Today Tecmo Koei has announced that they will be releasing some new DLC for Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate and Core Fighters and it all has to do with a certain spooky holiday at the end of this month. The DLC is partially free and partially expensive all at the same time.
The free DLC will be a re-skinned fan favorite stage called “Haunted Lorelei” which has been modified to be more spooky with new music, lighting effects and other things. As for the paid DLC, gamers can purchase the costume pack which provides new costumes for all 28 fighters in the game which range from comedic looking simple costumes to sexy and slutty outfits all in one package. You can check out all of the costumes and the stage in the screenshots and trailer below.
With Deus Ex: Human Revolution Director’s Cut set to release next week those looking for a bit more on what changes are coming for the Wii U version, possibly as well as Smart Glass and PS Vita functionality. A new gameplay trailer just released today by Square Enix and Eidos-Montreal has the lowdown on Infologs, second screen, and a host of other features.
The Director’s Cut of Deus Ex: Human Revolution looks to make the game a more inclusive experience with friends by letting players make notes via the GamePad and posting them to the Miiverse for friends to use. This will allow players to show off their path through levels or point out secrets and collectibles. But, of course the best addition may well be the quick inventory to easily change tactics.
Those wanting to see all the new features in action and how the GamePad will function in gameplay can watch the trailer for themselves embedded below. Deus Ex: Human Revolution Director’s Cut is set to release October 25th, 2013 for Wii U, Xbox 360, PS3, and PC.
After the successful release of Pokemon X and Y (Review X and Review Y) and the inclusion of Mega Evolutions it looks like those Mega Evolutions are ready to make the transition to the Pokemon Trading Card Game. Starting in February 2014, new 10-card booster packs will be available for the trading card game.
While the XY expansion will have the Kalos Starter Set releasing in November, which will include Fairy-type Pokemon, the first in the trading card game with resistance to Darkness-type, the Pokemon Trading Card Game: XY expansion will also include new Pokemon-EX cards, specific versions of cards that allow for the Mega Evolution. But, trading card players will have to carefully consider when they will try to activate the Mega Evolution, as it immediately ends their turn, with no chance to attack until it is their turn again.
So, with all the big changes that came with the Pokemon X and YNintendo 3DS video game, the trading card game will be catching up in February 2014. Those looking to be Master Trainers of the Pokemon TCG should start planning on how to build their decks.
Valhalla Knights 3 Developer:K2 LLC Publisher:XSEED Games Platforms: PS Vita (Reviewed) Release Date: October 15, 2013 Price: $39.99 – Available Here
Overview
The Valhalla Knights franchise has been around on portable PlayStation systems since its franchise debut in 2006. With the release of the PlayStation Vita, K2 LLC and XSEED are once again looking to deliver an action roleplaying game to folks with that fantasy itch. How does the newest entry into the franchise hold up, though? Will it feast alongside the warriors in paradise or should it be vanquished to Niflheim for eternal punishment? Let’s find out.
Character customization is surprisingly elaborate
Story
The tales have long been told of a rare treasure that can grant a wish to anyone who finds it. Legend claims that W. Flockhart, a notorious criminal, found such a treasure, but vanished and was never heard from again. Known as “Flockhart’s Legacy,” you are sent into Carceron Prison as a spy in order to locate and secure the treasure against your will – but there is much more going on inside the prison than you ever could have imagined. Now the clock is ticking and you’ll have to use everything at your disposal to uncover the treasure of legend.
Battles are interesting, especially with a posse.
Gameplay
At its core, Valhalla Knights 3 is an action RPG to the core. When the game starts out, you’ll create your own character, choosing race, job class, and customized looks. As you progress through the story, much more opens up to you, letting you choose the play style that best suits you.
There are initially four races to choose from: Human, elf, dwarf, and halfling. As you progress through the story, you can unlock three races with which you can create allies. Beyond the choice of race, you’re also given the option of a job class. This can range everywhere from mage or priest to archer, soldier, and beyond. When all is said and done, there are around 20 job classes you can choose, as well as the opportunity to take on subclasses. This presents great flexibility, really giving the players control over their own destinies.
As you complete quests and vanquish foes, you’ll be awarded with experience, just like virtually every other role playing game. With more experience comes more levels, which boost your stats. You’re also granted skill points which accumulate over time, eventually allowing you to get new skills for the classes you’re playing.
Finders, Keepers! Looting could earn your next upgrade.
On top of customizing your skills throughout the game, you’re able to continually build up your arsenal of weaponry and armor. Depending on your class, you may be locked to certain weapons, but each weapon boasts a combat style all its own. Gearing up is a satisfying experience in and of itself, as your physical appearance changes with each new piece of gear. I love it when games do that. Why can’t every game do that!?
