It’s strange to call the forthcoming trailer “the official trailer”, as if it is the first when we have already seen videos released on our three player protagonists, a walkthrough of the game’s features and a spotlight on GTA Online.
But nonetheless, Rockstar can call it whatever the heck they want – any footage we can get, we will take! This Friday, August 30th, the Grand Theft Auto V ‘official trailer’ will debut at the Rockstar Newswire and the GTA V site. Of course, we will also be sharing it with you all here on Capsule Computers as soon as we can. Exact times/details will be provided shortly.
After nearly a year, Activision‘s Call of Duty: Black Ops II is wrapping up its DLC offerings, and with a brand new map pack that has hit the Xbox Live Arcade as of today. Apocalypse brings together four new maps and a brand new Zombies Mode for fans to toy around with by the name of “Origins”, which takes us back with Tank, Nikolai, Takeo, and Richtofen – from the very first Zombies map featured in Call of Duty: World at War. Treyarch have also brought back Avenged Sevenfold (yay?) to cover the soundtrack, as well as boasting about the new enlistment of famed comics illustrator and painter, Alex Ross.
Here are the details for the maps and new modes:
Pod: A failed utopian community from the 70’s has left stacks of dilapidated residential pods nestled into an abandoned cliff side in Taiwan. Its residents long gone, the modernist compound now hosts frenetic combat as players must run atop the pods, as well as navigate their multi-tiered interiors for a strategic edge.
Frost: Fresh snow meets explosive gunpowder in this snow-capped European city, where the bridge over a frozen canal separates it into two sides, requiring players to employ multi-level strategies as they traverse the terrain in order to outsmart, and ultimately outshoot their enemies.
Takeoff: Fans of “Stadium” from the original Call of Duty®: Black Ops First Strike DLC will find themselves at home on “Takeoff.” Marooned in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, this remote launch site is all about close-quarters combat, combining tight corners with open spaces for intense encounters.
Dig: An adaptation of the fan-favourite “Courtyard” from Call of Duty: World at War, where two archeological dig sites in Afghanistan become the perfect playground for combatants eager for hectic, unceasing confrontations. Treyarch, has retained the spirit of “Courtyard” with two major chokepoints and a wide open layout with raised platforms, but has also provided fans with a fresh take by including a multitude of pathways.
In addition to the four maps, Apocalypse also reveals “Origins,” the most horrifying and imaginative Zombies experience to date. Players will be deployed to a Dieselpunk-stylized World War I-era France that brings back the four original heroes – Tank, Nikolai, Takeo, and Richtofen – from the very first Zombies map featured in Call of Duty: World at War, as well as hordes of zombies that have overrun the French countryside’s trenches and fields, as well as the ruins of an ancient and mysterious location.
Apocalypse also marks Treyarch’s partnership with award-winning Warner Bros. Records rock band, Avenged Sevenfold, whose new song, “Shepherd of Fire” from their just released album, “Hail to the King,” headlines the soundtrack to the game’s Zombies experience.
Along with Avenged Sevenfold, Treyarch also enlisted the talent of famed comics illustrator and painter, Alex Ross, to lend his talent to “Origins,” providing original Zombies art depicting the four returning hero characters.
And there you have it. You can pick up Apocalypse for Black Ops II as of today or snag it for free if you have already made the plunge with the season pass. Stay tuned, as dates for the release of the PS3/PC versions are sure to follow soon enough.
With the success of the Just Dance series which incorporated a unique premise of using a console’s motion capture technology to track how well a player danced to the on screen choreography, it’s not surprising that alot of games with a similar premise were created. The latest effort to capitalize off the dance game craze is Sega’s new game Go Dance, which will be coming to iPhone and iPad devices running iOS 6 or better this Fall. The game will support both English and Japanese language options.
Go Dance will be utilizing the FaceTime camera on player’s devices and Extreme Reality Motion technology to track a player’s full body movement in 3D space and determine their score. Players can boost their score by dancing to the music and following the choreography of their avatars displayed on the screen. Haruki Satomi, CEO of SEGA Networks released a statement about the game’s announcement.
“GO DANCE is an innovative and fun way for players to interact with their iPhone or iPad and enjoy playing a dance game anytime and anywhere. We’re excited to push mobile to the limit and to have the opportunity to explore the possibilities of using this new motion-based sensor technology.”
New songs, backgrounds and avatars will be announced closer to release date.
If you happen to need a strategy guide for your strategy RPG then we have some good news for you. NIS America has announced that they will be holding a special promotion with Prima games where anyone who picks up the official hardcover strategy guide for the game will receive a free DLC code that will unlock Raspberyl from Disgaea 3 for use in Disgaea D2 as well as one of three possible art lithographs.
The strategy guide costs $34.99 but can currently be pre-orderedfor $23.48. As for the game itself, it is set to be released in North America on October 8th and a week and a half earlier in Europe on September 27th.
