The latest issue of Weekly Shonen Jump manga magazine has revealed two more characters that will be featured in the upcoming Shonen Jump fighting game J-Stars Victory VS. The latest issue confirmed that Jaguar Junichi from Pyu to Fuku! Jaguar and Taro Yamada from Chinyuki: Taro to Yukaina Nakama Tachi will be featured in the game.
Taro Yamada is said to be a playable character whereas Jaguar will be a support type character, which in itself reveals that there will in fact be support characters in the game.
Stay tuned as further characters and details on J-Stars Victory VS are revealed in the lead up to its release later this year.
Plain Sight is a mind bending competitive multiplayer game about suicidal ninjas. Players will race around maps attempting to blow up as many opponents as possible, but must be careful as a greater score will literally make them a bigger target.
Story
Up to 19 robotic suicidal ninjas to blow up. Is a plot really required when the words “suicidal” “robotic” and “ninjas” are all in one sentence? Those who think so will be sorely disappointed as Plain Sight is purely a multiplayer frag fest. The stories that will be retold will be that one time you lost all your point after being ambushed from behind by your best friend at that LAN party, not how one brave suicidal robotic ninja grew up to save a village.
Gameplay
Plain Sight is an easy to learn game that combines features found in modern multiplayer competitive shooters like Call of Duty with simple to learn gameplay. Players will chase each other in a variety of multiplayer maps in an attempt to successfully ram themselves into their opponent, instantly killing them. For every successful kill, the player will collect energy points of their fallen foe and grow in size, until they tower over the map. After a minimum of energy points are banked, players can either blow themselves up in a large explosion and put all the collected points safely in the bank or risk it all by continuing to collect energy. Every time the player blows themselves up, they must collect at least the same amount of energy collected previously to fuel their explosion. Any opponents caught in the suicide blast will multiply the points collected.
As the game progresses, players are awarded experiences that can be spent on upgrades that modify stats things like run speed and meltdown time or add new abilities like repelling charging opponents. These augment the three perks chosen before the game which can turn the tides in a game in a pinch. The perks are on a separate cooldown timer that can be activated with keys 1-3.
There are five gameplay modes. Traditional mainstays like Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and Capture the Flag are all available. Lighten Up is a twist on King of the Hill. The game is a free for all but players must attempt to create the largest explosion on a lit up area of the map. Every few minutes, the lit up area will change and points will be awarded to the largest explosion. The last mode is Ninja! Ninja! Botzilla! One player becomes Botzilla, equipped with a powerful flaming sword that neutralizes the need to charge a dash, and will attempt to kill the rest of the ninjas. The rest of the team must work together to slowly whittle down Botzilla’s size until he dies. Then, a new player becomes Botzilla and the cycle repeats itself. Points can only be scored as Botzilla.
Gamers who suffer from motion sickness will probably want to avoid Plain Sight. The game is wonderfully mobile yet smooth at the same time. It reminds me of the wire-fu movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon on robotic steroids. The twelve maps included with the game are not flat, as players will run around the top, the sides, and even the bottom of the map. Players will jump from wall to wall as they line themselves up for the perfect dash into an opponent. Plain Sight’s action is fast and furious like old school shooters from the early days of PC gaming.
The controls are easy to learn. Anyone who has played a FPS on a PC can pick up Plain Sight and jump into the game after the short mini-tutorial. The basics can be grasped with just the movement keys and left click, the rest will simply make dominating the game easier. Unfortunately there is no way to rebind the keys while a game is in session. This must be done in the game’s main menu.
Plain Sight’s AI make for a good challenge. They are available in three different difficulty levels and can be added to any game to help add some extra numbers to the server. They act naturally and at high difficulty levels become extremely competitive for deathmatch based modes. The AI falters on objective based modes like Lighten Up. Although the AI aren’t a proper replacement for human opponents, they still put up enough of a fight to hone the skills.
Visuals
Plain Sight is rather simple at first glance, but once the game gets moving, the surrounding erupts in colours. Surfaces change colours as players land on them. Robots will trail long coloured ribbons behind them. The visuals are primed to provide to be helpful to the gameplay experience as the colours directly correspond to how much energy a player is storing. The computer requirements are extremely low which provide a smooth experience for anyone with a relatively modern computer.
