can you do, right?

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Call us crazy, call it coincidence, but it’s not looking good for game companies whose names begin with the letter T. THQ’s flagging fortunes have continued despite the company’s new directions; they lost $27 million just last quarter. As I’m sure you’re well aware, Take-Two will likely be purchased by EA. Traveller’s Tales, Treyarch and Taito have long since been bought up; Troika went under last year. And though fan-favorites Treasure, Telltale and Two Tribes seem to have found profitable niches, their games are almost always released in the shadow of their publisher.

Tecmo, our go-to developer for bloody, sexy ninja action since 1999’s Dead or Alive 2, may well be the latest to succumb to the curse of the letter T. After losing both creative and corporate heads over a labor dispute, Tecmo’s shares plummeted… and now, Square Enix has suddenly announced its intent to purchase a majority stake in the company.

As reported by Kotaku and detailed in an official Square Enix translation below, the famed JRPG publisher has offered a friendly takeover bid at 920 yen per share — a 30% premium when compared to the company’s closing price of 706 yen on August 28th. In a briefing early this morning, Square Enix president Yoichi Wada explained that the two companies had conducted discussions since May, but indicated that the recent shakeups at Tecmo affected the timing of this announcement; that Square Enix is interested in both Tecmo’s IP and the creative teams that developed them; and that if Tecmo were acquired, the Tecmo brand itself might be lost.

Also, and particularly exciting for fans of Dead Fantasy in a world post-Soul Calibur jedi, Wada floated the idea that teams at Square Enix and Tecmo might “inspire” one another.

Though Tecmo shares have unsurprisingly traded higher (806 yen, a 14% increase) since the Square Enix announcement, it’s worth noting that the company’s stock had already hit bottom (538 yen) on August 26th, two days prior. Tecmo traded at above the 1,000 yen mark throughout May, when the companies reportedly began deliberations.

Tecmo’s board of directors have until September 4th to approve the proposal. If, however, they do not consent to the transaction, Square Enix has made it very clear they do not intend to go hostile and take their bid directly to Tecmo shareholders.

In related news, Microsoft announced yesterday that Tecmo’s Ninja Gaiden II has sold over one million copies.

Official translation of the takeover bid follows:

SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD. (the “Company”) announced today that the Company submitted to the board of directors of TECMO, LTD. (Securities Code: 9650, 1st Section of the TSE, “TECMO”) a proposal for basic conditions of acquisition of shares of common stock issued by TECMO (the “TECMO Shares”) through a friendly take over bit (the “TOB”) (the “Proposal”) in order to obtain consent to the TOB by the board of directors of TECMO.

The Proposal was made in order to acquire the TECMO Shares through the TOB, and is subject to obtaining consent by the board of directors of TECMO no later than September 4, 2008. Therefore, please be advised that the Company will NOT acquire the TECMO Shares through the TOB as planned in the Proposal in case that the Company receives no response from TECMO or fails to obtain consent by the board of directors of TECMO to the TOB, by the date. This Notice shall not be construed as solicitation for sales and/or purchase of the TECMO Shares.

1. The reason to submit the Proposal

Video games have been globally recognized as a major entertainment genre, and have now become an industry receiving considerable attention in terms of its market size and growth potential. In the meantime, the game industry in Japan is standing at a critical juncture whether it continues to be a center of the video game industry in the world, or not.

TECMO is a group of excellent creators with proven track-record in the global market, which is a precious human resource of Japan. We, however, cannot be optimistic about the future of this significant resource, given the current circumstances surrounding TECMO.

We believe that TECMO will be able to make a great leap forward by joining the Square Enix Group, which will provide the group with further growth opportunities as well.

We are planning to position TECMO as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Square Enix Holdings maintaining TECMO’s current organization and brand as in the cases of Square Enix and Taito.

2. Major Points of the Proposal

(1) TOB Price: 920 yen per share

Adding a premium of 30%+ to TECMO’s closing stock price as of August 28, 2008 (706 yen).

