Indie studio THREAKS and Reverb Publishing have today announced the launch date for Beatbuddy: Tale of the Guardians (formerly known as Beatbuddy). The game is scheduled to release worldwide on August 6, 2013 on Steam and is available for PC, Mac and Linux platforms.
Beatbuddy: Tale of the Guardians is the first game released by THREAKS and is a music based action-adventure title that takes place entirely underwater. The story centers around an ethereal blue creature who was awoken to save Symphonia from the evil Prince Maestro who wants to steal music forever. The story will take Beatbuddy through a number of worlds where he will meet other characters that will help him open paths and solve puzzles. One of the coolest features in the games is the unique technology that will sync in game animations with the beat of the soundtrack. The game won first place for Best Art and Best Sound categories in Intel’s 2012 Level Up Game Demo Contest.
Wolf Lang, CEO and Co-Founder of THREAKS had this to say about the announcement:
“Beatbuddy has a compelling cast of characters and we are thrilled to announce the new name and global release date…With talent involved like Rhianna Pratchett, who is refining the game’s already charming storyline, paired with the music of artists such as Austin Wintory, the game has evolved into a true work of art.”
You can grab Beatbuddy: Tale of the Guardians when it releases worldwide on Steam on August 6th at a price of $14.99. Check out the video trailer for the game below.
Car fans that enjoy their video games, especially racing games, who are heading to the Scottish Car Show on July 21st, 2013 are in for a neat surprise as Big Red Barrel are bringing a Faster Than Life video game section to the show; one of the largest driving events in the UK. Featuring retro and beyond, Big Red Barrel will be providing plenty of incentives in the form of prizes to win for those who check out all the games they will have set up completely for free.
With the retro experiences coming thanks to Replay Events and the newer stuff thanks to Big Red Barrel themselves, they will be looking get as many people playing and spreading the word on the two big gaming charities Extra Life and Special Effect. While the exact line-up has not yet been announced, the event sounds to be a lot and fun and be worth the time for anyone going to the Scottish Car Show.
The action-adventure title has received a batch of new story content as well as a new suit for Superman to buy. In the new chapter of Story Mode, General Zod has released the World Engine and only Superman can stop it. Players will get a cinematic cut scene and the opportunity to take down the World Engine. This encounter will also introduce a brand new combat mechanic.
Apart from story content, players can buy the new Skin Suit outfit, pulled straight from the film. It will boost Superman‘s power, health, and damage resistance.
The game is available now for iPad and Android smartphones and tablets for £2.99. The iPhone and iPod touch versions are £1.99.
Overview
In terms of physics based puzzle games, the key to standing out is being unique, fun, and have straight forward goals. The physics puzzle game Storm attempts to fit in and stand out by tasking players with growing trees at specific locations in levels by moving seeds with the elements of nature. Is this enough to make it stand out all the other puzzle games of this type, or will it be a good attempt lost in the crowd?
Story
There isn’t much in terms of story, but there doesn’t really need to be. While no motivation or explanation is given as to why trees are needed in these specific places, there is at least some semblance of progression as the seasons change from Spring, to Summer, to Autumn, to Winter. This lack of story doesn’t subtract from the game at all, in fact because much of the focus is on gameplay, with tips and loading screens providing the only written messages, the gameplay is made the star of the game, which is perfect in this case.
Gameplay
Using in Spring as a tutorial, the main elements players will be using to move the seeds around are explained. With only the three elements of rain, wind, and lightening it might seem like the game will be very simple at first, but there is much more complexity as the game continues. The elements are controlled by aiming with the Left Stick and activating the element, but precision can be a bit haphazard as the sticks can be a bit slow when trying to move about, though not to to the point of making it unplayable. Usage of elements are limited by the charges available, which once used must recharge the ideal way of keeping players from abusing all the elements together or a single one over and over again. Levels start off with only a few charges of specific elements, so that players must collect additional charges to be able to reach the location to plant the seed. While most of the Spring levels are easy enough, this is only because there is so much to introduce, but the difficulty is great for a start of a game.
From Spring the game moves to Summer and with the change in seasons comes a few additional twists. Elements aren’t the only variable as seeds can also vary, so with different seeds from different locations how the elements impact the seeds also change, such as Heavy seeds not floating in rain water, but sink to the bottom and roll with the current. Summer also introduces dry grass, which will catch fire if struck by careless or carefully placed lightening. Both a hazard and a tool to clear the path for the seeds, fire is a fun and interesting addition with its own properties, created by lightening, spread by wind, extinguished by rain. Though Summer is also the first point where players can become completely stuck if they make a really bad mistake, and not even the reset seed button will help, forcing players to restart the entire level. These instances are a double-edged sword, in some ways its good in that it forces players to plan a bit better, but annoying when it is caused by minor controller issues.
