If you’ve been waiting for Idea Factory International to release Fairy Fencer F on the PC then you won’t have to wait much longer as the company recently announced that the PC version will be released on Steam tomorrow on August 4th.
Fairy Fencer F was originally released on the PlayStation 3 but this PC version now supports 1080p resolution. When released there will be two pieces of add-on content that will be available for free to help players start their journey and these pieces are called the “Beginner’s Pack” and “Secrets of Shukesoo’s Tower Pack.”
To go along with this announcement a number of screenshots and the opening video for the game have been released and you can check those out below.
After being surprisingly absent last year, EA’s premier golfing franchise is back. Not only has the PGA Tour returned to consoles, but this is the first installment in the franchise that has been designed for the Xbox One/PS4 generation of consoles. Now I’m not an avid golf fan… Or a casual golf fan… To be honest I dislike any form of golf that doesn’t have the word “mini” in front of it, but I was pretty eager to give Rory McIlroy a fair chance because this is a new console generation, and it is always interesting to see what new additions the developers can come up with to set the new generation of games apart from the old… The sad truth this time around is that not only is there nothing really to write home about.
Gameplay
So like I said above, I’m not a golfer and honestly I probably never will be, and while that might make it a bit hard for me to accurately judge a golfing game I can say that I was super impressed with how tight the controls were right off the bat. There are a couple of different control schemes that you can change between depending on how you best want to play, but with all of them the simple act of hitting a ball across a grassy field felt so good. The Frostbite Engine (previously used for the Battlefield franchise) does some amazing physics work here, and the way that the ball flies through the air, bounces, curves in the wind etc are all phenomenal. I’m not sure if it is exactly how it plays in the real world, but it is definitely how I think golf plays in the real world.
Aside from super tight control,s the game itself is pretty bare bones. There is a career mode where you create a character (n probably the least fleshed out character creator I have seen in many years) and run them through the pro circuit. As you would expect from a PGA Tour game, there are a number of licensed courses to play on, each with their own unique traits and characteristics. There is a multiplayer mode but even this is limiting in the game modes it allows you to compete in.
For those who grow tired of the vanilla golfing experience, there are also two arcadey gameplay styles available in Rory McIlroy PGA Tour; the first being aa challenge mode where the aim is to not get the ball in the hole, but to complete a series of tasks. Some of these tasks have you hitting floating rings of light, or chipping your ball through a portal. These challenges felt more fun and exciting (for me anyway) than traditional golfing, almost to the point that it felt like a completely different game. Secondly, there is a mode where a ship from Battlefield will crash into your course, forcing you to play around the behemoth. This was touted as a defining feature in a lot of the trailers and promotional pieces in the lead-up to the game’s release, but it is not anywhere near as dynamic or interesting as I (and I’m sure many of you out there) would have hoped.
For all the lacklustre, unexciting, vanilla gameplay that Rory McIlroy’s PGA Tour brings to the table, there is one particular feature that I cannot speak highly enough of; the controls. Like most games, there are a choice of a few different control set-ups in order to make you feel as comfortable in the game as you can, but the real treat is the fact that you can take elements from these control schemes and manufacture your own. This kind of control customisation is usually reserved for PC players using a keyboard, but having it here is a welcome addition.
Visuals & Audio
In terms of visual fidelity, Rory McIlroy’s PGA Tour is a nice enough looking game. It isn’t going to be winning any visual awards for sure, but the courses in particular are really well rendered. The light way that grass moves as wind blows through it is impressive and the clean interface makes for some simple and hassle-free golfing. However, there are times where I noticed some rather intrusive framerate dips, which is almost unexcusable considering the fact that there is never too much for it to be rendering at once. I will say though that the Frostbite engine’s speed in loading and rendering the courses means that there is little to no wait time as you move from one hole to another, really speeding up the process immensely.
