It looks like before Square Enix focuses on putting out the next game in the Tomb Raider series, they are going to try and get at least a little bit more out of the one they released earlier this year. Today at VGX the company has announced Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
The game will be released on January 28th in North America and January 31st in Europe. The game will feature the fancy TressFX hair rendering that the company mentioned before, a “next-gen Lara model” and additional content which includes:
The fully rebuilt game for next-generation consoles
The Tomb of the Lost Adventurer
Eight DLC multiplayer maps
Six DLC multiplayer weapons
Four DLC multiplayer characters
Six outfits for Lara
Dark Horse digital comic book “Tomb Raider: The Beginning”
Brady Games digital art book “Tomb Raider: The Art of Survival”
“The Final Hours of Tomb Raider” documentary series
As far as the versions of the game go, the DualShock 4 controller on the PS4 will light up red and orange while using a torch and flash whenever Lara shoots a weapon. The Xbox One version allows the player to change equipment and navigate the menu by using their voice with the Kinect and inspecting relics and viewpoints by moving their body.
Rumours have been confirmed today with Telltale Games set to produce an episodic Game of Thrones adventure series. This news was delivered via Spike’s VGX awards and also the Telltale Games official Twitter. The game is to be based on the hugely popular HBO television series, however, the studio has also stated it will draw upon all forms of the George R.R Martin’s fantasy fiction for inspiration.
The series is due for a 2014 release. The gameplay will be similar to previous Telltale Games episodic adventures, such as The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us, but the studio has stated their desire to feature big battles which is a staple in Westeros. Other information such as what characters or time period we’d expect to see, or what platforms will receive the game are yet to be released.
It's TRUE! We're working with @HBO to create an all-new episodic game series based on GAME OF THRONES in 2014! #VGXpic.twitter.com/d5GkhS2MOw
It looks like the wait to pick up the story of Clementine once again is almost over as the Steam page for The Walking Dead: “All That Remains,” which is the first episode of Season Two has been updated and given a release date. If this release date is true then that means the new season will begin on December 17th.
At the moment Telltale Games has not officially announced this release date, so it should be taken with a grain of salt. That being said, the episode is set to be released this month and after the last teaser image released, there is a pretty good chance this release date is real.
Today the official website for Chou Megami Shinkou Noire Gekishin Black Heart was launched by Compile Heart and along with it come some of the firsts screenshots for the game as well as the debut trailer, all of which can be seen below.
In Noire Gekishin Black Heart players will be following the story of Noire as she takes on a number of new adventures and can make eighteen friends. A few of these friends have been given names such as Esther, Morū, Sango, Tsunemi, and Riddo. Any guesses as to what games they are referencing? Currently Noire Gekishin Black Heart has no release date in the West from NIS America but it is set to be released in Japan on May 29th.
Overview
It’s been widely touted that both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One would be working to bring indie game developers into the fold, with Sony showing a bit more drive to treat with small studios. System 3 Software, a UK-based indie game developer and publisher, were quick to take Sony up on the opportunity with the release of action-platformer Putty Squad (not to be confused with the Power Rangers’ Putty Patrol).How does it hold up, though? Will its nostalgic whims make you putty in its hands or is this old goo best flushed out to sea?
Story
Something has (apparently) gone horribly wrong! All of your red putty friends have been kidnapped by an evil army of domesticated wildlife! You’ll have to fight with cats, dogs, birds, bees, and more to absorb all of your putty buddies and get them to safety!
In truth, it’s all a farce. There’s no sensical story. You’re simply traveling from one world to another absorbing red putties and dashing for the exit.
Gameplay
Originally released in the early 90s for SNES, Putty Squad is a fairly straightforward smash-and-grab platformer. The game also got demos on PC and Amiga, but was never released in its entirety for either.
