It looks like shortly after the shipping out copies of Class of Heroes 2 on the PSP a few months ago, Gaijinworks and MonkeyPaw aren’t about to sit idle for the rest of the series. After a preview of a new video game magazine Retro went live, an ad appeared in the preview saying that Class of Heroes 2G would be “Coming Soon” to the PlayStation 3.
The game was first released in Japan in July 2010 and it features a number of upgrades over the original version, such as additional voice work for NPCs, more in-game music, a dungeon called the Gate of Darkness, trophies for players to unlock, something described as dual-screen play, and of course better looking spritework.
Introversion is cramming in one last major update to Prison Architect before the year’s end. The game has been updated today to alpha 16. The update improves AI behaviour, adds procedurally generated landscape, introduces forestry for gardeners, improves mod support, adds a road gate that will create a secure passage across roads, and makes a ton of bug fixes.
Prison Architect is a prison building simulator. Players will need to keep their prisoners under control while building the ultimate prison or face dangerous riots and breakouts. The game is currently in alpha status and is available for purchase through Steam’s Early Access program. The game is 33% off the normal price of $29.99 during the SteamHoliday Sale.
The game which successfully replicates the world of Naruto will officially start its Open Beta on December 26, 2013 at 10 a.m. Those who are interested can now sign up and try the game at http://naruto.gamehop.com.
Naruto Spirit is a cherished product as its creation consumed a lot of resources and manpower of Young World Technology. With young employees filled with enthusiasm and passion, Young World has made this game the most successful web-game in Vietnam with more than 10,000 players in the game at the same time.
Its success in Vietnam inspired Young World to reach more Naruto fans by going global. And on December 18, the company kicked off its Close Beta for the English version of Naruto Spirit, which was its first step to becoming a global game publisher.
In the game, users can use the “Transformation” feature to transform into any of their favorite characters and freely use their unique skills however they want. This feature has been voted as one of the top 5 interesting aspects of the game. The other four are good actions and effects, several massive combat events, QTE feature, and the Tailed-Beast series.
On the Open Beta start day, Naruto Spirit will open 3 more Servers:
– (Server 4) KAKASHI – 11:00 AM, GMT+8 (Oceanic)
– (Server 5) ROCK LEE – 02:00 PM, GMT+0 (Europe)
– (Server 6) NEJI – 02:00 PM, GMT-3 (US)
Together with the opening of new servers are many big events such as King of Arena, 5 Days Action, Warmish Christmas, and a lot more. This is a great chance to hunt for valuable rewards.
Murder in the Hotel Lisbon is now on sale at: INDIE ROYALE
The Debut 8 Bundle is now available! The latest collection of Indie Royale games is now live! What are you waiting for?
This week’s bundle features our own Murder in the Hotel Lisbon plus :Claustrophobia: The Downward Struggle, Hero Siege, Millennium 3 – Cry Wolf, Love, One Way Heroics and Where Angels Cry. All the games are available for Windows via Desura and in Greenlight looking for a place onSteam.
How much this it cost???YOU decide how much YOU want to pay! The price will change over time according to some crazy statistics that only the guys at Indie Royale can explain. But hurry! There are only 7 days left!
Detective Case and Clown Bot in Murder in the Hotel Lisbon is a point and click adventure videogame for Windows, Mac e Linux.
A strange murder has occurred in the Hotel Lisbon, a man committed suicide with 14 stabs to the back while at the same time he peacefully drank his coffee. This case with contradictory facts was too complex for Policeman Garcia to solve, so he decided to hire the only detective duo in town capable of solving it: the mythical Detective Case and the unmistakable Clown Bot.
Murder in the Hotel Lisbon is a videogame inspired by the classic point and click adventures from the 80’s and 90’s. It adopts these eras characteristically design and it is built using only the pixel art technique. The game itself runs at a native resolution of 256×192, the same resolution used by the old ZX Spectrum 48k and most recently by the Nintendo DS.
Characters:
With the mythical Detective Case, also known as the world worst detective, a man so rough and rude that his witnesses would rather be run over by a slow moving freight train than to be questioned by him.
And the hilarious Clown Bot who, although he works as a Detective Case’s sidekick, he hopes in reality that one day he will get a job as a circus clown. Unfortunately, and no matter how many applications he sends, no circus will ever accept a clown that is afraid of children. He never sleeps, so besides working by day as a sidekick, he also works by night as a stand-up comedian in a local bar. People say that he is a joke machine.