When it comes to sports game, be they golf, WWE, basketball or anything else, one thing that always manages to grate on me is the commentary. While this has improved in recent years, sports game commentators always come across as so dry, lifeless, and worst of all; repetitive. Sadly, these are not issues that PGA Tour has managed to overcome. Taking over the reigns of commentary are Frank Nobilo and Rich Lerner. Now, the two have a great chemistry with one another but their quotes, quips and observations are repeated a lot. Not only are they repetitive but they are quite often completely wrong in what they are saying. I think I had listened to the commentary for about three hours before I was completely done with it and needed to play the game muted for a while.
Overall
With golfing moving into the next generation, a new mascot and a new lease on life, I expected a lot from Rory McIlroy’s PGA Tour, but sadly none of these expectations were met. Sure the game is a solid golfing sim with enough to keep die hard fans happy with the experience, but it just feels so boring, bland and lackluster that it is hard to imagine your friends all gathering around the console for a round. The arcade modes add a lot to the experience but it just isn’t long enough. This is the first game to make its way to the current generation of consoles, so lets hope these are some hurdles that EA can overcome in time for the next installment.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Work on Master of Orion inspired the company to launch an innovation platform
August 3, 2015 — Wargaming is excited to announce WG Labs, a lean and agile platform designed to foster innovation within the videogames industry. This platform will support external development teams in game creation and publishing, as well as generate, evaluate, and launch in-house products that go beyond the company’s paradigm.
WG Labs is interested in seeing playable prototypes and Alpha/Beta/Pre-Release versions of games. There are no restrictions in regards to platforms. WG Labs is looking to collaborate with development teams who are able to deliver a truly exceptional product in line with their own vision. In this partnership, WG Labs provides support in game production, monetisation, analytics, marketing, customer services, QA, as well as other areas.
“Working with NGD Studios has been a very positive and rewarding collaboration,” said Victor Kislyi, Wargaming CEO. “Thoroughly impressed with their work, the project served as inspiration for us to create an actual innovation center within the company. WG Labs is set to become a breeding ground of ideas that inspire and resonate with both consumers and companies, and allow us to further foster partnerships like this.”
To learn more about WG Labs and also submit your project, please visit:
Wargaming is an award-winning online game developer and publisher and one of the leaders in the free-to-play MMO market. Founded as a privately held company in 1998, Wargaming has shipped more than 15 titles. Currently, Wargaming is focused on its team-based MMO war series dedicated to the mid-20th century warfare that will include the armored World of Tanks, the flight combat World of Warplanes, and the naval World of Warships. The three intertwined titles will form a common gaming universe integrated within the portal www.wargaming.net.
As part of its multiplatform line-up, the company has introduced World of Tanks: Xbox 360 Edition and World of Tanks Blitz. Launched in 2014, World of Tanks: Xbox 360 Edition introduced epic tank-on-tank battles to console gamers and the mobile MMO game World of Tanks Blitz has opened up Wargaming’s trademark team-based military IP to smartphone and tablet users worldwide.
Visual novels are an interesting creature aren’t they? More book than video game, these Japanese created choose-your-own adventure games (which usually focus on forming relationships and going on dates) have never really appealed to me. So when a copy of Hatoful Boyfriend for the PSVita happened across my desk, I was skeptical; I knew that the game was basically a dating sim but in lieu of human companions, you were partnered up with a series of birds but beyond that I didn’t have any idea what to expect, and now after playing through the campaign a few times… I still don’t.
Story
At the begining of Hatoful Boyfriend, you are the only human girl in a school for intelligent, sentient pigeons. I know what you’re probably thinking “no, you’ve gotta be making that up!” ’cause frankly that’s exactly what I thought when I heard about it, but I kid you not that is the plot. The most interesting part about being the only human in a school for birds is that you face nearly no bigotry at all. People acknowledge that you’re a human but nobody seems to care. Maybe we all have a lesson or two to learn from this game already?
