Following suit of the North American version of Weekly Shonen Jump, the original Japanese Weekly Shonen Jump magazine is now officially going digitally, with releases coming on the same-day as the print issues of the magazine. This is certainly big news for the manga industry in Japan which has for the most part struggled with the transition into the digital age.
This year’s 33rd issue of Weekly Shonen Jump is now officially the first to be released digitally in Japan, it featured a Dragonball and One Piece crossover as well as the debut of Akira Toriyama’s brand new manga series Jaco the Galactic Patrolman. This issue celebrates 45 years since Weekly Shonen Jump began.
Issues are available in Japan for iOS devices at the price of 300 yen through the Jump Book Store application. This serves as a great counterpart to Viz Media’s English language version of the magazine which is now available in Australia and European regions outside of America. Akira Toriyama’s Jaco the Galactic Patrolman manga will also debut in this week’s English version Shonen Jump, you can see a look at Jaco himself at the top of the article..
A brand new trailer has just been released for the highly anticipated anime crossover film, Lupin the Third VS Detective Conan. The film will star legendary anime thief Lupin the Third along with all his buddies as they go toe to toe with Detective Conan and his crime solving companions.
You can check out the trailer itself below which features Lupin the Third and Detective Conan in a tense confrontation the likes of which anime fans have always dreamed of. This however is not the first time these two legendary characters met, having previously crossed paths in a TV special back in 2009.
The film is slated for release on December 7th, 2013 in Japanese theaters. Who do you think will win this battle? The world’s greatest thief or the world’s greatest detective?
Over the Top Games have been keeping the lid closed on their upcoming project, Full Mojo Rampage. All they have been willing to say is that it is a rogue-like action adventure game.
They are opening the jar of secrets just a bit, having released a classy black and white teaser trailer to stir some excitement for the project. The trailer features our masked hero on the run from an angry mob of enemies until he finds a voodoo doll that turns him into something else.
Full Mojo Rampage is listed as coming soon, but the playable alpha for Windows will be launched some time next week.
Japanese game publisher Nippon Ichi Software has announced a new lineup during the company’s 20th anniversary event held in Yokohama.
Disgaea 4 Return is set to be released in January 2014 for the PS Vita (presumably Japan first), Criminals Girls INVITATION this winter in Japan for the PS Vita and 10 Years of Asagi Project (Asagi 10 Shuu Nen Kinen Project) which is currently only in the planning stages.
There isn’t much info about two of those titles, but Disgaea 4 Return is expected to be an almost identical port of Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten that was released in the west in 2011 for the PS3. Criminal Girls was also a PSP RPG created by Image Pooch and released in Japan in 2010.
NIS previously released a port of Disgaea 3 for the PS Vita, titled Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice. These announcements come soon after the publisher declared it is planning PlayStation 4 games and with Disgaea D2: A Brighter Darkness, a direct sequel to Disgaea 1, given a western release date.
Reality Squared R2 Games and 4399 Studios have announced that they will be launching the alpha phase of their new free-to-play, fantasy browser PC game Eternal Saga. Players can now join in the action on the R2Games platform here.
As the title of the MMORPG suggests, in Eternal Saga players fight as a Warrior, Hunter or Mage to save a world struggling against a demon invasion. Along your journey, you’ll build a unique and powerful skill-set of equipment for your customised character, partake in epic ranked guild battles in single or multiplayer dungeons, and raise pets to fight by your side in Faction Wars.
Eternal Saga draws players into a world full of delightful art, strange environments, such as frozen tundras or subterranean caves, and awesome creatures to grasp their hands on, including the legendary fish.
Explore the legendary adventure better known as Eternal Saga today!
One thing to look out for with this game is the artistic detail that goes along with it. This is a bonus to the fast-paced gameplay that is interesting to see within a turn-based game.
Also of interest is the games website. I don’t think that I’ve ever seen such a brilliantly designed page. My eyes are quite in love.