Combat itself can be both a satisfying and frustrating experience. Dispatching a large group of enemies quickly has a great sense of accomplishment tied to it, and looting the corpses (and occasionally chests) is a great way to find new gear of useful items. When you’re running around the world with your weapon drawn, however, targeting enemies is about as accurate as hitting a Lamborghini with a spitball after you’ve been spun in circles. Even though you can take out enemies in the field, there’s absolutely no easy way to target them before they officially “engage” in battle with you. It feels both frustrating and completely unnecessary. Once you’re engaged in combat with enemies, the mechanics can shift a bit. Targeting specific foes becomes much easier and everything flows a bit better.
You can swap between up to 7 characters at a time.
From the perspective of progressing the story and taking on quests, Valhalla Knights 3 quickly turns into an absolute grind. Your party will initially consist of three members you can switch between at-will with the Select button. Without giving you any real guidance, though, storyline missions can quickly ramp up to require a party of six, and even still you’ll have to spend an hour or two taking on side quests and fighting mobs to earn what you’ll need to properly toughen-up and outfit your full squad. It feels like an unnecessary hindrance to proceed through the story.
Dealing with vendors in Carceron is a weird situation all unto itself. Early in the game, you can go to the slums and deal with them as you would expect to any other vendors. Once you’ve progressed beyond what paltry gear they can offer, though, you’ll have to deal with the concept of paying for your vendor. That’s right – you have to shell over money just to look at their wares. It goes even deeper beyond that, though.
The vendors you have to pay to deal with are often quite scantily clad. As you purchase armor, gear, new soldiers, quests, or whatever else from them, though, you’re given the opportunity to play a mini-game with the name “Sexy Time,” where you have to try to pop bubbles and give the vendor a kiss. You can also give them gifts. If you invest enough into them, you can eventually take them to the hotel…for obvious reasons. It’s an entire system that feels both pandering and off-putting, and would have been better left out.
Some of the mini-games feel done in poor taste.
On top of the hyper-sexualized vendor interactions, the game has a few other problems. The constant grind to keep up with the story is frustrating enough, but the game will also beat you to death with loading screens, which is somewhat baffling given how poor the game looks compared to its Vita contemporaries. Also consider the lack of a good quick-travel system, and you’re left burning up a lot of time just to hoof it to where you want to go.
Visuals
As much as it pains me to say it, Valhalla Knights 3 is probably the single worst looking Vita game released to date. It looks like a PSP game that has been ported to the Vita without any consideration of up-rezzing the graphics, which is a real shame since games like Ragnarok Odyssey are so sharp and colorful. Animation also feels weird. NPCs don’t really walk in the environment so much as they moonwalk through the environment. The scale of movement to environment feels disproportionate. The developers made sure they properly animated the physics of the female anatomy, though.
Audio Valhalla Knights 3 genuinely has a fantastic soundtrack. Whether you’re running around the prison and dealing with NPCs, or squaring off with mobs out in the world, you’ll enjoy the orchestral tunes that accompany your exploits. The sound effects fit well enough. When you’re involved in conversations, though, there will occasionally be some odd spoken clips that don’t really fit. Otherwise, the sound design in Valhalla Knights 3 is quite enjoyable.
Overall
Overall, Valhalla Knights 3 is a really difficult game to recommend. The soundtrack is fantastic and the combat and progression systems are fun, but the game very quickly becomes too much of a grind. On top of that, several poor design decisions, rough-looking graphics, and bawdy hypersexualization drag down what had the potential to be an incredible Vita experience.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Disney Infinity’s second wave begins in just two weeks, and to mark the occasion, players will be able to get new Crystal coloured variant figurines of their favourite characters. We spoke about the figurines previously, but now they are available for pre-order through select retailers.
Disney have announced that EB Games will be your one stop shop for the Disney Infinity crystal figures for Mr. Incredible, Sulley and Jack Sparrow. These are the same three figures that you got in the starter pack, but as you can see below have a different colour scheme, as well as different in-game abilities. Pre-order them from here.
There are also two more crystal figures available for pre-order; Lightning McQueen and The Long Ranger. These are available exclusively through JB HiFi, and you can order them here.
If you plan on getting these then I suggest ordering them now as they are a super limited quantity, and pre-orders are likely to sell out fast. Head over to the respective web sites and order now before you miss out! Let us know in the comments if you are planning on picking these up or not, and as always be sure to stay tuned to Capsule Computers for all the Disney Infinity news as it becomes available.
Dark Souls, aside from being the game that frustrated and delighted gamers everywhere (as well as causing a few broken controllers, discs and consoles) was filled to the brim with a deep lore and exciting characters. One of the best parts about the lore was that it wasn’t spoon fed to players, and you had to dig for it yourself. Well, now Namco Bandai have announced that they are taking the rich lore and characters of the Dark Souls universe, and creating a comic book: Dark Souls II: Into the Light.
