When Square Enix and Avalanche Studios released the “Firestarter” cinematic trailer for Just Cause 3 in February — which was seemingly inspired by the True Detective season 1 opening credits — we only got a sense of the chaos that players will be able to create as Rico Rodriguez in this new console generation. Luckily, today brings a new gameplay trailer:
This trailer is captured entirely from gameplay footage and looks to be even bigger than the open-world sandbox that was Just Cause 2.
Also announced today, if you pre-order Just Cause 3, players receive the Weaponised Vehicle Pack:
The Weaponised Vehicle Pack includes 3x exclusive luxury vehicles primed for action and fully loaded with the firepower to kick start a revolution.
Just Cause 3 does not have a solid release date, but is slated to release for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows PC by the end of this year, Holiday 2015.
Sigh. The other day when the rumor of Silent Hills being cancelled emerged on the internet, I was still kind of optimistic. Sure, we knew it was more than likely true due to the recent Kojima debacle, but there was still hope that the big K would clear the air and state that they were moving forward anyway – which may or may not have been a good move in the long run.
Today, Konami sent word to Kotaku that the rumors were in fact true, and that Silent Hills is in fact dead, but the franchise would still move on in the future. This is a huge blow for not just Konami who have obviously lost a ton of money on the current production, but fans who thought this one title would bring horror into the next generation. I played P.T. and I enjoyed it for the most part, but if you stop and think about it – what did we really lose? As titles like Slenderman and Five Nights at Freddy’s continue their success, its obvious fans want the same jump scares and that is all P.T. really displayed.
I hope with this news comes a lot of regrouping so we can see a new Silent Hill rise with both soul and tension, as jump scares only do so much when you’re playing a game and trying to tell a story at the same time. Oh yeah, Konami should be fine – despite the online rumors as they still have plenty of solid franchises to bounce back from. Kojima defined Konami’s legacy, but he did not define what they can do so the future could still be very bright for reboots and so on down the road.
Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China is a 2.5D platformer based on the long running Assassin’s Creed franchise. The story stars Shao Jun, one of the few remaining members of the Assassin Brotherhood in China. The game picks up after the events of short film Assassin’s Creed: Embers, which was bundled with certain editions of Assassin’s Creed: Revelations.
Story
Shao Jun returns to China after training with Master Assassin Ezio Auditore in Assassin’s Creed: Embers. She is looking to rebuild the Brotherhood in China, but first she must avenge her fallen comrades by slaying the Templars that were responsible. The relatively short length of the game, especially compared to the full retail titles, does hinder the plot’s development, as there is only so much that can be covered. The plot boils down to a pretty standard Assassin’s Creed plot except it is set in China. If you’ve played another title in the series, there really won’t be any surprises.
Gameplay
Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China has a lot of gameplay elements that will be familiar to veteran Assassin’s Creed players. Shao Jun can run, jump, climb, and take leaps of faith as good as any other assassin in the franchise, except she is doing it on a 2D plane. The movement controls are buttery smooth, which is a shame because there are so few opportunities to really experience a long interrupted free run in the game.
The stealth mechanics of the game is good, although nothing ground breaking. Guards have a line of sight and a standard patrol path. They can be distracted using a variety of tools to give Jun a second to dash into the next hiding zone. Using the Assassin’s Eagle Vision, players can scout ahead just a bit and detect a guard’s pathing, to allow them to plan ahead. If the player is desperate, they can use a limited Helix ability that allows them to leap from hiding spot to hiding spot undetected for a short period of time. Unlike the original games, Jun’s ability to deal with dead bodies is gimped due to the lack of physical space in a level and the inability to just toss or drag a body off a ledge. Instead, they must be placed in pre-determined hiding spots or containers in the level.
Shao Jun is definitely one of the most fragile Assassins in the series. The game emphasize combat as an absolute last resort due to Jun’s low health. Jun has a pretty simple combat skill set. She can dodge/block a few enemy strikes and either counter with a kick to get more room or roll over the opponent to attack from behind. On the offensive, she can do a quick strike that can be chained or use a heavy finisher. Once the enemy is stumbled, Jun can quickly end the fight with an execution kill.
The levelling system further pushes players away from combat. Each section awards players points based on their execution, with the most points awarded for staying completely undetected and only killing the necessary targets. Fighting or killing early in the game will keep Jun’s health points low, increasing the difficulty as the game progresses. Once the game is completed, players can take a second or third go at the game with their previous experience intact. For an even greater challenge, players can use all their unlocked skills, but are only limited to one bar of health the entire game.
