For the first time ever in the history of the Pokémon World Championships, Australia was host to it’s own Nationals where the top two from each division were flown to Vancouver to compete in the World Championships against winners from other countries such as the United States, France and Spain. While many competitors at the Nationals were from Melbourne, some had won their way over to the sold out PAX Aus event by competing in various battle tournaments scattered across Australia and finishing in the top two of their age division.
The Nationals took place at the Nintendo booth at this year’s PAX Aus, with three seperate age divisions and over 200 players battling it out against each other in either Pokémon Black 2 or Pokémon White 2. The event was all official, with all competitors required to complete a hack check to ensure all entered Pokémon were obtained legally.
The Masters division that took place on Saturday contained anyone born prior to 1997 and was host to over 180 competitors, proving Pokémon isn’t just a kids game. The tournament was a simple knockout format until the final two rounds were reached where the winner from a best of three battle continued on. Starting at 12 and ending many hours later, challenges competed in over 100 battles until a winner was finally crowned. While yours truly only made it to the second round (damn Tyranitars…), others faired better. Placings for the Master Division were:
1st – Ben Kilby 2nd – Hugh Ronzani 3rd – Jordan Bradley 4th – Peter Seo
The Seniors and Juniors division both took place on the Sunday. The Junior division is for any competitors born on or after 2002, but don’t let their young age fool you, these kids really know their stuff and would of given some of the older competitors a run for their money. There were only 10 competitors for the Junior tournament so a Round Robin format was conducted with the top 4 battling off in best of three battles until a winner was found. The results for the Junior competition were:
1st – Nick 2nd – AJ 3rd – Peter 4th – Blake
Finally the Senior division was for anyone who didn’t fall into the other age groups. 32 competitors entered the age group and all battles were conducted as best of three. The standings for the Senior competition were as follows:
1st – Michael Z 2nd – Brent 3rd – Matt 4th – Larry
The tournament was very fun to compete in and observe and I think all Pokémon fans (myself included) hope the Video Game Championships will be making a return next year. Let’s hope some of our Australian competitors can take out the World title in Vancouver in August. Stay tuned to Capsule Computers for all your Pokémon news, including the latest info on Pokémon X & Y which will be releasing in only a few short months!
Those who are looking for yet another solid FPS should be keeping the Source Engine created INSURGENCY on their radar, as the game is truly shaping up to be great. Today, New World Interactive released a brand new trailer, showing off the game that was based on Half-Life 2 – Insurgency: Modern Infantry Combat.
You can watch the clip below, and if you are itching to play this title early, that is an option as the game is available through Steam‘s Early Access program for $14.99, which you can purchase by following this link. If you have ever wanted to be a part of a PC game’s development process, now is your chance.
PAX Australia 2013 has showcased some of the best, local indie projects. The ANZ Indie Pavillion was constantly bustling with activity, but there was one other title that garnered much attention and praise throughout the event, detached from the “indie alley” as it were: a top-down, paint gun shooter called Painters Unite.
Located right next to the entrance to the expo hall, and besides the apparently lone ATM machine on the grounds, Canvas Interactive couldn’t have been more pleased with their positioning, and it’s an especially good thing because their game-in-progress certainly deserves those eyes on it. Painters Unite looks to be on the path to becoming a fully-fledged, fun multiplayer game that puts a twist on the “infection” game-type and the shooter genre itself. There’s no killing here – only painting and converting. To get a better idea of the concept, its development and the studio’s future plans, I conducted a brief interview with Creative Director James Betar.
Let’s start off with the obligatory ‘tell us about your studio and how it got started’?
It started out while I was a lecturer, and I had this awesome idea and realised I don’t have anywhere near the skills to be able to program and do the art and all of the level design, so I began recruiting my expert team and we’ve all been working on blood, sweat, tears and passion and got it to the point it is today on effectively part-time. I’m pretty proud of the team so far and what we’ve got.
So tell us the basic concept for the game.
So the basic concept for the schoolyard kids who remember, was sort of like schoolyard tips. Essentially, each player on the default mode starts off on their own team and the goal is paint your opponents enough to convert them onto your team. Last man standing gets a bit of a power-up as sort of a last ditch effort for their team. And beyond that we’ve got lots of supplementary mechanics like a shower for health, ammo power-ups around the level, different weapons that you can unlock based on your performance in the map, and soon we’re going to have different modes like “chase the invisible guy”, painting buildings for territory control and a few other bits and pieces like that.
How would you be scored in the game? I’m assuming – seeing as there’s the possibility that you could just as soon be converted to another team multiple times over – that it’s not team-based scoring?
