After almost a year and half of development since the end of their wildly successful Kickstarter campaign, Stoic Studio and Versus Evil has released their Viking epic The Banner Saga on Steam. The turn based strategy RPG changes and grows based on the decisions of the player as they seek to save their people. The animation style draws inspiration from classic Disney animated films. The music features acclaimed composer Austin Wintory, the Dallas Winds orchestra, Peter Hollens, Malukah, and Taylor Davis. The final three performers have all gained fame through their popular YouTube channels.
The Banner Saga is available now at retailersfor $24.99 USD.
Listen up Pokefans! Following their previous venture into the iTunes market, The Pokémon Company and Nintendo have released a digital remastered soundtrack from Pokémon HeartGold and Pokémon SoulSilver, chock full of the music that saw you through your second jaunt around Johto.
The game, which released in 2010, featured in-game music composed by Junichi Masuda, Gō Ichinose, and Morikazu Aoki, including remixes of iconic 8-bit themes from the original Gold and Silver. The soundtrack carries a massive 270 tunes from the games, each adapted and orchestrated especially for this release.
The Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver Super Music Collection is available now on iTunes for $16.99, not a bad price considering the huge catalogue of pieces included. Along with all of the happy memories it’ll draw to the surface. Following their own lead, 2014 will also see the music of Ruby and Sapphire, Diamond and Pearl, Black and White and Black 2 and White 2 net a soundtrack release. So what are you waiting for? Go out and listen to some good old fashioned video game music. You still gotta catch ’em all.
TECMO KOEI EUROPE ANNOUNCES RELEASE DATE AND PRE-ORDER BONUSES FOR TOUKIDEN: THE AGE OF DEMONS
Hertfordshire, 14/01/14– Tecmo Koei Europe is pleased to announce that the upcoming title ‘Toukiden: The Age of Demons’, developed for the PlayStation®Vita handheld system will be released across Europe on the 14th February 2014.
Following a ground breaking success in Japan, with sales exceeding 500,000 units (a feat all the more impressive for an original IP) Toukiden: The Age of Demons is bringing the fight for survival to the west.
Set against a backdrop inspired by various historical periods of Japan, Toukiden tells the tale of humanity’s last stand for survival. When monstrous demons (Oni) of varying strength and size invaded the world through cracks in space and time and started attacking humans, the only opposition came from the Slayers; a caste that has always secretly protected mankind from their murderous intent.
Eight years after time warped and Oni appeared, a brave young Slayer embarks on a journey to thin the numbers of the enemy and help humanity survive. Players take the role of this young warrior and can fully customise their characters, weapons and armour and form a group of hunters to take down the destructive Oni.
This visually stunning game boasts an extensive character creation mode, and six different weapon types, each of which can be forged and upgraded to the player’s preferences, while it also features 200 characters based on both fictional and historical Japanese figures, whose souls help players strengthen their team and defeat their enemies.
To aid Slayers in the beginning of their journey Tecmo Koei Europe announced a series of in game pre-order bonuses. Specifically, those who pre-order Toukiden through the Playstation Network® will receive the Mitama of Momotaro, a warrior’s soul that will strengthen the player’s skill, along with a piece of armour (cat ears). Furthermore, there will be two additional pre-order DLC packs, one including the Mitama of Niijima Yae and a piece of armour (fox mask) and one including two extra mission collections. These will be available through Game, Amazon and independent retailers through Centresoft.
Cloudbuilt is one of the upcoming games of 2014 from Rising Star Games, and it’s thanks to their recent partnership with Coilworks, a Swedish developing studio.
The futuristic free-running game combines speed, precision, and quick thinking to get through the levels, similar to the popular free-running game Mirrors Edge, though the graphics and artwork are much more unique. Players are given their own choices as to what paths they would like to take, never having to take the same path twice. You can use your rocket-powered exoskeleton to leap over large spaces, dodge enemy robots, and reach the finish line. Levels become progressively more challenging as a player completes more levels. There are plenty of secrets and shortcuts to uncover in each level.