At its core, Hatoful Boyfriend is a dating simulator with a side-order of suspense thriller. As a sophmore at the prestigious St. PigeoNation Institute, you will take the protagonist on a journey through the school year and along the way meet a cast of characters that you will have the option of romancing. If this sounds weird then that is because it definitely is. Oh also, there are conspiracies and world ending apocalypses to contend with on the way to finding true romantic bird love.
Having never really experienced a Visual Novel before, I did some research after finishing Hatoful Boyfriend to see how it different it was from other games in the genre (aside from the obvious winged cast). Sadly, I found that many of the characters were stock-standard archetypes of the genre; the sickly childhood friend, the egotistical aristocrat etc, making the game feel a lot more generic than I first thought it would be. I would have loved to see the characters exhibit some birdlike characteristics, but aside from a few bird related puns, there was none of the sort to be found.
Gameplay
In terms of gameplay, there isn’t much here. This is a game that is focused almost entirely on its story (which is to be expected, considering the genre) and as such there are little to any gameplay elements involved. You press a button to move to the ne
There are two main types of branching options that I noticed during my play through: Ones that change the story and ones that level up your character. While there are plenty of the former, each offering you a different take on the story and different romance options, I found almost no use for the latter. Maybe I am not able to look closely enough at the mechanics of the game, or maybe the changes of earning a few extra vitality points are so subtle that I just didn’t notice them, but really I felt like nothing in particular was changing aside from a few numbers on the screen.
Since this is a kind of choose-your own adventure story, the replay (or should I say reread) ability is definitely present. With I believe it is eight different romance options, there are at LEAST eight different ways that the story can go. Not to mention the fact that once you have beaten the game more than once, more storyline choices open up in subsequent playthroughs and completely new storylines become available to you.
Making the replayability even more impressive is the fact that at the press of a button you can effecticely skip over all of the dialogue until either you choose to stop and start reading again, or you reach a decision. Being able to skip over the first 10 or so minutes of the game really made me more entusiastic to play through the story again than I would normally be.
Visuals & Audio
Like most Visual Novels, Hatoful Boyfriend has a very simplistic and motionless animation style for the game, leaving it feeling like you are holding a small manga or comic book in your hands. Backgrounds are reused time and time again and are colourful yet simplistic drawings of hallways, classrooms of playgrounds in order to convey where the particular chapter of the story is taking place, but there is really nothing exciting or energetic about them.
What does really stand out is the way that characters are portrayed on-screen. Instead of the traditional anime styled drawings that one might expect from a Visual Novel, Hatoful uses high definition photos of birds to represent each character. It is a really bizarre contrast between the highly colourful backdrops and the 1080p bird photos in the foreground, but surprisingly it works really well. I’m not the biggest bird-watcher out there (and I’m sure I’m not the only one) so it took me some time to recognise the differences between some of the characters. I didn’t really see the immediate differences between some characters which made some dialogue a little clumsy for me.
As for sound, the game is incredibly minimalist. While there is a full voice cast credited, nobody actually speaks. ( I believe the cast is credited to keep it in line with all the other Hatoful Boyfriend installments across various mediums). The music is soft and quiet so as to create almost an ambient white-noise while you’re playing, but that’s about all there is to listen to. I am to understand that the simple style of animation and music is pretty common in the genre so I can’t be too harsh on it, but I personally was hoping for something a little more interesting.
Overall
I just… I’m not sure what to think about Hatoful Boyfriend. Honestly, I am not the target for this type of game and that makes it really hard to judge objectively. The story itself seems pretty solid, if not derivative of other games in the genre and once you move past the zaniness factor of all the other characters being birds, there seems to be nothing overly unique about the experience at all. All that being said however, the novel’s short nature and branching paths make for some real replay value as you explore what might have been. In the end however, I left Hatoful Boyfriend without any strong feelings one way or the other. If you are looking for a new visual novel to occupy your time or are an avid fan of pigeons then definitely pick it up, otherwise it isn’t a game that you need to play.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Madman Entertainment’s anime releases of August 2015 will be available in stores across Australia later this week. The following is a complete list of all of their anime titles coming out this month with format details.