(2) Number of the TECMO Shares to acquire

Lower Limit: More than half of the outstanding TECMO Shares upon fully-diluted basis (including residual shares subject to stock options).

Upper Limit: None.

(3) Deadline to reply the Proposal: September 4 (Thursday)

If the Company should, by the deadline, receive no response from TECMO, or fail to obtain consent by the board of directors of TECMO to the TOB, the Company will withdraw the Proposal, and will NOT acquire the TECMO Shares through the TOB as planned in the Proposal.

Image credit: Monty Oum

Nyko, it’s rather unfair of you to expect gamers to be capable of hardware assembly just to use your products. I also have to say, this new controller of yours is kind of light and flimsy, and it wouldn’t sync up with my Wii at all. I hope the final version is available pre-assembled, and has some working parts in it.

Hit the jump for pictures of our adventures in peripheral papercraft.

Nyko helpfully included photos of the Wing controller in its final form, looking sleek, shiny, and game-ready. See for yourself:

Looks pretty slick, eh? Nyko is promising the Wing will offer 30 hours of gameplay on 2 AAA batteries, and a 10ft range to the Wiimote with no wires required. Well, let’s see what we’ve got to work with…

Okay, so, it’s a little less sleek, and the triggers are printed backwards. That’s fine; it’ll just make you feel more Russian if/when Karnov comes to Virtual Console. Besides, clearly the Wing allows for the mod community to arrange their buttons any way they want.

How many other controllers will let you spell out “Ax Baby?” Tell me that.

This has been a real eye-opener for me — I always assumed they had machines to do this. Now I know better. If nothing else, building a controller from scratch really makes me respect hardware manufacturers. It’s got to be a tough job, sitting there in the Nyko factory, punching and folding all day, getting glue everywhere.

Honestly, though, I don’t see how Nyko can stay afloat with this kind of assembly process. The lost man-hours just for glue-drying time have got to be staggering.

To top it off, once the controller was finally built, I had a number of complaints. The batteries kept falling out of place, the Bluetooth had absolutely no range on it, and the analog sticks were stiff and unpleasant.

Nyko is expected to announce the final details on the Wing next week. I hope, for their sake, that they iron out all of these issues by then.

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Those six albums, for the instantly curious, are:

• Foo Fighters / The Colour and the Shape
• Jane’s Addiction / Nothing’s Shocking
• Megadeth / Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying
• No Doubt / (Special Rock Band “Best Of” Collection)
• Red Hot Chili Peppers / Blood Sugar Sex Magik
• Stevie Ray Vaughn / Texas Flood

Kick ass. Hit the jump for a look at EW’s video of the new Rock Band 2 opening, featuring an emphasis on the new “battle of the bands” mode.

I know this is just symbolic and everything, but someone needs to make that game. A driving/melee combat/8 player PvP/rhythm game? Yes.

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Unfortunately, due to unforeseen technical difficulties, we won’t be able to release Rush’s “Moving Pictures” this week. We’ll be working on it as hard as we can, but it looks like it could be a couple of weeks to fix.

A couple of weeks? Ouch. I know more than a few simulated rock enthusiasts who will not take this news well. On the plus side, at least Harmonix won’t be leaving us high and dry:

In the meantime we will be moving around our schedule so we still have DLC coming out each week (including this week, info to follow in another announcement).

Harmonix has also promised to deliver some “exciting news” this weekend. Maybe they’re unveiling a third version of Working Man for purchase!

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Vids ‘n’ Screens after the jumps!

More stuff is available, naturally, on Telltale’s website.

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Also, while the Olympics may have ended on Sunday, for the Rabbids, the soul still burns.

More games need to do this.

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This might seem like a minor delay, especially relative to Valve’s usual delays, but believe me, even a few extra weeks to wait is a tragedy. Based on what we experienced of Left 4 Dead back at E3, trust us — you need to be playing this game as soon as possible. Also, maybe the zombies will get sandwiches 10 months after release.