Audio
The menus in Plain Sight is accompanied with a wonderful jazzy tune, however once in game, Plain Sight is mostly quiet save for the sound of dashes being charged, footsteps, and robots colliding into one another. Some music in the game would have been appreciated. On the other hand, the sound effects feel like a great match to the theme of the game.
Overall
At $4.99, Plain Sight is a no brainer for a quick and easy LAN party game. Although the AI can pose a challenge, the game is simple enough for anyone to master within the first ten minutes of gaming and is just way more fun with friends.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Toys “R” Us are celebrating the launch of Skullcandy‘s popular gaming headset line in their stores with a big event at the famous Toys “R” Us Times Square location with 2012 NBA Rookie of the Year Kyrie Irving. The first 75 customers who purchase at least $79.00 USD worth of Skullcandy merchandise will receive tickets to a special autograph event with Kyrie Irving on September 27th, 2013. Buyers will be able to get their headset or a Kyrie Irving poster signed by the man himself. 75 tickets were made available on Monday.
Skullcandy Gaming’s line of headset includes wired and wireless offerings for the PC, Xbox 360, and the PlayStation 3. Check out our review of the wired SLYR headset and the wireless PLYR 2.
Kenji Inafune has a long and storied resume that includes some of the biggest titles in the industry, such as Mega Man, Onimusha, Dead Rising, and Lost Planet. Lately, Inafune has been leading a new team full of former Mega Man devlopers on a project called Mighty No. 9 with Comcept.
Mighty No. 9 is a throwback to the classic action sidescroller that was dominated by the Mega Man series. The project earned the $900,000 USD needed to fund the project in less than 48 hours on Kickstarter. Since then, the project’s funding has climbed to over two million dollars, enough money to port the game to PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and WiiU.
The team at Comcept seem eager to share the experience of developing a video game with their backers as the Kickstarter Updates are full of concept art, production updates, and interviews with the development team. Interested backers can join the funding drive on Kickstarter. Mighty No. 9 is slated for an April 2015 release for Linux, Mac, Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and WiiU.
EA and DICE’s Battlefield 4 open beta will begin on October 4th, available on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC, but diehard fans can get in days earlier…
Those who pre-order the Battlefield 4 PC Digital Deluxe Edition on Origin, are Battlefield 3Premium members, and registered owners of the Medal of Honor: Warfighter Limited or Digital Deluxe Edition can experience features such as Levolution, Amphibious Assault and more on the Siege of Shanghai map in Conquest Mode and Domination Mode. If you have further questions about the Battlefield 4 beta, please visit this FAQ page.
Also, a new trailer was released today called “This is Battlefield 4 Multiplayer”. You can check out the video embedded below, which highlights the unscripted, dynamic and jaw-dropping moments made possible by the Frostbite 3 engine. Battlefield 4 launches in Australia for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC on October 31st. PlayStation 4 adopters will be able to purchase the game from November 28th, while Xbox One purchasers can do so a week earlier on November 21st.
Today, Lexis Numérique unveiled the very first gameplay video and exclusive new artwork of their upcoming platformer title, Taxi Journey, in development for Wii U, Xbox 360, PS3, PS Vita, iPad, Android, PC, Mac and Linux.
Since the game title announcement in July, the Kickstarter campaign for Taxi Journey has attracted quite a large number of support, with more than 17,000 Facebook fans. The original puzzle and adventure game follows Gino, the taxi driver and his mysterious passenger, Zoe, as they travel through a strange and enticing universe (artwork shown in the gallery below); inspired from the film works of Tim Burton and Havao Miyazaki and game editions of Limbo and Machinarium.
Djamil Kemal, Marketing & Business Development Director, explains the idea behind Taxi Journey: “We love adventure games, we love platformers and we want to do something truly unique. We believe there is room for a side-scroller that focuses on the story, on the characters and connects to players on an emotional level”.
In the 25 days remaining for the campaign, Lexis Numérique aim to reach their goal of $130,000 with the back-up of pledgers and fan community. However, for Djamil Kemal, the Kickstarter campaign is not only about the money, but a social platform for developers to interact with their fans and apply their feedback throughout the entire production of the game.