Combining the game’s combat and stealth mechanics, level design, progression system, there isn’t much room for creativity. One of the things that has always drawn me to the series is the multiple ways of approaching a situation. In Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China, the freedom of choice and creativity is severely gimped by design. Mixed with the linear levels, the game could be any old stealth platformer if the characters were changed.
Visuals
Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China is drop dead gorgeous. The game just oozes with style, mixing traditional Chinese paintings with modern 3d graphics. The colour scheme is reminiscent of those paintings with the game’s use of brown as the main colour interspersed with inky blacks and reds. The UI is adapted from other Assassin’s Creed titles and translates very well to the 2D space. The 2.5D designation really comes into play when the entire level rotates 90 degrees when Shao Jun climbs around certain corners or during levels that have sections overlapping each other, requiring Jun to swing across chasms or dash across bridges.
On the PC side, the game has a pretty low hardware requirement, which will allow it to run quite nicely on older computers. Throughout my playstesting, I did not run into any issues with the game.
Audio
Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China’s audio quality is exactly what you would expect from an Assassin’s Creed title. The sound effects are high quality and the voice acting is solid. I am a little confused on why the guards speak Mandarin Chinese, but the main characters all speak with a pseudo-English accent. The music is much like the graphics, deftly mixing traditional Chinese instruments with video game orchestral music.
Overall
Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China isn’t a particularly bad game, but it isn’t great either. The audio/visual presentation is superb, making it deserving of the franchise name. The game has some solid stealth mechanics and a really smooth movement system that is unfortunately under-used in the game. The biggest problem with the game is that it’s simply too restrictive and linear, making it feel more like a generic stealth platformer with a very nice Assassin’s Creed paint job on top of it.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
The new trailer for Batman: Arkham Knight — titled “All Who Follow You” — shares a new aspect of the game that had not been released. In this game, The Dark Knight will not be fighting alone:
As you can see from the first trailer we have seen since February’s “Gotham Is Mine”, Batman will be fighting alongside Robin, Nightwing, and Catwoman as he works to save Gotham from the Scarecrow. And this time, players will be able to switch between the characters on-the-fly. Here is what Warner Bros. says of the new move in the press release:
For the first time ever, watch Batman: Arkham Knight’s exciting new “Dual Play” feature in action, which will allow players to seamlessly switch between The Dark Knight and his allies including Robin, Nightwing, and Catwoman in FreeFlow Combat.
Considering how brilliantly the Arkham series’ FreeFlow Combat system has worked for their last two games, Rocksteady has a lot to live up to as they add a new aspect to it in the final game for the series.
We also get a surprise visit from Azrael, who narrates the latter half of the trailer. DC Comics fans might remember Azrael as the vigilante whom Batman trained to replace him should Bruce Wayne ever be unable to don the cowl. Azrael ended up doing this when Bane crushed Batman’s spine.
Upon watching this trailer, many may get a sense that Batman may not survive this battle to save Gotham in Arkham Knight? With this being Rocksteady’s final game in the series, it sure would be one hell of an ending to kill the main character. Considering the game is titled Arkham Knight, both Nightwing — who took over as Batman when Wayne was presumed dead a few years ago — and Azrael seem to play significant parts in this story, and the trailer lends a certain air of finality onto the viewer, players may be playing the final battle of the Caped Crusader here.
I suppose we will certainly find out this summer when Batman: Arkham Knight is released for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Windows PC on June 23, 2015.
Mother’s Day is around the corner! With the Indie GalaEvery Monday Bundle #57, you won’t need to decide between buying video games and getting an awesome gift for your mom! This week’s bundle contains six indie games.
Musclecar Online – A community oriented top-down racer where the daily race track is designed by a member of the community.
One Late Night: Deadline – Your boring office work job is about to go very wrong. You’re pulling an all nighter at the office, but the paranormal activity in the office won’t let you do your job until you get to the bottom of the mystery.
Beyond Gravity – A procedurally generated platformer that is perfect for your coffee break.
Mighty Dungeons – A highly moddable RPG that mixes HeroQuest and DungeonMaster into one game.
bit Dungeon II – A retro rogue-like inspired by Legend of Zelda, Diablo, and Dark Souls.
Orbit HD – A space exploration game that challenges players to travel the cosmos by using gravity to fling themselves to their destination.
For the first 24 hours of the sale, the entire bundle will only cost $1.89. Grab your copy at Indie Gala before the price rises!
Ahh it’s good to be back! Welcome to this week’s installment of Xbox Newbeat folks. Firstly, I’d like to give a huge shoutout to Jamie for holding down the fort while I was away, he did a bang up job and made sure this engine kept turning. So now that I’m back, lets hit the ground running and get straight into some killer Microsoft news!
