While FUNimation has released the first season of A Certain Magical Index last year, it has been a long time since the second season of the anime was released and the company has yet to make an announcement about whether or not they will continue with the franchise.
Well today FUNimation announced that not only have they picked up A Certain Magical Index II but they have also picked up A Certain Magical Index the Movie for English home release sometime in the future. As such, the company will begin streaming the series on January 14th to subscribers and on January 31st for non-subscribers.
Fight for exclusive import rights at Los Santos International in one of the new Capture mode Jobs in Grand Theft Auto Online
After the addition of Deathmatch and Race creators, Rockstar‘s latest update to GTA Online adds ‘Capture Mode’ – a collection of 4 team-based game-types featuring 20 new jobs. Putting a Grand Theft Auto twist on the tried and true ‘Capture the Flag’ match type is interesting indeed. Check out the official notes from the developer listing their favourite parts of the 4 included modes:
RAID
In Raid, you’ll have to fight your way into your opponents’ base and steal a package, then deliver it back to your base to score points. Reach the target score, or deliver more packages than your opponents do in the allotted time to win the match.
“Beachin”
Legal highs and bad t-shirts aren’t the only things being pushed on Vespucci Beach. Four factions raid each other’s stashes for control of the area’s ‘tourist trade’. Take product back to your spot and it’s yours.
“Wargames”
Like any military operation, when things kick off at Fort Zancudo Air Base, they escalate pretty quickly. Teams stockpiling weapons to sell on the black market raid each other’s bases at either end of the facility. If they get the goods back, they’re banked. Nothing’s off limits to be used here, including the fighter jets.
Compete to get buses back to your base in ‘All Abhorred’
HOLD
When playing Hold, teams must collect and store as many packages as possible in their base. Packages can either be found on the map, or stolen from the opposing team’s bases. Reach the target score, or hold the most packages when the time runs out, to win.
“Block Party”
Gang violence escalates in Chamberlain Hills, as block fights block at close quarters. Four factions with two packages each try to raid each other and protect their own stuff. If they get someone else’s product back to their turf, they’ll have to protect it.
GTA
As the ubiquitous acronym might suggest, GTA mode tasks players with stealing target vehicles located all around the map, before bringing them back to their respective bases. Each team must fight to steal more vehicles in the allotted time than their opponents.
“My Maibatsu”
Four East Los car thief outfits compete to get hold of a shipment of Sanchez dirt bikes, and store them back at their bases, while preventing the other teams from doing the same. First place to look would be the Maibatsu Factory.
“Field of Screams”
A tractor shortage in Grapeseed leads to farmyard chaos. It’s harvest time, and two rival gangs compete to bring a Fieldmaster tractor back to their bases. Farming is a deadly serious business in Blaine County.
The contested package at the heart of a firefight
CONTEND
In Contend, there’s only one package, situated in the middle of the map. Teams must fight to bring this package back to their respective bases, and once the package is captured it respawns in the middle of the map and is up for grabs again.
“Salty Snatch”
Dog walkers and surfing talent agents look out – two import operations at either end of Chumash Beach are fighting over a shipment that’s landed on the pier. Any product they can get to their spot in the sand is theirs to keep.
Capture is available now as part of an automatic update for GTA Online, which also includes a host of fixes and dynamic tuning updates. For details on those please check out the Rockstar Support page.
Crytek is adding to the diversity of Ryse: Son of Rome‘s multiplayer Gladiator Mode with two new level events, available right now for free. There is also a paid DLC add-on for the Microsoft Xbox One exclusive launch title called the ‘Colosseum Pack’, available to download from the Xbox Games Store. Below is a breakdown of the new content. Check out some screenshots in the gallery at the bottom of this article.
Free Game Update Adds New Content to Gladiator Mode
Two New Level Events. As you slay barbarians in the arena, two new level events will occur randomly across a variety of maps. In the first, a new enemy turret will appear and bombard your Gladiator with deadly arrows until destroyed. In the second, Reward Statues of Roman deities will emerge from the sands and can be activated as a one-time bonus to boost your Gladiator’s Health or Focus.