Nerd Monkeys®
Nerd Monkeys® is a new videogame company focused on original and innovative multi-platform videogames.
Nerd Monkeys® was founded by Filipe Duarte Pina and Diogo Vasconcelos. Filipe Duarte Pina was one of the co-founders at Seed Studios, where he produced games like “ToyShop Tycoon” for the NintendoDS and “Under Siege™” for the PlayStation®3.
Filipe Duarte Pina – Director, Author, Artist
He was one of the owner and co-founder at Seed Studios. In this first project he mostly works as the director. Besides writing the script, Filipe will also keep the concept of the project coherent and at the same time allowing everyone in the team to implement their own ideas. He’ll also do some pixel art whenever needed.
Diogo Vasconcelos – Producer, Accounting, Manager
Currently the owner of a video-game collector store called PressPlay and two other niche product stores. Guarantees we have everything needed to execute the project. He also manages the company in stuff like accounting, web site, emails, etc.
WAR THUNDER: Second Wave of Ground Forces Closed Beta and Holidays Festivities
Gaijin Entertainment is pleased to announce that the second wave of Closed Beta program for Ground Forces Expansion for military MMO game War Thunder, has started today. Selected players, who participated in various daily in-game challenges during November, will continue to receive invites to Closed Beta during second wave.
For users that want exclusive content that will become collector’s items once the Open Beta for Ground Forces starts, there is an option to purchase one of the advanced packs at http://online.gaijinent.com. All of these packs also grant access to the Closed Beta, and they’ll remain available for purchase until Open Beta starts.
For everyone interested in Ground Forces development, Gaijin Entertainment published a series of Closed Beta diaries:
As a part of “Winter Magic” festivities, that will take place until January, 12th all players can complete special tasks and get one or both unique premium aircrafts: heavy Soviet bomber TB-3 and Grumman XF5F! Also, completing all tasks on 1-10th of January will grant an extra-bonus – one week of Premium account for free!
Every day users can vote at the War Thunder official forums for the discounts they want the next day, and War Thunder team will also be giving away additional special gifts on daily basis!
Over 5 million players already know the enjoyment of raining down aerial destruction via the PC-version of War Thunder and this fan base continues exponential growth. War Thunder is currently in Open Beta on PC and PlayStation 4, and in development for Mac OS and Oculus Rift. Download War Thunder for free from the official website and join in a heated battle to dominate the skies: http://warthunder.com.
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About War Thunder
War Thunder is a state-of-the-art, next-gen WWII based MMO combat game that combines aerial, ground and soon-to-be naval multiplayer battles all in a single gaming experience. Over 4 million players already know the enjoyment of raining down aerial destruction via the PC-version of War Thunder and this fan base continues exponential growth. War Thunder is currently in Open Beta on PC, in development for Mac OS and the Oculus Rift platform, and will be a PlayStation®4 launch title. Download War Thunder for free from the official website and join in a heated battle to dominate the skies at http://warthunder.com
About Gaijin Entertainment
Gaijin Entertainment is the developer of the online games War Thunder and Star Conflict, as well as PC, Mac, PS4, PS3, Xbox 360, iOS and Android titles across several genres. The company’s diverse portfolio has received a range of mass media and game industry awards including such as KRI Awards, Gamescom Award and many more. Official website: http://gaijinent.com
Popular endless-running game „Desert Chase” goes free for a moment and gets a brand new merry and snowy update. Santa suit and new enemies added and lot of snow everywhere!
PRAGUE – NOVEMBER 2013 – Just one week after releasing their new iOS game, DynamicDust, mobile game developer studio from Prague, Czech Republic is pleased to announce new update for it. The update adds new Santa suit, new enemies, new vehicle and much more! Besides that, as a Christmas gift the app will be free for download during the Holidays.
What Christmas would it be without Santa? Players can grab white-red costume and enjoy completely new game experience! We are sure that playing for Santa running through desert with magical amulet is really cool. Beside that players now have to defeat two new enemies: Snowmen and Gingerbread-man. And the snow is everywhere! Snowflakes are in the sky, on the ground and even in menus. The offer is time limited so players should start the download right now!
The full change log contains:
Download for FREE
Lots of snow everywhere
New Santa Suit
New Snowman enemy
New Gingerbread-Man enemy
New Santa’s sleigh vehicle
Improved performance for all devices
Few bugs fixed
And a lot of good energy added!