Spartan Locke Showcases Deadly Skills in New Halo 5: Guardians Trailer
Do you wanna see some Halo 5: Guardians footage? Yeah you wanna see some Halo 5: Guardians footage! Check out the latest trailer that shows off the Spartan Locke armor set for multiplayer in action:
Fans who reserve Halo 5: Guardians will get access at launch to the pre-order exclusive Spartan Locke, HUNTER-class armour set for use in multiplayer:
HUNTER-Class Helmet: Though still considered a prototype implementation, the HUNTER’s sensor suite enhances situational and threat awareness.
ID@Xbox Spotlights
The ID@ Xbox Program has already brought us some seriously cool games, and now we are about to get a whole bunch more! Check out the games that we will be getting over the next few days:
Pinball FX2 Add-On: Marvel Avengers Age of Ultron
Based on Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Age of Ultron, the epic follow-up to the biggest Super Hero movie of all time, relive the struggle of Earth’s mightiest heroes, including Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, The Incredible Hulk, Black Widow, and Hawkeye against Ultron and his seemingly endless army.
Pinball FX2 DLC: Star Wars Rebels Table – 29 April
Star Wars Pinball: Star Wars Rebels will take players on a journey to a galaxy far, far away, teaming them up with the crew of the starship Ghost, including Kanan Jarrus, Ezra Bridger, Zeb Orrelios, Sabine Wren, Hera Syndulla and the grumpy astromech Droid™ Chopper as they join forces to take on the evil Empire. The table will feature fully-animated starships including the Ghost and TIE fighters, a flaming engine thruster spindisk, Chopper’s own mini playfield, and seven exciting missions inspired by the show.
Happy Wars – 24 April
Happy Wars is a large-scale online multiplayer action game, involving up to 20 players per match. Go wild in over-the-top melees in a fantasy setting featuring comical characters! Assign any of the six unique character classes to your player character, personalise it by adding customisation parts from a wide variety of choices, and engage in heated sieges and cast spells in grand magical battles with players all over the world!
The Escapists Add-on: Alcatraz – 22 April
Try to escape from one of the most famous prisons in the world, Alcatraz. Now is your chance to add your name to the list of ‘famous’ escape attempts as you try and escape from one of America’s strongest prisons. The Escapists is an award winning prison break simulation that provides players the opportunity of experiencing a light-hearted insight into everyday prison life.
Shovel Knight is a sweeping classic action adventure game with awesome gameplay, memorable characters, and an 8-bit retro aesthetic. You play as the eponymous Shovel Knight, a small knight with a huge quest, who wields a ShovelBlade; a multipurpose weapon whose techniques have now been lost to the ages. The Battletoads, from the iconic Rare game, are going to be returning exclusively in the Xbox One version of Shovel Knight! Developer Yacht Club Games are bringing the radical attitude and gameplay of the NES classic to the Shovel Knight world.
Smite
SMITE is an online battleground where the Gods of Old wage war in the name of conquest, glory, and most of all, FUN. Whether this is your first Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) game or you’re a seasoned veteran, the intense action and irreverent mythology of SMITE will make you a believer.
Nero (Storm in a Teacup)
NERO is a magical adventure where you play as a kid, followed by a mysterious black clothed companion, uncovering the mysteries behind the strange world they inhabit. With simple gameplay and accessible controls in a rich interactive environment filled with puzzles, NERO invites players to explore and experience emotions and feelings that are uncommon in videogames, redefining the visual novel genre and reshaping it in a next-generation first-person game.
So there we have it folk, another killer installment of Xbox Newbeat. Which of today’s two headlines was most exciting? Are you a Halo fan, or more of an indie platformer kind of gamer? Let us know in the comments below and make sure you stay tuned to Capsule Computers for all the sweet Xbox new as it becomes available.
Call of Duty: Black Ops III was revealed today with a brand new trailer. The real exciting news actually appeared on the Call of Duty website for the new title, Call of Duty: Black Ops III is implementing some serious development efforts to make this the four player co-op shooter of the year.
The story campaign has been designed for replayability and four player co-op. Treyarch is mixing traditional linear sections designed for the epic cinematic experience and open world zones designed for flexible decision making. The story mode will be taking a page from the multiplayer portion, adopting a progression and customization system. Treyarch’s legendary zombie mode is also getting a similar treatment, getting a full progression system and its own story campaign.