Ready to be a part of the Taxi Journey? Check out the gameplay trailer featured below and be sure to offer your support!
This weekend, France will play host to one of the most unique and interesting pop culture events ever concieved; The Tokyo Crazy Kawaii Paris Event. The event is intended to spread Japan’s “Kawaii” culture of cuteness and fashion across the globe (and really if you are talking fashion, where better than France). To mark this occasion TAITO Corporation (a subsidiary of Square Enix) have announced that their popular rhythm game Groove Coaster Zero will be teaming up with the character IA from Volcaloid. This isn’t the first crossover that Groove Coaster has had, as just last month they featured a crossover with Puzzle & Dragons.
The Groove Coaster/IA crossover event begins at the Crazy Kawaii Paris Event, but will continue on through to the game’s themselves. At the beginning of the expo, a free playable version the IA cover of ASY’s hit single “See the Lights,” will be available for download in the Groove Coaster Zero app. In addition to the free song, players can also grab the IA Cubeline Pack which contains Volcaloid producer JIN’s (Shizen no Teki P) “World Calling” as remixed by electro dance musician TeddyLoid as well as other IA-themed tracks by TeddyLoid and ASY.
Some of the songs available in the Cubeline Pack for Groove Coaster Zero
Groove Coaster Zero is a music based rhythm game for iOS that was released last November. The game is free to play and is an updated sqeuel to 2011’s hit game Groove Coaster. If this all seems quite confusing to you then don’t worry, it took me a few reads to understand it myself. To get a better grasp on the whole thing (except for why there is a Kawaii fashion festival in the first place) then be sure to download GROOVE COASTER ZERO here. Remember for all the Groove Coaster news as it becomes available, be sure to stay tuned to Capsule Computers
EA have unveiled the soundtrack for FIFA 14, which includes 37 artists from 13 different countries. The full list can be read below, which features artists such as Nine Inch Nails, England’s Bloc Party, Vampire Weekend and Scotland’s CHVRCHES.
The FIFA franchise has always been a showcase for popular, international music, and this year the tracklist is more multinational than ever. Along with the aforementioned bands, there are artists representing Spain, New Zealand, Netherlands, Argentina, Brazil, Panama, Sweden and Australia.
Steve Schnur, Worldwide Executive of Music and Marketing at EA, had the following to say about the talents involved;
Every FIFA soundtrack represents our passion to bring fans together via new music, new genres and new artists. With FIFA 14, we’re excited that rock fans in Spain will discover South London rapper Amplify Dot and UK blues/folk singer Jamie N Commons. American fans of Nine Inch Nails or Grouplove will meet the Swedish electro-pop band The Royal Concept. Australian EDM fans of Empire Of The Sun will be introduced to Brazilian hip-hop via Marcelo D2 and Karol Conka. We’re not only defining the sound of the coming season, we’re creating a whole new world of musical discovery.
Namco Bandai has released the first batch of screenshots and artwork for their free-to-play entry to the Soulcalibur franchise, Soulcalibur: Lost Swords. Fans will recognise two familiar characters, Siegfried Schtauffen and Mitsurugi Heishiro, so check them out below.
Namco Bandai seem to be running wild with their IPs lately after seeing the potential of the free-to-play market and feeling the growing costs of high-budget retail development. Ridge Racer, Tekken and Ace Combat all have a F2P title in the works. Exactly how fans will maintain interest in the long term remains to be seen.
Soulcalibur: Lost Swords is being developed for PlayStation 3 on the PlayStation Network and will be shown at the Tokyo Game Show so stay tuned for new media and info.
Ever since it was released for the dirt cheap price of only $20, Deadly Premonition was something of a cult classic and in recent years it has become nearly impossible to find a copy available for sale. Of course a special version of the game was released recently for the PS3, but we’re talking about the Xbox 360 version here.
Thankfully, 360 owners no longer have to hunt down a copy of Deadly Premonition as XSEED Games has just released the title on the Xbox 360’s Games on Demand service for only $19.99. Also joining Deadly Premonition is Killer is Dead, their most recent release, which goes for $49.99 on the service. Our full review of Killer is Dead can be found here.