For anyone looking to try out this game and meet its developers, they can head over to booth #1033 which is conveniently placed near the cafeteria at the event. Be sure to check out the trailer below for more info.
The Walking Dead: 400 Days Developer: Telltale Games Publisher:Telltale Games Platforms:iOS, PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 (Reviewed) Release Date:July 5, 2013 Price:400 MSP ($5) – Available Here
Overview Ever since Telltale ended the first season of their The Walking Dead video game series, fans have been dying for news about what is going to happen next in the series. Will we see the continuation of Clementine’s story or something entirely different? Well until then, Telltale Games isn’t about to leave fans with nothing to do and as such, they have brought us The Walking Dead: 400 Days. Will the shift of focus to five new protagonists and stories provide us with the same quality we’ve come to expect?
Story The Walking Dead: 400 Days is an original story which eventually focuses around a truck stop named Red’s Diner. It’s placement near the highway has seen a number of survivors traveling through and after more than a year has passed since the zombie apocalypse started, many people have left wishes and messages, including images of themselves and loved ones.
Through the use of this board, players will be able to experience the short stories of five different protagonists as they make various decisions occurring at different times after the dead have begun rising. Nearly all of these stories take place within a set distance to the diner and while there is no way to determine when a certain story is set to take place before selecting it, tying together the various events, or playing through in the proper order of days, is one of the intriguing factors of 400 Days.
Each of these stories introduces us to a small cast of characters including the one that the player is taking control of. Unlike the main series however, 400 Days only gives us a snippet of these survivors’ lives and at most only last fifteen minutes at a time. This means that each mini-story is centered on one major event that has occurred since the outbreak, meaning it can be anything from a car accident, stolen supplies, disputes amongst survivors and more.
Being only snippets, and snippets that take place sometimes over two hundred days after walkers have appeared, there is little in the way of character introduction or even a whole lot of growth. Instead, most of these characters interact with one another like people who have known each other for a long time, making their interactions more natural for the situation, which works considering the nature of 400 Days. However with only a short time to know these characters, decision making can be difficult to grasp as gamers will likely feel little attachment to the characters, leading to plenty of wrong decisions being made.
As far as the growth is concerned, player choice continues to play a major factor in 400 Days and while it may be that this is mere DLC, I can see specific decisions factoring in somewhere down the road, especially with the way that 400 Days concludes. These decisions continue to be morally questionable even at the best of times and sometimes there just is no right answer. Do you risk the safety of your group for a stranger? Go along with a potential psycho who may be your only chance?
Everything still plays a factor, even when it comes to small dialogue decisions, which leads to a conclusion that many will probably replay to see how things turn out if done differently. While doing so in the original season may have ruined the continuity of your personal storyline, the short story nature of 400 Days welcomes multiple attempts.
Gameplay Since The Walking Dead: 400 Days is structured around small samples of storyline, it is worth noting that as far as actual gameplay content goes, it is rather minimal. As mentioned before, conversation choices continue to play a major factor and players still have time limits on their decisions. As far as the rest of the game goes, there isn’t too much to be had.
In fact, except for one short story, the rest of the storylines play out a linear set of events that are only somewhat altered by your decisions. This includes simple puzzle solving, some small decisions that may place you in the foggy woods at night with zombies closing all around you, with only a revolver to depend on, or a series of events running through environments and dodging threats.
The Walking Dead: 400 Days also suffers some of the issues that the series has long been plagued with. Once I experienced a glitch where the game simply redded out and stated that I had died despite performing the action correctly, with the proper cutscene playing in the background. These glitches also include a number of stuttering character animations in cutscenes and poor walking animations, to the point of characters gliding across an area without moving their legs.
Visuals & Audio Despite the aforementioned graphical issues with character animation, The Walking Dead: 400 Days continues the trend of the main series by providing gamers with an art style similar to what one may find in the comic books. There are a number of characters introduced and each have a nice variation to their design in one way or another, making them somewhat memorable despite the short time players spend with them.