The game includes over 20 different levels, four alternate endings, branching level selections, a retro-inspired soundtrack, and an organic learning curve that allows you to slowly accumulate new skills to help push the boundaries on your running potential.
Before this partnership between Coilworks and Rising Star Games, Cloudbuilt was met with a huge wave of approval through Steam Greenlight. The game will be available for the PC at release. No exact date has been given as to when Cloudbuilt will be released, but we’ll keep you updated on the latest news with this exciting free-running game.
We have three Icon Home Entertainment film packs to giveaway, each of which includes every January release by the distributor: one Blu-ray copy of Paranoia, one Blu-ray copy of You’re Next and one DVD copy of Greetings from Tim Buckley. Go here to learn more about these titles.
To enter, please answer the following question in our comments section below.
How would you booby-trap your house against a group of intruders?
This competition will close on January 24th. Make sure you use a valid email when you register with Disqus before posting your comment so we can email you if you are one of our winners. If you choose to enter by logging in with your Facebook account, your email is not required.
Our thanks to the fine folks at Icon Films for enabling this competition, and good luck to everybody!
Michael Douglas has also been cast as Marvel‘s Ant-Man…as well as Paul Rudd. Confused? It’s ok, let me explain.
Michael Douglas is confirmed to play the role of Hank Pym, the original Ant-Man, creator of Ultron and founding Avenger. Meanwhile, Paul Rudd will play Scott Lang, Pym’s successor and the second Ant-Man, and presumably the character seen in Marvel’s test footage. With two generations of Ant-Man, director Edgar Wright has explained that the film will begin with a prologue introducing Hank Pym in the 60s, before a flash forward to Scott Lang’s story of becoming Ant-Man and teaming up with Pym himself. Sounds exciting!
Today NIS America has some good news for people who either didn’t want to spend the extra bit of money for the premium editions for some of their releases or were tardy to the party on picking them up. The company has revealed that kimi ni todoke -From Me to You- Volumes 1 through 3, our reviews of all three seasons can be found here, here, and hererespectively, and Natsume’s Book of Friends Season 1 & 2 will be available for purchase as standard editions beginning on February 4th.
These releases will come with some basic packaging, as seen to the right, that will include all of the on-disc bonuses that were included in the premium editions of the anime and a story guide leaflet.
A new contender has stepped into the realm of Geek genre movies, with 20th Century Fox completing a deal with Hasbro (parent company of Wizards of the Coast) to acquire the screen adaptions rights to the ‘Magic: The Gathering‘ (MTG) trading card game. Fans of the global force that is the MtG will probably have a brand spanking new film adaption of their favourite card game universe. If successful, the film could become the flagship for the launch of a new franchise to rival Warner Bros Harry Potter and New Line Cinemas The Lord of the Rings (As Fox no doubt hopes it will). Further information is scarce to found but it appears that Simon Kinberg, whose previous works include X-Men: The Last Stand and the 2009 Sherlock Holmes adaption, has been charged with the construction of a screenplay. Kinberg has also worked on the X-Men and Fantastic Four franchises in his time at the studio.
The MtG game is extremely popular internationally and had a popular roundtable discussion at PAX Australia last year, which we covered here. The universe of MtG largely revolves around the lives of the Planeswalkers (Powerful wizards who are also technically represented by the players of the game) and the dimensions they create/interact with/attempt to destroy. Whether Kinberg intends to adapt one of the (many) books dealing with the lore of the fantasy universe or develop a completely new narrative within or without it is yet to be seen.
There has been no word yet on what time frame the studio intends to work with for releasing the film, although I’d personally prefer they take their time with the production rather than churn something out ASAP.
Ubisoft are extremely excited to announce that their very own crazy creations, the “Rabbids“, are finally going to be making their small screen début starting in February in the UK. The folks over at Ubisoft have decided to partner up with cartoon juggernauts Nickelodeon to bring you a brand-new television series that centres around the furious furies and their adventures in the real world. 26 episodes have already been confirmed to be on their way and each of the episodes go for the usual thirty minutes. Every week these “Rabbids” will get into all different kinds of shenanigans as they’re brought into the world we live in and try to understand the usual human conventions but it seems as though there will always be some sort of trouble and much fun to be had.