After announcing that it was going to be localized oh so many months ago and before it was delayed a handful of times in Japan, NIS America has now announced the official English title for The Witch and the Hundred Knights.
The title remains intact for the most part, though they did drop the plural from the s and are now simply calling it The Witch and the Hundred Knight. It is worth noting that, probably due to its affiliation with a certain band, the main character’s name, Metallica, has been changed to Metallia. As for the game’s release window, fans can expect the PS3 exclusive to hit stores sometime in early 2014 for both North America and Europe.
After detailing the system for Chinese players, Snail Games (makers of Age of Wushu) have now explained to and updated Western gamers about ‘Black Gold Time’ – an innovative F2P alternative for the action-MMOBlack Gold Online that does away with the usual cash shop.
Due for launch in China very shortly, the system has instigated discussions amongst fans, but the developer is promising a revamped version for North America that will offer a completely different gameplay experience. The concept may seem complicated at first glance, so here is a helpful summary provided to us by Snail Games themselves:
No loot lock: item/equipment can be acquired in-game without the system
No content lock: contents are available to all players
The system will not hinder gearing and progression
The system will reward extra loot to players with higher efficiency
For those who want to learn more about Black Gold Online’s monetization model, please click here.
Daily Lives of High School Boys Premium Edition Studio:Sunrise Publisher:NIS America Format: Blu-ray Release Date:August 6, 2013 Price:$64.98 – Available Here
Overview While some series are created originally, most anime series are adaptations of either a manga, light novel or visual novel. Of these adaptations 4koma style manga, manga that focus on short four panel gags with usually little focus on storyline, only receive anime adaptations every few years or are given simple five minute episodes. Even rarer is a release of one of these 4koma adaptations in the West, but that is the case with Daily Lives of High School Boys. Does NIS America’s risk of bringing such a uniquely styled series to North America pay off?
Story Tadakuni, Hidenori, and Yoshitake aren’t special by any means. They are not especially skilled nor are they idiotic. Instead they live a rather normal life as they attend an all-boys high school. To that end, the story of Daily Lives of High School Boys is pretty much that, simply the daily lives of a bunch of high school boys as they experience plenty of random situations involving your standard classroom antics, awkwardly dealing with girls and their sisters, and simply passing time whenever they are out of school.
Despite focusing mostly on the three male high school students mentioned earlier, the cast is quickly expanded to feature a number of the boys’ classmates and even a few girls as well. There isn’t much in the form of development to be had for any of the characters in the series, which creates a bit of an issue later into the series as the cast explodes into numerous similar looking characters that are most easily recognized by their specific design feature.
To that point; there isn’t much continuation in the slightest. Sure time passes and there are a few running skits throughout the series and one episode that holds focus on one event throughout the episode, but for the most part everything is self-contained as an individual joke. I mention the word skit because that is exactly what Daily Lives of High School Boys is. It is a series that is broken up into numerous short jokes that can be anywhere from seven minutes long to less than two minutes in length.
By placing itself with a rather simple premise that is not off the wall or mysterious and populating itself with outspoken cliché characters played for humor, viewers are presented a series that is meant to be played for gags only and for the most part that works just fine. Thanks to the nature of the series which divides itself into numerous skits per episode, the progression can feel disjointed at times but it actually manages to work quite well here.
The reason for that is because Daily Lives of High School Boys can be laugh out loud funny numerous times per episode. The colorful cast of characters and realistic, albeit exaggerated for comedic effect, situations that they are placed in as they mess around and live out their high school lives make most of the jokes hit home.
To top that off, Daily Lives of High School Boys is very self-aware of itself and there are numerous times that the fourth wall is broken as the characters talk about the series itself, the manga, the author, or even taking pot shots at itself for being greenlit for an anime despite being a school show about boys rather than girls. That being said, for every great gag there are also a handful that fall flat which is disappointing since Daily Lives of High School Boys is at its best when the viewer is laughing.
Visuals Daily Lives of High School Boys has rather smooth animation but it is clear that the animation company provided the bare minimum effort for most of the series. More often than not, backgrounds are simple and even the character designs themselves are rather plain, which causes the aforementioned issue with remembering certain side-characters outside of their unique singular trait.
If anything, the only part that seems to be paid attention to are the facial animations of the characters which are often used in the gags themselves as the characters act stunned at their situation, usually playing it off for more laughs from the viewer. For the most part the series has a wide-range of colors and is decent looking overall, but never goes beyond being just okay.
Audio Since this is an NIS America release, it is worth noting that there is no English dub for Daily Lives of High School Boys. While this is a problem for most series, some of the humor presented in the series likely would not have translated well into English which means that the English subtitles and Japanese dub actually end up being the best option for this gag series.