In Desert Chase players control Chase Johnson, powerful, natty and heroic character, which has to run through and through endless desert and defeat many obstacles and enemies. To make matters worse, he has only limited supply of water and in these bleak conditions, every drop counts. It truly won’t be easy; there are solider, mummies and even camels in his way. To help him in his chase players can use many power-ups, like Boos or Shield. Gaming experience is even improved by outstanding HD graphics optimized for Retina displays and the newest 64bit processors.
Desert Chase is available at iTunes now for free and is optimized for iPhone 4S or iPad 3rd generation and higher. At this time there is only iOS version available, but Android release is on the way. Additional information about other related products and company can be found at DynamicDust website.
DynamicDust is Prague-based game studio, which just loves developing games for various mobile devices. Our primary motto is ‘creativity, new ideas and invention’. We are fun people who love to make entertaining games, throw around some jokes and never stop smiling. But even though we love enthusiasm and amusement we are mainly professionals. We never make any compromises at the cost of quality. We are also a small team of people, but each of us is working as three. At the end of the day we are just gamers who love to make games for other gamers and make their days better.
If you will have any question or need more information, please don’t hesitate and contact us at mail ([email protected]) or visit:
Season’s greetings and welcome to this catch-up impressions of episode 10 of Golden Time. I hope you all had a happy and safe holiday with your families and didn’t over-stuff yourself like I most certainly did. But now it is time to get back to the anime and what better way to start with than my favorite drama series of the year.
We’re approaching Golden Time’s halfway point and already it feels like the makings of a climax are in the works. Banri lost his body to his spectral doppelganger at the end of last episode and things looked grim for his and Kouko’s lovey-dovey relationship. After episode 9, I expected 20 minutes of heartbreak and madness to turn the series completely on its head and drive it down the path of Banri realising that he has to let go of his past to be happy. However, what we got was a slow, but insightful episode about a bed-ridden Banri, brought on by his ghost taking a tumble in his body at his front door, knocking him back into reality.
The main purpose of this episode was to present Banri in a feverish state where only his brain’s true desires were allowed to shine through. As you can imagine, in a situation where he could meet both Kouko and Linda, some very awkward situations could arise, especially when you consider last episode where his memories of loving Linda began to really come back. One more slip of the tongue in a situation where Kouko could overhear it and Kouko’s delicate little heart could be broken once again and I know that is something that I would hate to see!
The amount of room for interpretation that Golden Time is making for us is simply amazing at the moment. Once innocent and kind, Banri now seems like a bad guy at times, but why is that? I struggled to come up with a more apt metaphor, but I feel like it is similar to the battle between cynicism and optimism made abstract by the glass half full vs half empty argument. Banri has two sides to him: the Banri from the past, and the Banri from the present. Which you see as the ‘real’ Tada Banri depends upon whether you see his ghost as a tortured soul, forced to watch unfairly as his body, which he can not control, runs about with another girl; or as an interference in the existing Banri’s life that is trying to (and recently succeeding to) force his way through to destroy everything that he has worked for since joining law school.
On the surface, Banri doesn’t seem like a deep character with his generic brown-hair-brown-eyes look and his be nice to everyone attitude. In the last few episodes though, he has become something that could almost be interpreted as a threat – A wrecking ball that is only vaguely in control of its actions and has only avoided causing damage thus far because the operator has been passed out in a drug induced haze. The potential for relationships to break down and this golden time to have its sheen stolen by a wrecking ball blocking out the sun is bigger than ever. Should we be excited, or should we dread the release of each new episode? I’ll leave that one to you.
As always, there was enough comedy to offset the feeling of lingering disaster keeping you on the edge of your seat. For a few brief moments, you were allowed to relax and simply laugh at the silliness of 2D-kun and Mitsuo as they proceeded to sell out Kouko, forcing her back into her flawless princess mode where she can blame any of her actions on almighty love. It seems that as we approach 2014 this series is going to have to eventually pick a path and I feel like it will be Banri leaning towards a relationship with Linda as his memories get restored. It has been treading the line between unconventional romcom and full on drama for a long time now and it is about time that it had to choose for fear of its current enigmatic formula becoming stale in the near future. How long will this golden time last? Stay tuned to find out.
For more impressions of this season’s best and worst, head on over to our Anime Impressions page.