New Arenas and Gladiator Skins Available with the Colosseum Pack
Two new arenas: Henge and Ascension. Henge tasks Gladiators with seizing an ancient forest shrine from hordes of barbarians and securing it for Rome. In Ascension, combatants must fight their way through the burning embers of Hades’ lair up to the lavish surface world.
Two new Gladiator skins: Commodus and Centurion. Don the opulent golden breastplate of Commodus, the twisted son of Emperor Nero, or the battle-tested armor of a Roman Centurion.
Today XSEED Games released a handful of new screenshots for Ragnarok Odyssey Ace which is currently set to be released sometime early 2014 for the PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 3 with all launch copies of the Vita version coming with a soundtrack CD containing 25 songs.
As for the screenshots, you can find them below. The screenshots show the Tower of Yggdrasil which is an all new dungeon in Ragnarok Odyssey Ace where all of the floors are randomized and players will need to take down bosses from the original Ragnarok Odyssey and a number of new villains with only a new NPC named Norn that will help players at rest points.
Overview
The subject of Power Rangers is somewhat of a special topic for me. From the age of six, I have been following the long-running Sentai hybrid, bearing through all of the cheese to be thoroughly entertained by teenagers fighting in spandex. My fondest memories of the fandom came in the form of the classic Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis beat-em up titles, which were rather solid and have not aged all too terribly. The concept was simple. You got to be the hero, and whatever moved, you beat to death. It was silly, but a ton of fun to a young kid who had only been playing games for a few years at the time.
After a ton of cash grabs in the industry since (and yeah, some were decent enough over the years), Saban are back running the show and Namco have delivered a fresh start for the franchise in video game form. Power Rangers Megaforce takes the latest season of the hit and inserts the player into the experience as they take down the latest evil that is attacking the planet. A photo morphing ability, classic beat-em up gameplay, and original voice acting? It was too good to be true. I wanted to love it from the start, but shortly in, I discovered why licensed games are still a market that fans should approach with caution.
Story
Starting off, and as a Rangers fan, I can easily say that Megaforce as its own product is my least favorite of all the Sentai adaptations. This is a series that is trying to recapture the essence of Mighty Morphin’, but failing miserably due to how forced everything is. The allies such as Gosei come off as unimaginative, and the villains – while admirable in design, don’t bring enough depth to the table. Yeah, this is just Power Rangers, but after the “In Space” arc from years ago, I know the potential of the namesake and feel that we as fans deserve to be a bit snobbish to the brand if needed.
The game itself carries all of what I mentioned into a generic story about saving the world yet again from takeover, and for the most part, it is told decently with semi-voiced cutscenes. I say decent loosely however as this is just another Megaforce plotline and while this title sticks strongly to its roots, it is still poorly written and those bland, vanilla faces on both sides are still at the forefront of the experience. On the other side of the coin, I also remember back when Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers: The Movie for the Sega Genesis released, the pasted together story did not even matter as I loved the subject material. This title is honestly handled better by narrative alone, and kids who are into this new team are sure to get that same feeling of excitement as they watch their own heroes battle it out on screen.
Gameplay
Battling it out is really what Power Rangers is all about. Megaforce is no different in concept, as the objective of nearly every stage is to get your hands on some beat-em up, side-scrolling action, with plenty of enemies to defeat along the way to each goal. That sounds great, doesn’t it? Well, it would have been – if there weren’t so many poorly executed ideas running parallel to the core experience. Starting out, the player has to take a photo of themselves to watch that photo morph into a ranger after picking their favorite color. Well, it would look like that, but instead of going the extra mile, it seems the developers preferred to just drop the entire top half of a picture over your own, and we just have to consider that a morph for this gem. Making matters more confusing is the fact that the player can swap between any one of the team by tapping on the screen, meaning that first choice has now been rendered rather pointless.