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• TF2 Heavy Achievements Speculation Contest

We’ve all pulled the occasional all-nighter to take down a final boss, or finish off the last chapter of an epic RPG, or show those jerks on the Blue Team a thing or two. As a lad, my copy of Final Fantasy III (or FF6, I guess they call it now) has easily 20 more hours on the clock than it actually took me to win, because I repeatedly played so long into the wee hours of the morning that I fell asleep in front of the game. Also, as I hinted at in the initial contest article, I have brazenly marched into an arcade with a sack full of quarters, for the singular purpose of beating a particular nemesis of a game, on no less than four occasions. Those games, if memory serves, were Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Blood Bros., Skull & Crossbones, and Total Carnage — quarter-hungry fiends, the lot of them, but I can now count them all among my victories. I suppose I’m showing my age with all of these arcade-based exploits, but I can also proudly claim that, after, many quarters’ worth of practice, I beat Time Crisis 2 without a single continue. Still, to this day, I think I still have to cite my biggest gaming achievement as follows: I beat Impossible Mission, back on the original Commodore 64, back when the game’s buggy software often did make victory truly impossible. I found every puzzle piece, dodged every robot, and heard Atombender’s digitized voice cry “No… no! No!” I am the only one of my friends to have done this.

As for my co-editor Sean, he’s not here to tell us his stories right now. This is because he’s preparing to go to NVISION 08 tonight, and attempt the freaking Guinness World Record for the longest non-stop LAN party in history. His goal is to remain conscious for 36 straight hours while still retaining the wits and wherewithal to kick ass at his games of choice. And he’s going to be blogging it. So you tell me if he knows about gaming dedication and fanaticism or not.

With all that in mind, we still had a tough time choosing a story. Tales of Dreamcast-based heroism warmed our hearts, and we gnashed our teeth in frustrated sympathy at those of you who managed to grind your way through flawless performances on MGS4, or the infamously punishing Ninja Gaiden. Spending 150 hours in Oblivion without starting the first mission… I’m sure that’s achieving something, but I have no idea what. We would salute you if we were less worried about you.

In the end, though, the GameCyte Geometry Giveaway must go to Josh, for having completed Rock Band’s endless setlist, on expert, with all four players. The fact that this is extremely difficult to pull off is one thing, but bringing together a group of like-minded gamers, and non-gamers, in order to complete it — that’s an achievement unto itself. It’s by no means difficult to get people interested in Rock Band, but enlisting three people to become good enough at the game that they can play songs like Run to the Hills on expert is fantastic. Further convincing three people to set aside some 5-6 hours of their life to attempt the game’s ultimate test of skill is, quite frankly, incredible. Our hats are off to you, Josh, and we can think of no better recipient for this competitive XBLA title. Do us a favor and get your 4-player band to play the game in co-op mode, and send us your high scores.

Our thanks to everyone who entered. Keep shooting for those achievements, and we’ll see you next giveaway!

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It’s not hard to pick Pure out of this year’s Disney Interactive video game line-up. Maybe it’s the grown-up look… maybe the inclusion of ATVs… maybe the conspicuous lack of Hannah Montana. Or, maybe, it’s simply because Pure is not quite like anything any video game publisher, let alone Disney, has ever produced.

Yes, Pure is an ATV racing game. But by borrowing the finest points of games like SSX, Pure is also an extreme sports game. As a Disney title, Pure is incredibly easy to pick up and play — but it’s also surprisingly deep. Find out what I mean after the jump.

Developed by Disney’s UK-based Black Rock Studios (formerly known as Climax Racing, and responsible for THQ’s MotoGP and the later ATV Offroad Fury games) Pure is first and foremost a solid ATV racer with spot-on controls, set in beautiful environments modeled on real-world locations. But as you’ve no doubt surmised from the screenshots above, those real-world locations don’t just feature the occasional hill — they drop you off the edge of cliffs that would make Evel Knievel himself jealous.

