After a long beta test with the Fight Game Community, Razer has launched the Atrox Arcade Stick for Xbox 360 featuring tournament grade Sanwa parts. The Atrox opens up to reveal a storage area for extra parts, equipment, cables, and the chance to modify the Atrox to personal preference. The Atrox features interchangeable top plates, 10 tournament grade Sanwa buttons, a Sanwa ball top joystick, a Sanwa bat top joystick top, a 4m detachable USB cable, and a 2.5mm audio jack for Xbox Live chat. The Sanwa parts are built to last for years of intense play.
The Razer Atrox is priced at $269.95 AUD or $299.95 NZD. It will be available for purchase at Razerzone.com on May 21st, in stores in Japan in May 2013, and around the world in June 2013.
It seems Nintendo wants to show off what they have planned for the Spring and Summer in terms of Wii U software and have prepared a Nintendo Direct specifically to show off these plans. Interested in seeing what they have planned, well it would be a good idea to clear out your schedule now because it’s coming soon, like today, Friday May 17th soon.
While this may be a little short notice, hopefully it will have some solid information about new software coming up. Those wanting to join in to watch and see what will be coming down the pipeline from the Nintendo Direct can check it out HERE, when it goes live at 11:59 PM AEST tonight.
Swampy’s world is getting a little more estrogen in it! Allie the alligator is the star of the new Where’s My Water? content pack. The pack contains 40 new levels and several brand new musical tracks played on Allie’s steam piano as players will need to help Allie get her instrument in working order. The musical tracks include classic Disney songs like Bare Necessities. In addition, Where My Water‘s level of the week is the Weekly Rewind, featuring levels from the Lost Levels.
Where’s My Water? costs $0.99 on iTunesand Google Play. The Allie the alligator content pack can be purchased in game for an additional $0.99. There are five free levels to try out the new pack.
CI Games, a fast-growing international publisher and developer from Warsaw, Poland, announced their next title, Lords of the Fallen, today. Lords of the Fallen will be a challenging fantasy action role-playing game. It is being created for next generation consoles and PC, with a target release date in 2014.
Development of the title is being led by Tomasz Gop, who previously worked as the senior producer for The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings. Said Gop,
“Our team is building Lords of the Fallen specifically for players who enjoy taking on huge challenges, where the odds are stacked against them. From the very beginning, Lords of the Fallen will intrigue and satisfy players’ hunger to explore each corner of a brand new world, freely customize and build their own character and take down some of the most epic enemies ever seen.”
Lords of the Fallen will feature advanced combat systems and robust class skill trees. It will be set in a rich fantasy world where the gods have failed mankind and a human named Harkyn will take on a quest to stand against a being known as the Fallen God.
For more information you can check out CI Games official website hereor look them up on Facebook here.
After being announced for the Nintendo 3DS, there wasn’t much else heard or seen about BEYBLADE: Evolution, until now. Hoping to give players a little more about the newest BEYBLADE game, Rising Star Games has just released a whole slew of screenshots, so many it may get players’ heads spinning. Showing off everything from characters, to battles, to parts, to a shot of the map, the screenshots provide plenty of information for those interested in perusing through all of them.
Set to release sometime this Fall, BEYBLADE: Evolution will utilize the features of the 3DS to allow players to control their BAYBLADE through the motion sensors, gyros, and the AR camera. With both multiplayer battles and a Story Mode to unlock plenty of parts to improve their setup, the game looks to be packed with BEYBLADE action. Players wanting to check out the full-sized screenshots can click on any or all of the images in the gallery below.
Ride to Hell: Route 666, the upcoming biker-gang themed romp brought to you by Deep Silver, has gotten a new gameplay “Rockthrough” video.
The video introduces us to the game’s protagonist while showing off a bit both the strategic and action aspects of the game. Beating the stuffing out of a guy is important, but the equipment and formation of your crew can be the difference in life and death.
Ride to Hell: Route 666 will let players experience the whole lifestyle of a biker gang from the rip roarin’ road hogs to the bare knuckle brawling. The game is set to come out later this year alongside two other titles, Ride to Hell: Retribution and Ride to Hell: Beatdown.
For more information you can check out Deep Silver’s official website here. Be sure to catch the gameplay rockthrough video below!