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare brought some of the biggest changes to the franchise through the use of Exoskeleton movement. Black Ops III plans to take things to the next level by smoothing out the control by implementing a chain based movement system that allows players to jump, slide, run, and mantle in one smooth movement while shooting their gun. Personally, this sounds like a huge improvement over Advanced Warfare’s bursts of movement, which always felt a bit clunky to me.
Call of Duty: Black Ops III will be dropping last-gen consoles. The game will launch on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows on November 6, 2015.
Overview In an alternate 20th century reality there exists a practice called “Machinart” that allows humans to create and control special dolls with magic. These dolls, created from a mixture of technology and magic, come in various shapes and sizes though they tend to be used most commonly as weapons even though the more advanced ones appear to be as intelligent and self-aware as their human counterparts.
Unbreakable Machine-Doll tells the story of a certain Japanese puppeteer named Raishin Akabane as he and his partnered doll Yaya enroll in the most prestigious schools in the world, Walpurgis Royal Academy of Machinart in Liverpool. With his partner at his side and the potential for violence quite high, is Unbreakable Machine-Doll worth picking up?
Story Before Raishin and Yaya even have a chance to arrive at Walpurgis Academy the steam-engine using train they are riding starts to go out of control. Once the pair manage to stop train before it crashes into the station, potentially killing hundreds of people it serves as a quick example of just how powerful Yaya and these dolls can potentially be. After managing to make it safely through the gates, Raishin finds that he is far from skilled in the art of puppetry and in fact ranks second last in the entire class of students.
What seems like a series that could simply become a standard shōnen school series about battling and rising through the ranks is far more than that as Unbreakable Machine-Doll features quite a number of moving pieces. While it is indeed Raishin’s goal to become one of the top students in the school and take part in the combat tournament between the top 100 students in the school, he is also there for a number of different reasons.
One of these reasons is to gain vengeance on a certain masked man named “Magus” who is tied into Raishin’s tragic past as well as the death of his family. However thanks to the incredible skill that Magus wields he is incapable of making any moves and there are other ties holding him down, many of which happen to be the various girls he meets up with in the school as well as his own doll Yaya. You see, Yaya is far from your run of the mill doll as she was created by the legendary puppeteer Shoko Karyusai who continues to monitor Raishin’s actions so that he doesn’t foolishly throw his life away.
That of course is a bit difficult for Raishin as the storyline in Unbreakable Machine-Doll is broken down into three separate story arcs that involve him getting involved in incredibly dangerous situations in order to help out a girl in need, much to the chagrin of Yaya who is so enamored with Raishin that one of the running jokes throughout the series are her constant sexually charged advances and attempts to try and become Raishin’s wife.
The introductory arc involves a powerful but fallen English noblewoman named Charlotte with no friends but is seen as a possible suspect in an investigation involving the serial killing of dolls. While this arc mostly deals with introducing Charlotte as well as a number of the concepts that make up the world of Unbreakable Machine-Doll, the arcs following this one take a more serious tone as they explore the dark side of technology and of those willing to shatter the ideas of ethics and morality in order to achieve their goals through dastardly experimentation.
In many ways, Unbreakable Machine-Doll is smartly written in the way that each of these three story arcs tie themselves together and every character introduced continues to play roles throughout the story. Once the second arc finishes and the third begins, the sibling pair introduced in the previous arc play large roles while Charlotte’s family past that was previously described in the first arc is utilized by a villain to exploit her abilities by threatening one of the few family members she still has.
Now while I did say that this series is written rather intelligently, it also suffers from simply not having enough time to continue its story or explain things well enough. While world-building is plentiful and quite a few explanations are given about how some of the smaller concepts work, viewers are given very few details about how exactly many of the broader aspects of the world, such as magic and even Yaya’s abilities, which leaves viewers to simply take in events as they happen and hope they understand everything as it unfolds. The final arc also suffers in this regard as it quickly has to try and wrap itself up by the twelfth episode when there is clearly more to the events that take place at the end as the villain and her newly revealed creation simply leave the stage despite it being obvious that she is after far more than simple revenge and is a dangerous threat that simply escapes due to lack of time.
Rather than feel rushed, Unbreakable Machine-Doll feels like a series that deserved a longer original run. Thankfully outside of the aforementioned limitations, the series finds a nice balance between intense action sequences, most of which take place at night or in darker areas, and rather humorous character interactions that almost always take part during the daylight hours. In fact this serves as a nice split in what viewers can expect as the majority of the interactions between the characters, including plenty of sexy misunderstandings with Yaya and Frey and jokes about flat chests, to take place during the day while night almost always serves as a time for fighting or closing out the day with Yaya making more advances on Raishin or destroying things out of jealousy.
