As you may have already heard, the latest anime cross-over fighting game that people were doubting would be released in the West, Nitroplus Blasterz: Heroines Infinite Duel, is indeed getting a console release in the West courtesy of XSEED Games sometime this winter season for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3 and in order to help raise fan hype a bit, the company has announced that they are planning a special tournament.
Nitroplus Blasterz: Heroines Infinite Duel will appear at the SoCal 2015 Regionals Main Event beginning tomorrow, October 9 through October 11 at the Ontario Convention Center where a Best of 3 tournament format will be held with 32 competitors allowed and the prize distribution is as follows: 1st place – $250, 2nd place – $150 and 3rd place – $64 (or a total sum of entries). The entry fee for participants is set at $2.
DISNEY INTERACTIVE REVEALS DETAILS FOR DISNEY INFINITY 3.0’S UPCOMING MARVEL BATTLEGROUNDS PLAY SET
CAPTAIN AMERICA – THE FIRST AVENGER FIGURE REVEALED; TRAILER AND ASSETS ALSO RELEASED
Fans to receive an exclusive first look at Play Set during New York Comic-Con panel
GLENDALE, CA – (OCTOBER 8, 2015) Today, Disney Interactive revealed details for Marvel Battlegrounds, the upcoming Play Set for Disney Infinity 3.0, featuring a new four-player, arcade brawler style of gameplay, and an original Marvel storyline. Developed by United Front Games, in partnership with Avalanche Software, Marvel Battlegrounds is the first Disney Infinity Play Set to feature four-player gameplay. With full compatibility for all Disney Infinity Marvel characters, Marvel Battlegrounds features the widest selection of playable characters of any previous Play Set.
“With Disney Infinity 3.0, we’ve aimed to provide a wider variety of gameplay than ever before, and the Marvel Battlegrounds Play Set represents our commitment to developing something entirely new for our players,” said John Blackburn, SVP & GM of Disney Infinity. “The four-player arena style combat gameplay is a perfect way for friends and families to come together and play in head-to-head battles with some of their favorite Marvel characters.”
Launching in March 2016, Marvel Battlegrounds will feature Hulkbuster, Ultron and Captain America – The First Avenger, a new version of Captain America with a new pose, costume and enhanced abilities. Additional Marvel Battlegrounds figures will be announced in the coming months. All Disney Infinity 2.0 Marvel figures will be playable in the Play Set and will feature adapted abilities and skills to complement the new style of gameplay of Marvel Battlegrounds.
“We worked closely with the Disney Infinity development team to come up with new gameplay and storyline for Marvel Battlegrounds that is unique to the platform,” said Jay Ong, VP of Games, Marvel Entertainment. “We’ve created an authentic Marvel story that will give players the freedom to choose any Marvel figure in Disney Infinity and have them face off against each other in an arena style combat.”
In the original storyline, Ultron teams up with Loki in an effort to steal Asgard’s immensely powerful Infinity Stone. To accomplish this, Ultron and Loki create robotic replicas of the famed Marvel Super Heroes and turn them against each other in an effort to distract them while they commit their crime. The Marvel Super Heroes duplicates battle each other in iconic environments such as a wrecked Brooklyn train yard, Wakanda and S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Lunar Base, culminating in a universe-shaking battle against Ultron.
Fans can get a more in-depth look at the Play Set during the Disney Infinity 3.0: Facing Off in Marvel’s Battlegrounds panel at New York Comic-Con, featuring participants from Disney Interactive, Avalanche Software, United Front Games and Marvel Games. New York Comic-Con attendees can attend the panel on Saturday, October 10 from 4:00 – 4:45 p.m. at Empire Stage 1-E and will receive an exclusive pre-release figure giveaway. Fans at home can watch a live stream of the panel here: http://www.newyorkcomiccon.com/NYCCLIVE
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About Disney Infinity
Disney Infinity is an interactive gaming platform where players have unprecedented freedom and endless opportunity to create stories and play experiences starring the beloved characters from across the worlds of Disney. Building on the success of launching Disney Infinity 1.0 and 2.0, Disney Interactive launched its latest installment to the best-selling “hybrid toy/video game,” Disney Infinity 3.0. In its third iteration, players will again utilise real-world interactive figures to activate original storylines (Play Sets) in the virtual game worlds of popular Star Wars franchises and create new adventures with a variety of characters from Marvel, The Walt Disney Co. and Disney•Pixar properties in the Toy Box mode. Disney Infinity 3.0 is rated PG for mild violence and online interactivity and is available now. For more information, visit Disney.com/Infinity.
