Artifex Mundi’s next title, Nightmares From The Deep: The Siren’s Call, is now available on Steam.
Nightmares From The Deep: The Siren’s Call is the sequel to the popular title,Nightmares From The Deep: The Cursed Heart. In this epic adventure title, you will play as Sarah Black, the curator at the Caribbean Naval Museum. When she receives a mysterious package from an unknown messenger, she is unwillingly drawn into an ancient and old conflict. Players will be presented a wide variety of puzzles to solve as they progress through the game to solve the curse of the Siren’s Call.
Below is a few screenshots from the game itself, and a trailer for Nightmares From The Deep: The Siren’s Call. The title is available on the PC, Linux, and Mac. For a limited time, you can purchase Nightmares From The Deep: The Siren’s Call and Nightmares From The Deep: The Cursed Heart with a 30% discount. This offer ends on May 22nd so make sure to get your copy of these exciting puzzle titles. Check out the Steam page here for more information.
Tex Murphy is back! After 16 long years, the sardonic P.I. designed and played by Chris Jones has returned, thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign for what was then referred to as ‘Project Fedora’. Big Finish Games – comprised of many of the series’ original developers from the now defunct Access Software – received over $150,000 more (including PayPal donations) than they requested, with the anachronistic, but flawed throwback Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure being the result. Microsoft kept turning the creators down when Access Software was acquired by the software giant in 1998, so it’s been a long time coming for Chris Jones and co. Put your detective hat on and revel in all the FMV glory!
Story
It’s been seven years since the events of Tex Murphy: Overseer, when Tex and his love interest Chelsee were picked up after needing a ride, and then shot shortly after by their ‘white knight’. Never hitch-hike folks. It’s now 2050, and upon arriving back at his office with a briefcase in hand, we fade out, making a time-jump to five hours later. An apparent kidnapping is overheard on street-level, with Tex awakening to the gunshots on the floor of his apartment. He has taken a knock to the head, and soon notices a suspicious mark on his forearm, with no memory of events that have taken place over the past seven years. Tex sets out to find out why he can’t remember said period, Chelsee’s fate and the importance of the coincidental kidnapping. In doing so, the player will take one of three different paths, leading to one of five possible endings. Not being familiar with the prior entries in the series, I was afraid that many of the inevitable references and fan-service moments would fly over my head, so to speak, but Big Finish Games did a fantastic job with exposition through brief dialogue and the inclusion of clips from Under a Killing Moon (1994), The Pandora Directive (1996) and Tex Murphy: Overseer (1998).
The jokes throughout are intentionally hokey, such as when Tex reads a ‘Past Due’ notice and a says “You’re late, ya bum!” before a fist manifests from the paper and punches him in the nose. But, that doesn’t mean you should be expecting a dodgy story. The acting, on the other hand, is hit-and-miss. Jones has seemingly learned the art of subtlety since his last outing in front of a camera… or at least ‘Subtlety 101’. The legendary June Lockhart (Lassie, Lost in Space) – who still stays busy to this day at the age of 89 – brings some serious experience to the role of Margaret Leonard, and Seinfeld fans will freak out over the ‘Soup Nazi’ himself, Larry Thomas, playing Lt. Danwicz. And Scottish actor, magician and musician Steve Valentine plays the villainous Johansson to perfection. In fact, there are many solid performances, but almost as many in the cast were overacting terribly, or appearing flat-out uncomfortable on-screen.
Gameplay
Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure utilises a first-person perspective in a fully-realised 3D world just like the trilogy before it. A lot of the clumsy U.I. elements commonly found in games from the 90’s have been tucked away in your ‘Smart Alex’; a talking PDA that can be pulled up at any time with a click of the right mouse button. Within, you have access to the locations list, where you can travel between key environments; your inventory, where objects can be further examined, combined and utilised; flashlight; clues, which will be greyed out dependent on difficult level; and the ‘observe’ and ‘use’ functionality, which is practically pointless. The myriad puzzles encountered are basic in nature, from ‘Simon’ and ‘Sliding’ puzzles to ‘Number Pyramids’ and more. They might take some time to complete with trial-and-error, but the bigger challenge comes from finding well-hidden objects needed to progress, open a safe, etc.
