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Monday, April 14, 2008
Austin’s Aspyr to bring SAT prep to the Nintendo DS
Austin’s Aspyr Media, which for years has published “Ports” of video games across different gaming platforms, is working on its first wholly original game. It promises to be educational.
The company is partnering with Kaplan, Inc., to bring an SAT prep video game to the popular Nintendo DS handheld game console. The as-yet-untitled game, to be released later this year, will be the first title in a “multi-year agreement in which Aspyr will bring Kaplan-branded interactive entertainment products to market,” the company said.
Aspyr, known more for games like its recent PC/Mac version of the blockbuster “Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock,” says it’s confident it can make the leap to an educational title that will entertain and take some of the anxiety out of the standardized test.
“The SAT is a scary test,” said Ted Staloh, executive vice president of publishing at Aspyr. “There’s so much pressure based on that test that we want to make a fun and rewarding experience.”
The Nintendo DS has been the platform for several successful “Brain” games that have been popular in Japan and the U.S. “Brain Age,” “Big Brain Academy” and “Professor Layton and the Curious Village,” which each feature puzzles and brainteasers, have been hits on the DS.
Staloh said that Aspyr approached Kaplan a year ago about an SAT prep game. He said the game won’t simply be a list of questions, but rather a series of mini-games that correlate to parts of the SAT test (though, he said, not the writing portion).
While it’s not meant to take the place of SAT prep courses, it will help students learn skills they may need to succeed on the test, he said.
The game is still in the early stages of development: it has no title or pricing yet. Aspyr plans to design, develop and publish the game in-house. Staloh said the game is structured in a way that will make it easy to develop by year’s end.
An early mock-up of the game’s look:
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Digital: ‘God of War: Chains of Olympus’
‘God of War: Chains of Olympus’
$40, Sony PSP
Rated M for Mature
Fans of Kratos, the buff, soul-patched anti-hero of the Sony “God of War” series, won’t want to miss “Chains of Olympus,” a new game for the hand-held Sony PlayStation Portable system. A prequel to the PlayStation 2 “God of War” games, “Chains” explains why Kratos has such a chip on his red-striped shoulder (it involves his daughter, Calliope) and offers the same kinds of fast fighting and puzzle solving as the previous games.
Remarkably, though, the game loses almost nothing in the move to a portable console. The graphics are gorgeously moody, the scale is epic and the controls are snappy.
The game moves along at a good clip, requiring no more than a few dedicated hours to complete, and, though some kinds of enemies reappear often, “Chains” has plenty of great cut scenes to move the story along. It’s never boring.
It also loses none of the gore, implied sex and gloom of the other games (much of the game is set in Hades). It’s definitely not for kids, but adults will appreciate the stellar production values.
Until “God of War III” comes to the PlayStation 3, this is as much Kratos action as fans can expect for the time being. That’s all right. It’s a great technical achievement for the PSP.
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