Disney Interactive is the digital entertainment part of The Walt Disney Company. As one of the world’s largest creators of high-quality digital experiences, Disney Interactive produces interactive entertainment for the whole family including multi-platform video games, online short form video, mobile and social games and digital destinations across all current and emerging media platforms.
Entertaining guests of all ages, Disney Interactive’s key products include the video game platform Disney Infinity, top virtual world for kids Club Penguin, popular mobile franchises like Frozen Free Fall and LINE Disney Tsum Tsum, top online destinations for kids, parents and fans including Disney.com, Oh My Disney, and Babble.com and the Disney social network reaching more than 1.5 billion guests on Facebook.
Bandai Namco has released a new trailer for Project X Zone 2 during New York Comic-Con today and with it they reveal more characters in the ever growing roster of fighters that take from numerous franchises owned by Sega, Capcom, and Bandai Namco.
This twelve minute long trailer and accompanying screenshot dump that you can find below focus on introducing many of the so far introduced characters including Ryo from Shenmue, Estelle from Tales of Vesperia, Ingrid from Capcom Fighting Evolution, and more. Currently Project X Zone 2 is set to be released for the Nintendo 3DS in North America on February 16, 2016.
The United States of America – The freedom loving developer Free Lives and their democratically elected publisher Devolver Digital have announced that international sensation Broforce will shed its Early Access shackles and proceed with Operation Full Release on October 15. The full launch of America’s favorite freedom simulator will include a new set of challenging campaign missions as the bros charge into Satan’s stronghold for a final confrontation in hell with the dark lord himself!
To celebrate this forthcoming triumph of electronic entertainment, Free Lives and Broforce musician Deon van Heerden have released the ultra patriotic Freedom EP – a five-track album of Broforce music including The Ballad of Rambro and the Broforce Theme. The Freedom EP is free as a thank you to Broforce Early Access owners from now until launch on October 15 after which it will be prohibitively expensive but that’s capitalism for you. Get it now for free on Steam and crank it at home, in the car, or during a hostage situation [http://store.steampowered.com/app/274190/].
“Broforce is the culmination of decades of American military superiority distilled into one sweet ass motherfucking video game,” said US Department of Defense Secretary Ashton Carter. “It’s even got versus mode and online co-op, bro.”
Broforce started it’s campaign of shock and awesome as a game jam entry in 2012 before invading Steam Early Access in 2014 where it became one of the highest user rated games ever. Over the past year and half, developer Free Lives have added a dozen unique bros, scores of new campaign missions, a full blown level editor, and untold improvements that would have made our founding fathers proud.
Broforce is available now on Steam Early Access and is set to arrive on PlayStation 4 early next year but probably won’t make it to Dreamcast. Follow future updates on Broforce on Twitter @Free_Lives and @DevolverDigital and visit broforcegame.com if you love websites about Broforce.
EVERYWEAR GAMES RELEASES FULLY NATIVE APPLE WATCH OS2 VERSION OF FANTASY-ADVENTURE GAME, RUNEBLADE
HELSINKI – Oct. 8, 2015 – Everywear Games, world’s leading smartwatch game developer, today announced the fully native release of its Apple Watch exclusive title, Runeblade. The award winning fantasy RPG game has been completely rewritten for Apple Watch and it is the first game to unleash the power of Time Travel for the players. With Time Travel players can see their future, but choices still make all the difference…
Set in a world of high fantasy and magic, Runeblade is a casual take on adventure games and is designed to provide the optimal gaming experience on Apple Watch. Runeblade combines RPG elements with a simple pick-up-and-play design that increases in depth and complexity over days, weeks and months of gameplay. With watchOS 2, Runeblade now features enhanced graphics, new animations, and support for Complications and Time Travel.
