Today Square Enix announced that Dontnod Entertainment, the developers behind the ironically named Remember Me, are working on a brand new game called Life is Strange which is said to be an “episodic narrative experience with a twist” which will be released digitally for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360.
The story of Life is Strange will follow a senior student named Max Caulfield who is returning to the fictional Oregon town of Arcadia Boy after being gone from the town for five years. Once she arrives she reunites with her former friend Chloe and the two begin to investigate the truth behind the mysterious disappearance of a fellow student named Rachel Amber only to find that Max has the mysterious ability to rewind time and alter events to change history.
Throughout August anime fans will have an extra incentive to donate blood within the Ibaraki prefecture, three blood donation rooms will be giving out special Girls und Panzer clear file sets to donators who give 400ml of blood. The Ibaraki Red Cross Blood Center have teamed up with the popular anime to create the campaign which will run until the 29th, the three rooms will be open Monday to Friday from 2- 5.30pm.
A printed PDF file which can be found on the Ibaraki Red Cross website has to be presented in order to get the clear files, the donation rooms are also offering special Girls und Panzer postcards to people who are donating blood for the first time.
The idea of anime characters promoting blood donations is an interesting concept; earlier this year the Japanese Red Cross Society campaigned with No-Rin and offered character bookmarks for people who gave blood within the Gifu Prefecture. Let us know what you think about this campaign, and what other anime you’d like to see promoting blood donations by commenting down below.
Last year’s Call of Duty left a lot to be desired as far as its online component went and it seems that Activision has learned from their mistakes if this multiplayer reveal trailer is anything to go by. Today’s trailer showing off the first multiplayer footage from Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare reveals the fast paced combat that makes use of numerous pieces of futuristic tech to give this title a unique feeling, albeit one that is hauntingly similar to a certain FPS released earlier this year.
Also announced today is the fact that anyone who pre-orders Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare will be automatically upgraded to the Day Zero edition which gives the player 24 hours of early access, an advanced arsenal featuring the bullet brass exoskeleton and EM1 Quantum directed energy weapon, two custom weapons in the form of the AK-12G Assault Rifle and Crossbow-B2, and of course double XP on November 3rd.
After the second season for Working!!, known as Wagnaria!! in its North American release, was created all the way back in 2011, fans of the series were left wondering if there would ever be a third season. Well, now that it has been announced that the next volume of the Working!! manga will be the last, a third season of Working!! has been announced.
While no details for the anime were revealed at the time, such as when it would air or if A-1 Pictures would continue to be the animating studio, one can hope that this third season will bring a proper close to the series. For those who haven’t been keeping up with series, NIS America has licensed and released both seasons in North America and our review for the second season can be found here.
Today Koei Tecmo released a new batch of English screenshots as well as some additional character art for Ar Nosurge: Ode to an Unborn Star which is set to be released in North America on September 23rd and September 26th in Europe.
This new batch of screenshots focuses on showing off the game’s battle system as well as the “Genometrics” system which represents the character’s inner self, or the world within their minds, which plays an important part in the game and how song magic will become available to the player. Similar to past games in the franchise, players can collect Dive Points by fighting enemies and entering into Ion and Casty’s psyches to help them resolve their concerns.
Indie Gala and Capsule Computers has rounded another big milestone with Every Monday Bundle #20’s release. This week’s bundle contains seven indie games for Steam and Desura.
Aeon Command– A strategy game inspired by tug of war. Players will gather resources, generate units, and do battle with the enemy in an attempt to control the Aeon Nebula.
The Sun at Night– An alternate history platformer that poses the question what if the Soviets won the Cold War. In the face of hopelessness, Laika the space dog falls from space to protect the people from the Soviet threat.
Dinner Date– Julian Luxemburg thought he would be spending the night on a lovely date, but soon finds himself stood up. Play Julian’s subconscious as he works through the anxiety and heart break.
Flight of the Icarus– The single player game that sparked Guns of Icarus Online. Flight of the Icarus will put the helm of an airship under the player’s hands as they attempt to ferry goods in a dangerous steam punk world.
Famaze– A retro rpuzzle adventure featuring randomly generated mazes and a soundtrack by chiptune master Disasterpeace.
Dead Hungry Diner – A casual time management game that will challenge players to feed the many hungry monsters at the diner.
Super Cyborg– Inspired by retro run ‘n gun platformers, Super Cyborg contains seven levels, 3 difficulty settings, and local co-op.
For the first 24 hours of the sale, the Every Monday Bundle #20 is only $1.89 for the entire bundle. Be sure to grab your copy at Indie Gala before the price goes up.