It’s not team-based scoring, no. So you have individual scores regardless of what team you’re on, but we are gonna have other bonuses and unlocks based on long you can stay on your team, how many players you can convert and all that kind of stuff.
You’ve mentioned future modes like the “chase the invisible man” – is your mind racing with ideas of what else to do with this theme? Have you got more in the pipeline that you’re just waiting to try out already?
Oh there’s tons of stuff coming. I’m sure once we release, I’ll have three other expansions in my brain and starting to get on paper and on screen straight after that.
Are you guys considering an iOS/mobile version down the line?
We’re thinking about it…
What engine did you use?
UDK (Unreal Development Kit). All UDK. So first Steam, then console, and then we’re thinking about making an adaptation of the game for mobile, but that’s probably the last slate.
I went to the Indie Showcase Panellast night and some of the panellists were talking about how tough it can be to even get on Steam through Greenlight. Are you guys readying for that?
Because of what we know about Greenlight and that whole process, we want to make sure that we’ve got enough behind us so that there isn’t a fall off of interest. We want to be almost ready for market by the team we get it on Steam so that we can get people playing it and just push it over the finish line.
How long do you think further development will take on this before it’s ready for that release?
Well, here’s my plug: depending on funding – for all the readers – we’d love to be able to get some funding which would help us accelerate the production. Ideally, we’d want to be hitting beta – closed beta most likely – by the end of the year and sort of aiming for release sometime during 2014.
In terms of those potential funding avenues, where are you looking as the primary (or preferred) source?
We’re looking at getting a publisher. So not giving away the company through ‘angel investors’ or anything, but getting a publisher to ideally give us some seed funding and then help us get a bit more presence when we actually go to market. That’s the goal.
I guess to wrap up, let’s maybe give everyone a pitch of sorts on why this is a fun game and why they should check this out when possible down the line.
This is a fairly accessible, online multiplayer game, and instead of the whole death and violence paradigm, we’ve chosen something more collaborative. So instead of death and violence, it’s more about team collaboration, dynamics teaming, keeping things vibrant and fun, and we’ve found that we’ve actually engaged a range of demographics, from the 10-14 – just for the fun and accessibility of the whole paint idea – but the older players really love the competitive nature of it, which is still a big emphasis for us. So come one, come all – lots of demographics are getting a lot out of it.
We look forward to seeing more from Canvas Interactive and the unique Painters Unite. You can visit their Facebook and Twitter pages, give them a ‘like’ and a ‘follow’ and keep an eye out for the beta, hopefully later in the year.
Going into Comic Con, X-Men: Days of Future Past was definitely the film that was on everybody’s mind. With The Wolverine around the corner (click here to enter our competition to win a double pass to see it), X-Men and Mutants are at the forefront of everyone’s mind. Knowing this, Bryan Singer, the director of the upcoming mutant epic gave the fans what they wanted!
First up we were treated to our first official cast-shots, which you can see below. These cast shots show Professor X (Patrick Stewart), Magneto (Ian McKellen), Colossus (Daniel Cudmore) and BISHOP! (Omar Sy). These characters are from the future timeline and are in a world where mutants are hunted mercilessly. To adapt, they have donned suits of armor and look absolutely badass.
Furthermore, a sizzle reel for the upcoming movie was shown. The reel focused on Professor X (Stewart) and Wolverine (Hugh Jackman). Xavier is wearing the armor which you can see above, and Wolverine’s hair has the grey streaks that he had in the original comic book series. Professor X tells Wolverine “You have to do for me what I once did for you … We must end this war before it ever begins.” From here Wolverine wakes up in his younger body (looking exactly like you expect him to). The footage then cuts to the younger mutants, Including a beaded, manic looking Professor X. Stewart’s voice is heard again, telling Logan “I was a very different man then … Lead me, guide me.”
There is more to it, but I don’t want to spoil the rest for when the trailer is eventually released online. Suffice to say it is incredibly well put together and it is already the makings of an absolute champion of a movie. After the sizzle reel, some of the stars answered some questions, and some interesting bits of information surfaced. After months of speculation, Peter Dinklage has confirmed that he will be playing Bolivar Trask, wealthy industrialist, anti-mutant extremist, and inventor of the Sentinels.
That right there is a massive amount of news from one tiny afternoon, and I barely scratched the surface. Needless to say, X-Men: Days of Future Past delivered as a Comic Con panel, and will hopefully continue to deliver a stand out movie. Stay tuned to Capsule Computers for all the X-Men news as it becomes available.
Considering they purchased them over a year ago now, many of you likely know that Tecmo Koei purchased Atelier developer Gust and it seems that they are going to be taking advantage of Gust’s library of games when it comes to adding more characters to their re-release of Warriors Orochi 3.