Autumn and Winter keep up the method of introducing season specific aspects, tornadoes and snow respectively, and additional seed types, ephemeral and fragile respectively. Tornadoes and snow are both great additional tools and like fire have their own rules how they interact with the elements and seeds. Tornadoes can be used to throw seeds and rocks, but requires planning on how big to make it; while snow has the added benefit of being able to block paths and allow water to pool. The different seeds limit how they can be used, as the ephemeral time out and the fragile will break if players aren’t careful. All these different additions and features make for great puzzles and separating them by season makes provides plenty of variety and maintains a great in-game logic.
Storm does includes the three different game modes of Adventure Mode, Free Mode, and Spirit Mode, though unfortunately much of the variety lies in the seasons themselves than the game modes. Where Adventure Mode takes players through the seasons level by level, Free Mode only allows players to replay those already completed and once Adventure Mode is complete players cannot re-enter it meaning Free Mode is the only way to replay levels. Spirit Mode gives the biggest change, but unfortunately it is not much as it tasks the player with going back through previously beaten levels with the goal of collecting forest spirits instead of reaching a specific point. While this could have made for a somewhat different experience many of the Spirit levels has the player collecting the spirits along the same path as the other modes, while a countdown timer gives a semblance of racing the clock though without any consequence for running out of time. While having great gameplay the first time through, replaying the same levels, in mostly the same way makes the additional modes unfortunately repetitive.
Visuals and Audio Storm does do a fine job at looking good and providing nice background music while playing throughout the game. The visuals all maintain a consistent stylized approach of looking real-ish without being distracting and all the different aspects do a good job of standing out against each other. It’s easy to tell where seeds can be planted, what things can be broken with lightening, and even keeps this up throughout the different seasons even as the landscape changes. Like the changing landscape, the music also changes with the seasons and does a good job of never being too repetitious, though not muting when pausing or bring up the guide can be annoying when trying to turn attention to something other than the game.
Overall Storm is a fun puzzle game with a great variety of aspects and elements that change with the seasons it uses as a theme, while remaining intuitive throughout. While there are some problems, using a controller is a bit heavy handed for more precise aiming and can get in the way sometimes, Storm is a unique physics based puzzle game with plenty of interesting aspects that change with seasons, giving each one a different feel that puzzle fans should be able to get some fun out of.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Episode 19 of CC: Animeis nowlive. Each month, thanks to our good friends and sponsor Siren Visual, we will be giving away a prize in a monthly competition held through CC: Anime.
To win, listen to the podcast for the question and once you have an answer email it in along with your name and address to[email protected]. At the end of the month, a winner will be randomly selected from the pool of entries. The winner will then be announced on the next podcast.
This month, we will be giving away a copy ofPenguindrum Part 2, on DVD thanks to our good friends at Siren Visual. If you have yet to listen to CC: Anime you can do so here.
Listen to the podcast and then send your answer in along with your name and address to [email protected] Good Luck!
Welcome to another episode of CC: Anime, Capsule Computers Anime Podcast! In our nineteenth episode, the CC: Anime crew discuss the latest anime and manga news, the new Evangelion promotions, the Spring seasons best and worst, the upcoming Summer season, as well as answering your questions. We also have a prize giveaway of Penguindrum Part 2 on DVD thanks to our sponsor Siren Visual, find out how to enter here.
Cast: Luke Halliday, Travis Bruno, Frank Inglese and Kane Bugeja
We hope you enjoy CC: Anime Episode 19, be sure to let us know what you think.
We can only hope this isn’t running the minimum spec.
Creative Assembly’s latest panorama of Total War: Rome II, stretching across a mighty resolution of 30,000×4087 pixels, happily reminds us that Egypt was just as chaotic in the past as it is today. You can scroll across and zoom in on the high resolution version hereon the Panoramic page.
Impressive detail aside, the image also shows Rome II’s combined land and sea battles, where your fleet can assist and reinforce your armies in real-time as they ground-pound across the battlefield.
Also on show are the elephant units, seen employed by the Romans to devastating effect. In the heat of battle, these beasts can lose control and trample your own forces so be prudent in their use.
SEGA and Creative Assembly have also outed the system requirements for the latest entry to the Total War series. If you had to free up room for Shogun 2, be prepared to format a drive for Rome II’s 35GB installation size.
The devs promised that Rome II would only be as demanding as Shogun 2, but the requirements are still awfully vague. A 512MB DX9 card may as well be from 2005! They do recommend a 1GB DX11 video card, though, so that alludes to a PC with a fairly recent mid-to-high end GPU.
Be sure to get more info on Rome II right here ahead of its September 3 release later this year.