I know I am already sounding negative, but there are so many bad ideas within Megaforce, it would be hard for even a child to ignore the flaws. I love beat-em up gameplay in any game as it honestly is hard to do wrong. Here however, the combat is clunky at best – despite being easy enough to control, and the AI do nearly nothing to cause damage as they don’t react with enough speed or smarts to seem like a viable threat. We already have five rangers that have their own HP bars as it is, so to say this game is overly easy is putting it lightly. The stage design is also convoluted, as each of the five areas are broken up into six sections and those six sections are basically broken up into various objectives that break the flow of the overall gameplay.
One minute, you will be hammering away at foes, while the next area of a level will have the player doing nothing but cheap platforming as they break boxes and environmental objects to find cards. Again, I know this is Power Rangers and the audience is intended young, but Namco should know that most who play this title are going to be looking for some nostalgia and are smart enough to understand what proper level design is. Those cards I mentioned do have a small purpose as collecting enough will unlock a great, powerful attack to take down a good amount of enemies at once. The attack animation however breaks the illusion however and takes far too long for an attack that can be and in some cases that is required to be utilized multiple times in one level.
Zord battles are not much better, as the rock-paper-scissors gameplay comes across as boring, and even the extremely hyper voices (which we will get to in a moment) can not liven up what should be much greater experiences. If I enjoyed one element however of Megaforce, it would be the bonus content. Players can scan cards (one is included within the box) to unlock bonus content, such as slideshows and templates to take photos in. This sounds simple enough, but seeing nearly every generation of rangers and being able to line up for a photo with an actually morpher is indeed nifty, but not quite enough to warrant a purchase.
Visuals and Audio
There isn’t a ton to say about the visuals. They do their job and everything certainly seems fitting. The monsters also are designed well in the small cutscenes, so compared to Super Legends, there is a lot more eye candy at large if you’re one of those fans who are looking for further detail. Environments are bit more rough, featuring dimly lit areas that fall flat to engross the player, and all look about a generation or two behind the times. When you have a decently rendered model running across the screen in what appears to be a backdrop for a Super Nintendo title, things just feel out of placed and rushed. I also had a few boss run-ins where the game would start to stutter, which is odd considering that the 3DS is far more powerful than this one game.
I remember when I thought voice acting was great in video games. It truly adds a bit of life to each title, even if it is done wrong. We do have the cast adding their voices, which I guess is a plus. The gigantic sized minus is that they never shut up. Phrases like “I HEAR BIRDS” and “BREAK THAT BOX!” are just two of many lines you will hear shouted from the team as you make your way through, and this dialogue is repeated so much that it is almost impossible to hear anything else. Sure, it would be fine, even if these lines were repeated in moderation, but the idea that someone looped these clips that much is mind-boggling as it rips the entire concept of even having audio in two, making the player shut that volume off as they play or be harassed about boxes and cards throughout each stage.
Overall
Power Rangers Megaforce is a terrible game. There is no getting around it. The audio is atrocious and the gameplay mechanics are too convoluted to enjoy in the short, messy level design provided. I love the Power Rangers as much as the next fan, but if the extras are the only shining beacon within the entire game, it is a broken game and simply needs to be avoided. It is a rare thing to see a Power Rangers title released on a portable anymore, but if you have to get your fix, wait for something better or stick to Super Legends, as this 20th Anniversary has brought us one of the worst 3DS games available and a sad, shallow entry into what could of been a pixelated celebration of power.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Kirby‘s arrival on the 3DS was already very exciting to this super fan, but now, news has arrived that make the circumstances even sweeter. During today’s Nintendo Direct, it was announced that two modes will be featured as extras within Kirby Triple Deluxe, and you might recognize them a bit. “Kirby Fighters” allows the pink fluff and three others to go head to head in a Smash Bros. like fashion with abilities in tow. The other mode, “Dedede’s Drum Dash”, has shades of Harmoknight and has a nice rhythm/action gameplay mechanic where players must jump to the beat of several legendary tunes.
I will say that Kirby Triple Deluxe is looking to be just the appetizer to hold us over until Super Smash Bros., and with a similar mode in tow, it could definitely be a sleeper hit for the 3DS next year. Check out the new screenshots for the game down below.
