Today Marvelous Europe has revealed that they will be publishing Kemco‘s Alphadia Genesis, a title that was previously released on the iOS and Android platforms and most recently released on the Wii U, on PCs through Steam.
In January 2015 Alphadia Genesis will be released on Steam at a limited time price of $11.99. Those unfamiliar with the game will be interested in checking out the screenshots below. Some details about the title are a “rich characters and engrossing plot” that will be portrayed in a 16-bit style that resembles that found in classic RPGs of the ’90s.
Final Fantasy XIVfans can now purchase a new art book that was released yesterday on the Square Enix online store. Titled ‘The Art of Eorzea – Another Dawn’, the book showcases the stunning environment of Eorzea in over 1000 illustrations spanning over 300 full-coloured pages (a sample of which can be seen below). Furthermore, the illustrations are accompanied by commentaries from both Japanese and English artists who worked on the game’s landscape. The art book is currently priced at €34.99 in the European store and as an extra bonus, anybody who buys the book will be given a free ‘model enterprise’ minion, a cosmetic pet that can be summoned within the game.
HTC and Google have been working hard to release the Nexus 9 Tablet in time for Australians to enjoy over Christmas. While there’s plenty to get excited about, it’s worth getting particularly pumped for the Android 5.0 Lollipop operating system. This is the first tablet in Australia to boast the new Lollipop system. As it’s also supported by Google, owners of the tablet are guaranteed to be one of the first to receive updates for their Android devices.
There is, however, plenty more to be excited about. The design sports an aluminium casing complete with a soft-grip back. The screen also screams class with a 8.9” display. The size and 2K resolution (2048×1536) at a 4:3 aspect ratio makes the screen appropriate for most tasks while also able to be held in one hand. All this weighs in at an impressive 425g (for the Wifi version).
Further inside the Nexus 9 lies a Nvidia Tegra K1 64-bit dual core processor which provides a performance more than capable to cope with your myriad of apps and your constant switching between them. A Keppler GPU also ensures stunning graphics and quality performance worthy of a desktop.
In addition to some great specs, the Nexus 9 also includes a front and rear camera, producing images at 1.6MP and 8MP respectively. Definitely something to compliment the 8.9” screen. Furthermore, the tablet also provides a dual front facing speaker system complete with a smart amp and HTC BoomSound for when you’re device is in speaker mode.
The HTC Google Nexus 9 (16GB Wifi in Indigo Black) became available on 25 November 2014. The device is available here for $399.99 or at Telstra stores at an RRP of $470. All in all, it’s a serious competitor for other similarly priced tablets and a pretty sweet addition to your Christmas list.
Sony wasn’t the only one to be hacked recently. Earlier today a hacker group by the name Lizard Squad took down Microsoft’s Xbox Live with a DDOS attack. They announced their “victory” with a tweet at 12:37pm (EDST):
Lizard Squad has been around since August this year, taking down multiple online game servers including Sony’s PlayStation Network, League of Legends, Call of Duty, Destiny and Twitch.tv. While the group had been banned from twitter, they re-emerged as LizardPatrol in October, keeping quiet and generally out of sight until now.
Honestly, the attack is pretty pathetic. While Lizard Squad claim that “some lizards just want to watch the world burn,” I highly doubt taking down some of Microsoft’s game servers for a few hours counts. There are more interesting and productive things to do in the world than cause a minor annoyance for some Xbox Live players and boasting about it.
Siren Visual has just announced via its Facebook page that it has licensed the anime series Nodame Cantabile for Australian DVD release. The complete first season will be released on DVD in 2015. The release will contain the English dubbed version produced by Animax. Animax’s English dubs are rarely included in Australian home video releases, or in home video releases in any other English speaking countries.
Siren Visual describes the series as follows: “Set in a college music conservatory, Nodame Cantabile tells the story of a prodigious yet neurotic classical music composer named Chiaki. Hailed as the next big classical music conductor, he remains trapped in Japan due to a lifelong fear of air travel. Enter Nodame, a talented pianist who immediately falls in love with Chiaki and shows him there’s more to life than musical notation”.
The series was previously released in Hong Kong. However, that release has gone out of print, so this will be the only official English release of the anime that is available.