“We’re absolutely committed to provide the best game experience on smartwatches, and making Runeblade fully native on Apple Watch was a huge step in this direction,” said Aki Järvilehto, CEO of Everywear Games. “Time Travel is an amazing feature for games and adds a completely new dimension of game play for the fans of the game.”
Feedback on Runeblade has been overwhelmingly positive since the game was launched in April. Over 80% of all players rate the game with full 5-stars and fans have created Reddit forums and Wikias for the game. Runeblade is the most ambitious production ever created for smartwatches and the team at Everywear is committed to a robust update roadmap for the game.
Everywear Games was founded in 2014 with a sharp focus on developing the best games for smartwatch platforms like the Apple Watch. The company is led by gaming veterans who previously held prominent positions at such industry leaders as Remedy, Digital Chocolate and Rovio. The studio’s award-winning Apple Watch launch title, Runeblade, has received worldwide recognition from press, fans and industry heavyweights. The company recently announced a 2 million euro funding round led by True Ventures, Lifeline Ventures and Sunstone.
Runeblade is a free title available exclusively on Apple Watch. For more information about Everywear Games products, please visit www.everyweargames.com. For information about Runeblade, please visit www.everyweargames.com/runeblade.
Roccat announced the next generation Roccat Kova Gaming Mouse. It continues to be a sleek mouse with a couple extra buttons that are perfect for MOBA and MMO gamers. Lefties will appreciate the fact that the design is ambidextrous. The sensor is a 3500 native DPI sensor that can go up to 7000 DPI via overdrive. I hope Roccat is starting a trend by openly advertising the native DPI of their sensors, as native DPIs are more accurate than overdriven settings.
The new Roccat Kova will use the new Swarm drivers, finally integrating all of Roccat’s device drivers under a single program. The Easy-Shift[+] button returns, providing 22 possible macros on the mouse with only 12 buttons. The mouse also supports Talk FX and AlienFX illumination, giving gamers a choice of 16.8 million different colours.
Gamers can purchase the Roccat Kova at their favourite computer store starting November 17 2015 in white or black. No word on exact MSRP just yet.
Madman Entertainment has several manga releases available for Australian fans today. The following is a complete list of all of the manga titles Madman is releasing today, October 9, 2015.
Dawn of the Arcana Volume 13
Deadman Wonderland Volume 10
Dragon Ball 3-in-1 Omnibus Vol 10
Food Wars! Volume 7
Kimi ni Todoke (From Me to You) Volume 22
Kiss of the Rose Princess Volume 6
Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic Volume 13
My Hero Academia Volume 1
Naoki Urasawa’s 20th Century Boys Volumes 21 and 22
My Hero Academia began serialisation in Japan in the Weekly Shounen Jump magazine in the July of last year, and was released in English for the first time in August 2015 in North America. Five tankoubon volumes have been published so far in Japan.
One-Punch Man has been published on series creator One’s personal website since 2009. A remake began in 2012 and has since been collected in nine tankoubon volumes. An animated adaptation has just begun broadcast in Japan. It is produced by Madhouse.
Next Games and AMC proudly launch The Walking Dead: No Man’s Land – The official mobile game of AMC’s “The Walking Dead” – on iOS today
Featuring Fan-Favorite Character Daryl Dixon, Scenes and Signature Weapons from the Hit TV Show, The Walking Dead: No Man’s Land Gives Fans a Chance to Fight in a Walker-Infested World and Access Exclusive Content from Season Six
NEW YORK, NY / HELSINKI, FINLAND – October 8, 2015 – AMC and Next Games today announced The Walking Dead: No Man’s Land, the official mobile game based on AMC’s record-breaking TV series, is now available on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.
In a unique collaboration, AMC and Next Games have joined forces to create The Walking Dead: No Man’s Land, a first-of-its-kind tactical game for mobile, with thrilling turn-based combat, an engaging character progression system, and zoom-in close-ups of key moments during battle. Guided by Daryl Dixon, the fan-favorite character from the TV show played by Norman Reedus, players are in charge of their own unique group of survivors and their fate.
The game starts in the grim Terminus train yard, where a small group of survivors manage to escape. Together they must fight walkers and survive to create and build up their own safe haven. The Walking Dead: No Man’s Land features six different character classes and a massive number of unique characters, each with different abilities and strengths. It also boasts months of gameplay, with a total of 10 episodes of story missions at launch and weekly guild challenges for allied players to perform, which add a social dimension to the game.
