Preview: Weapon of Choice

By: Derek Yu

On: November 6th, 2008

With Xbox Community Games going live on November 19th, Microsoft threw a launch party last week to show off some of the games that will be available. And you know what, they look pretty darn good, for the most part! Some of the highlights include CarneyVale: Showtime, the winner of Microsoft’s Dream-Build-Play Challenge 2008, and Streets of Fury, a Streets of Rage knock-off that uses digitized characters. Okay, so maybe I’m the only one that finds that idea appealing!

Weapon of Choice also looks quite dandy. Featuring graphics that I can only describe as Lisa Frank meets H.R. Giger, this physics-based run n’ gun is technically very impressive-looking, and has some inspired creature designs, including a giant spider with appropriately giant milk udders. Seriously, every enemy in this game has some kind of low-hanging genitalia that you can blast off. I’m guessing that Insomniac Games, the designer’s former employer, was not so keen on him putting cow tits on Spyro the Dragon.

For more coverage of the Xbox Community Games event, check out Destructoid and Game|Life. See another video of Weapon of Choice here, via IGN.

Posted in Previews, Videos, Xbox 360

http://0xdeadc0de.org/ Eclipse

uhm, i don’t like the art at all : but the gameplay seems fun
AmnEn

Far too many colors for my personal tastes :)
Jad

Hah, agree with you both, looks really garish. Art direction is not very good here, but gameplay actually looks fun :D
http://del_duio.sitesled.com Del_Duio

Is it supposed to want to make you go play Contra 4?
Valkyrie

At least it’s got Wilford Brimley.
Jarvan

The art direction is some of the worst I’ve seen in Weapon of Choice, everything shows no artistic training whatsoever, kind of like a middle schooler sketching in a notepad with colored pencils.
Blueberry_pie

Yeah, the individual art assets aren’t bad but none of them really fit together. A bit of a mess, graphics-wise.
cactus

It looks so kitschy that I can’t help but love the look of the game. The art direction is just so incredibly bizarre, almost like a flower power version of Contra. I definitely feel like playing it after seeing the trailer.
Stij

I think the garish, psychadelic style is intentional, but you never know.

Gameplay looks fun, anyway.
HikariExpress

This looks like a cheesy Amiga game with assets taken straight from bad videogame cover art from the 80’s.

And that is awesome.
Hammy

It’s not intentional, the game was made by one guy and obviously thats around as good as he could do for art. If you look at the character stills and such you can tell he tries but makes typical untrained anatomy mistakes, etc.
Skofo

Whoa-ho. I definitely love the tropical colors of this one.
sockpuppets

WHAAAT IS THIS GODLIKE MUSIC TELL ME NOW :D???
DominicWhite

Hikari: Good to know I wasn’t the only one getting an Amiga vibe from this. It really looks and moves like one, in some indescribable kinda way.
Trotim

Who cares if the look is intentional or not? It looks like this so we have to at least try and pretend it’s supposed to. Or something.

And it looks kewl.
BeamSplashX

With genitalia become the next breast physics?
BeamSplashX

With meaning “will”, of course, if I’m not being a ferjinkling idiot.
Foppy

I don’t understand the negative comments about the graphics. To me this looks like one of the best looking games seen here in some time, with those huge colorful animated sprites and backdrops and nice scrolling.
trabitboy

I actually love this art in some kind of eighties ocean ad in magazine style !

take it for what it is, I truly love people drawing “their way” .
Jad

I am taking it for what it is!

And I think it looks like ass :D

I’m not at all denying the kitschy qualities, and as I said before, I’d very much like to play it.

But it doesn’t appeal to me at all, is all.
J.J.

Streets of fury looks awesome, seems some good old school action is coming
crackers

I find that the music more than anything is a major turn off. Is there really a need to score the trailer to generic wank-heavy guitar music?
BeamSplashX

Wank sells games. FACT.
Hammy

Foppy, there were a lot of better looking games shown by Microsoft at that thing (with hand drawn art and everything) so it makes sense to comment about how weird this looks.
Novichock

Don’t be shocked, by the tone of my voice
check out my new weapon, weapon of choice.
Foppy

Hammy… ok, I was just surprised that most readers think this looks bad, where I personally don’t think it looks bad or even weird.

I also like the smooth animation, it must have been a lot of work. To read comparisons with the drawings of little children seemed a bit unfair to me.

But, everybody has different tastes.
trabitboy

weapon of choice = instant buy for me,
I watched the trailers 10 times at least !