Haikyuu!! Part 1 (English-subtitled edition) – DVD
Hyperdimension Neptunia Series Collection – DVD
Ping Pong the Animation – DVD and Blu-ray
Sword Art Online II Part 1 – DVD and Blu-ray
Wanna Be the Strongest in the World Series Collection – DVD
World Conquest Zvezda Plot Series Collection (English-subtitled edition) – DVD
Sword Art Online has become very popular among anime fans, some of whom may have tried to convince you to watch it as well. If you want to find out more about the series, you may like to read a review of the first volume of the first season here.
The official blog for Four Leaf Studio’s Katawa Shoujo has just revealed that the artist weee, who was one of the main artists for the visual novel, will be releasing a new Katawa Shoujo art book called Dangerous. The book will feature her full colour illustrations and guest artwork by Doomfest, Emi-tan, Ricegnat and VCR. It will receive a very limited print run at Comiket 88. It may also be released at other events, but currently, Comiket 88 will be the only place to get this new art book.
If you will be in or can get to Tokyo on Sunday, August 16, consider going to Tokyo Big Sight and checking out the Katawa Shoujo table in east hall 2, space T-30a. Hard copies of the game will also be available there. A preview for the cover-art of the art book can be found here.
With the release of : Ultra Despair Girls a little under a month away in North America NIS America has released a new batch of screenshots for the title showing off a handful of the different Monokumas that you will be facing off against and what type of Truth Bullets can be used against them.
By switching between bullets such as Break, Burn, Dance, Detect, Knockback, Link, Move, and Paralyze, the player can control Komaru and utilize these in order to traverse Towa City. Currently Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls is set to be released in North America on September 1st and in Europe on September 4th for the PlayStation Vita.
Koei Tecmo and Omega Force are no strangers when it comes to bringing anime video game adaptations to the West as there have been many Warriors titles released in the past but many thought that, due to the relative fresh attention that the series has been given in the West despite originally being created in the 1980s, that Arslan: The Warriors of Legend would be passed over.
Based off of the novel, manga, and anime adaptation of The Heroic Legend of Arslan Koei Tecmo surprised many when they announced that they are indeed bringing the title to North America and Europe in early 2016 for not only the PlayStation 4 but also the Xbox One where the title will be available both at retail and digitally and digitally for the PlayStation 3.
Arslan: The Warriors of Legendwill feature cel-shaded graphics with character designs based off of the current anime adaptation and you can check out a large number of screenshots that primarily focus on introducing Arslan, Daryun, Narsus, and Elam as well as a promotional trailer for the title below.
With Amnesia: Memories set to be released in a little over three weeks on the PlayStation Vita and on PC through Steam Idea Factory International has released a new batch of screenshots for the title and this time around they are introducing the potential love interest Toma.
Toma is another childhood friend who has protected the heroine since she was young and served as her “knight in shining armor.” He is incredibly responsible and kind and will stop at nothing to keep the protagonist safe, but when things go wrong can you manage to defend your love?
Amnesia: Memories will be released on August 25th in North America for the PS Vita and worldwide on PC while European gamers can download the title starting on August 26th.
Nintendo’s Wii U console had an interesting launch selection, with ZombiU being one of the more promising titles out of the lot for that time. Sure, the game critically didn’t mesh – but I certainly enjoyed it. Well, Ubisoft see dollar signs with the game, and are porting it over to the Xbox One, Playstation 4, and PC, which is funny – as a digital port still costs money and if I remember right this was the same company that has a “finished Wii U” title that is ready – but not going to see light until they see a profit.
I just think ZombiU had its moment and doesn’t need to live off the Wii U – and for Ubi to act like the once failure suddenly has worth- well, that is something. Either way though, this is an IP I could see evolving – and multiplatform is a good way to make that happen. Ubisoft just needs to remember to show some love to the Wii U with other releases as successful or not, there are people who are brand loyal watching carefully.