As far as the voice work goes, it continues to be impressive, especially when you consider the fact that 400 Days had more voice actors working for it, albeit for a much shorter time, than any of season one’s episodes. The soundtrack is more of the same from what we’ve experienced throughout the rest of the original season, which is nice but nothing special.
Overall The Walking Dead: 400 Days had a hard battle to fight with the way things were left at the end of season one, but despite this battle it has managed to give gamers a chance to see how other survivors are living and perhaps an eventual tie-in to the second season. While the divided nature of the storylines, most of which end way too quickly and culminate in a vague epilogue, are quite short and provide gamers only a glimpse at these characters, that glimpse contains the same type of story that fans of the game loved, although these storylines feel like simple introduction chapters that end all too quickly.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Do you like top-down, bullet hell style shooters? what about Japanese anime? than you are in luck! Mamorukun Curse! is just the game you are looking for, and it hits the North American PSN next week!
Originally a Japanese-only game, Mamorukun Curse! follows Mamorukun and several other “Chosen Souls,” on their quest through the Netherworld. They are guided (see: commanded) by Ms Fululu, the wholesomely cute, yet utterly demanding mistress of the realm, who implores our heroes to use their new found Curse Powers to fight their way through, and to seal the gate that separates the Netherworld from the World of Darkness before it’s too late.
You take control of one of these Chosen Souls, in what publisher UFO Interactive (who are well known for Johnny Impossible and Scourge: Outbreak) describes as a “cute ’em up” style shooter. The game has you ducking and weaving around level after level filled with millions of bullets, in three distinct modes of play. It also features competitive online leaderboards, and 66 trophies (including a Platinum).
In addition to the game’s wealth of in-built features, all of the DLC previously available for the Japanese version is being released alongside the game COMPLETELY FREE. This DLC adds:
Alternate Costumes for all 7 characters.
2 Extra “Netherworld Adventures” courses
2 Additional Playable Characters; Nowa and Runiko
Magic Laser Bat-Bullets… Awesome, right?
Over the next few days, UFO Interactive will be releasing new artwork and promotional pictures for the game on their Facebook page, so be sure to check that out. They already have all the character and DLC costume artwork posted, so it is worthwhile taking a look to familiarise yourself with the characters. Also, be sure to check out the trailer below, and get ready to head into the Netherworld.
Mamorukun Curse! will be available to all North American PS3 owners via the PSN next Tuesday, July 16th for $19.99. So for all the Mamorukun Curse! news, be sure to stay tuned to Capsule Computers
They have launched a server for the competition which will result in four of the best teams heading down to Melbourne, Australia on the 19th to 21st of July for a chance to duke it out in League of Legends Oceania Tournament finals. The winning team will be crowned Oceania Season 3 Champion. Following that victory they will be heading to Gamescom in Germany to compete for an International Wildcard spot at the League of Legends World Championship.
This is all very exciting stuff if you are an avid League of Legends fan. Even if you are not competing, be sure to head to PAX Australia to see Riot Games booth for a chance to win some cool prizes and engage in some fun activities. For more information check out Riot Games’ Oceania website here.
Today Tecmo Koei Europe revealed what type of pre-order bonuses will be available for those looking to put money on Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate before it is released in early September. Gamers throughout Europe will be able to pick up a number of exclusive costumes for characters depending on where they pick up the game.
People who pre-order from GAME will net a set of colorful school idol style costumes ,shown above, for Kokoro, Leifang, Hitomi and Mila while gamers who pick the title up from Amazon will net special outfits, see top image, for Kasumi and Ayane. Finally anyone who pre-orders the game through independent retailers in the CentreSoft Group will get sexy outfits, which can be seen below, for Christie, Helena, Tina, Lisa and new comers Momiji and Rachel.
