Space Hulk, indie developer Full Control Studio’s faithful adaption of the renowned board game with the same title, will have a new expansion featuring the Space Wolves . The game is set in Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40 000 universe and is iconic in regards to its power armoured genetic super warrior monks known as ‘space marines’. It’s a grim, dark future in which there is only war, bloodshed, and the thirsting of dark gods.
The new space marine chapter to feature in the series will bring 11 new unique Space Wolves terminators (or ‘Wolf Guards’ for those who are keeping track) who will have new weapons such Frost Axes and Wolf Claws. A Runepriest will also be making an appearance with skills such as ‘Murderous Lightning’ and ‘Hurricane’. These, along with new chapter specific rules being introduced are going to add a new element to the gameplay of this turn-based strategy title.
The ‘Sons of Fenris’ will have a grand old time in three new missions, and the new Space Wolf terminators can be played in all other missions as well. We have previously covered the release of a different expansion for the series here. It remains to be seen whether or not Space Marines with a taste for dog food and wolf pelts can actually withstand a genestealer ambush however…
The full game and expansion is available on steam here and for Mac iOS here.
Overview Over the years, the card games anime genre has grown to become its own thriving little sub-genre somewhere between sports anime and shonen battle anime. Series like Yu-Gi-Oh and Duel Masters have lit up our TV screens and created a craze across the globe. The evolution of card games anime has been long and rather interesting and with the next evolution upon us it becomes even more so. Move aside Yu-Gi-Oh because it’s time to stand up for Cardfight!! Vanguard!
Story
From the creator of Yu-Gi-Oh R and Duel Masters, Cardfight!! Vanguard has one hell of a pedigree or a card games anime. It has the right DNA for success and if this first part of the series is anything to go by, Cardfight!! Vanguard looks to be the next big thing.
While it may come from the same mind that brought us Yu-Gi-Oh R and Duel Masters, this series has one major difference. Unlike other card games anime which indulge heavily in the supernatural and magical, Cardfight!! Vanguard focuses and gives greater priority to its central card game, ‘Vanguard’. As the series progresses we come to learn the game alongside the series’ protagonist Aichi Sendou and it is truly refreshing to see the rules adhered to so realistically.
The central card game of ‘Vanguard’ is a game simple enough to understand quite easily, but complex enough to have countless strategies and possible outcomes and scenarios. It is a damn near perfect card games system that is captivating in every sense. When the wheels of this game are in motion, you won’t want them to stop. The twists and turns a simple game can take is highly engaging and the possibilities are seemingly infinite, with no two games feeling the same. It is easy or the viewer to understand Aichi’s fascination with the game and the series treats it as an alluring one at that.
This first season of Cardfight!! Vanguard covers the ‘Card Capital Arc’ and begins the ‘Regional Tournament Arc’, the first of which makes up for the bulk of this release. The ‘Card Capital Arc’ follows Aichi as he learns the game and competes against and ultimately befriends other cardfighters at the local Card Capital shop. It is here that we are introduced to the main cast and the personalities of each. Most interesting of all is the growth we see in Aichi. After his fateful encounter with perennial rival Kai, Aichi slowly but surely grows to become a more confident person, gaining friends and improving at cardfighting.
The real strengths of Cardfight!! Vanguard are its brilliantly detailed card game system and its realistic and down to earth approach to the card games concept. It handles it with care and ends up coming off as highly relatable to anyone who has played card games at one point or another. While there is magical monsters clashing, it is never the main attraction. The real highlight here is the strategic plays and match ups that are both intelligently written as well as richly detailed and explored.
Cardfight!! Vanguard is the next evolution in the card games anime genre. It takes the genre is a great new direction and what lies ahead looks like more and more fun. Isn’t that what it’s all about really? Fun.
Visuals and Audio
The aesthetics of Cardfight! Vanguard are pretty simple, there isn’t anything really ambitious about this series’ artwork. It does the job, but doesn’t exactly create a memorable look. While some of the character designs are quite unique, a lot of the cast are very familiar and the art and animation generally feels like your standard TMS Entertainment job. It sadly just doesn’t leave much of an impression in its visuals, but there is always room for improvement as the series progresses.
As for the soundtrack, the series features an awesome ‘engrish’ romp from JAM Project as its opening theme, which manages to stir up a measure of excitement as it opens each episode. The incidental music is quite good in its own right as well, with a number of noteworthy tracks standing out.
This release features both English and Japanese audio which is always a plus. The English language dub comes from Ocean Group and is an all round quality effort with a number of highlight performances. I’d recommend the English dub over the Japanese original for its humour alone, which really can summon up a big laugh more often than you’d imagine with its witty dialogue and performances making the English version stand on its own from the Japanese version.