You control the world’s only blue putty. Red putties have been placed across several levels in nine worlds, and you’ll have to rescue all of them. As an amorphous blob, you have a few tricks up your sleeves to help out. You can walk and jump, of course, but you also have the ability to form a fist and punch enemies, blow yourself up like a balloon to hover around, morph to travel faster, and absorb abilities to use as well. The variety of abilities you can pick up and use it interesting, but at the end of the day very little of it feels like it makes a difference.
As you travel through each stage, there are a small variety of tasks to complete, depending on the mode you’re playing. Whether Marathon or Challenge modes, you’ll want to take out every pup (dog wearing a helmet), collect every star, and try to beat a score while you rescue every putty. That’s really all you’ll be trying to do in Marathon mode, but Challenge mode also tasks you with beating the level in a certain time, not eating any food throughout the level, and never dying. It’s enough to keep you at each stage for 5-10 minutes, making sure you’ve completed every task possible. Once you’ve finished them out, though, you’ll never care to go back and play them again.
Putty Squad feels like a platformer full of distractions instead of something meaty to bite into. The game hasn’t made any significant strides since its original release two decades ago. It’s functional, but there’s nothing exciting or hooking about the game in any sense. It’s just a mad scramble left for you to decipher.
Visuals & Audio Putty Squad is being touted for its port on the PlayStation 4. That said, everything that’s going on with this game in terms of graphical prowess could be handled by your smart phone. The character models look like they were put together by a team of sophomore graphic design students, given that they’re plain and stiffly animated. The game world is also far too busy, making it easy to lose your character amidst the chaos. It’s also difficult at times to tell if something is a platform or part of the background. It’s bright and vibrant, but it’s too much sensory overload.
The audio design for Putty Squad feels serviceable. Each of the themed worlds has music that efforts to match its aesthetics and have you tapping your foot. Many of the sound effects feel as though they carry no weight or were ill-utilized, however. In sticking with its retro theme, it feels as though it’s done nothing to keep itself relevant.
Overall
Overall, Putty Squad is a lackluster remake of a game that never grabbed any staying power. To think it came out 3 years after the original Sonic the Hedgehog and was only recently heard from again should be telling. The sound design is passable, and the visuals are vibrant but cluttered and confusing. The game may be able to keep you entertained for a short period, but it has no staying power or replayability. Only the hardcore nostalgic fans should consider this game, and even then, it may not be worth the price of admission.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Some new screenshots for Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 2: Sisters Generation were released today and while one of them focuses on showing us how the new battle screen will look on the PlayStation Vita, the rest of the screenshots highlight the Oracles that will be playable in the game for the first time.
The Oracles are Histoire the Oracle of Planeptune, Kei the Oracle of Lastation, Mina the Oracle of Lowee, and Chika the Oracle of Leanbox. As you may know, Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 2 is the enhanced version of Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2 which was released last year by NIS America in the West. Currently it is unknown if the game will be released in the West but it is currently set to be released on March 20, 2014 in Japan.
If, for some reason or another, you simply haven’t had that Street Fighter IV itch scratched yet despite the game being released countless times with minimal expansions and the formula being copied into Street Fighter x Tekken then we have some great news for you.
Capcom has announced that Ultra Street Fighter IV, the game that will feature five new characters, Poison, Rolento, Elena, Hugo, and a mystery character, a number of balancing adjustments, and new mechanics, will be released in early June 2014. The game will be released first as a digital upgrade that will cost $14.99 on the 360 and PS3 and then a month later on the PC it will also be available for that price. A full version of the game will also be released which will feature all previously released DLC costumes at a price of $39.99 on consoles and $29.99 on PC.
Little Busters! Collection One Studio:J.C. Staff Publisher:Sentai Filmworks Format:Blu-ray, DVD (Reviewed) Release Date:November 19, 2013 Price: $59.98 – Available Here
Overview If you were to ask someone what their favorite visual novel might be, then there is a pretty good chance that something from Key’s line-up of titles would be named. Famous for their emotionally gripping games Clannad, Kanon, and Air, all of the aforementioned visual novels have already been given anime adaptations and now Little Busters! has been adapted into an anime and the first half of season one has been released in North America. Now that Little Busters! Collection One is available, does it still hold everything that Key has been known for?