First Installment of Dystopian Thriller RépubliqueNow Available on the App Store
All-star cast brings jaw-dropping visuals and groundbreaking touchscreen stealth-survival gameplay to life, releasing first for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch
Seattle, WA – December 19, 2013 – Independent development studio Camouflaj announced today that the first installment in its dystopian action-adventure game République is now available on the App Store. Created by industry veterans behind such AAA games as F.E.A.R., Halo 4, and Metal Gear Solid 4, and designed specifically for iOS, République brings console-quality gameplay and graphical fidelity to the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.
“We’ve spent the past two years crafting stealth action that doesn’t require 17 buttons, or even a controller,” said Ryan Payton, designer at Camouflaj. “Using our smart AI and logic-based input systems, République’s ‘one touch’ input method is something we’re incredibly proud of, and we can’t wait to share it with the world.”
République secured a substantial portion of its funding via crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, concluding a successful campaign in May of 2012. Kickstarter backers will receive a free season pass (AU$18.99 value) for all five episodes of République, with new episodes released every two to three months.
In République, players assist Hope, a desperate young woman struggling to escape from a secret, Orwellian state. Communicating using a stolen phone, Hope contacts the player and asks them to hack into the nation’s surveillance system, assume control, and guide her out of the clutches of the omnipresent Overseer.
Literary works such as 1984 and Brave New World, and current geopolitical events including global surveillance and Internet censorship serve as key sources of inspiration for both the narrative and the stealth-survival gameplay. Players expand their control over surveillance cameras and other network-enabled devices, growing into an active threat to the Overseer and his grip over his shadowy nation.
République introduces Rena Strober as the voice of Hope, backed by an all-star voice talent team. Jennifer Hale (Commander Shepard, Mass Effect series) plays Hope’s mentor, Mireille Prideaux, while David Hayter (Solid Snake, Metal Gear Solid series) gives voice to Zager, revolutionary and ghost in the political machine. Also featured are veteran voice actors Matthew Mercer (Resident Evil 6), Khary Payton (Batman: Arkham Origins), and Dwight Schultz (killer7).
Developed using the Unity games development platform, République also showcases Faceware Technologies’ cutting-edge facial motion capture hardware and software used to create the believable character animations.
Available in French, German, Spanish, Russian and Brazilian Portuguese, the first episode of République is available for AU$5.49 exclusively on the App Store on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch or at www.AppStore.com/Republique. République is also scheduled for release on PC and Mac in 2014. For more information, visit www.camouflaj.com.
Written by James Clinton Howell, the République Manifesto iBook offers enhanced insight into the game’s Orwellian world. In association with publisher Future Press (Dark Souls: The Official Guide), the République Manifesto contains the provocative writings of the mysterious Kenichiro Treglazov, also known as the Overseer. Treating on greater governmental control and internet regulation, the book is a key piece of the game’s fiction. République’s diehard revolutionary Zager has marked up the book with notes, hints and maps that act as a contextual strategy guide. Each of the game’s “Intelligentsia-level” Kickstarter backers will receive the collector’s hardback edition after all five chapters have been released online. An indispensable and enlightening companion piece to the interactive experience, République Manifesto CH1 is 40 pages, and available through Wagtail Publishing (www.wagtailpublishing.com) and soon on the iBooks store for AU$2.24.
About République Soundtrack
A haunting, suspenseful, and stirring soundtrack by composer Zinc LeMone is the beating heart of the République experience. By turns minimalist, subtle, and symphonic, its presence is felt in every scene of the game. Featuring twelve tracks, including the eponymous track that accompanied the game’s debut trailer, République Soundtrack EP1: Exordium is available now on the iTunes store for AU$5.49.
Founded by former Halo 4 creative director and Metal Gear Solid 4 producer Ryan Payton, Camouflaj is a Seattle-based boutique game studio. Comprised of industry veterans from such best-selling, award-winning franchises as F.E.A.R., Lord of the Rings, Red Dead Redemption, and S.O.C.O.M., Camouflaj is a nimble team of industry veterans and talented newcomers, innovators and risk-takers, dedicated to bringing the high-quality, focused game experiences to the broadest possible audiences.