Players will get to experience other familiar locations from the TV show such as the Prison, use signature weapons and encounter new surroundings from season six of “The Walking Dead.” Fans of the series can also watch clips from the show and exclusive behind-the-scenes materials from within the game.
AMC’s “The Walking Dead,” the highest rated basic cable program in the history of television and the #1 show on TV in the U.S. among adults 18-49 for three years in a row, will kick off its sixth season on Sunday, October 11th at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT with an extended 90-minute episode.
The Walking Dead: No Man’s Land is available to download for free on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch: http://www.twdnml.download
Next Games focuses on crafting visually impressive, highly engaging games. Next Games has assembled a veteran team with a profound love for games and a burning desire to develop lasting global entertainment. The 65-people-strong company is headquartered in Helsinki, Finland, at the heart of mobile games development, and funded by an elite list of investors.
Next Games works on both internally developed IP and the world’s top 3rd party IP. Compass Point: West launched in March 2015, is the first in a series of four games under the Compass Point franchise is Next Games’ first own game and IP. The Walking Dead: No Man’s Land is Next Games’ first 3rd party IP production. www.nextgames.com
About AMC
Whether commemorating favorite films from every genre and decade, or creating acclaimed original programming, AMC brings to its audience something deeper, something richer, Something More. The network reigns as the only cable network in history ever to win the Emmy® Award for Outstanding Drama Series four years in a row with “Mad Men,” and six of the last eight with back-to-back honoree “Breaking Bad.” The network boasts the most-watched drama series in basic cable history and the number one show on television among adults 18-49 for the last three years with “The Walking Dead.” AMC’s current original drama series include “The Walking Dead,” “Better Call Saul,” “Hell on Wheels,” “TURN: Washington’s Spies,” “Halt and Catch Fire,” “Humans,” “Fear the Walking Dead,” and the forthcoming “Into the Badlands,” “The Night Manager,” “Broke” and “Preacher.” AMC also explores authentic worlds and discussion with original shows like “Talking Dead,” “The Making of The Mob,” “Comic Book Men” and the upcoming “The West.” AMC is owned and operated by AMC Networks Inc. and its sister networks include IFC, SundanceTV, BBC America and WE tv. AMC is available across all platforms, including on-air, online, on demand and mobile. AMC: Something More.
Overview Combining the ever growing The Walking Dead franchise with the style of gameplay that the indie hit The Escapists was known for seemed like a bit of a strange combination when The Escapists: The Walking Dead was announced a few months ago. With the primary threat changing from guards and other inmates to roaming undead, is The Escapists: The Walking Dead a successful merging of both properties?
Story While one would think that prior knowledge of The Walking Dead would be necessary to enjoy this game, it really isn’t due to the fact that the story presented in The Escapists: The Walking Dead is as barebones as they come. Adapting the comic book version of the story, players take control of Rick Grimes at all times as he first wakes up at the Memorial Hospital and realizes that the world has changed since he was shot by a fugitive.
The story is presented through miniature 8-bit comic panels and brief summaries of events that take place between stages to set up the current situation but doesn’t go into any more detail than that. This is disappointing for fans of the series hoping to experience the story in a different manner, especially since more often than not survivors can die between stages and appear alive again in the next stage while brand new characters appear with no explanation, but also makes the title accessible for The Escapists fans who only want to see more of the original gameplay.
Gameplay As mentioned earlier, players will control Rick Grimes and through five different levels, starting at the hospital, which serves as a tutorial level, before moving onto the Greene Family Farm, the Meriwether Prison, Woodbury, and finally Alexandria. Each of these areas gives players different types of puzzles that will have to be overcome to complete set objectives that range from simply killing walkers, to gathering gasoline, or rescuing your friends.
Throughout most of these levels players will have a fairly standard routine that is similar to what was found in The Escapists. Instead of having to worry about suspicious guards and the prison being locked down, players now have a schedule to stick to in order to keep the zombie percentage threat at a low level. These routines include a head count at the start and end of every day, usually a few menial jobs such as cleaning up blood stains or cooking food, and attending meals.