Story Riki Naoe’s parents passed away at a very young age and while he was lost in his grief, four children came to him to help raise him from his depression. This group consisted of three boys and a girl who all called themselves the Little Busters, a group that would fight evil and preserve justice. After finding hope in life again, Naoe joined the Little Busters on all of their little adventures and the group became a tight knit group of friends.
Now many years later all of the Little Busters are in high school and the leader of the group, Kyousuke Natsume is in his last year of school, about to graduate from high school. While not having a plan for the future, Kyousuke cares more about making the most of his time left with his friends than anything else and because of this he wants to form a baseball team with his friends. The only problem is, the group consists of Kyousuke, Naoe, Kyousuke’s shy younger sister Rin, the musclebound Masato Inohara, and Kengo Miyazawa who has devoted all of his time to kendo.
After learning that Kengo will refuse to join the team because it would take time away from his kendo work, the Little Busters only have four members to play baseball with while at least nine players are necessary. Because of this, Kyousuke charges Naoe with the task of recruiting members to join the baseball team, preferably female members considering the current set-up has far more men than women.
Naoe is far from your standard protagonist; he is rather frail in appearance and suffers from narcolepsy which can suddenly cause him to fall asleep regardless of what is happening around him. After he is tasked with recruiting more members for the team, Naoe and Rin discover a message tied to a cat that says that there is a secret to this world and the only way to discover that secret is to complete various tasks that will be revealed in time.
What unfolds from here is both a heartwarming story of friendship as well as one that tackles some of the hardships of life along with a heaping dose of cute girls and comedy. While the secret to the world will probably take on more importance later in the series, Collection One only features two instances where that story point is explored and questions are raised about the source of the tasks. Instead Collection One primarily focuses on growing the Little Busters by introducing new characters and having fun slice of life style events in-between.
For the most part, this works well since although the main focus is introducing new characters, there are storylines for specific characters interspersed in Collection One as well, the first one being the cheerful Komari Kamikita who has a rather tragic event in her past that Naoe and the rest of the group try to help her overcome so she can return to being the happy girl that she used to be without trying to deny the past anymore.
The second major arc included in Collection One actually leaves viewers with a rather drastic cliffhanger as another girl that Naoe has become friends with and introduced to the Little Busters vanishes and is replaced by a look-alike with a completely different personality. Since this release only covers the first thirteen episodes of the series this story arc remains incomplete with this release and also introduces a few supernatural elements to the story.
As far as the comedy goes, there are a few jokes that tend to be overplayed such as the duels between Masato and another member of the group which always end up with Masato losing badly and receiving an insulting title. One thing that the series does excel at is creating charming characters, especially a certain transfer student named Kud, that help make the various slice of life sequences nice and enjoyable. Little Busters! Collection One takes its time to progress the story and while it may seem like everything is moving too slow at a slice-of-life pace, it actually provides a rather heartwarming show as we see this group of friends tackle the issues of those around them and grow closer together.
Visuals It is unfortunate to say that while Little Busters! Collection One may be very bright and colorful with some great looking background scenes and character art, the animation is far from impressive. While each of the characters are nicely designed with a fair amount of detail put into each one to make them unique and cute looking, especially in regards to the female cast as Kud, Rin, and Kurugaya have all been given a high level of detail.
Unfortunately the actual animation work looks rather rough at times with the quality taking significant dives during mid-range shots, even a few close-up angles are pretty bad looking, and whenever more than a few things are in motion the series begins to look generic. That being said, it does appear that J.C. Staff put a lot of effort into making dramatic scenes look great in an effort to drive home the emotional impact of the events occurring on screen.
Audio With the release of Little Busters! Collection One Sentai FIlmworks has provided an English dub as well as the original Japanese voice track with the release. The English dub for the series is actually rather impressive although a few people may be caught off guard when they hear Naoe’s voice as he is voiced by a female voice actress named Shannon Emerick. Despite being a male character, the voice actually matches his appearance and demeanor. The rest of the cast also does a nice job with their voice work, including Kud’s voice actress which lays on a thick Russian accent as she speaks partially broken English to match the character.
