Walt Disney Japan announced recently that they will be releasing three of Hayao Miyazaki’s and two of Isao Takahata’s early anime films in 1920×1080 Full HD on Blu-ray on July 17, 2015. They will be released as a part of the Ghibli ga Ippai Collection. DVD versions will also be available.
Panda Kopanda (Panda, Young Panda) and Panda Kopanda Amefuri Saakisu noMaki (Panda, Young Panda: The Rainy Circus Day) will be released with Japanese and English audio and Japanese and English subtitles. The films were written by Hayao Miyazaki and directed by Isao Takahata in 1972 and 1973, respectively.
Gekijouban Meitantei Houmuzu (Theatrical Edition: Great Detective Holmes), a 1984 film editing together the two episodes of the Meitantei Houmuzu TV series that Hayao Miyazaki directed, will be released with Japanese audio and Japanese subtitles only.
Jarinko Chie Gekijouban (The Unruly Child Chie: Theatrical Edition), a film that Isao Takahata directed in 1981, will be released with Japanese audio and Japanese subtitles.
Sero Hiki no Goushu (Gauche the Cellist), a film directed by Isao Takahata in 1982, will be released with Japanese audio and Japanese, French and English subtitles.
All Blu-ray releases will be region-free while the DVD releases will be coded for region 2 and will be in the NTSC format. Except for Jarinko Chie Gekijouban, which is in the 16:9 aspect ratio, all other films are in the 4:3 aspect ratio.
For those of us who weren’t lucky enough to watch the hands-off demo of the Mad Maxvideo game last October, Warner Bros.’ new gameplay trailer is the first good look at the game’s core elements. The four minute trailer breaks the game down into three main elements: vehicle combat, ground combat, and survival.
Max will start off with some scrounged up equipment after being left for dead. From there, he will begin crafting his Magnum Opus, the car that will travel and grow with Max through his journeys. To cope with the scarce ammunition, Max is a skilled brawler who can wield a variety of weapons crafted from scrounged parts. Of course, it wouldn’t be a true Mad Max video game with out copious amounts of vehicle combat. The final major theme in the game is survival, which will see Max scraping up what ever he can find to ensure he has enough calories to survive the harsh wasteland.
Mad Max launches on September 2, 2015 in Australia for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
Ivory Tower and Ubisoft’s open world racer The Crewreceived a new DLC pack and a major content update today. The Crew“Raid Car Pack”adds three new cars and a plethora of customization items like parts and insignia. The three cars are the 2012 Cadillac Escalade, the 2011 Volkwagen Touareg NF modified as an off-roader, and the legendary McLaren F1 supercar. The pack costs $6.99 USD on its own and is also part of the $24.99 USD season pass.
Paid content isn’t the only addition. The new update entitled Raid Live adds four new faction missions and new tuning specs for six cars. There is a definite off-road theme to the update, with one of the new missions even taking place in a dinosaur park.
The new trailer for Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siegebuilds on the last month’s announcement of the game’s operators. The British team members of Rainbow Six are the first of the five nations introduced. The new trailer refers to them as “The Regiment” and uses the Special Air Service’s motto “Who Dares Wins.” The team is outfitted in a slightly modernized spin on the gear famously worn during the 1980 Iranian Embassy siege. In game, the Brits focus on lightning fast attacks from above and a penchant for gas grenades.
The new trailer also provides the first serious look at a new map. Previously, a high end house has been the focus of most videos. The new trailer has the British team members ending a hostage scenario on a large jumbo jet.
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege will launch on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows this fall.
One of the great things about the Grand Theft Auto series has always been the soundtrack. The series has always best captured the time period in its games through its music, whether it be in the present — Grand Theft Auto III, IV, and V — or the 1980s and ’90s — Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and San Andreas, respectively. Now, Rockstar presents music inspired by the world of Grand Theft Auto V‘s Los Santos. The Alchemist and Oh No Present: Welcome to Los Santos, a collection of brand new tracks from top collaborators inspired by and created for Grand Theft Auto V.