If you were paying to the VGX earlier this month then you probably know that Nintendo had an underwhelming announcement to make by saying that Cranky Kong would be a playable character in Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. Well today the company released a trailer featuring Cranky and showing off his capabilities.
Cranky will be able to use his cane to bounce off of enemies and obstacles and if he gathers a hundred bananas then he will be able to pull off a “KONG-Pow” move which will turn all enemies on the screen into items. It is also worth noting that Funky Kong will be making a return in this game as he will be taking over the in-game shop to replace Cranky.
SYDNEY, 19th December 2013: Polyphony Digital Inc., developer of the recently-released Gran Turismo®6 for PlayStation®3, has launched a new update for the game. Included in the update are two new Red Bull cars and the Red Bull X Challenge, an innovative collaboration with Infiniti Red Bull Racing that includes 2013 Formula 1® World Champion Sebastian Vettel mentoring players in the art of driving an authentic formula car.
Owners of GT6™, that went on sale earlier this month on 6th December, now have the opportunity to select the first two of four new Red Bull cars. The ‘Red Bull Racing Kart’ and ‘Red Bull X2014 Junior’ will arrive in dealerships in-game via the update, while the Red Bull X2014 ‘Standard’ and ‘Fan’ cars can be expected to join them at a later stage. All of the new Red Bull X2014 cars have been designed for GT6 in conjunction with Infiniti Red Bull Racing’s legendary Chief Technical Officer Adrian Newey.
The free update has been provided as a special end-of-year gift for Gran Turismo fans from Polyphony Digital and Red Bull and is a unique and exciting collaboration in the franchise’s 15th anniversary year. Commenting on the Red Bull X Challenge, Kazunori Yamauchi, President of Polyphony Digital Inc., said: “We are very grateful to Adrian Newey, Sebastian Vettel and Infiniti Red Bull Racing for providing this special gift for Gran Turismo fans. To be taught how to drive downforce cars by the best racing driver in the world is very special and the new Red Bull X2014 cars are another exciting addition to Gran Turismo 6. This is the latest update for the game and there are more to come.”
Red Bull Racing’s Sebastian Vettel added: “I’ve been playing Gran Turismo since I was 12, so to appear in the game myself as a mentor is great. I hope everyone enjoys the game.”
A second phase of the Red Bull X Challenge, along with the other two Red Bull cars, will be made available in a future update for GT6. Meanwhile, the other elements included in this latest Update 1.02 include:
Consecutive Login Bonus
When you login online for consecutive days, a bonus to all credits awards will accrue up to a potential 200% bonus on the 5th day. Be sure to login every day to earn more credits!
Credits earned in Career Mode increased
Entry requirements for Seasonal Events lowered
Players will only require a National B licence in order to participate in Seasonal Events and, for a limited time, there will be unique special events that will reward cars as prizes, so don’t miss this opportunity and remember to login online!
Bonus Events within Seasonal Events
Two new Seasonal Events will run from 20 December 2013 to 17 January 2014 and 02 January to 30 January 2014. These unique events to mark the seasonal holidays and the new year will feature special bonus credits.
For more details on each of the above features, please refer to the online manual on gran-turismo.com.
Gran Turismo 6 is available now at retailers priced at RRP AUD$99.95 for the Standard Edition and RRP AUD$114.95 for the Anniversary Edition.
Trailers, images and further news about Gran Turismo 6 are available on www.gran-turismo.com.
Earlier today Nintendo revealed that they are planning on bringing the Bravely Default: Flying Fairy demo to North America on January 2nd. This demo is the same version that was released in Europe and comes with an “exclusive story with hours of content” that will not be included in the main game.
To go along with this announcement the company released a new gameplay trailer as well as a handful of screenshots, and a look at the Collector’s Edition packaging, for Bravely Default: Flying Fairy which is currently set to be released in North America on February 7th.