Although the dub work is impressive, it is worth noting that there are many times that the voice work does not match up with the mouth flaps of the characters. This usually results with the character’s mouth still moving a bit after the final word has been said, and it looks rather awkward as the timing could have been better. As far as the soundtrack goes, the series features some key pieces of background music that are used throughout the first half of the season and each of them are rather fitting, especially for emotional scenes. The opening theme “Little Busters!” and “Alicemagic” are both performed by Rita and are songs used from the original game release but slightly altered for use in the anime.
Extras Unfortunately Little Busters! Collection One contains some rather rudimentary bonus features outside of the background music included on the main menu. There are disc credits and trailers for other Sentai Filmworks anime on the first disc while the second disc features a clean version of the opening and ending theme presented in this first half of the season.
Overall Little Busters! Collection One could easily be considered something of a harem show at first glance as it unfolds similar to one since the main character is gathering new female players to join the Little Busters but it instead a story about friendship and helping out those close to you. Throughout the first half of the series we are introduced to most of the main cast and experience a few emotional moments as they handle Komari’s past and begin to deal with another mysterious issue before the end of this collection. Though some of the jokes run thin and the animation is iffy at times, Little Busters! Collection One’s charming cast makes for an enjoyable experience that leaves viewers wanting more.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Rebellion, the independent developers from UK who created worldwide number one hits like Sniper Elite V2, has announced that their critically acclaimed iOS game, Joust Legend, will be hitting the App store for free this week from December 6th to the 13th. Check out our great review of Joust Legend here.
The action game was launched in September and boasts beautiful visuals, challenging gameplay, and a unique setting that is sure to intrigue all sorts of iOS gamers. The game promotion this week was announced during the game’s latest update, Update 1.2.0. The update provides players with an assortment of new visual upgrades and options for their knights and their steeds.
“We’ve just started out with Joust Legend – it was a fun and challenging project for our team, and the positive reaction to the game was even greater than we hoped for.” Rebellion CEO Jason Kingsley stated. “Today’s update is just a small step towards some great plans we’ve got – getting new players into Joust Legend and offering them new ways to play.”
Don’t miss the chance to grab this great game on the iOS for free here. Grab your lances and get ready to joust!
Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas, published by FDG Entertainment and developed by Cornfox & Bros, is an action-adventure game and – if I can so plainly put it – a Legend Of Zelda/Wind Waker clone for Apple iOS. Oceanhorn certainly replicates nearly everything we’ve come to love about Nintendo’s Zelda franchise to a tee whilst adding their own little tweaks and improvements that make this kind of genre even more enjoyable. As we’ll most certainly never see an official Nintendo Zelda game make its way to the iOS platform unless a miracle happens, Oceanhorn is the next best option available… but is it worth the hefty $9.49 price tag? Read on to find out.
Story
Oceanhorn has no princesses to save – shock horror right? However, you do start off in a very similar fashion as ‘A Link to the Past’ with you lying in bed while your dad murmurs to himself about finding Oceanhorn, then proceeding on an adventure to put an end to the evil monster. Once you set forth your goal is to find the sacred emblem pieces of Sol, Earth and Ocean. You will have help from both your father in the form of an audio diary/journal that triggers each time you visit new, unexplored areas and islands, and also trinkets that once belonged to your mother, as well as other people that will help guide you on your journey in unravelling the mysteries behind this mysterious kingdom of Arcadia and the evil that lurks on each island, cave and dungeon that you explore. Ultimately, you must find your father (is he still alive?) and also put an end to the evil Oceanhorn (wherever he may be), thereby cleansing the world of dark energy that has corrupted and cursed the kingdom and so many of its islands.