In regards to the aforementioned multiple story paths, that all depends on your conversational decisions. Thankfully, the current path is always noted in the pause menu and the game can be replayed from any chapter. However, it’s not made crystal clear which dialogue choices are influencers, as the choices themselves are presented in somewhat vague terms. For example, when Tex first sees his old buddy Louie LaMintz – who has since last recollection become a mutant – instead of an option stating “What happened to you?!” we get “Shock and ohhh!”. In a way, they read like Tex’s inner thoughts, which is fine thematically, but detrimental to any clarity in decision-making when it comes to the dialogue tree. For completionist, the replay-ability of the title means that you can try out the various options and discover their effect the hard way, whilst searching for that missing Mike & Ike Hammer candy comic; yes, there are collectibles. I love collectibles… especially the edible kind.
Visuals & Audio
Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure is not a pretty game; textures look low-res, flat and are lacking true detail. Rarely is depth even faked using normal mapping. But what is effective – though not necessarily advanced – is the lighting and tone of the game on a whole. Tonally, it is extremely consistent, with an ever-present orange hue grounding the world in its own signature blend of post-apocalyptic future, where the skies have permanently turned red, and the 20’s-30’s ‘Golden Age’ of detective fiction-inspired aesthetic. In terms of compositing, the FMV integration is actually quite well done for the most part, as you can probably see with the images featured in this review.
The audio mix is very uneven, with volumes of certain sound effects spiking above all others. Positional sound implementation also seemed overreaching, with sounds from another room being far too loud considering their distance, both on horizontal and vertical planes. Musically, the mix of 80’s electronic drums with more modern instrumentation, along with saxophone and other horns, effectively reflects the visual and narrative tone of the game. Around 2 hours of great, original music was composed for the game, with the intro track in particular sounding epic and being reminiscent of something like a cross between Mass Effect and Batman Begins.
Overall
Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure is obviously a labour of love. With the character debuting way back in 1989 before being a part of the FMV craze in the mid-90s, it’s a victory that so many people backed the project and helped get a sequel made in 2014. Though there are many rejoiceful aspects of the game that harken back to that 80-90s era of adventure titles, the blocky geometry/level design, and muddy textures are exactly what we shouldn’t be celebrating. But, alas, Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure is an outdated game in that respect, and not in the purposely nostalgic sense…
Then again, FMV is still an expensive technique, and considering the comparatively smaller budget to that of Under a Killing Moon and that the game was developed by only 14 individuals, there is a lot of leeway to give, the justification for which is further aided by its innate charm and ridiculously campy sense of humour. If you can get over the rudimentary design and old graphics, and have the capacity to appreciate such camp for what it is, you’ll discover a good puzzle-adventure title in Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Overview While many times a strange personality makes a person interesting, there are times that it simply drives people away and in the case of Haganai, it is the latter. Thanks to various misunderstandings and poor social skills, the cast of Haganai consists of people seemingly incapable of making friends. While the first season was rather hilarious it remained stuck in the status quo, now that viewers are familiar with the cast can we expect some interesting developments to happen in Haganai NEXT?
Story The story of Haganai NEXT continues shortly after the events of the first season which ended with Kodaka finally realizing that Yozora was his childhood friend who he previously thought was a boy. Despite Kodaka finally realizing this, the two agree to keep it a secret from the rest of the members in the Neighbors Club to not cause any problems since ten years have passed and they are different people now.
For those who may have forgotten, the Neighbors Club was created as something of a haven for people who do not have many friends and over the course of the first season we saw Kodaka, the MC who is kind hearted but is seen by almost everyone as a delinquent thanks to his hair color and sense of style, Yozora, a girl who shuns any form of communication with fellow classmates, and Sena, the most popular, intelligent, and skilled girl in the school who has no real friends join the group.
The group’s numbers were expanded by the extremely perverted but incredibly intelligent shut-in inventor Rika, the girlish looking Yukimura who wishes to be manly, a young bratty nun named Maria, and Kodaka’s younger sister Kobato, who cosplays as her favorite anime character and acts like a vampire, joining the club. As such a club full of misfits with eccentric personalities and quirks that made them a few of them left with some social issues is created.