Fans already in high anticipation of the series can hit up the official Nickelodeon “Rabbids” page (Nicktoons.co.uk/rabbids) from the 20th of January onwards to gain access to things like animated gifs, quizzes and lots of mini-games to play all of which have to do with the berserk bunnies. The Nickelodeon app for iOS devices is also joining in on this awesome fun with their very own set of little extras that you can view and play to get you even more excited for the coming television series, click here to head over to the iTunes page where you can download the app. Below you can see the new trailer for the upcoming series and don’t forget to head to our comments section below to let us know what you think!
Any anime that happens to be a comedy and is based in a high school following the students is going to be in for a rough time when it comes to making a good impression since this is one of heavily used paths for setting up gag comedies. D-Frag initially wasn’t on my radar at the start of the season but after a licensing announcement and taking a quick look over the few preview videos that were released by Brain’s Base I figured why not. So was this worth my time? Well I wouldn’t be writing this if it wasn’t.
Kenji Kazama is far from your average high school student as he just so happens to be the leader of a three person gang of delinquents, but despite their reputation and appearance for being tough guys, the three haven’t done anything yet and Kazama’s personality is rather straight laced compared to his rough looking exterior. So much in fact that he doesn’t hesitate to help pick up fliers for a young girl at the school entrance after she drops them.
Little does he know that this encounter is going to give his school life one hell of a change-up. Now during the last anime podcast I had trouble remembering the standard straight man funny man terms used in Japan and thanks to D-Frag I remembered them, boke and tsukkomi, thanks to the fact that the show is the epitome of that type of comedy.
After Kazama and his little gang help put out a fire in a club room for a bunch of girls, it quickly becomes apparent that his little gang of delinquents are far from the worse thing the school has to offer as this club of girls, including the one he met at the school gate, is a lot more than they can handle as his two friends are quickly knocked out.
The girls state that they are members of the Game Creation Club and since they are on the verge of being shut down due to a lack of members, Kazama has just earned the honor of becoming a member of the club, even if it means forcing him or coercing him one way or the other. After eventually giving his consent, under circumstances more dangerous than prisoners of war, he eventually learns the truth behind at least a few members of the club only to end up suspended after dealing with a club member that just so happens to be the student council president.
Now comedy can be hard to judge as what may be funny for one person might not be funny for the other but boy if you aren’t laughing during D-Frag then you probably need to check your sense of humor. D-Frag already has introduced a few running jokes in this first episode, one of which happens to be the fact that each of the girls has an element type that they like to use and the fact that poor Kazama might be the only normal person in the whole show so far as he reacts to each rather insane situation just the right way to get a laugh out of me.
Throughout the first episode we also get a bit of an introduction to each of the girls in the class and boy do we already have a loaded cast full of great girls. There is the violent and dominating student council president Chitose, the loli blonde Roka who happens to be the club president but has a dark side, the laid back advisor Minami, and even a tomboyish girl named Sakura that hasn’t really been introduced fully at the time but is quickly one of my favorites next to Minami, and that doesn’t even touch upon the fact that the other introduced male character, Kenji’s old friend and vice president of the student council, is a major masochist.
Put all of this together and we have a high energy first episode with plenty of comedy coming from almost every angle. There are plenty of visual gags and even a few chibi moments from Chitose to offer and the oddity of each of the characters while Kazama plays the straight man role makes for a hilarious series. There isn’t all comedy though, as we have a few touching moments between Chitose and Kazama as the former shows her dedication to the club, but it pretty much is all laughs.
As for what will happen next one could only guess in gag comedy such as this, but we do have the typical opening theme used as an ending theme for this episode and from the looks of things, a few more characters will likely be introduced and if it is anything like this episode, I’ll probably be laughing and enjoying it just as much as the next time around.