Into the Light is being penned by Rob Williams, whose impressive resume includes runs on Ghost Rider, Daken, Amazing Spider-Man, The Dark X-Men, Cla$$war, Star Wars Tales and the 2013 British Comic Award nominated Judge Dredd: Trifecta. Joining Williams is Andi Ewington, an up and comer to the comic book scene, who recently garnered a lot of positive buzz with his hit book ’45.’ Drawing the pages that fans will no doubt spend hours glued to is Simon Coleby, who aside from working alongside Williams for Judge Dredd: Trifecta, has put his name to other notable exploits such as artwork for Rogue Trooper and the popular ‘The Authority’ series from DC/Wildstorm.
Click here to see the full cover
When they were asked about the collaboration, the team simply replied with:
Gothic environments, unworldly monsters, eldritch atmosphere, adventure and terror… Before you venture into the darkness, pay heed to those who know what awaits within
So get excited Dark Souls fans! Dark Souls II: Into the Light will be launching in early January 2014, so there is just enough time to read it a few dozen times before Dark Souls II hits store shelves March 14th On Xbox 360 and PS3. So prepare to die and go beyond death with Dark Souls II. We recently got our hands on Dark Souls II, and you can check that out here. We also have a short trailer for the comic book, which you can check out below.Remember that for all the Dark Souls news as it becomes available, to go beyond death and stay tuned to Capsule Computers.
It looks like we’ll be swash-buckling and plundering and sailing the seven seas a little earlier than planned, as Ubisoft‘s Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag on current-gen platforms has received an earlier release date. This much was confirmed at the end of the latest story trailer released today.
Originally slated for October 31, the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag will now dock on our shores – and the rest of the world’s for that matter – on October 29. Check out the ‘Edward Kenway’ story trailer embedded just below this article, and our hands-on with the Naval & Fort demo from this year’s EB Games Expo 2013.
Nomad Games today announces the beta release of Talisman Digital Edition via Steam Early Access due to its successful Greenlight campaign. The game is based on a cult fantasy adventure board-game by Games Workshop of the same name and the developers are inviting gamers to join in the PC game.
The release of the RPG-style Talisman Digital Edition is set to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the original board game’s first release. This game is the latest incarnation of the series from Nomad Games, last year they released Talisman Prologue, a single player RPG for PC and mobile. Talisman Digital Edition is different as it includes a local multiplayer for up to four real or AI players with a good and a variety of play modes to satisfy all players.
Nomad Games’ co-founder, Don Whiteford is delighted about the game’s appearance on Steam and has commented:
“We were thrilled to have been voted through Steam’s Greenlight process and have the opportunity of releasing the game via their exciting and growing Early Access programme. We’re hugely grateful to the Steam community and fans of Talisman for getting us this far and would like to call on their support again now to help us build on this great start and create the game that Talisman’s fans and its rich history deserve. We will be adding online multiplayer over the coming months, as well as other great features, and we look forward to hearing everyone’s feedback as to what else they’d like to see in the finished game.”
The original Games Workshop game magical themes and evolving gameplay has been carried on to the new digital edition to faithfully recreate an enthralling experience for game-board enthusiasts, nostalgic players and new gamers by continuing the classic adventure in a fun and accessible way.
Talisman Digital Edition is available now for Steam pre-order here for $14.99 (£11.99) and all customers will also receive a free copy of Talisman Prologue.
With the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One perilously close to release, a new console is on the horizon for a lot of gamers. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a new toy to play with and getting in on the day one craziness is always fun. I’ve been deliberating a lot recently about where my money is going to go, and many people have already made their minds up, slapping down preorders for either console as soon as they possibly could.
Ruminating away it suddenly dawned on me that I hadn’t spared a second thought for Nintendo in these particular console wars. Nintendo are responsible for me being a gamer, but I don’t own any of their current generation hardware. First console I ever used? SNES. First gaming device of my own? GameBoy. I stuck with them right up until the Wii. What gives?
The End
For me the Wii was the death knell to my Nintendo love affair. I got one on release day and played the hell out of Mario and Zelda, but after that the little white plastic box started moving further and further towards the back of the shelf. I’m not a fan of motion control and the whole set up smacked as cheap in comparison to the PlayStation 3 that soon took up residence next to it. Eventually I hooked up my GameCube next to Sony’s behemoth. Sorry Wii.
Then in 2011 the 3DS appeared, and in late 2012 the Wii U. To me neither machine distinguished itself from its predecessors enough to warrant a cash drop, and so my Nintendoless life continued. Whilst I had always hung on to a Nintendo machine to have access to the Pokemon and Zelda titles, those franchises too had lost their appeal – nothing fresh was happening, why bother?