Now the reason I mention all of this is primarily because Haganai NEXT is aptly named since it tells the story of what happens next in these characters now that they are all in one place. This season starts out similar to what one would expect any other episode from the first season to be, with Sena being unknowingly bullied by Yozora and Rika as they give her a new hairstyle. Then later once Sena is scolded by her father she calls Kodaka to tell him how he reacted, which is something viewers have grown familiar with over the first season.
However the main point for this season is hinted at in the final moments of this episode after Kodaka ends up spending the night at Sena’s house while studying as he finds himself promising Sena’s father, and his father’s longtime friend, Pegasus, to protect Sena from being bullied at school. Doing so leads to a chain of events that will shake up the Neighbor’s Club as well as put the group to a test.
For the most part Haganai NEXT continues to follow the same standard as the first season with the group participating in various activities that friends would do to have fun such as visit a theme park together, play the King’s game, participate in a school festival, and more. However while the first season set aside time to try and introduce characters, in Haganai NEXT that time is used to help develop the characters as almost every character is given an episode or two to grow and in the case of Yukimura, reveal a secret that many people probably can guess.
While characters such as Yukimura are expanded, Kodaka and Yozora’s childhood past is exposed to the group, and constant hints from side-characters about something with Sena, there is a fair amount going on in the series now but a new set of characters are introduced in this release. Maria’s older sister Kate is as crude as they come but is level-headed while members of the Student Council start looking at the Neighbor’s Club near the end of the release.
Despite these new characters and the focus on Sena’s story, the true star of this season is Rika and Kodaka. While Kodaka appears as dense as a harem MC can be, sharp eyed viewers will likely catch on to the fact that he may not be as dense as they believe long before his actions in the final episodes reveal his motivation and Rika sees through him at every moment. As I mentioned, while Sena takes the spotlight more often than not, Rika’s knowledge of the group and intuition create an interesting character. While she is generally a perverted genius that can be seen as a walking joke, her genuine effort and feelings are rare in a series such as this where she is one of the few characters trying to step forward.
With more serious moments than what was found in the first season, Haganai NEXT capitalizes on using its already established cast to introduce a number of new pieces of comedy that keep things fresh throughout the season while also moving things along at a nice pace that helps develop this cast of misfits into a group that is blind to the fact that although they all want to find friends, they already have a whole club of them.
Visuals Unlike the first season of Haganai, Haganai NEXT actually feels tamer as far as fan-service is concerned. Although Kobato and Maria are shown in skimpy clothing a few times or bathing, nothing is pushed as far as the first season. Instead the focus mostly turns to the standard style of fan service being used with more adult looking characters such as the newly introduced Kate, on Sena, Yozora, and Yukimura’s outfits, or Rika’s very perverted personality.
The character designs have the same feel as the first season with unique looking designs for each member of the cast and one should pay attention to Rika throughout the series as she undergoes a number of changes throughout the series. The quality does drop a bit during mid-range shots which is disappointing and at times the facial expressions of characters can look rather odd but for the most part the series stays fairly consistent as far as animation quality is concerned.
Audio With the release of Haganai NEXT FUNimation has retained the same voice actors who provided the English voice work for the first season and they continue to provide a suitable performance, and it is a nice touch now that Yozora now simply sticks to calling Sena “Meat” instead of the numerous breast puns they used in the first season, with the new characters also set up with nice voice work. Now there is one issue I had with the English dub and that was how Kodaka and Rika mentioned a few times throughout the release that they were friends already, which is problematic considering the final character breaking moment of the series focuses on that exact point only for it to be discussed earlier on.
The background music has been improved over the first season as a number of strange but oddly fitting tracks accompany various scenes throughout the release. The opening theme “Be My Friend” by is sung by the Japanese cast, same as the ending theme “Bokura no Tsubasa.”
Extras With the release of Haganai NEXT FUNimation has provided a nice set of on-disc bonus features in the form of two audio commentaries, one video commentary, various promotional trailers, textless versions of the opening and ending theme, as well as “Black Dragon: Cries of the Damned” which is a five minute special showing what each character was yelling, in Japanese only, while riding the Black Dragon and freaking out.