Extras
In what may very well be one of the greatest bonuses in an anime release in quite some time, Hanabee Entertainment have gone above and beyond and included a flash starter pack of actual ‘Vanguard’ cards in this release. Not only do you get 50 free cards, featuring cards from Kai and Aichi’s decks, you also get two play mats, a rule book and information on where to purchase more cards. It is a bit of genius really. Because of these bonus cards, Hanabee’s release of Cardfight!! Vanguard part one ends up being a brilliant entry point or both the anime and card game.
Overall
Fun is an under appreciated commodity in this day and age. Too much attention is given to the gritty and dark dramas, that simple down to earth fun like Cardfight!! Vanguard gets lost in the shuffle. This is a series that is fueled by fun and sends it into your eyeballs, all through your nervous system and ultimately to the part of your brain the registers enjoyment. Cardfight!! Vanguard is just flat-out fun and if you’re willing to give it a go, you may just find yourself swept up in its sway.
Hanabee’s Cardfight!! Vanguard Part One is a great way to jump into the series and the card game itself. You’ll get 16 episodes of quality entertainment and enough cards to battle it out with your fellow cardfighters.
Cardfight!! Vanguard has that intangible something called ‘heart’. Whether you’re into card games anime or not, this is a series that anyone can enjoy and if you give it a chance you may just find yourself addicted to this fun little anime and its heart.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Today Telltale Games has released a new trailer for The Walking Dead: Season Two which showcases how well critics are taking to this second season and so far it seems that they haven’t lost a step since the conclusion of the first season. Our own review for the second episode of season two, A House Divided, continues to praise the title as well.
Now to go along with this trailer, Telltale has also released the song, ‘In the Pines’ which not only plays during this trailer but also during the credits of episode two, as a free download that can be found here. This song is a classic American folk song and is performed by Telltale Games’ long-time composer Jared Emerson-Johnson while Janel Drewis, an animator on the development team, sings the vocals.
Titanfall, Respawn Entertainment’s and Electronic Arts Inc.’s title, is now available for purchase at retail stores across Australia exclusively for Microsoft’s Xbox One and on Origin.com for PC. Having been unveiled last June, Titanfall has had many in the gaming community asking questions such as: “Where is my titan?” and “Why do I not have my titan RIGHT NOW?”. The multiplayer first-person action shooter gameplay focuses on futuristic combat which features awesome mechs and jet-pack toting infantry. ‘How exactly puny infantry Davids are meant to take on the titan Goliaths’ is not a question I ask myself as I cut through the enemy lines like a chainsword through butter. We’ve previously previewed Titanfallhere but we’re interested in knowing what you think. How do you find the game so far? Any awesome tips and tricks? And how the heck am I meant to take on a titan as a puny footslogger?
Big news has come in from Ankama Games, the developer of the wildly popular MMO games Dofus and Wakfu. Ankama has revealed that they have formed a collaborative partnership with Gumi Inc to work on the mobile gaming medium.
Together Ankama and Gumi hope to work on some great new projects and expand even further into the international market. Gumi Inc are of course experts in mobile games development and will undoubtedly bring some great talent to the table for future Ankama Games on mobile platforms.
The first project as part of this partnership is due out at some point in 2014. No details on the project have yet been revealed so stay tuned for more information as it comes to light.
Home Entertainment Suppliers Pty Ltd (HES) and Big Ant Studios have announced that Don Bradman Cricket 14 will be released on the 3rd of April for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The PC version is being “re-tooled” as we speak, and will have its launch further down the track.
Managing Director, Sebastian Giompaolo said of the game;
Don Bradman Cricket 14 will deliver the most realistic gameplay and promises to be the greatest cricket game of all time. The comprehensive 20 year career mode and plethora of features including access to community generated players and teams through the Cricket Academy that will provide endless hours of enjoyment of cricket both off and on the field.
Paramount Pictures have released a new poster for Transformers: Age of Extinction, which features main villain Lockdown – a Decepticon bounty hounter – causing a path of destruction with his “Night Ship” (as named in the poster title) in tow. Check out the poster at the bottom of this article.
The scene from which the shot is taken can be viewed in the recently revealed full length trailer. Although no official announcement has been made on the identity of the film’s primary antagonist, we are confident that he is indeed Lockdown after pictures from Toy Fair 2014 of the character, as part of the upcoming Hasbro line, surfaced online. The only thing I do not understand is how this mammoth transformer’s alternate form is a Lamborghini Aventador LP 700-4 Coupe?!
Nintendo of Australia have some interesting news to share for those of you into the social networking scene. After years of Nintendo of America and Nintendo UK updating their audiences with their Facebook and Twitter profiles, the Aussie branch will now be able to do the same, keeping their audience informed about the latest and greatest coming for the Wii U and 3DS.