The Japanese Film Festival is said to be the largest outside of its homeland, drawing an audience of some 25,000 people last year in theatres across Australia. Although the full program of over 45 films is yet to be revealed, the two-part sequel to Rurouni Kenshin will be making an appearance as a full trilogy.
Set to return for the eighteenth time, JFF will kick off mid-October in Adelaide before continuing its tour in Canberra, Brisbane, Perth, Auckland and Sydney before coming to a stop in Melbourne in December.
For those of us living away from Sydney’s centre, the festival will screen in a closer city hub this time, “Last year we expanded our programming to Brisbane, Perth and Canberra. Building on these existing locations, we are excited to welcome four new cities onto our Festival map – Adelaide, Parramatta, Freemantle and…Auckland.” says Artistic Director Masafumi Konomi.
Adelaide, 10-12 & 17-19 October – Mercury Cinema
Canberra, 15-19 October – Capitol Cinema Manuka
Brisbane, 22-26 October – Event Cinemas, Brisbane City Myer Centre
Perth, 29 Oct-2 November – Hoyts Carousal & Hoyts Millenium
Auckland, 6-12 November – Rialto Cinemas, Newmarket
Sydney, 13-23 November – Event Cinemas George Street & Parramatta, Art Gallery of NSW
Melbourne, 27 November-7 December – Hoyts Central & Australian Centre for the Moving Image
Run by The Japan Foundation, Sydney, JIFF began in 1997 and has since seen great success in Australia and, soon, New Zealand. For more details and additional info head over to the official website.
“come on down, stop on by. Hop a carpet and fly” Get ready Disney fans, as two of the House of Mouse’s most beloved characters have been announced as additions to Disney Infinity 2.0. The riff-raff street rat himself Aladdin, and his strong, beautiful love Jasmine are joining the ever-growing ranks of the upcoming video game sensation. The Agrabah duo are joining the growing cast that includes The Avengers, The Guardians of the Galaxy and various other Disney characters like Maleficent and Tinkerbell.
It should also be mentioned that with Jasmine’s addition, the total count of Disney Princesses available in the Disney Infinity franchise has grown to 5. Girl power is very much a force to be reckoned with in Disney Infinity 2.0, which is something that the original game was missing out on in its early stages.
We have a brief trailer below that shows off Aladdin and Jasmine in action so be sure you check it out below and also remember to take a look at our recent hands-on preview of the upcoming game. As always, make sure you stay tuned to Capsule Computers for all the Disney Infinity news as it becomes available.
It is always interesting when Wizards releases a new type of Magic: The Gathering product. The Clash Pack are the newest introduction to the line-up, set to replace the classic Event Decks in every alternating set. The general idea is that a Clash Pack is a halfway point between Duel Decks and an Event Deck, providing players with 2 ready to play standard decks, that if the owner so chooses can be combined into one almost tournament-ready deck. It is an interesting design that while it suffers from its flaws, still manages to deliver.
Fate & Fury is the first Clash Pack from Wizards, and is initially separated into two decks; Fate, a blue/green scry-based deck (and we all know how much I love Scry-based decks) and a more aggressive-styled deck in Fury, which is green/red. The decks themselves are designed to be played against one another on relatively fair footing, but this sadly rarely turns out to be the case.
“Fate” is a control-deck that is focused on (you guessed it) trying to control the match up. Using cards to scry your own draws, or to counter your opponents spells is typically a pretty powerful strategy. Unfortunately the counterspells included in the Fate deck are just not good enough. The deck only has access to Negate, which is useful only against non-creature spells. Well (and I will get to this below) but most of the spells in Fury are creature-based, which means that Fate loses a lot of its oomph and versatility. The deck almost entirely relies on you winning with Prognostic Sphinx, which while not a bad card is just relatively weak against Fury’s big beefy beaters.
Fury on the other hand is a powerhouse. Red/Green is a dominate decktype currently in standard and this Clash Pack shows us why. It is able to use creatures like Elvish Mystic and lands like Nykthos, Shine to Nyx to get out its big win conditions like Hydra Broodmaster early on and make it almost impossible for the opponent to keep up. Not only that but Fury comes with Courser of Kruphix, which is probably one of the best rares from the entire Theros block and allows you to play lands off the top of your deck and keep an eye on what is coming next.
The pack also comes included with a decklist that allows you to combine the two together and create a standard-ready 60 card deck, and 15 card sideboard. The deck that you create is a Blue/Green deck that makes better use of some of the mana acceleration abilities like Kiora’s Follower to untap Nykthos and create a TONNE of mana for you to pump out giant hydras as early as possible and just smash your opponents in the face. However, due to the nature of the deck, there are a lot of singles in the deck which means consistency can be thrown right out the window.
