Child of Eden

[juv3nal]

new Edge Magazine preview

not much new info but:

it is launching as a downloadable title via XBLA and PSN

...or not

vg247 versus Edge Magazine catfight...GO!

Edited September 10, 2010 by juv3nal

[juv3nal]

newer Edge Magazine preview

is that normal? multiple previews from the same site? weird.

[Raff]

If a publisher wants it, Edge will do anything.

[Patters]

newer Edge Magazine preview

is that normal? multiple previews from the same site? weird.

[ahem]magazine[/ahem]

[miffy495]

Just wanted to make sure everyone has seen this Giant Bomb quick look of Child of Eden at PAX East. Hey, guess what? I'm buying this game. Honestly, I'd almost already forgotten that I have a Kinect (let's hear it for well-intentioned Christmas hardware gifts that don't have any interesting software to back them up!) but suddenly I'm incredibly happy I have one. Last time I used the Kinect was a late night drunken Dance Central party about a month and a half ago, but that video makes me love that inactive little box that's been sitting on top of my TV being useless for a long time.

Most interesting thing for me? Aside from looking at the game and seeing "REZ: but with way more organic stuff", I'm really impressed by the responsiveness of everything and the right-hand-for-homing-shot, left-hand-for-rapid-fire mechanic. It actually seems like a really intelligent use of the controller, rather than just tacked on support. Having each hand be a different weapon alleviates that delay that switching between them on a pad will have, so good on Q for doing something smart with the technology!

[Sno]

It's out, Giant Bomb has another quick look, it looks crazy.

Anybody have it? I plan on picking it up at some point.

[Gwardinen]

I haven't played it but I've watched a couple of people play it using the Kinect. It's definitely an audio-visual treat, I could imagine that if you put a small child in front of it while someone else played it they'd be mesmerised.

The gameplay seems well suited to the Kinect if you want to just want to enjoy the experience, but not if you really want to go for the high score. Since unlocking later levels requires you to go for the high score, it is sadly probably not a game that is realistically playable for the average Kinect user beyond the first few levels. It makes for kind of a bizarre civil war between how this game has been positioned by Microsoft and what the developers actually probably wanted it to be.

[Kolzig]

Looks really awesome. I think this is now the first real product that could and should sell Kinect.

[miffy495]

I watched that quicklook, read Joystiq's review, wiped the drool off my monitor, and ordered the game from Amazon. Since the day I got my Kinect, I've been thinking "This will be worth it when Child of Eden comes out". Now it's here, and I want to play it so bad. I'll report back once I've spent some time with it. I'l probably try with both Kinect and the controller. As Davis pointed out in the quick look, Gwarinden, they have separate scoreboards for "with kinect" and "with controller", so I think they've adjusted it so that progression works just fine no matter how you want to control it. I am really excited to try this out.

[SiN]

I watched the trailers, read minimal previews, read none of the reviews, but of course I have it ordered.

No Kinect here, but might borrow a friends.

Will report back.

[miffy495]

Update: Amazon now reports my order as "shipped." Whoo!

[Sno]

I ended up getting this.

Fuuuuuuck, guuuuys.

It's so pretty. It's soo, sooo pretty.

Also, about the Kinect vs. gamepad thing, there appears to be separate scoring requirements for progression based on your choice of control scheme, as well as separate leader boards.

Regardless, I don't have a Kinect, though i'm reading all over that it's actually incredibly responsive.

[Nachimir]

Those are the first videos in ages that I've watched all the way through without getting distracted :0

Think I'm going to need this. Especially as the hackspace has a Kinect and and projector.

[Raff]

I've decided not to buy this until it's cheap. The saccharine atmosphere and tone just don't appeal to me. The visuals look lovely but aren't nearly as striking as Rez. I don't mind them doing something different but this isn't for me.

[miffy495]

I just realized that I ordered this game from an online retailer during a postal strike. I'm suddenly very sad.

[twmac]

Played it over the weekend. Man is it good. Sure, it is more or less Rez 2, but I don't care. My eye sockets were hurting after two levels. So much pretty onscreen at the same time.

Delicious, absolutely delicious.

[Sno]

The fourth level is incredible.

[Sno]

It's been weird watching the response to this, a lot of fairly universal praise has pretty quickly shifted to general disinterest, it doesn't seem like anybody has actually bothered to play the game. (Judging from what i've seen, at least.)