While these methods may not be the most enthralling, with jobs usually feeling forced in most cases, it does serve as a way to keep group morale high and if the zombie threat percentage starts to increase it means that there are higher chances of zombies appearing inside of a safe zone and attacking the player or another survivor. This is rather dangerous due to the fact that, although the player cannot truly die, other members of the group can be downed and if they aren’t revived in time will die and resurrect as one of the undead, or in some cases fail a mission.
As the player, being downed usually results in simply skipping the rest of the day, a higher zombie threat level, and losing the chance to save for that night since it can only be done by sleeping at the end of the day. This isn’t too much of an issue since it doesn’t affect player stats nor does it remove any items or equipment that Rick is carrying making it less of a threat than it has been in either The Escapists or The Walking Dead. As for the aforementioned stats, players still need to work on keeping Rick strong, agile, and intelligent to survive in this world as various bonuses such as higher strength offering a larger health pool and more intelligence allowing fancier crafting coming as necessary requirements for most areas in the game.
Various tools, armor, and weaponry can be crafted for use by the player and their fellow survivors as long as you constantly keep an eye out for items you need. The majority of items can be found by rifling through desks that have new contents every day, with Rick’s desk being the only one that saves items (though dropped items never disappear either), in order to find various components that can be used to create and enhance a shovel that may serve as a great way to dig your way under a pesky door, or create a barricade to hold out against the zombies, or even modify a firearm to deal even more damage or hold more ammo than before allowing players to dish out damage from a safe distance with lock-on firing mechanics.
Exploration serves as a great tool to try and uncover as much as possible since there are various crafting tips scattered around each stage and of course players can use trial and error to come up with a weapon, though some of them are quite out there and a large number are recycled entirely from The Escapists. It also means that there is no single way to solve any task. Most puzzles can be tackled in a variety of ways and finding your own path is half of the fun though it is worth noting that it is possible to grow overpowered easily if you focus on training and stumble upon usually easy to find high damage weaponry that will make only hordes of zombies seem threatening.
This becomes even less threatening if you compound the ability to bring other survivors along with you to search for items and face off against enemies. These survivors will fight alongside the player until they are dismissed or are downed in combat where they will then return back to the safe zone to sleep. Your allies can also provide various fetch quests that are never more exciting than bringing them a specific item, killing a zombie with an item, or fetching an item from a desk somewhere, but reward the player with coins that can be used to purchase various changing items from merchants at night, usually ones that can help turn the tide in the player’s favor if they do end up struggling in any way.
Visuals & Audio Similar to the original game, The Escapists: The Walking Dead features a 8-bit pixel style form of artwork which works surprisingly well for the majority of the cast as many characters have been replicated in a successful manner that fans will easily recognize who is who, with the story panels also featuring the same level of detail albeit cut to a minimum. The various levels are also replicated well with the varying styles in these areas offering a unique feel to each stage that the player has to try and survive through.
The soundtrack features old sounding tunes that fit well enough for a game about survival but never really move beyond that point while the actual sound effects range from being annoying to extremely basic in form with very little variation to be found although the addition of comic book styled sound effects above action scenes is a nice touch.
Overall The Escapists: The Walking Dead is fairly simplistic in nature, despite having some level of depth here and there, and certain alterations to the formula also make it is far easier than the original The Escapists despite featuring most of the same content reskinned for this release. That being said, it does put a fun enough twist on the original formula and brings in enough content that The Walking Dead fans will find enjoyable, though unless you struggle with certain aspects or get lost in trying to complete an objective, the title is rarely challenging.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
There was a game that brought together mascots from Disney, Pixar, Marvel and Star Wars in one epic toys to life experience. That game was Disney Infinity 3.0, but it was missing one thing… The original Star Wars trilogy.
Although available as part of a special PS4 bundle since launch, the majority of players have not been able to play through the epic saga of Luke, Han, Leia, Chewbacca and Darth Vader. Until Now.
Available in stores everywhere from today, now players of each console can slam down Luke Skywalker and his rebel compatriots onto the Infinity Base and go to war against the tyrannical Galactic Empire. Will you fight for the light, or will the dark side seduce and ensnare you? Only time will tell….