The Alchemist and Oh No Present: Welcome to Los Santos is now available digitally on iTunesas well as CD and vinyl, if physical media is still your thing. Also, if you are playing Grand Theft Auto V on PC, tune your in-game radio to “The Lab” to listen to the full album, complete with call-ins from the album’s guest artists and featuring Alchemist and Oh No as your hosts, “Dr. No and the Chemical Bro.”
Activision and Treyarch released a new teaser trailer today for Call of Duty: Blacks Ops III. The new trailer gives some background to the new setting, where the line between man and machine has blurred. Humans have now begun using cybernetic modifications that make them faster, stronger, and more perceptive. The US military is starting to implement these modifications into their soldiers to create the ultimate warrior. No word on how this will affect the Mason family, the stars of the previous two titles.
Call of Duty: Black Ops III will be revealed in full on April 26, 2015. We are currently unsure if the new game will launch on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, but PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows support is guaranteed.
Announced earlier today in San Francisco, Telltale Games is teaming with Marvel Entertainment to bring a new adventure game series beginning in 2017.
Now, Telltale is no stranger to comic book team-ups. The game developer has worked with Image Comics to create its award-winning The Walking Dead series as well as with DC Comics for their Fables spin-off, The Wolf Among Us.
While we have no details other than what year they plan to release this first game, we can only imagine what Telltale Games could do with the entire Marvel Universe under their umbrella. We will keep you updated as we know more.
The Evil Within’s Julie Kidman has been one of the game’s more enigmatic characters, and since the game’s first DLC; The Assignment was released, players have been eager to see where this mysterious young detective’s story would end up. Well that time is now here, because the concluding chapter to Kidman’s story, The Evil Within: The Consequence is finally here.
The Evil Within Season Pass owners can download The Consequence now for free, while those who are opting to purchase it individually can do so for $13.45. Bethesda have released a short trailer to show off the latest DLC in action that we have attached below, We have attached a small trailer below that shows off the new DLC in action so be sure to check it out.
With the release of Titan Souls done, Devolver Digital is still not about to take a rest. Today, the publisher has announced that Roll7’s upcoming cover shooter, Not a Hero, is now available to pre-order on Steam for Windows PC with a 10% discount and a free copy of Roll7’s first game, OlliOlli.
Not only are you able to pre-order the game a couple of weeks before its release, but you can also download a “leaked” demo featuring four levels from Not a Hero now on Steam or on the British political faction, UJIP’s site via a Dropbox link (a.k.a. DRM-free). Let’s let the leader of the UJIP explain his reasons himself:
Roll7 is going to have to watch out now that the UJIP is coming after them. But at least the rest of us get to reap the benefits.
Not a Hero will be released on PlayStation 4, PS Vita, and Steam for Windows PC on May 7, 2015. And remember, a vote for BunnyLord is a vote for justice.
Overview
I grew up playing video games, but I rarely look back to the days of 8- and 16-bit games with rose-colored lenses. Many who remember gaming in the mid-’80s to late-’90s like to recall the days when games had a limited number of lives. Health that did not automatically regenerate or simply had one-hit deaths. The days of boss battles and throw-your-controller-at-the-wall difficulty. Games that never had opening tutorials or training modes. When one puts in countless hours to conquering that one extremely difficult area you have been dying in for weeks only to have some anthropomorphic mushroom thank you then tell you your princess is in another castle.
That said, I also remember the sense of accomplishment that came when defeating a difficult boss or beating that game you have been stuck on for weeks. Yes, the days when you did not simply complete or finish a game, but “beat” it; a term that makes it sound as if the game in question is on another team, fighting against you. Though, to be fair, many sure seemed to be back then. This brings us to Acid Nerve’s Titan Souls: a game with one-hit deaths, throw-your-controller-at-the-wall difficulty, and gameplay comprised entirely of boss battles.
Gameplay
Titan Souls does not have much in the realm of plot. All we know is that you play a young boy who must kill travel far distances to kill titans and capture their souls for some purpose unbeknownst to the player. Like many games from the 8- and 16-bit era, Titan Souls‘ focus remains primarily on gameplay.
You start off with a brief tutorial that simply tells you the button you need to press to roll and the one to shoot your arrow. This is as deep as the tutorial goes. Beyond that, Titan Souls just throws you inot the pool and expects you to swim or die. And you will die… a lot.