Max: The Curse of Brotherhood Developer: Press Play Publisher:Microsoft Platform:Xbox 360, Xbox One (Reviewed) Install Size:2.98 GB Release Date: December 20, 2013 Price: $15.00
Overview The puzzle platformer has become a staple genre in the video game industry and with the jump to the next generation of console, many of the past tried and true platformers faded away with only a few left standing. Thus with Max: The Curse of Brotherhood being the first platformer available for the Xbox One, many people are curious about whether or not the title is worth their time. As such, is Press Play’s first Xbox title worth jumping on?
Story One day our protagonist named Max comes home to see that his little brother, Felix, is doing exactly what most little brothers do, being a nuisance. Frustrated that he has to deal with his sibling all of the time, Max looks up a way to make him disappear on the computer. When he stumbles across an innocent enough sounding bit of text, a magical portal suddenly appears in his room and a giant monstrous hand reaches through and drags Felix away.
Max jumps through the portal in an effort to chase down the creature who has taken his brother and after meeting with an old women who not only explains that the ruler of this world, Mustachio, is planning on taking his brother’s body, but also gives his marker the ability to interact with the environment in magical ways, Max sets off to save his brother.
The story really doesn’t go anywhere else from here, as it sets Max along his way to save his brother with a clear villain in sight. Along the way Max comes across a number of areas that provide his marker with new abilities but for the most part the story is pretty standard fair outside of a bit of comedy here and there. It is also worth noting that despite both gameplay and protagonist similarities between this game and Press Play’s first title, Max and the Magic Marker, Curse of Brotherhood is presented as a standalone title with no reference to the prior game.
Gameplay As with any good puzzle platformer, Max: The Curse of Brotherhood pits Max against a number of objects that he must get around or over, with plenty of pitfalls, traps or monsters ready to kill him if he fails to make a jump properly. Max only has a few basic skills on his own, as he can only jump so far, has very minimal ledge reaching abilities and falling from a certain height will kill him. Only with the help of his now magical marker will he be able to make it through the dangerous world.
With the marker, Max can interact with his environment at specific points in the world where energy is glowing. To start with, the only thing Max can do is pull pillars of earth out of the ground to use to reach ledges or avoid danger, but as the game progresses players gain the ability to summon branches, vines, streams of water, and even fire out of these portals. Unfortunately it isn’t up to the player as to what will be summoned from any portal, as the game limits player creativity by restricting the energy types by color.
Anyways, creating these objects is simple as the player needs to only hold the trigger to bring forth the marker and then draw an object out of a glowing area. Objects such as pillars can only be mildly altered in direction while branches and other objects can be drawn in specific shapes to best fit the specific puzzle. As for the puzzles themselves, they start out very simple and grow more complex every time that Max’s marker gains a new ability.
As more powers are unlocked, players will need to combine them in various ways, such as snapping off branches and using them in conjunction with earth pillars, or attaching vines to branches and swinging along them. The problem is that although the game isn’t terribly long, the puzzles tend to become rather tedious. Again this is due to the fact that players really can’t choose their own way to solve most of the obstacles in the game.
While there are a couple of ways to bend the rules, almost every puzzle needs to be solved through an exact pattern with each element type placed exactly right or else the whole thing might fall apart and need to be redrawn. This is a major issue as already drawn objects cannot be extended and can only be destroyed and redrawn, causing plenty of annoying moments of trial and error made even worse when the game’s iffy physics affect objects.
As mentioned earlier, since objects have to be drawn incredibly accurately or need to be erased to start over, there are some minor issues with the drawing accuracy. The game makes no use of the Kinect or any SmartGlass options and because of this; there are times that the in-game marker will feel incredibly clunky for puzzles that require some finesse.
When the game isn’t throwing numerous complicated puzzles at the player there are some great action packed moments where Max is on the run from either a monster or something else and these sequences provide some of the best moments in the game, usually followed by a game clip automatically being recorded. These moments involve Max sliding down hills, swinging through ropes, raising pillars in slow motion, and more which make these moments really shine.
Visuals & Audio Max: The Curse of Brotherhood looks rather amazing on the Xbox One as the world feels very lively with numerous colors at work and lush environments to travel through. The cutscenes and anything with Max himself look like they were taken right out of a Pixar animation. That being said, while there is a decent amount of variety in the enemies that you will need to avoid or run away from, some of them feel half-finished in appearance.
As far as the soundtrack is concerned, the game sports some decent background music that works well for certain areas but tends to be forgetful in others and while there is voice work for the title, most of it comes from Max’s one-liners which seem fitting for a child his age.