Visuals Lerche studio chose some rather interesting design decisions in regards to Unbreakable Machine-Doll as almost every action sequences falls back on the use of CG. These action sequences are intense looking but it is evident that the focus on fighting at night or dark environments was done to make sure that the CG would blend in better with the rest of the more standard animation and also make it difficult to determine whenever things began to look strange. This is highly evident during the first episode where CG is utilized in the train sequence and both Yaya and Raishin are very awkward looking in broad daylight.
The rest of the series is handled fairly normally though there is a certain uniqueness to the way that the character designs have been handled. This unique look does help set the series apart but will appear fairly unconventional to many as the character expressions are incredibly clean looking. The clothing and architectural designs fit an early 20th century London environment with Yaya, Shoko, and her other two masterpiece dolls standing out due to the oriental clothing designs.
Audio One of the greatest strengths that an English dub will always have over the original Japanese voice track is that the English voice actors can utilize accents whenever necessary, especially in the case of a series that takes place in London and features many characters from different parts of Europe. Thanks to this, a large number of characters have been given fitting English accents with different sounding variations to better fit their origins while also mixing in various British slang and insults to try and create an authentic sounding dub that is very satisfying to listen to.
The same can be said in regards to the background music throughout the series as there is quite a bit of variety to the musical score, allowing for appropriate range between battle sequences and more light-hearted events. As far as the opening and closing theme goes, the opening theme “Anicca” by Hitomi Harada (Yaya’s Japanese voice actress) serves as a dramatic rock focused intro while the closing theme is the much more addicting sounding “Maware! Setsugetsuka.” There are three variations of this song with each variant having either Yaya, Irori, or Komurasaki’s Japanese voice actresses perform the song with the focus being centered on their character.
Extras Unbreakable Machine-Doll comes with a number of on-disc extras from FUNimation including numerous promotional trailers and videos, two episode commentaries, a clean version of the opening song and a clean version of all three variations plus an 8-bit version of the ending theme, and twenty seven minutes worth of bonus shorts. The episode commentaries, episode 1 includes Christopher Bevins (Voice Director), Clifford Chapin (Raishin), Bryn Apprill (Yaya), and Kristin McCollum (Kimberly, while the second commentary is for episode 12 and sees the return of Christopher Bevins, Kristin Sutton (Charlotte), David Wald (Sigmund), and Linday Seidal (Frey).
As for the aforementioned bonus shorts, they serve mostly as a way to give viewers a bit of extra fan service as many characters appear nude in some form but there is also quite a bit of information revealed in one bonus short as it explains some of the details of the magic in the series’ world. Interestingly enough, this collection of shorts also tells a mini-story tied into a part of Raishin’s past, which is highly unusual but a welcome addition.
Overall Unbreakable Machine-Doll suffers from simply not having enough time given to the series and leaving many of the aspects in series’ unique world vague. With a longer run many of these issues may have been resolved, especially since what is actually presented in Unbreakable Machine-Doll is superb. The action sequences are extremely impressive looking while the character interactions are quite humorous with touches of fan service from time to time. This first season serves as a great beginning to what I hope will eventually continue into a second season, but for now expect Unbreakable Machine-Doll to tell a story with plenty of questions left hanging at the end of the final episode.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
After taking a brief break, Atlus has returned with another new character trailer for Persona 4: Dancing All Night and this time around it happens to focus on introducing Naoto Shirogane. Naoto is continuing her work as a detective for the police force but returns to the city after the events of Persona 4 in order to fulfill a request from Rise with the protagonist and the group.
You can check out Naoto’s trailer below where it shows off a few of her dance moves to “Signs of Love” as well as a few of her costumes. As for the game itself, Persona 4: Dancing All Night is currently set to be released in Japan on June 25th with a North American release planned for sometime this year.
About a month ago FUNimation revealed that they were able to bring most of the English voice actors from the Blazblue fighting game series back to reprise their roles in the series except for Platinum the Trinity and Rachel’s familiar Nago. Now they have released a new English dubbed trailer for BlazBlue: Alter Memory to give us a brief sampling of how the characters will sound and thankfully it seems that the cast hasn’t lost a step.
It is worth noting that FUNimation has still not revealed the voice actress for Taokaka nor the voice actor for Iron Tager, but from the short time that Taokaka appeared in the trailer it sounds like she will still be voiced by Philece Sampler though we can likely expect a full reveal sometime before BlazBlue: Alter Memory‘s release on June 30th.
Mother’s Day is around the corner! With the 