I mean, It seems like a game everybody said they wanted, and now that they can have it, nobody wants it.

Egh.

[twmac]

Agreed.

It seems that people like the idea of it but the reality isn't what they wanted. The main criticism is that it is short, which I completely understand. Apart from the last level you will breeze through it (the fourth level is extremely pretty, the cogs oh the cogs). However, to do that is to miss the point, a bit like the guys who coin feed 2-D shooters and complain that the game takes an hour to 'finish'.

So far this is easily one of my games of the year and the implementation of Kinect, once you get used to the quirks is sublime.

It is weird, I cannot currently beat the last level with the Kinect but levels 1-4 I have better ratings.

If you already own a Kinect then you should definitely buy this game. I almost bought one for it but couldn't justify the price point. Incidentally, I discovered that the Kinect I borrowed doesn't work with the oldschool X360s (the port it plugs into on the shiny black ones doesn't exist for my console)I think I need some kind of power adaptor. Anyone know about this?

Edited June 27, 2011 by twmac

[Sno]

If you already own a Kinect then you shoudl definitely buy this game. I almost bought one for it but couldn't justify the price point. Incidentally, I discovered that the Kinect I borrowed doesn't work with the oldschool X360s (the port it plugs into on the shiny black ones doesn't exist for my console)I think I need some kind of power adaptor. Anyone know about this?

The older 360 model can't feed the Kinect enough power on its own, in that situation the Kinect needs its own wall outlet and power cable in addition to a connection to the 360, is how i understand it. I guess there's different cables for the Kinect depending on which model of 360 you have. I don't know where you can get the cables for the old 360 though, i think they're packed in with stand-alone Kinects, but not Kinects bundled with the 360 slim.

Anyways, yeah... I've seen some rumors about the sales figures for Child of Eden, and it's just depressing.

I find it really troubling that people seem to just generally have no appreciation for concise game experiences, simple experiences that are tuned to be as satisfying as possible, and to reveal hidden depths through mastery. Repetition is such a dirty word when there's no reason for it to be so, games are inherently repetitious. I feel there's value in less content honed to a greater degree than a game bursting will shoddily developed filler.

Egh.

[miffy495]

I'm enjoying it, but what with an actual music festival this past weekend haven't spent too much time with it yet. As for Kinect, mine came bundled with a special plug that the regular Kinect plug will go into, thus splitting it into a USB plug and a power cord so that it can be used with an older 360 (what I'm using it on). I understand that a newer 360 can power a Kinect directly from the unit so it doesn't require this extra step, while older ones weren't designed for it and need the power boost. Not sure what you can do in your situation, as if it came bundled with a newer 360 it probably wouldn't even include the adapter at all.

[twmac]

Thanks for the nod, the person I borrowed it off of has a slim so I just took it around to a different friend's house and played Child of Eden on their X360.

At least I now know that there is a solution if project Draco and Steel Batallion turn out good enough to want a Kinect.

[Sno]

Man, i was really hoping we'd see something about those at E3 this year, but nothing.

Maybe TGS.

[n0wak]

Anyways, yeah... I've seen some rumors about the sales figures for Child of Eden, and it's just depressing.

It's only depressing if you were expecting the opposite and, really, why would you do that? As much as I was looking forward to CoE and others I know were, we're very much in the minority. I mean, look at Rez. It's so revered. It sold like shit. At least the HD release had the benefit of being a cheaper downloadable title that people could try first. Good luck even finding copies of CoE (as with Rez back in the day) in retail.

[miffy495]

It took a single viewing of a youtube video to convince my friend Alex to buy this game tonight, so add one more sale to the tally. I'm trying to savour the game here, doing one level each time I have a chance to play it rather than blasting through it all at once. Finished level 3 today and god was it nice. With all the raving about level 4 around the web, I'm excited for tomorrow. I'm getting more used to using the Kinect for this game, though I still think my apartment may just be too small for it. It's not unplayable, just a bit twitchy. When I quickly sweep my hair out of my face with my left hand, I'm not trying to activate rapid fire, but because I'm so close to the sensor anyway the game reads it as that. Pity. I just have to try to curb those little subconscious things though, and the game plays great. And shit does it ever play great. The pushing to fire the homing shots feels fucking amazing, and I don't know if I could tell you the last time I felt this connected to a game. I gotta say, if you don't have the option of Kinect, playing this game with the gamepad is probably fine, but you're really missing out.