Scurvy Scallywags in The Voyage to Discover the Ultimate Sea Shanty: A Musical Match-3 Pirate RPG (here by referred to only as Scurvy Scallywags for obvious reasons) is best described as a mash-up of a match-3-objects together puzzle game with RPG elements and a pirate themed stage show. If any of those elements interest you then you will be happy to know Scurvy Scallywags will be available soon on the iPhone and iPad.
Scurvy Scallywags is an indie game developed by Ron Gilbert (formerly of Double Fine and creator of Monkey Island) and Clayton Kauzlaric (who was co-creator of the comedy RPG DeathSpank). In this game, player’s move a pirate around the board by matching 3 or more tiles. With each match, the board shifts in the direction you swiped, so you can use strategy to line up your pirate with items you need or avoid enemies who you are afraid to fight.
Players can create their own ship and customise their pirate to their liking as they fight and pillage through four mysterious lands to find the hidden verses of a long-lost Ultimate Sea Shanty. The RPG elements include boosting your stats, acquiring special skills to help you during gameplay and completing side quests. The game also sports 50 humourous GameCenter achievements.
If you want to see all the crazy pirate action for yourself, check out the trailer below and keep an eye out on the App Store in the coming months for the games full release. Ron Gilbert has stated there are plans to port the game to the Android in the future.
Today a release to the Nintendo 3DS has finally made the jump from Japan to Europe and North America from Level-5. Originally released in the GUILD02 collection, THE STARSHIP DAMREY is now available for American and European fans of Kazuya Asano and Takemaru Abiko or dark mysterious adventure games.
Placing the player in the shoes of one who awakes from a Cold Sleep capsule, the game builds immersion through a complete lack of tutorial or guide. Forcing the player to figure out everything alongside the character, the game is designed to get players to progress through their own desire to find out more and their own success at finding out what to do.
As an additional bonus to those players that have bought and played previous releases from the GUILD01 collection, players that have purchased LIBERATION MAIDEN, AERO PORTER, or CRIMSON SHROUD and has save data from any of them will be able to unlock an additional bonus scenario unlocked after completing the main journey.
Player interested in THE STARSHIP DAMREY can find it now on the European and North American Nintendo 3DS eShop for $7.99 (₤7.19).
Hakuoki ~Demon of The Fleeting Blossom~ A Memory of Snow Flowers Studio: Studio Deen Publisher: Hanabee Format : DVD Release Date: May 1st 2013 Price: $34.99 – Available Here
Overview
The Hakuoki series stretches a far ways back. It started out as an “Otome Game” then moved into “Otome” Anime, which seems to be a trend that I’ve only recently taken notice of. Set in Edo japan and based around the life of the Shinsengumi makes this anime seem really cool but something I stress shouldn’t be forgotten is that it’s very much for the ladies out there. Now I’m not too sure about Series 1 or Series 2, Record of The Jade Blood, but this little 6 episode OVA is very much in the “Otome” style.
They seem to enjoy the snow in this OVA. Maybe a little too much…
Story
The actual full back story for the entire series is basically a girl named Chizuru comes to the capital in search for her father, she gets taken in by the Shinsengumi who, after a few events transpire, now welcome her as a friend and, somewhat, part of the team. They, in turn, help her in her quest to find her father all the while making crack jokes about how cute she is and doing all they can to prove they are very attracted to her and not their cutesy, cutesy male counterparts. It’s very much your typical “Otome” style set up. The OVA doesn’t follow that exact story of the rest of the series though. While the characters are the same and the backstory is still there the OVA just focuses around a few days, maybe a week, in the life of the Shinsengumi and Chizuru. The team catches word of a bunch of Ronin who are planning an attack on the Shinsengumi base so what do they do? They dress the girl up like a beautiful geisha and send her in to the “Gentlemans Club” where the Ronin are chilling so she can gather info all the while exclaiming how cute, beautiful, pretty, lovely, [Insert Descriptive Word Here] she is in the costume. Now a lot of things progress and get interesting near the end but I didn’t feel like it was good enough for me to get sucked into it. Maybe it was the 2D character personalities, maybe it was the constant fan service (Flirting…for those girls out there) or maybe it was the fact that I couldn’t understand how such a powerful, historical group was portrayed. Let me say; If you’re going to add the Shinsengumi into a series at least have them be professional and honourable, don’t have them act like children that get starstruck over a young girl in make-up, but then again it is the “Otome” style and it is my own opinion.