So the decks themselves are unbalanced and a little unreliable at times, but as a mid-ground between Duel Decks and event deck it does its job more than suitably. It works doubly well as it is a control vs aggressive matchup which will give newer players a look at how different deck styles can play and hopefully spark their creative juices a little bit into creating something even better in the future. However, the decks aren’t the only important facet of the Clash Pack.
The Clash Pack comes with a bunch of rare cards, and of these there are 6 alternate-art, foil cards that will only ever be available in the pack. Here are the six cards that you can get;
Click to see these foil beauties in full size
So as you can see we have 5 rare foils (Prognostic Sphinx, Hydra Broodmaster, Temple of Mystery, Fated Intervention and Prophet of Kruphix) as well as one common foil (Font of Fertility). I don’t really understand the purpose of a foil common alternate art in the pack, but the art looks beautiful so I wont question it too much. In fact, the art looks beautiful on all of these cards, with special mention going to the Prophet of Kruphix and the Temple of Mystery. As a player who uses both of these cards, having access to these gorgeous alternatives really makes me smile. While they may not be the greatest value money-wise, they look great and are a great starting off point for newer players.
So in the end, Wizard’s first Clash Pack had a few problems, but that is to be expected with a new product. Due to the way that they will be releasing clash packs (they will be released in alternate sets) it wont be until early next year that we see if the mistakes can be fixed. When all is said and done though however, the pack itself is pretty great value for new players and the foil cards make it a great purchase for collectors, or people who just like shiny things.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Magic: The Gathering Intro Decks aren’t designed to win tournaments, or be unbeatable in any of the game’s formats. Their primary purpose is to provide a pre-made deck that new players can pick up and play, secondary to this is that they typically introduce and make use of the new rules implemented in the set they are from. In this way Intro Packs provide a great first stop for anyone jumping into Magic: The Gathering.
NOTE: Since Intro Decks are made for newer Magic: The Gathering players, I wrote the review to reflect that, and used some terminology that only Magic players will understand. This review was constructed using the Infernal Intervention Intro Pack with references to other standard-legal sets.
In Magic: The Gathering, Red/Black can be a really fun colour combination. Together they embody the philosophy of “cut off your nose to spite your face,” and have you sacrificing your own creatures and life total in order to deal large chunks of damage to your opponents. As such I was really looking forward to cracking this Intro Pack and seeing what it could offer. The results were a little disappointing to say the least.
Lets take a look at the cover card for this pack, Indulgent Tormentor:
He is a really powerful card under the right conditions. His ability is incredibly relevant in just about every matchup, and his 5 Power is nothing to scoff at. Unfortunately he is limited by his relatively frail Toughness (there is nothing worse than tapping all your mana on turn 5 to drop this guy and have him immediately be hit with Lightning Strike). As the focus of the deck though, you could do worse.
The deck’s other rare is an aura card; Burning Anger:
This is a great card, and easily playable in just about every deck that runs even a little bit of red. Being able to deal damage to a creature or player without ever having to attack is insane, and if you combo it off with some of the other creatures in the deck you can do some really cool stuff. Enchanting Indulgent Tormentor means that you put your opponent on a four turn clock before the game is over, or they deal with the Tormentor. Alternatively, you can chuck the anger on one of these guys:
“That’s only a 1/1, why would I put Burning Anger on that!?” You would put Burning Anger on one of your deck’s three Typhoid Raids because they have “Deathtouch.” That means any single bit of damage they do to other creatures is enough to kill them, even damage done through Burning Anger. Even if they have a 15/15 creature on the field, it will die instantly to your 1/1 rat, without combat ever happening, and the best part is that it is a repeatable destruction ability, allowing you to clean up the path for your bigger creatures.
Aside from these, the rest of the deck is pretty “meh,” although it is filled with damage-dealing burn spells, and kill spells, the deck more closely resembles something that players would use during a Booster Draft or Sealed Deck experience than a constructed deck. While Burning Anger is a great card, the deck also includes things like Profane Memento that are just…well they are just bad. Since this is a pack for beginners and they are designed to teach players the difference between good and bad cards, as well as a bunch of interactions then it makes sense for Memento to be included, it does work with a lot of the cards in the deck but all in all it is just not very effective at doing so.
All in all there is not much that can be done to improve the deck in any considerable way aside from pulling it apart and using some of the pieces. Typhoid rats are fun and unexpected in constructed play, and the Indulgent Tormentor is definitely playable in other formats like Commander and is just a fun card if you want to throw together something fun for playing against your friends. Not every Intro Pack can be a total winner, and Infernal Intervention seems to prove that.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
