Hands-on: Neopets Puzzle Adventure
The Nickelodeon property is getting the Puzzle Quest treatment.
June 3, 2008 - At its recent Captivate event, Capcom unveiled a surprising new game from the makers of Puzzle Quest. Based on the Nickelodeon license of the same name, Neopets takes the Puzzle Quest formula and dresses it up with the popular children's property. Neopets are similar to Pokemon in that there are hundreds of little animals for kids to train and interact with. There are a slew of mini-games available at Neopets.com.
Aside from taking on the licensed property, the other big change to the Puzzle Quest game is that instead of Bejewelled, conflicts are settled with games of Othello (Reversi). There is still an overworld map where players travel around and accept quests (over 150 in all), and it's much larger than what we saw in PQ. But once you enter a battle, you'll find the colored chips of Othello. If you've never played the land grab game, the goal is to claim the majority of the board by sandwiching your opponent's pieces with your own. Here, the player with the highest score will win a match, not necessarily the one with the most land.
Switching battles from Bejewelled to Othello really changes the feel of Puzzle Quest (sorry, we mean Neopets). Conflicts unfold more slowly and take longer to complete. Maybe we just suck at Othello. That is entirely possible.
There are hundreds of Neopets in their universe, but in this game players will have 12 to choose from and customize. There are 150 PetPets to be captured. PetPets grant the player new spells that can be cast during battle. By playing through the retail game, players will unlock codes that can be redeemed on the Neopets website for exclusive virtual items.
Based on feedback they received from Puzzle Quest, the developers made items more interactive so that you have to select them during battle. Players can equip a weapon and armor, but to get their benefit they must be activated. Doing so will cost a portion of your score, so you won't want to overuse them.
Neopets Puzzle Adventure is set for release on the Wii, PC, and Nintendo DS this holiday season.
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http://wii.ign.com/articles/878/878640p1.html
Puzzle Quest dev's next project: Neopets Puzzle Adventure
So, let's say you're a company called Infinite Interactive. You're riding on a wave a fanboy love for your brilliant game Puzzle Quest: Forgettable Fantasy Subtitle, and you need two projects to follow it up. How do you do it? Well, you could go with a sci-fi re-imagining of the series, but what else? ... What's that, peanut gallery? Did we hear "a game based on Neopets"? ... No? Well, tough noogies, because that's what you're getting during this year's holiday season on DS, Wii and PC.
You know the scariest thing? We played Neopets Puzzle Adventure at Capcom's Captivate 08 in Las Vegas last week -- and we liked it. Like, a lot. Check back for our hands-on preview later today and understand the full extent of our shame.
http://www.joystiq.com/2008/06/03/puzzle-quest-devs-next-project-neopets-puzzle-adventure/
http://www.joystiq.com/photos/neopets-puzzle-adventure-pc-wii/
CAPCOM® AND NEOPETS® PARTNER TO INTRODUCE NEW MULTI-PLATFORM PUZZLE ADVENTURE GAME
SAN MATEO, Calif. and LOS ANGELES— June 3, 2008– Capcom® Entertainment, a leading worldwide developer and publisher of video games, and Nickelodeon® Kids and Family Group’s Neopets®, the most engaging tween virtual world on the internet (http://www.neopets.com), announced today a partnership to develop a new multi-platform puzzle adventure game, Neopets Puzzle Adventure (working title), for the Wii™, Nintendo DS™ and PC this holiday season. Based on the deep storylines of Neopets, Neopets Puzzle Adventure is a new puzzle game being developed by Capcom and Infinite Interactive, developers of Puzzle Quest™.
“As part of Neopets’ strategy to extend the property into a multiplatform brand, we are continuously giving our audiences new ways to play on and off of the site,” said Kyra Reppen, Senior vice president and general manager, Neopets. “Our partnership with Capcom provides a new form of game play for Neopets that is relevant to the platforms our audience is using, and that complements the game play on the site.”
“Capcom is working to expand the breadth of our catalog to gamers of all ages in North America and Neopets is a perfect brand for us to bring to casual and family gamers,” said Germaine Gioia, senior vice president, licensing, Capcom Entertainment. “Combining Capcom’s experience, the rich world of Neopets, and Infinite Interactive’s skills in the puzzle/adventure genre makes a perfect match.”
Set to launch on the three systems this holiday season, Neopets Puzzle Adventure takes puzzle solving skills to new levels with a unique Neopets spin. Based on the classic board game, “Reversi”, Neopets Puzzle Adventure, is a robust and fully integrated Neopets experience as it includes 150 different quests across vast Neopian lands, a variety of the most popular customizable Neopets to choose from, and several fun mini-games to add depth and fun to the gameplay. As a bonus to Neopets fans, players will be able to earn codes throughout the game that connect back to the Neopets site by achieving certain goals throughout the DS, Wii or PC game. These unique codes will allow players to unlock exclusive items back in their virtual world on neopets.com.
Neopets Puzzle Adventure is the only multi-platform puzzle adventure console game based on the popular virtual, global community. For the Neopets fan, Neopets Puzzle Adventure is a must-have game with its intuitive “pick up and play” game play pattern and new never-before-seen areas in the Neopets universe to explore. Neopets Puzzle Adventure will incorporate several different mini-games, 150 petpets, as well as more than 300 items to equip various Neopet characters, recipes, treasures, awards and more.
http://press.capcom.com/release.asp?i=87
Poor PS3 Sales Means Smaller Losses
"Actually, because the number of units sold was not as high as we hoped, the loss was better than our original expectation," Quotes from Sony’s CFO Nobuyuki Oneda.