Overall
Max: The Curse of Brotherhood brings a nice little gimmick with it in the form of drawing but sadly that isn’t enough to help make the game shine over its shortcomings. Thanks to the developers limiting players when it comes to solving puzzles and some iffy controls and physics, the game thrives on tedious repetition and forcing the player to try and fail again and again with little incentive. There are a few minor collectables to gather, which offer extra challenge, but the game only excels at looking great, offering some interesting gameplay mechanics, and occasionally providing a satisfying solution to a puzzle after many failed attempts at completing it.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
I still can’t believe Kaname pulled it off before even halfway into the series. Following the sledgehammer confession in Episode 10, things are surprisingly very normal. So normal that Chisaki is still going for Hikari, despite having husband material right in front of her. Kaname knows that expecting an answer, let alone a positive one, is slim. So he just wanted to tell her (and her parents, awkwardly) before they all hibernate and proceeds to go about his day normally. Chisaki obviously feels a little different about him now.
So the sea village of Shioshishio continues to prepare for hibernation, ceasing to eat and thickening their protective ena skin in the process. Somehow a thicker ena allows them to fall asleep for long periods of time, but this hasn’t happened for hundreds of years.
Hikari and his friends are still going ahead with the Wooden Maiden sacrifice, the Ofunehiki. There is one problem though: the date of hibernation as predicted by Lord Uroko falls on the Ofunehiki date, making the whole thing that much more symbolic. If the Wooden Maiden doesn’t give the Sea God strength to precent climate change, it might be the last time the sea people see those on the surface.
During a group meeting, Hikari is suddenly hit with the realisation he will be going to sleep for a long time without knowing if everyone will wake up at the same time. Surprisingly, he refuses to accept this fate and vows to start eating again in order to stop the process. Like two peas in a pod, Manaka joins him.
Akari meanwhile is in a bit of a strange zone. She’s pushing ahead with her marriage to Itaru with a calm acceptance of what’s going to happen. The surface dwellers who bungled the cooperation of the Boatdrift Ceremony apologise in a new meeting with Hikari and Akari. Now that the summer isn’t as hot and the fish are becoming harder, the writing is on the walls about what’s going on.
Once again we have an almost pointless confrontation between Lord Uroko and Hikari. It seems like nothing will sway the guy. When told of how the Fishery men will now cooperate, Uroko says he cannot prevent disasters beyond the ocean, meaning everyone on land is still doomed. Not only that, but the ceremony had no power over the Sea God anyway! Boy, they must feel silly now.
It’s wonderful to see just how much Hikari has learned about responsibility and empathy at this point, as his first thoughts after this futile meeting was how he’d disappoint those who asked for his help. The final part of this episode has Akari announcing that she is not only getting married, but the wedding will take place on the day of the Boatdrift Ceremony and that she will be the real sacrifice to the Sea God.
Whether or not anything will happen, such as her being taken by the Sea God, is unknown. But at this point they must try everything in order to prevent the calamity. I think Nagi no Asukara will start to have a lot more surprises from now on, and who knows, something as crazy as a sacrifice might actually happen.
To finish, Chisaki thinks to herself about how everyone is trying hard to change and to improve themselves. Forgetting completely about Kaname, she vows to tell Hikari her true feelings. The funny thing is, is that she had no idea Kaname liked her…and now Hikari is going to be completely dumbfounded when she confesses.
For those of you out there who were waiting to get your hands on the awesome 3DS software Pokemon Bank; Nintendo has put forth an apology because it seems as though it has had to be taken down from the Nintendo eShop indefinitely due to a huge number of people from across the globe using the eShop over Christmas to the point where it actually brought the online purchasing hub to a standstill.
There was already a high level of traffic because of the Holiday season and it wasn’t made any better by the release of the Pokemon Bank in Japan and now in North America and Europe, unfortunately the release of the software outside of Japan just proved too much for the eShop and it had to be taken down for an unknown amount of time.
Those of you who already started your 30 day free trial of Pokemon Bank will have it restarted once it becomes available again so don’t stress too much about that. We don’t know when it is coming back online but what we do know is that Nintendo have changed its release status to TBD (To Be Decided), it could be in a week, it could be in a month, we’re just unsure at this point in time. Keep an eye on the site for any updates on the news at hand.
It looks like shortly after the shipping out copies of Class of Heroes 2 on the PSP a few months ago, Gaijinworks and MonkeyPaw aren’t about to sit idle for the rest of the series. After a preview of a new video game magazine Retro went live, an ad appeared in the preview saying that Class of Heroes 2G would be “Coming Soon” to the PlayStation 3.