Are you ready to be wow-ed Bat-Fans? Just last week Warner Bros. showed off some brand new gameplay footage for the upcoming Batman: Arkham Knight. We got to get a look at how Batman will operate this time around. Well now we get to continue on where that video left off, with the newly released Ace Chemicals Infiltration Trailer – Pt. 2. The new video gives us a better look at the Batmobile and how the Caped Crusader will utilise it to take down the Arkham Knight’s militant thugs.
Check out the cool new trailer below, and let us know in the comments below whether or not you like the introduction of the Batmobile into the Arkham Games (yes, I know it was in Arkham Asylum, but it wasn’t playable there). Batman: Arkham Knight is set for release on June 3rd, 2015 so make sure you stay tuned to Capsule Computers for all the awesome bat-news as it becomes available.
The third installment in the Dragon Age franchise is here, and it is a beast of a game. With an impressive 90+ hours of content, Dragon Age: Inquisition has you felling dragons, facing demons and closing up portals that threaten your homeland. With a scope that is hard to match, and Bioware’s signature dialogue-heavy storytelling, Dragon Age: Inquisition is the dream for anyone who loves a good, albeit lengthy RPG.
Story
Set after the events of Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age 2, Inquisition puts you in the role of a mysterious stranger who after being in the right place at the right time, is thought to be the next messiah of the realm. In this role, you encounter friends and foes who range from the devout followers through to those who deny your existence and fear you. Putting the player in the role of a supposed messiah brings with it a lot of cool moments as the game doesn’t shy away from the implications of being a near-diety.
Across the game’s 90+ hour campaign, you will encounter many characters both new and returning to the franchise. The returning characters really help tie the game together to the previous installments, while all of your party members that you assemble through the game will banter with one another, the banter sounds natural and helps make the world feel like a living ecosystem.
This is purely a personal thing, but I have always been very much torn on Bioware’s method of storytelling. On one hand, the way they allow you to have an influence over how your character interacts with the world, asks questions and provides answers makes you feel like you really are in control of the story. Having such fine control over your character’s actions, beliefs, thoughts and responses really embodies everything that a role playing game aims to be.
On the flip side however, and this is especially prominent in Inquisition – that there is just an insurmountable amount of dialogue and expository text that you can very quickly feel bogged down by it all. During the earlier portions of the game, I found that at least 15-20 minutes out of every hour I played was taken up with dialogue. It can really slow down the pace of the game and feel like you are reading one of those “choose your own adventure” novels rather than playing a video game.
Gameplay
Like previous Dragon Age titles, Inquisition is a pretty hard-core RPG set in a vast fantasy world. You get to play as series regular races human, elf or dwarf and can pick between a half-dozen different play styles ranging from rogue archer through to a warrior with a giant-ass sword. Then, once you have picked your class you get to specialize in different sub-classes as you level up, meaning that you can create a character that is entirely unique to you and your style of play.
In order to progress through Inquisition’s story missions, the player must complete side-missions in order to gain “Power.” Each story mission has a power-level assigned to it, and the player must have equal or greater power before they can embark. This is a clever way of making the side-quests matter in a game where they might otherwise be ignored. However on the flip side of this, forcing players to tackle side-quests just to unlock main story missions, as opposed to using side-quests to level up your character so that you can realistically tackle them feels very similar to a lot of mobile games, and this is a precedent that honestly makes me anxious.
When you enter a map, you get to pick three party members to fight alongside you. Inquisition makes you plan well in advance for your missions, ensuring you have characters whose skills and attributes balance one another in combat. For example, running a party that consists primarily of warriors would leave you hugely vulnerable to magical blasts, or a volley of arrow-fire. When it comes to the combat itself, it is relatively straight forward and is quite similar to the original Dragon Age: Origins control scheme. You have one button that lets you attack normally, as well as the ability to assign skills to the other controller buttons (as you unlock them of course). You can pick which skills you have equipped as well as when you want to use them, so there is this sense of total control over the action. During my playthrough I opted to take on the role of a rogue archer, and I will admit that using one button to fire my bow was a little counter-intuitive to what I was used to.
Speaking of having control of the action, Inquisition brings back the fan-favourite “Tactical Camera” option that previously only existed on the PC version of Origins. The Tactical Camera allows you to pause the action, and take control of your party members from above, similar to an RTS. Once you have picked where your party members will move to, and how they will attack, then you can resume action and the decisions will be carried out in real time. I didn’t ever feel like I needed to use the T.C. but every time I chose to, I felt an unmatched sense of control over the situation.