With all the air you’ll be getting, there’s plenty of time to pull off crazy tricks and rack up points during each decent; and as virtual skateboarders and snowboarders might expect, it is here that Pure’s first level of strategy is to be found. Do you go for broke, and risk chaining tricks together to create killer combos? Do you simply hold a trick midair for greater control? Or, over those smaller jumps where you’re only getting — let us say, one or two double-decker buses worth of hang time — do you play it safe and not trick out at all?

Due to a particularly intuitive trick control scheme where you simply press one of three face buttons and choose a direction on the analog stick to bust out death-defying stunts, those are pretty much the only questions you’ll be asking yourself midair — but considering how much your midair success influences your chances on the ground, there’s plenty of pressure to perform. Every time you land a trick, Pure gives you more precious boost (and, in the game’s Freestyle mode, fuel) that you can then immediately expend to gain a burst of speed.

Or not… because your boost meter doubles as your trick meter. The more boost you save, the more difficult, spectacular and rewarding stunts you’ll be able to perform — and the faster your boost will accordingly rise.

But then again, boost can also be used right before a jump to get even more air, to perform more tricks and gain even more boost. And the lovely part is while all this might seem like a tricky balancing act in print (and at a competitive level, it might be) the reality I encountered was that all the balancing is done behind the scenes, to ensure that the multitude of ways to use boost simply provide for multiple correct approaches to racing.

At the multiplayer press event where I picked up Pure for the very first time, I first tried to milk every jump, no matter how small, for a little bit of boost — and then use that boost to immediately catch up to the competition. It worked; but I soon found conserving boost for more powerful tricks worked just as well.

Unlike most racing games, Pure features sweeping changes in elevation throughout its real-world tracks, and if you properly preload the suspension, you can pull off tricks over even the smallest of jumps. But after watching me struggle to pull out of 11th place in an online match against fellow journalists, game director Jason Avent explained that as I became more experienced, I wouldn’t necessarily want to.

“If you’re flying through the air, your wheels aren’t on the ground. If your wheels aren’t on the ground, you’re not accelerating,” Avent said. “So what you want to try and do, when you get really good — and this really is an advanced thing — you need to know when to do tricks, when to get boost, when not to.”

By tapping the brake right before smaller jumps, he explained, you can gently hop right over them… and then while competitors are still in the air, haul ass to the finish line. It’s not always a winning strategy — “if you really want to go clear over maybe bumpy ground or three or four jumps to land on a downramp, you want to boost jump,” he said — but then again, no single technique really is. While arcade-y physics mean that players have far more leeway to react to the tracks in real time, there’s always an advantage to knowing the terrain — and in Pure, that terrain is three-dimensional.

When I had difficulty pulling around a particularly tight corner, I asked Avent for some advice. After he explained that the brake was my friend (and indeed it was; a quick tap help set up a nice, showy drift), he said something I won’t soon forget.

“There’s lots of ways of taking the corners,” he said, “but then you’ve actually got to think about sequences of corners… and you’ve got to think of the bumps and jumps in the track like they’re corners. You’ve got the two-dimensional left and right but also you’ve got the distance to deal with, which kind of adds an extra dimension to the racing. So you’ve kind of got a three-dimensional racing line.”

I’ve heard the phrase “add an extra dimension” more times than I care to count; but perhaps for the first time, the description was entirely apt — and gets right to the heart of what makes Pure different. Where other racers take place mainly on a plane, Pure draws on the conventions of extreme sports titles to render an experience that not only has 3-D graphics, but allows you to engage the terrain in 3-D as well, jumping over (and under) obstacles, taking drifts and drops in sequence while trying to stay on the dirt track.

While I wasn’t able to evaluate the single-player AI, and didn’t get quite enough hands-on time with the game’s non-standard racing modes to properly comment (Sprint is a slightly more realistic racing mode with smaller tracks and fewer jumps, while Freestyle pits players against their own fuel tanks, requiring constant trickery to maintain momentum as the precious liquid drains away) I had a great time finding the best routes, jumps and uses of boost in the game’s 16-player online racing mode; and was impressed by the wide array of licensed parts from which players can actually build (not just customize) their quads for style and performance.

Pure ships September 16th, and arrives in stores September 23rd, for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC.

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