And that is how you get stuck in an anti Nintendo bubble. Poking my head out of it has been quite an interesting experience, revealing that I actually have quite a few reasons to get myself some Nintendo kit: The Wind Waker HD
I was a GameCube girl back in the day, so much so that Microsoft Word evens knows to capitalise it for me. I would walk into a game store and tentatively ask the assistant, “Where are the GameCube games?” and he would point me to a tiny shelf in the corner, far away from the walls worth of PS2 titles where all the cool kids were. I would breathe a sigh of relief that they had any at all and head off to check out the half dozen games on the shelf. But I didn’t really care, because I had this –
Wind Waker is my favorite Zelda game, at least until I recommence arguing with myself about it. I loved it in a way that Ocarina never quite managed to achieve, and my Majora’s Mask cartridge insisted on deleting the water temple mask every time I got it. A Wind Waker HD port/remake/whatever is one of the few things that carries enough nostalgia power to make me want a Wii U, and given that my GameCube is in the wrong hemisphere for me to use it, that power increases tenfold. Kaboom!!
Bayonetta 2
One of my defining traits as a gamer is always being late to the party – hence I’m only just playing Bayonetta now, over three years after it came out. Perhaps surprisingly for someone who has slightly feminist leanings I am enjoying the hell out of it. It’s ridiculous and it knows it. It has huge monsters, campy voice acting, cool creature design and a combat system that is actually fun even if you suck at it. I’ve never taken to DmC style games but for some reason Bayonetta got me, and no action game has done that in a while. Naturally I want the sequel, but we all know where that ended up.
Pokémon& the 2DS
It’s amazing how many people in my online life suddenly went dark when this thing appeared. Pokémon X & Y has been touted as the next big thing for the Pokémon franchise, and even though I’ve read several reviews that are largely to the contrary on that point, I still want the game. I grew up on Pokemon, and ten year old me still lives on, overly attached to Charizard and hoping that one day a new generation of Pokémon might be as cool as the first.
It isn’t a coincidence that the first Pokémon game that doesn’t work on a DS is also the one being advertised as an evolutionary step. And of course the 2DS came out on the same day as the game. In one fell swoop Nintendo removed Pokémon from the grasp of those who hadn’t upgraded their handheld since the DS and dropped the price barrier to doing so – carrot and stick. I’ve gone without playing Pokémon since Heart Gold and Soul Silver but now that I can’t play the latest game I find myself eying up the 2DS – it’s a lot cheaper than the 3DS right?
Now those are just the main three reasons that popped into my head, but of course there are other games out there that stand proud with their Nintendo only hats on – I’ve made no mention of the plumber himself for example. So according to this little thought experiment I have decent reason to get myself some Nintendo gear. So Nintendo, if you want to base your market strategy off the opinion of one person on the internet, here are the rules:
1.Make wise use of your back catalog to maximise nostalgia, better yet, ensure that people haven’t got access to the original version of the game through some diabolical scheme to fry every Nintendo 64 and GameCube in the world. (note: Wii U sales in the UK have gone up 685% since Wind Waker HD came out)
2. Get third party exclusives that have value, as in “OMG this better be a joke Bayonetta 2 is Wii U exclusive wot?!”.
3. Make sure people need to upgrade by using your biggest draw cards exclusively on the new platform – why did Pokemon take so long to go 3DS/2DS exclusive? Most people’s annoyance will not last long in the face of Poke-drought
4.Drop the gimmicks and make things cheaper, but preferably not uglier. 2D and pretty, that’s it.
Square Enix has blown us all away by revealing a new gameplay trailer for Kingdom Hearts III at D23 Expo Japan 2013. The video shows Sora, Donald and Goofy battling Darkness enemies and a Titan boss from Disney’s Hercules all rendered in a dazzling new engine. Be sure to check it out below!
Announced at E3 2013, the game is in early development for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Kingdom Hearts III features a mature Sora who embarks on a journey with Mickey, Donald and Goofy to new worlds.
It is expected that Square Enix will ship Final Fantasy XV before Kingdom Hearts III is finished. Meanwhile, Kingdom Heart HD 2.5 ReMIX has been announced for release in 2014.
For me the Wii was the death knell to my Nintendo love affair. I got one on release day and played the hell out of Mario and Zelda, but after that the little white plastic box started moving further and further towards the back of the shelf. I’m not a fan of motion control and the whole set up smacked as cheap in comparison to the PlayStation 3 that soon took up residence next to it. Eventually I hooked up my GameCube next to Sony’s behemoth. Sorry Wii.