In lieu of a true open-world, the world of inquisition is broken up into several massive maps. Each of these maps are almost insurmountably big in size, and are filled to the brim with content. NPCs to talk to, missions to complete animals to hunt, enemies to kill and secrets to uncover are EVERYWHERE. Even after spending several hours in one of the games maps, you will still be discovering new items and new missions to help you gain more power and influence over the world.
Visuals& Audio
When playing on console, Dragon Age: Inquisition is far from the prettiest game. A lot of the textures and models are a little rough. Lots of the game’s landscapes and set-pieces are quite jagged, and there were moments during my playthrough that the environment looked like it was made for Xbox 360/PS3. The dip in visual quality on console is a little disappointing, but it isn’t the be-all and end-all of the game’s presentation.
Where Inquisition’s presentation really shines is in the massive scope of the world. By sacrificing some visual fidelity and opting to use multiple large maps instead of one single open-world, the landscape of inquisition is made to look absolutely massive. Not only is the world huge (requiring more than a little bit of time to traverse the land) but things like draw distance is beyond impressive, as are the variety of environments that you will find yourself traversing through your playthrough. I loved the way that Inquisition’s world looks, and while I would obviously love higher polygon-count models and higher textured backdrops, if their inclusion meant the world itself being smaller (or even just looking smaller) then I believe that Bioware made the right decision.
While I am a big fan of the way Dragon Age: Inquisition looks, the same can’t be the said for how it sounds. I found all of the characters to come across as dull, lifeless and incredibly stiff. Nearly no emotion was conveyed through the game’s dialogue and many conversations just fell flat. If anything really let down the whole inquisition package, it is the audio.
Overall
Dragon Age: Inquisition is an example of how to do fantasy role playing games right. It’s epic, long story will keep you locked to your screen for almost one hundred hours, and you will find yourself becoming invested not only in the events of the world but also the character that inhabit it. On console, Bioware has sacrificed some higher-end visuals in lieu of a world that is absolutely massive and beautiful in its scope and execution. Although I often felt bogged down by all of the game’s dialogue and it suffers from some less than stellar voice acting, I can’t help but loving Dragon Age: Inquisition.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
As we now know, Telltale’s Game of Thrones‘ first episode “Iron from Ice” will be released this week for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, PS3, iOS devices, and PC platforms. As such, Telltale Games has released a launch trailer showing off the first episode and giving us a look at not only what to expect but also a glimpse at how the company will handle the style of the well-known series.
You can check out the launch trailer below and it is worth noting that this Game of Thrones story will be six episodes in length instead of the usual five and as such, the season pass will cost $29.99.
Remember Fortnite? Well if you do, then you may be interested in learning that the alpha test for the game will be starting December 2nd and running until December 19th. Epic Games has revealed that this alpha phase for the free-to-play PC title will include all of the basics of the game and the purpose is to make sure that everything is working alright even though the game itself is still “rough around the edges.”
Invites are going out to those who signed up for the alpha now, but if you haven’t registered you can still do so at the Fortnite website and anyone who does receive an invite will be able to invite some of their friends to share the experience.
Studio Ghibli’sThe Tale of Princess Kaguya, or Kaguya-hime no Monogatari, directed by the critically acclaimed Isao Takahata, will be available tomorrow on DVD and Blu-ray in Japan. This is Isao Takahata’s first film in 14 years since My Neighbours The Yamadas.
The DVD release, available for 5076 yen (tax inclusive) in Japan and 4700 yen outside Japan (roughly $40 USD / $47 AUD), will feature the film with both 2ch and 5.1ch Japanese audio and 2ch English audio, as well as English subtitles. The DVD will be in the NTSC format and encoded for region 2. The DVD set will come with two discs, with on-disc extras including the press conference, storyboards and trailer.
The Blu-ray release, available for 7344 yen (tax inclusive) in Japan and 6800 yen outside Japan (roughly $57 USD / $68 AUD), will feature the film with 5.1ch English, Cantonese, Mandarin and French audio tracks, Japanese Linear PCM 2ch audio and Japanese DTS HD 5.1ch audio. It will also feature English, Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, French and Korean subtitles. The Blu-ray release will be region free, come with one disc and feature on-disc extras including the storyboard, trailer, press conference and script for dubbing.
Anyone considering purchasing one of these high quality releases should be aware that the extras are not listed as being subtitled or containing any language options other than Japanese.
The film, along with five other Studio Ghibli films and two recent documentaries, is still screening in Adelaide at Palace Nova East End courtesy of Madman.