As far as the soundtrack goes, Daily Lives of High School Boys features a rather varied set of background tracks that usually are paired well with the nature of each skit and there are even a few insert songs placed throughout the series. As far as the opening and ending goes, the opening is “Shiny Tale” by Mix Speakers Inc. while the ending is “ohisama” by Amesaki Annainin. These themes are rather plain but it is worth noting that the ending sequence is quite hilarious when paired with “ohisama” so it is definitely worth checking out a few times.
Extras NIS America has given Daily Lives of High School Boys the ‘Premium Edition’ treatment which means that along with the on-disc extras the release also comes with an oversized chipboard slipcase and a hardcover art book. As for the on-disc bonuses, there are extra skits that when combined add another seventeen minutes of content, clean versions of the opening and ending themes and trailers for other NIS America products.
It is worth noting that Daily Lives of High School Boys is another release which features horizontal artwork meaning that displaying the box will be a bit different from your standard NIS America release. As for the art book, it features character introductions to each of the repeat cast members, guidelines which go over each of the skits in each episode which are then followed by “Misc. Guidelines” which happen to be full pages of artwork of the characters in various scenes. This is then followed up by intros to the “Funky High School Girls” ending segment characters and a brief guideline for their ending skits, making it a nice, albeit light on content, art book.
Overall When NIS America picked up Daily Lives of High School Boys; it seemed like a risky acquisition as a pure gag anime is something rarely brought over to the West. However by offering viewers an enjoyable, albeit similar looking, cast of characters, and hilarious gags that hit home more often than not, the series manages to overcome its simplistic art and lack of any focus to deliver a worthwhile series of boys doing random things in their lives as we laugh at their experiences.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Madden NFL 25 Developer:EA Tiburon Publisher:EA Sports Platforms:PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 (Reviewed) Release Date:August 27, 2013 Price:$59.99 – Available Here
Overview It is hard to think that it has been twenty five years since John Madden Football was released back in 1988 with no licenses whatsoever. Now twenty five years later, here we are with EA celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Madden series by bringing Madden NFL 25 to the table. It has been a long ride for fans of football, but with Madden NFL 13 released a year ago, what has EA brought to the table to celebrate such a milestone in the franchise’s history and will gamers enjoy what they find in this iteration of the game?
Gameplay
Well… not a whole lot actually. While there have certainly been additions to Madden NFL 25, most of what the game still plays the same as last year’s iteration. Of course there has been fine-tuning to a number of mechanics, though many of these are not clearly apparent outside of new plays in the playbook and mostly fix back-end issues from last year’s iteration.
As for what has been added into this version of the game, the Connected Franchise mode has been revamped with the option to play as not only a player or a coach, but also as an Owner of a team. Players can still choose to create a player of their own of course, play as a current player or select from a larger list of football legends than ever before and play as your role only or as the Coach to the team and having complete control over every aspect of the game, drafting and signing players etc. However despite being the Owner of a franchise, there really isn’t a whole lot added in this mode.
Being the Owner is simply being the Coach of a team but with a few extra fringe gameplay options such as the ability to set prices for tickets and merchandise and of course, being able to move the team to an entirely new city or state, revamping your stadium or demolishing and starting from scratch and trying to balance the books so that the team stays profitable and earns cash while also being successful on the field. While a nice addition, it feels like a rather basic inclusion that likely could have been fleshed out more.
Another minor inclusion in the game is a bit of an addition to the MUT (Madden Ultimate Team) card system where players have an option to work on team chemistry to help their team’s performance, adding more depth to a gameplay option that already is likely the deepest and most time consuming outside of the Connected Franchise mode.
Once the player actually gets on the field, they will find that a few more additions and a refined physics engine which will be discussed later, have made it into the game, but again nothing very groundbreaking. Gameplay remains very much the same as what was offered in Madden NFL 13 but the main revamp this time around is refined running mechanics in what is now called ‘Run Free’ and a precision modifier.
The whole run free aspect has adjusted and enhanced the various running moves that players have always had access to, such as the juke, stiff-arm, spin and more. These various techniques have been made easier to use and the aforementioned precision modifier helps make these moves more useful, as holding the precision modifier trigger will help turn some small runs into a first down or a break-away run for major yardage.
Away from the offensive side of things, the defense has been given a bit of an upgrade as well thanks to the ability to perform quicker switching between players to take down a ball carrier or set up before the play and a ‘wrap tackle’ that makes it easier to take down the ball carrier with low-impact but usually effective hits against the more nimble ball-carriers. It is worth noting that it may be tricky to get used to some of these new running techniques at first, but thankfully a newly revamped ‘Skills Trainer’ provides a tutorial for these various new additions to the game.
Visuals One of the major issues with the inclusion of the “Infinity Engine” in Madden NFL 13 was how after every play, the players on the field would flop all over each other like fish out of water. Often ten seconds after a play had ended and players are selecting their next play there would be people stumbling and bumbling over each other, awkwardly falling continuously like they shouldn’t be allowed to drive home after the game.