The first commentary is for episode 7 and features Jerry Jewell, the voice of Kodaka, Kristi Kang, the voice of Maria, and Brina Palencia, the voice of Kate; while the second commentary is for episode 11 and features Joel McDonald, the ADR director for the second season, Jad Saxton, the voice of Sena, and Felecia Angelle who handles Aoi Yusa’s voice. As for the video commentary, which is always a nice touch, we have Joel McDonald, Jad Saxton, Jerry Jewell, and Whitney Rodgers who handles the voice of Yozora.
Overall Haganai NEXT takes all of the strengths that the first season had and capitalizes on them in this second season. By developing its cast and focusing on the emotional aspect of the group and their obviously growing bonds viewers are given an interesting experience as Kodaka is fully aware of what is happening around him but is taking an approach many may mistake as simply being dense in an effort to not threaten the nature of the group.
Even while providing emotional moments and character development the series remains consistently funny throughout and considering how outlandish some of these characters’ personalities are, their close proximity with one another never lets this series’ comedy grow old making Haganai NEXT a humorous but also intriguing harem comedy that changes things up for the better. Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Super Time Force Developer:Capybara Games Publisher:Capybara Games Platforms: Xbox 360, Xbox One (Reviewed) Install Size:808.08 MB Release date: May 14, 2014 Price: $14.99 – Available Here
Overview Side-scrolling bullet hell style shooters thrive on nostalgia and some gamers’ fondest memories come from games such as these. Despite this, the formula has grown rather stale over the years and now Capybara Games is here with Super Time Force in an effort to change things up a bit. The question is, were they successful?
Story A one-eyed scientist is trying to unlock the mysteries of time travel in the 1980s and much to his delight he manages to do so. Though his celebration is quickly interrupted by himself from the future who has already been through numerous wars and somehow lost his other eye. The reason he has come back to the past is because this scientist has now become Commander Repeatski and has since formed the Super Time Force in order to do battle against a robot invasion that will happen in five minutes.
After this ridiculously introduction and the defeat of the robot invaders, players are then able to select from a number of eras to travel to and complete a certain objective which is almost always ludicrous in some way and generally self-serving. The story is full of strange nonsense and ridiculous situations but it actually works in the game’s favor as it provides a delightful sense of humor that fits the odd nature of the in-game characters and the type of outlandishly hilarious enemies you will fight against.
Gameplay Broken down to its base component, Super Time Force is a side-scrolling shooter with one hell of an enjoyable gameplay mechanic in the form of time control. As you enter into a level you will be given thirty lives to make it through a stage and a set amount of time to do it in. While you venture through a level dodging fire you can kill enemies with a basic attack or hold down the fire button for a charge attack.
While players are only given three characters to start with, the cast of playable characters grows larger as you make your way through the game with some characters almost impossible to miss while others have to be sought out and rescued to join your crew. Each of these characters has a unique attack pattern or special ability with the first basic characters allowing for a large amount of firepower, the ability to block and reflect incoming fire, and shots that can ricochet off of walls or shoot through the environment. However that is only the tip of the iceberg and to try and master some of the stages in Super Time Force players will need to get familiar with all of the capabilities of the cast thanks to the “Time Out” mechanic.
With thirty lives to start out a stage, anytime the player is hit and killed the game will automatically force a time out which allows the player to rewind time either a few seconds or all the way back to the beginning of the level if they so wish. This costs a player a life and the player can also choose to time out whenever they wish and rewind time, though this too costs the player a life.
The thing is, whenever you rewind time not only can you change your character but your previous life is still running alongside you. This means if you start out a stage and die ten times, each time rewinding back to the beginning, there will be ten ghosts running through the level with you, killing the enemies they previously killed and gathering collectibles up until the point where they died. If you happen to kill an enemy before it managed to kill your past life, you can then go to that life and pick it up as a buffer that will provide you with one extra hit point as well as their special charge ability.
The places where this really gets hectic is during the outlandish boss fights where you can have numerous characters running around chipping away at the boss’ health meter while also saving past lives by damaging them fast enough to break their pattern. This might sound a bit complicated at first but it actually is something that is fairly simple to understand and utilize once you get your hands on the title and it is almost required that you make use of this mechanic.