This “Demon” doesn’t look so scary. Right…guys?
What I DID like about this little OVA was the way the story was told not the story itself. The characters seem to repeat themselves and you tend to hear a lot of muffled yells and dialogue this is because the story is set over a few days at most but it is told in a very “Pulp Fiction” like manner. Things that characters say in the first episode will be heard through the walls of another room in the fourth episode. That was just an example but you can see why exactly I liked that type of storytelling, it’s very interesting and by the last episode you know what’s going on and what happened in what order. If this show just ditched the “Otome” stuff and did more work on characters it would actually be an awesome series but that’s not something you can change at this point in time and, I suppose, that’s what made the series popular. Once again this is just MY opinion.
Visuals
This series looked fairly nice. The backdrops were good, the characters had fairly good costumes, and the animation was “alright”. It was a very typically-made Anime to say the least. Apart from the fact that this show was almost entirely occupied by the “Pretty boy” Shinsengumi team the actual costuming was good. You got the vibe of historical accuracy and yet also the feel of some Anime flair. They did THAT well. What I didn’t like was the style the characters were drawn in; very pretty, very girlish, very much the fan service the series is known for. The animation was very typical, there was a great deal of talking so the series never got the chance to show any well-animated action scenes though that’s not to say they weren’t given the chance; a lot of the action scenes were shown, literally, behind closed doors. It made it feel lazy.
You’re in Edo, It’s time to brood over Edo stuff.
Audio
Another very basic part of this Anime. The music was traditional so it fit normally, there actually wasn’t a great deal of it though, definitely not enough of it for me to take away and rave about. The voice acting was, once again, “alright” I don’t blame the voice actors because the characters they were playing were fairly 2D, personality wise, so it’s just another case of “They had the chance, they didn’t take it”. The dialogue was very over played; sometimes a character would be too broody or too whiny and it really wasn’t good. I felt that there was no correlation between a characters personality and it’s dialogue. It just didn’t work.
They love Sake and they love complaining. Is that an ancient Japanese thing?
Extras
This is a pretty standard, simple Anime release. The only extras on the discs were the clean opening and clean closing sequences. Kind of disappointing but on the same note I can’t honestly think of something I would’ve liked to see as an extra. There wasn’t even any nice artwork on the flip side of the cover.
She’s cute which is great because she’s SURROUNDED by pretty boys to flirt with.
Overall
Like a lot of these types of Anime it is best suited to a particular audience. It has a lot of things that set it back and really could’ve been worked on BUT the way they told the story was enough for me to not totally hate this show. Some character designs were cool, if not too effeminate, and had flair. Look…watch this Anime if you like the “Otome” stuff, it really is not for everybody but it does have little things here and there that make it bearable. It’s just “One of those” Animes.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Siren Visual have just dropped a ‘monster’ announcement that they will be adding one of the most critically acclaimed anime series of all time to their rich catalogue. That’s right, they have licensed Naoki Urasawa’s MONSTER, an award-winning masterpiece anime series based upon the legendary manga thriller of the same name.
MONSTER, set within Düsseldorf, Germany; tells the story of a Japanese brain surgeon, Kenzo Tenma, who decides to save a young boy’s life over the life of the city’s mayor. This one decision sets a domino effect into motion, with people beginning to meet bizarre and gruesome fates around Tenma. It seems like a ‘monster’ is on the loose.
Siren Visual have outlined that they will release the 72 episode epic over 5 collections starting with the first in November 2013. These MONSTER releases will feature both English dub and English sub with the original Japanese soundtrack. Unfortunately due to the fact that there exists no HD masters of MONSTER, a Blu-Ray release is not possible at this time, so these releases will be DVD format only.
Interestingly enough, MONSTER is also set to be adapted into a live-action TV series by Guillermo Del Toro and HBO. Regardless, this acquisition announcement is certainly huge news for Siren Visual fans and MONSTER fans alike. Be sure to ‘like’ Siren Visual’s official Facebook page for all your latest updates.