Today Tecmo Koei revealed new screenshots for Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate which show off Sterk, from Atelier Meruru, in action as well as two new fighters by the name of Yinglong and Mae Tamamo and a handful of Halloween costumes that will be an early buyer bonus. Could this mean we’ll see some type of Atelier Warriors game in the future? Possibly.
About a month ago, Saint Seiya: Brave Soldiers was announced for Europe, Mexico and South America as well as Japan, leaving gamers in North America left in the dark, a rare occurrence in the game industry. However it seems that fans of Saint Seiya in North America won’t have to worry about importing the title, since it has been confirmed that Namco Bandai will indeed be bringing Saint Seiya: Brave Soldiers to North America.
In a discussion with Siliconera at San Diego Comic-Con, a Namco Bandai rep said that Saint Seiya: Brave Soldiers will be released as a digital download in North America and the reason for this is to gauge the fan-base of the series in the region.
This week’s Deal of the Week is a no brainer, Steam’s Summer Sale. This event is probably the star of the summer season, with thousands of games on discount. The sale caps off on Sunday, but traditionally Monday is an encore day of some sort.
Amazon is price matching many of the titles that are on sale on Steam. Many of the indie titles have an added bonus of not only including a Steam key, but also the DRM-free version of the title.
Get Games is running their Get Loaded deal this weekend with the theme of indie games. Buyers can purchase four games for $8.00. Almost all the titles are DRM free, the rest are non Steam keys. Some of the best titles include Cognition Episode 1 Hangman, Gemini Rue, The Basement Collection, The Binding of Isaac, and Lunar Flight.
Ever since it was announced as a Xbox One exclusive, many gamers have been a bit concerned about whether or not the series will still be the same one they fell in love with. Well, today Capcom has released a video documentary as well as some gameplay footage of Dead Rising 3 and it looks like the random action and weapons available to players will still be available.
The video can be seen below and while the developers discuss the numerous enhancements this version of Dead Rising will have over past iterations, we also see that players can dress up like a wrestler to perform wrestling moves on zombies, run around in a banana hammock and much more.
Today at San Diego Comic Con during the Warner Bros. panel discussion, the news that gamers all over the world have been waiting for was announced; The Warcraft franchise (more specifically World of Warcraft) is being adapted to a big budget Hollywood movie.
The movie, simply titled ‘Warcraft,’ is set for filming next year for a 2015 release. Duncan Jones, who is known for his work on Moon and Source Code will be jumping into the director’s chair (Sam Raimi was previously attached to direct but left the project in favour of Oz the Great and Powerful).
The movie has been in a kind of limbo since 2009 with directors being added and leaving the project and it looked like it would never fully get off the ground. In January of this year there were rumblings about the film and about Jones’ involvement as directior, and these were confirmed to the world when Jones too to the stage to show off his sizzle reel for the movie.
The reel was a mixture of live action and special effects, and took place in a field outside what resembles Hellfire. The reel had a human warrior drinking a potion before drawing his sword and going toe to toe with an Orc wielding a hammer.
I’m not a big Warcraft guy, but even I know how big this is for the gaming community. What do you think; is Warcraft going to be an epic adaptation? Where do you think they will go with the movie? Let us know in the comments below, and as usual stay tuned to Capsule Computers for all the video game news as it becomes available.
Square Enix‘s take on the Tomb Raider franchise was one of this year’s smash hits. It gave us a more grounded Lara Croft, who we could like, relate to and feel sorry for, while also making combat and exploration and fluid and fun experience.
With the success of the game (check our review here), and the related film currently in development, many people assumed to hear either news about said film, or about a sequel to the game. While we didn’t quite get that, we did get news that Lara Croft’s adventures would be continuing off in an ongoing comic book series.
The series is being penciled by Gail Simone, who is no stranger to writing strong, independent heroine stories. Having received critical acclaim for her work on Wonder Woman and Birds of Prey, Simone spends most of her time now writing the current volume of Batgirl. Add Lara Croft to that list and you have yourself one feisty collection of femme fatales.
Click here to see the cover for Tomb Raider #1
The book will be published by Dark Horse, which is a company that has never been afraid to tackle darker or more mature themes. The story takes place a few weeks after the conclusion of the video game and is being planned to lead directly into the eventual sequel (which also implies that a video game sequel is in the works).
No artist has been announced yet, but expect an update in the near future. Tomb Raider #1 will be on the shelves of your local comic book store on February 26, 2014 so be sure to pick up a copy. For all the Tomb Raider news as it becomes available, stay tuned to Capsule Computers.