Trying to gather collectibles, save various side-characters, or travel down dead end can often leave you with no time left to finish a level, but if you choose to rewind time then your past life will still run around collecting things while you progress through the stage at a normal pace. This makes the game’s time limit a fair challenge but one that can be conquered.
That being said, there are some issues with the title and it comes down to the point where it is easy to fall back on using the same characters throughout the game without trying to diversify your roster. There are also times where the game can feel a bit easy if you power your way through every enemy in your way through the use of the time mechanics. This is limited in the game’s Hardcore Mode which is unlocked upon completion as players must rescue every one of their past lives or the character they died as will be unplayable for the rest of that level.
It also doesn’t help that there are many times that the game can feel repetitious since the use of the time manipulation is necessary and often areas you traveled through before will need to be done a handful of times. Plus firing at an angle remains a pain thanks to the game following the outdated Contra style aiming mechanics rather than take advantage of the console’s twin stick capabilities.
Visuals & Audio Super Time Force was obviously designed with a retro pixel sprite look in mind and it pulls that off quite well. This could be an issue since games tend to try to take advantage of nostalgia to squeeze these types of games past fans, but the game’s crazy character roster, the way everything is stylized in the game, and how crazy things can become with all the time clones running around, comes off rather impressive looking and it also helps that the environments and little “cut-scenes” certainly match the feel that the game’s comedy gives off.
As for the game’s background music and sound effects we again are treated to the same retro style treatment of the visuals with a fairly enjoyable chiptune soundtrack keeping the pace with the action but begins to grate after a short while.
Overall Super Time Force takes a well-worn concept and breathes new life into the run and gun style of gameplay with its fun to use time out mechanics. Although $15 may seem a bit much for a game such as this, Super Time Force’s fairly enjoyable shooting mechanics and a great sense of humor provide quite a few hours of enjoyment, even more if you happen to be a perfectionist, as players make use of the time travel to tear through enemies like tissue paper while playing as a dinosaur riding on a skateboard. Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Open Beta test now available for football management simulation game
Nexon Europe has officially begun pre-season with the browser-based football management simulation, United Eleven. Open Beta testing is now welcome to all to try their hand at developing and managing a squad of united players that one of the greatest managers Carlo Ancelotti would be proud of, who has fully endorsed the game.
In United Eleven, “Pre-Season” refers to a testing period before official launch. All are welcome to join the game’s kick-off and try out the highly anticipated mobile-compatible title, fully endorsed by none other than one of the greatest football managers Carlo Ancelotti. And thanks to have official licenses from the Bundesliga and FIFPro, the players can build a squad mixing top players such as Manuel Neuer, Julian Draxler, and Philipp Lahm alongside the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, and Steven Gerrard.
Pre-Season participants will be able to keep their club name and manager name for the official launch and receive Pre-Season gifts when they meet the conditions in the [4-Day Manager Training] or [Best of the Best!] Events.
United Eleven will be serviced in 8 languages: English, German, French, Italian, Polish, Spanish, Portuguese, and Turkish. The game will be published in Europe, North and South America, Oceania, and North Africa.
United Eleven is available on all browsers, including on iOS and Android.
An exclusive unveiling of Logitech’s new product showcase for 2014 was held yesterday at Sheraton on the Park, with the ANZ team at Logitech. Joining the managing director, Marcus Fry, cluster marketing manager, Estelle Baldry, and cluster category manager, John Paterson; was the director of product portfolio management at Ultimate Ears, Chris LaBrutto.
For a company that started 33 years ago with the world’s first consumer mouse, it was impressive to see the scope of which Logitech plans to revitalise their business focus, from the peripheral to mobility market. With the ever expanding growth of smartphones and tablet devices, it seems fitting that the next move for Logitech Australia would be to shift to mobile platforms. Due to the high demand for cordless keyboards, Logitech are excited to bring to the market the Illuminated K830 Living Room Keyboard for consumers to navigate between their PC and TV.
With an impressive G-series line-up for 2014, Logitech are excited to show off their products for the upcoming EB Expo and PAX Australia gaming events later this year.