Gameplay
The gameplay in Oceanhorn plays and feels exactly Zelda. Yes, this is truly a Zelda clone through and through, all the way down to the enemies, character designs and even the cave and dungeon layouts are very similar with the only major difference being in the use of the map system, which reveals more as you explore and venture forth in each area. The ocean sailing is also very similar to ‘Wind Waker’, as when you plot a course and set sail to that particular island, you then sail automatically to that location. If you make a mistake you can always stop and set a course to another spot on the map, along the way shooting and taking down enemies, floating crates and mines that randomly appear that might give you gold and experience.
An added feature is the use of magic in the game; you can cast a number of different spells that you learn and obtain while exploring the islands. For example, a magical ability you can cast is the ‘earth spell’ that allows you to cast down a boulder onto enemies, causing damage, or to use on switches to unlock doors and solve puzzles. As you explore islands you can loot chests, fight enemies, solve puzzles, push statues, pick up pots, rocks, barrels, stone blocks, logs and lanterns and hurl them towards enemies or use them to solve puzzles such as using a fire lantern to light four pillars to open a secret door.
You also find power ups in the game similar to Zelda, such as a bow, bombs and ‘jumping boots’ needed to access hard to reach areas. One fresh feature in the game that sets it apart from the Zelda franchise is the experience mechanic. Killing enemies earns you experience in the form of blue diamonds; collecting enough of them will level you up and raise your Adventurer level, giving you new titles such as Pathfinder, Spellbinder and Knight Of Arcadia just to name a few. These gift awesome bonuses, such as being able to hold and collect more bombs or being able to swim longer in the ocean before you drown.
Another important factor when it comes to iOS games is the control system. Cornfox & Bros have done a marvellous job here at providing you with a number of different options for both left and right handed players, offering both an invisible analog stick and a virtual analog stick with easy to access attack and menu buttons that don’t clutter the screen, but are simple to use and get the job done. The easy to follow menu system that can be accessed by tapping the map icon in the top right of the screen provides you with your current level and rank status, along with a percentage completion indicator letting you know how much you still need to get before completing the island you’re currently on. You also have a list of all your weapons and spells you’ve learned and obtained as well as emblem pieces, Bloodstones collected around the kingdom and heart containers found (yes, heart containers!) which, once you find four, grant an extra heart power making you stronger. Another great feature in the menu system is the Flashback section that lists in a log text format all the latest conversations and special notes you’ve had with NPC’s so you can go back to this and re-read everything just in case you’re stuck or need help.
Visuals & Audio
Oceanhorn’s composers Nobuo Uematsu and Kenji Ito have created what might be one of the best musical scores I’ve heard for an iOS game. They have captured the tranquil and also heart pounding moments within the game perfectly. The opening music from the start menu of the game is one of the best I’ve ever heard and feels like something out of Final Fantasy, which I believe Uematsu-San did infact work on (Final Fantasy X).
Graphically Oceanhorn ran flawlessly on my iPad Air – it’s recommended for that and also the iPhone 5, but the game is supported on all iOS devices. You might experience occasional lag on the older devices, but nothing that will cause any problems or hinder your game play experience. The Kingdom of Arcadia is filled with vibrant and lush 3D environments from sandy desert islands, to leafy jungles and dark, gloomy dungeons. Many of the environments’ fixtures, such as fences and trees, move and sway if you brush up against them giving you that extra added feeling that the world is as real as it possibly can be. Cornfox & Bros have tried to be as detailed as possible and leave no stone unturned when it comes to making the Kingdom of Arcacia extremely tangible and lively.
Overall
Oceanhorn might be a completely similar game to Zelda, but in the end it has its own unique and redeeming qualities that should be taken very seriously for a title on the iOS platform. Most importantly, once you purchase the game, it delivers and provides a superb 15-20 hour game play experience with no annoying in-app purchases what-so-ever… something that is very rare to come by these days! If you love your Action-Adventure RPG’s, with a slice of Zelda gameplay on the side, then Oceanhorn is the game for you! Grab it now before it sets sail into the sunset without you.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