Reminiscent of Team Ico’s Shadow of the Colossus, Titan Souls‘ gameplay focuses entirely on boss battles. There are no Goombas for which to test your accuracy. What makes these boss battles worse is the fact that you have one weapon which has but one shot: an arrow. Upon shooting the arrow, you must then collect it to use it again; either by holding down the fire button to call your arrow back – you cannot move while you are doing this – or running over to your arrow to collect it. You must also hold down the fire button if you would like it your arrow to go longer distances. But wait, there’s more. Not only do you simply have one context-sensitive weapon, but if you are harmed even once, game over. You die and are sent back to the checkpoint in whichever area you are in and must go back to the dungeon, cave, what-have-you that inhabits the boss and begin the battle all over again.
The good thing is that each boss has the same single hit-point that you do, but that does not make the battle any simpler. You must discover wear the titan’s weak spot is upon each battle. Finding said weak spot may be obvious right from the start or take you a few deaths to figure out. For example, I was stuck on the second titan I encountered for a collected three hours because I was trying to kill him the incorrect way. But discovering the location your titan’s Achilles’ heel does not mean that you will be able to take them down now. Oh no, this is just a first step. Each titan is quite large and has many, many ways to kill you. Upon figuring out the weak spot location, you know must figure out the titan’s pattern. All the titans have a pattern that they follow. They will charge at you in different ways, they will not all have your deficiency of merely having one weapon, and they all have pretty pinpoint accuracy. After all, these titans have seemingly been defending their souls from Link wannabes like you for millennia. They know how to kill the likes of you. Then, upon learning the pattern, you will be ready to take that titan down and devour his soul.
You see, taking down each titan comes down to three things: timing, accuracy, and loads of patience. I found a way to take down one titan within ten seconds, but only after 25 minutes of repeatedly getting killed while figuring out the best place for me to be when the titan darts in my direction and in which direction I should dodge when he does. There is no hand-holding in Titan Souls. You only have two moves, shoot and dodge. Do any of those incorrectly or at the wrong time and that titan kills you.
Now, I worry that this all sounds just torturous and in no way fun, but it really is a blast. If you come into Titan Souls with the belief that it is a Zelda game or an action-RPG brawler like a 2D Dark Souls, you will be disappointed. Titan Souls is an action-puzzler and each titan a new puzzle to solve. Each puzzle will take time and numerous mistakes. But – like the best puzzle games – once you solve it, you feel this wonderful, brilliant sense of accomplishment and glee that you kept trying and figured it out for yourself. And while Titan Souls is difficult, you never feel as if the game is working against you; this isn’t Ghost ‘n Goblins. Every time you die, it is very apparent that you erred and all you want to do is jump back in immediately to try bringing that titan down. If you aren’t too careful, you will end up losing hours, repeatedly saying to yourself, “Oh, I’ll get you this time…”
Visuals & Audio
One of the first things you notice when entering the world of Titan Souls is just how gorgeous the game looks. Each area is so beautifully articulated and detailed that you will spend much of your time between titan battles just walking around and exploring the different areas on the map. The game’s visual palette of earth tones and lush greens in the forest and valley areas, dark reds and oranges in the fire area, and the bright blues and whites in the snow area do a spectacular job of causing the player to get lost in the beauty of it all. I cannot recall a game that put in such care and detail with a pixel art canvas since 2012’s Fez.
As for the audio, David Fenn captures the essence of each area and the intensity of every battle with his soundtrack. Titan Souls‘ art and music work incredibly well together and it makes me long to pick up the soundtrack for the game for the next time I want to do backpack a fantasy world in search of titan souls. Or, you know, to play in my car on the way grocery store. Whichever comes first.
Overall
Titan Souls is definitely not a game for everyone. It can be frustrating, challenging, and may make you feel just a bit like a masochist for constantly coming back to it. But, in the day when everyone is playing From Software’s Dark Souls series and Bloodborne, Titan Souls is a welcome addition to the so-difficult-I-could-smash-my-console-into-a-million-pieces-and-be-happy-about-it genre of interactive entertainment. Games like this are what make Devolver Digital one of my favorite game publishers around and I hope this is just the first of many games we experience from developer Acid Nerve.
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