Chris LaBrutto discussed that the FY15 growth plan for Ultimate Ears, would see the wireless mobile speaker market reach 3.2 billion from the current 1.7 billion. The latest advancement in Bluetooth wireless speakers, UE Boom (featured above) have been designed to make music social and just as sensational as a live concert performance, with a 360 degree rotation of sound that lasts up to 15 hours.
The most impressive feature of the acoustic skin speakers is their indestructibility, as proven by Reggie Watts’ social media experiment that sent the UE Boom to space and back, last year at Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester.
Coming to Australia next month will be the release of Ultra Thin Keyboard Folio’s for the iPad Air and iPad Mini, as well as a product range of style and functionality for flexible casing, such as the Logitech Hinge. John Paterson also noted that there will soon be similar accessories available for smartphones; with a magnetic cover that enables the use of a material wallet, tilt panel, drive mount and many more features.
Not only has Viz Media licensed the original Sailor Moon anime they are going one step further. Today at their panel at Anime Central Viz Media also announced that they have picked up the license for the upcoming Sailor Moon Crystal anime series. Since the series has not yet debuted, as it is set to premiere online in July, Viz could not announce any specific details about their plans for the series but did say they would have more news on the series in the future.
Sailor Moon Crystal will be a new re-make of the series and has a rather odd release schedule as the twenty six episode series is set to have a new episode released biweekly starting on July 5th.
Longtime anime fans will be overjoyed to hear that a beloved series from many years ago has just been picked up for re-release in North America. At Anime Central Viz Media has announced that they have acquired the rights to the original Sailor Moon anime in all forms. This means that they have all two hundred episodes of the series, all the movies, and the various tie-in specials that were created for the series.
The series will be released with a brand new English dub that is going to be entirely uncut and the series will be released without any edits and in the original 4:3 uncropped ratio. This means that the relationships between the characters and their names will also remain untouched. Viz announced that they are planning on releasing the series digitally with subtitles starting next week while the new English dub episodes will debut starting sometime in late 2014. They are planning on releasing DVD and Blu-ray/DVD combo packs containing half-seasons starting this fall as well.
The official announcement trailer for this pick up can be found below.
Today at Anime Central Viz Media announced the English dub cast for Blood Lad. While the company has yet to announce a release date for the series on home video, they are planning on showing the dubbed version of the show through Neon Alley.
The English dub will be directed by Kirk Thornton while Chris Cason handled the English script. As for the English voice actors the full list can be found below:
Bryce Papenbrook – Staz Charlie Blood
Xanthe Huynh – Fuyumi Yanagi
Kira Buckland – Hydra Bell
Cristina Vee – Mamejiro
Ben Diskin – Wolf
Richard Epcar – Wolf Daddy
Johnny Yong Bosch – Braz D. Blood
Jason Baker – Yoshida the Mimic
Lucien Dodge – Akim Papradon
Patrick Seitz – Franken
Erik Scott Kimerer – Hydra Knell
Keith Silverstein – Hydra Heads
Wendee Lee – Neyn
Ben Pronsky – Chief Goyle
Julie Ann Taylor – Officer Beros
Taylor Henry – ONIQLO Store Manger
Derek Stephen Prince – Sabao
Caitlin Chang – Mayu
Kyle Hebert – Dek
Brian Beacock – Shamkid
Todd Stone – Roy
Matthew Mercer – Sam
Erica Mendez – Jasmine
If you are looking forward to the upcoming movie Edge of Tomorrow then you may want to familiarize yourself with the movie’s source material All You Need is Kill and you will soon have that chance, though you will miss the movie’s opening weekend on June 6th if you choose to do so. Today Viz Media has announced that they will be releasing the two volume manga adaptation of Takeshi Obata’s All You Need is Kill digitally on June 19th which is the same day it will be published in Japan.
If you are someone who enjoys owning a physical copy of your manga then you have to wait a few months longer as Viz Media is planning on releasing a deluxe 2-in-1 print edition of All You Need is Kill on November 4th. The digital volumes will be sold at a price of $6.99 a piece while the deluxe print release will be priced at $14.99 US or $16.99 CAN.