Nintendo have been dealt a blow, losing a court claim involving the World Intellectual Property Organisation, after an attempt to take control of the already registered domain name WiiU.com. The original owner registered the domain name way back in 2004, well before Nintendo’s original Wii console was even released upon the market. The site was also briefly listed for sale, but quickly removed once Nintendo’s claim had been made.
Despite the domain name’s close reference to Nintendo’s latest console release, the courts decided that the gaming giant had no claim to it, and deemed it to remain the property of the original owner. Whether Nintendo decide to appeal the case, or simply pay the owner a tidy sum outside of court we shall have to wait and see. The team over at Microsoft will also be watching very closely, as they face a battle themselves, trying to claim XBoxOne.com and XBoxOne.net from a London resident.
If you thought our last hiatus on Anime Girl of the Week was mild, then this one had to be disastrous. Anyways, after having some mild back end issues regarding this little feature it is now back! For those who don’t know about what Anime Girl of the Week is, it is where we take one female character from a currently airing anime, usually not the main heroine, and give them some time in the spotlight by going over their personality and history as well as a number of images featuring the character ranging from official artwork to fan art.
This time around however we are actually focusing on the heroine of a series and this series happens to be Hataraku Maou-sama. As you may or may not know, the series just ended with its final episode last week and this time rather than featuring Chiho or Suzuno, we are focusing on the main girl and the hero, Emi Yusa.
It is worth noting that the information found below only features information gleaned from the anime itself and not the light novel it is based off of, but it is worth noting that the pictures may contain potential spoilers for future anime seasons.
Originating from Enta Isla, Emi Yusa is the Hero which was backed by the Church to put an end to the Devil King’s reign of terror. She was raised by a man who she believed to be her father, only to learn that she was in fact a child that is half human and half angel, giving her the powers she needs to take down the Devil King. Her resolve is strengthened further when she learns that the father who raised her as his own was killed and her hometown was destroyed by the Devil King’s army.
After managing to drive the Overlord into a corner, Emi followed him to Japan in an effort to finish him off, but after observing Maou in Japan long enough, her desire to kill him has diminished greatly. So much in fact that she has started to question whether or not he should be killed.
Now that she is in Japan, she is limited in using her special abilities which require spiritual power, but when she does use her powers she is capable of sprouting angel wings and using a holy sword to do battle. Emi has acclimated quite well to Japan and is living a moderately comfortable life working as a Call Center operator.
Despite her past glories and her confidence, Emi is prone to exaggeration at times and plenty of exaggerated facial expressions and often stalks Maou and the other demons in an effort to make sure that they aren’t doing anything bad. Despite being skilled in combat she can be very clumsy at times and has a severe complex about her breast size, causing her to compare her breasts to every female character and often needlessly defending her small chest size.
Currently Hataraku Maou-sama is licensed for release in North America by FUNimation under the name The Devil is a Part Timer! and it can be seen here in Japanese with English subtitles.
Watch_Dogs has been no stranger to publicity, and Ubisoft have taken it one step further by launching an interesting new website by the name of WeareData – which serves the purpose of gathering and graphing the publicly available data that govern people’s lives in a single location. Yes, it is a bit eccentric, but so is the product that this website promotes – so this little page comes off as a perfect fit.
Here are some details of this fully-connected website:
In Watch_Dogs, the highly anticipated open world action game from Ubisoft, the fictionalised city of Chicago is run by a Central Operating System (CTOS), linking all of the city’s online infrastructures and public security installations to one centralised hub. Information is at the heart of the game and also at the heart of WeareData.
With WeareData, visitors will discover that much of the hyper-connected world imagined in Watch_Dogs already is a reality, and that everything and everyone is truly connected. The amount of and potential uses for public and personal information that is readily available online has never been more relevant, as evidenced by today’s headlines. WeareData is designed to provide a glimpse into this reality and to give visitors a new perspective on the cities in which they live.
Watch_Dogs’ WeareData allows users to access the real-time data that organise and help run the cities of Berlin, London and Paris, as well current information on their inhabitants. Via a 3D mapping system, the consolidated, openly available information that can be easily viewed includes public transport schedules (such as subways and public bicycles), telecommunications networks (including mobile antennas, WiFi spots and advertising networks), energy consumption, traffic and safety infrastructure (like CCTV cameras and traffic lights) and regionalised socioeconomic data (such as average net income, unemployment rate and crime rate). Also available are geo-localised social media activities for the cities’ residents, including their public posts on Facebook, Foursquare, Instagram and Twitter.
You can check out three screenshots as well as a production video of the product below, or get in on WeareData for yourself by following this link. Who is watching? We will find out that answer when the game releases later this year on all platforms.
Indie studio THREAKS and Reverb Publishing have today announced the launch date for Beatbuddy: Tale of the Guardians (formerly known as Beatbuddy). The game is scheduled to release worldwide on August 6, 2013 on Steam and is available for PC, Mac and Linux platforms.