Thankfully, the Infinity Engine has been refined in Madden NFL 25 and the flopping of players all over the field has been fixed. Instead it works as it should have, with almost every tackle or impact looking different from the last and the characters reacting realistically to being hit. As for the players themselves, the uniforms and everything are nicely detailed and the players look relatively similar to their real life counterparts, though it is obvious that attention to detail isn’t the game’s strong suit.
Despite featuring a fully working physics system when it comes to in-game contact; there still are numerous issues in Madden NFL 25’s presentation. When the engine does fail, it fails badly with players twisting into inhuman positions that would result in either paralysis or fractured legs, and then springing back up like nothing happened. It is also worth noting that there are numerous canned sequences which are re-used ad nauseum. This becomes especially noticeable whenever time-outs are used, a common tactic anyone familiar with the game should know, which results in the same time-out animation sequence again and again.
Audio Outside of the various grunts of players, collisions of bodies, crowd reactions, and the calling of various change-ups before hiking the ball, nearly everything that the player will hear as they play the game comes from the commentary of Jim Nantz and Phil Simms. While the two do a decent job introducing the games and staying on topic, there are countless times when the commentary will be completely off the mark. Commentating about how it may be a team’s first first down despite gaining numerous ones already, mixing up play types and simply being off-base with the events on the field which, considering how cinematic and great looking the game can be at times, is off-putting when paired with generic poorly varied commentary.
In most stadiums there are always your classic songs that are played to rev up the fans in the arena or simply are so familiar with the game that they are impossible not to include. However while there is a standard set of classic sports music found in Madden NFL 25, it is mostly run of the mill rubbish that gamers have either heard way too much in other EA Sports titles or simply don’t match the feel of an NFL game and simply feel recycled.
Overall Madden NFL 25 adds a bit more to the game than what we’ve had in the past and fixes up some of the issues that were previously found in last year’s game, Madden NFL 25 feels like the same game we’ve had before. Outside of an up to date roster, revamped running game and the tacked on Owner option, Madden NFL 25 feels like less of an upgrade and more of a slightly polished title that, while still great at its core, needs to do more than simply eke by with minimal additions.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Majesco have announced that the multi-cultural soundtrack from their upcoming video game, Zumba Fitness World Party, will be released in stores this November. Zumba Fitness World Party lures players into a vigorous and exhilarating adventure; that gives working out at home an entirely new meaning. The diverse compilation of music complements a fresh range of Zumba music and authentic regional songs, with over 40 international hits from Hawaiian, Brazilian and Bhangra rhythms to move your body to.
Mohombi featuring Baby, KMC & Casey – “Do You Feel Like Moving?”
Queen Ifrica featuring Shaggy – “Vibes”
The High Kings – “The Beggarman Jig”
Honorebel – “Caribbean Dream”
Herb Alpert and Lani Hall – “Puttin’ On The Ritz”
Join in the Zumba Fitness World Party; launching this November on Kinect for Xbox 360, Wii U and Wii, and later this year on Xbox One. Check out the official site here to preview the entire soundtrack and pre-order the game!
The 4th Annual Korean Film Festival in Australia (KOFFIA 2013) is about halfway through its run, and we would be remiss not to mention it to our readers. Truth is – from my personal point of view – Korean cinema is second only to the U.S… don’t agree with me? Maybe you just haven’t had the opportunity to watch some of these amazing films…
Well, for those based in Melbourne, you still have a good chance to as the festival hits Victoria’s capital from September 5-11 at the ACMI (Australian Centre for the Moving Image) Cinemas in Federation Square. Sydney-siders also have until August 29 to check out some fantastic films, including the dark high-school mystery Pluto, Park Chan-wook’s inaugural Hollywood foray, the twisted thriller Stoker – starring our own Nicole Kidman – and the caper closer, The Thieves(review here).
Outside of the screenings, there are also special activities, forums, presentations, special guests and other events being held throughout. I got to experience the Joseon Dynasty before a viewing of Masquerade – starring Lee Byung-hun – which entailed the drinking of a Korean sweet rice beverage called Shikhye, a game of Tuho, trying on traditional Korean clothing Hanbok and being treated to a live performance on the hourglass-shaped, double-barrel drums, Janggu. It’s a great excursion into not only the nation’s film industry, but Korean culture itself.
Below you will find the booking/venue information. To buy tickets for any of the upcoming films, you can follow the above screening schedule link. We’re glad to say that Capsule Computers will be covering KOFFIA 2014, which we are very excited about (especially me). Please, if you are fans of film – foreign or otherwise – make it a point to attend a forthcoming session and you will be thoroughly impressed, I guarantee it. Also visit the official blog of KOFFIA.