Sure, it isn’t huge news, but I’m sure there will be some interestingly unique things to come out of this page, so follow the links down below and add some friends down under. Now if the Australia branch can add some more enticing Club Nintendo rewards, we would really be going somewhere.
Overview Following the events of The Walking Dead: Season One players were skeptical about how well Telltale could continue to tell Clementine’s story and after the release of the first episode of Season Two, All That Remains, we have found ourselves taking control of Clementine as she now has to deal with an entirely new group of survivors and must make her own decisions to survive. So now that Episode 2: A House Divided has been released; will Clementine’s story continue to be as gripping as before?
Story It is fair to warn you that if you are to continue to read this review, there will be spoilers concerning All That Remains, as your actions in the previous episode directly affect what will be happening at the start of this episode. You see, depending on who you choose to help at the end of that episode will determine your starting position and who you will need to deal with in the first section of episode and this is actually a very sharp example of how your choices will continue to matter in this second season, especially for this episode.
After emerging from her current predicament and returning back to the group of survivors, Clementine has to deal with a new character only previously hinted at in the last episode before the group is once again forced to move. Since Clementine was viewed as an outsider before, in A House Divided players have the chance to learn more about the new group and learn some of their secrets personality traits which will likely be developed in the future.
The story in this episode doesn’t simply sit on developing the characters but also serves to deliver a villainous new character who is willing to go to any length to accomplish his goal even if it means killing people to do so. Trying to survive against zombies is bad enough but when the tension is ratcheted up throughout the episode as this villain begins to tighten his grip around the group players will be in for a hell of a finish this episode.
It is worth noting that there is finally a bit of a link shown between the 400 Days episode and the main storyline, which is a nice touch as it gives players some validation that the episode at least ties in some way and wasn’t simply a standalone experience. That being said, there are some extremely huge events that take place in the latter half of the episode with decisions that are incredibly important.
I won’t go into too much detail here as it would spoil the reveals and the actions, but your choices will play a major factor in how things will happen in the next episode and even if you might never have used the function before, rewinding to make different choices might be worthwhile this time around. Though doing so will lessen the emotional impact that this episode delivers.
Gameplay Unlike the first episode of this second season, A House Divided is a more on-the-rails affair with less exploration and sneaking to worry about. Instead players will be mostly on the road or investigating a small area while they spend time talking with the characters in the area. Some of the decisions you make can be incredibly tense and difficult thanks to a certain sequence where one wrong step might raise a new face’s suspicion or show where Clementine’s loyalties still lie.
Fighting against zombies remains the same as before with the newly modified quick time events that see the player pressing various directions to dodge zombies and attempt to kill them. Speaking of the zombie killing, these moments remain as tense as ever with Clementine clearly being at risk every time as her small stature is detrimental when facing off against these zombies one on one.
Unlike the past episode and many of the other episodes, I did not notice any gameplay glitches while playing through the episode a couple of times which is impressive to say the least considering each episode usually has a glitch pop up here and there. Though that doesn’t mean there weren’t any graphical problems…
Visuals & Audio The comic book art style used throughout Telltale’s The Walking Dead remains impressive as ever in this second episode and I wouldn’t have it any other way as the stylized look really fits the series. The zombies and the gore are stunted thanks to the style but the visceral look of the gore more than makes up for that. Now earlier I mentioned that there were some graphical problems and during a few scenes some textures refused to load and the “Next Time” preview of the upcoming episode featured a few previews where characters simply appeared as white silhouettes with no detail whatsoever.
The voice work for the series remains impressive as ever with Clementine and the rest of the cast being voiced by believable voice actors and even a certain old face manages to keep their voice actor much to the delight of fans. The atmospheric noise and the few pieces of background music that play through the episode are suitably impressive as well.
Overall The Walking Dead Season Two: A House Divided might place Clementine within the circle of trust in her new group, but the decisions that players will have to make have never been more difficult as the clear result of their choices is almost immediately presented. With a return that will shock many players and a new villain that players will likely have to deal with throughout the rest of this season, A House Divided sets the tone of Clementine’s future in a way that will make players hope that the third episode arrives soon.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
5pb. Games/MAGES and International Games System’s indie game was released on Xbox Live Arcade and Steam today. Constant C is a physics-based 2d puzzle platformer starring a little robot sent to rescue a space station that has been frozen in time and space. The station was originally tasked to research space and time travel before it was caught in its current predicament.
Players will explore over 100 levels, using gravity, momentum, and time to conquer the devious puzzles. The game features hand drawn 2d graphics and a Time Attack Mode for extra replayability. Constant C is available for $9.99 on Xbox Live and Windows via Steam. Mac and Linux ports are in development.
