One would think that the announcement of the next step to one of EA and Maxis’ most popular franchises would garner a larger announcement, but it seems that isn’t the case. Anyways, EA announced very briefly that they are now working on The Sims 4 which is set to be released on Windows and Mac sometime next year.
The whole announcement read as: “The Sims franchise is fueled by the passion and creativity of its millions of fans around the world. Their continued devotion to the franchise ignites the fire of creativity of the team at The Sims Studio, driving them to continually improve and innovate on one of the world’s most successful simulation game that has sold more than 150 million copies worldwide.”
More information is set to drop within the next day or two, so stay tuned for that.
Today Sentai Filmworks announced on their Facebook page that they will be recalling any copies of their Blu-ray release of Kids on the Slope which was set to be released this Tuesday, though a number of orders have already been shipped to consumers.
The reason for the recall is an issue with the Japanese language track in episode 11 which causes the track to only play in mono audio. Anyone who receives the Blu-ray version of Kids on the Slope with this issue and wants to have it replaced with a proper copy can fill out the form here to begin the process.
9heads Game Studios started their new Indiegogo campaign for Damned. The studio previously released the 3d puzzle game Vitrum.
Damned is a five person co-operative and competitive horror game. Four players take on the role of survivors trapped inside a haunted hotel while the fifth player takes on the role of the monster attempting to murder the survivors. The survivors must find keys and other items to aid their escape while the monster switches between its ghostly form to scare the daylights out of the survivors and its beastly form to do the actual killing. The location of the objects, final objectives, and some non player controlled scares are randomized, creating a new experience for the survivors each time.
9heads hopes to use raise $54,000 to complete the first floor of the hotel. Check them out on Indiegogo and on Steam Greenlight.
EA Mobileis proud to announce that they have taken six out of 18 slots on the US all time paid iPhone Apps listings. Apple posted the top 25 most downloaded paid apps as they count down to 50 billion iTunes downloads. Plants vs. Zombies, Scrabble, Monopoly, The Sims 3, The Game of Life Classic Edition, and Cut the Rope all ranked on the list, making EA the number one publisher on the listing. EA also took top spots in the UK and Mexican lists.
“We strive to makes games that are fun, engaging and beloved by our fans,” said Bernard Kim, Senior Vice President of Mobile Publishing at EA. “Having more iPhone games on the All-Time Top-25 list is a testament to EA’s commitment to iPhone gaming.”
Check out EA’s full lineup of games for iOS on the iTunes App Store.
Strike Suit Infinity Developer: Born Ready Games Publisher: Born Ready Games Platform: PC Release Date: May 1st, 2013 Price: $6.99 – Available Here
Overview
Strike Suit Infinity is the score chaser based on Born Ready Games’ space shooter Strike Suit Zero. Players can get into the pilot seat of one of three Strike Suits and battle against endless waves of enemies.
Story
Strike Suit Infinity has no story. You will have to use your own imagination to explain the endless waves of enemies.
Gameplay
Strike Suit Infinity shares the same mechanics as its slightly older brother, Strike Suit Zero. Players take control of a Strike Suit that normally looks like a fighter plane. As the game progresses and enemies are destroyed, the player acquires more Flux. The Strike Suit can transform into a humanoid mech that is able to fire off barrages of missiles and powerful short ranged guns. Firing the weapons as a mech costs Flux but the damage dealt in mech mode is far greater than the normal flight mode.
The game hurls round after round of enemies, each round containing several waves of enemies. There are eighteen rounds in Strike Suit Infinity, with the 18th round being an infinite round. Between rounds, a menu display pops up showing the player’s current upgrades, the enemy composition of the next round, and options to hire allies for the upcoming round. Ally pilot level upgrades only last for the duration of the game. To earn new Strike Suits, weapons, and upgrades players will need to rush enemy transports as they spawn and destroy them before they disappear. The game does not make this very clear that this is how upgrades are unlocked, leaving me perplexed for quite some time on how I was randomly acquiring these permanent upgrades. The announcer will inform the player of the incoming transport and recommend that players destroy it for upgrades. With the chaos of an intense dog fight, I actually missed the announcement for several rounds before I actually noticed it. I would have preferred to see a text prompt with this information when the cut scene introducing the transport played.
As a score chaser, Strike Suit Infinity is solid. The action is well paced and can be fiendishly difficult. Coming from an Ace Combat background, I was quickly forced to break out of the habit of zooming around in flight mode slowly whittling down the opposition. Using Strike Suit mode is a quick way to build combos which are the key to high scores and extra credits. Managing the risk and reward of spending credits on allies and their skill levels also turned into a key aspect of the game. A good score chaser should test the skill of the player. Strike Suit Infinity delivers.
Strike Suit Infinity can be played with a gamepad, joystick/keyboard, or mouse/keyboard combo. I tested the game with both the gamepad and the mouse and keyboard combinations. Although the gamepad controls were usable, I found that the game seemed to be better designed for the mouse and keyboard. I would have liked to see the option to invert the left thumbstick while leaving the right one untouched. Using the guns effectively in flight mode is an important part of clearing waves quickly. The gun’s crosshairs have a little bit of movement that is independent of the ships movement. When using the keyboard and mouse, the keyboard is inverted while the mouse maintains the traditional FPS movement. When using the gamepad, either both sticks are inverted or not. For me, I felt really awkward when transitioning from the mouse and keyboard controls to the gamepad.
Visuals
Strike Suit Infinity is an excellent looking game. Veteran mech designer Junji Okubo is behind the Strike Suits’ design. He has lent his imagination to several video games and anime, including Appleseed: Ex Machina and Steel Battalion. The Strike Suits transform back and forth smoothly and the flight modes look as realistic as possible. One minor annoyance is the fact the end of round animation is reused over and over again. Each round takes place in a slightly different area, but the end of round space station looks like it is located at the first level. Graphically, Strike Suit Infinity is looks solid. The game runs smoothly without any sudden drops in frame rate. The UI is futuristic and utilitarian. The cockpit view is a little disappointing as it lacks detail and takes up almost the whole bottom third of the screen.
Audio
The sound effects in Strike Suit Infinity are excellent. Surround sound performs well, as I could easily pick up the direction of oncoming ships from the direction of their warp noises. Allied ships compliment your kills, providing a nice bit of radio chatter. The music unfortunately gets repetitive quickly. When the game picks up intensity, an anime styled song begins to play. It sounds like the same one-minute track played on loop unfortunate and quickly becomes boring. It would have been nice to have a little more variety in the music.
Overall
For $6.99, you get what you pay for. Strike Suit Infinity provides intense dog fighting action against infinite waves. Unfortunately the game could use some more variety in the music and end of round animation departments. Additionally, I would like to see the gamepad controls tweaked. However, Strike Suit Infinity serves as an excellent chance for gamers to check out the Strike Suit series without plunking down the full price for Strike Suit Zero.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Ubisofthave just released a character trailer for player protagonist Silas Greaves in the upcoming Techland-developed Call of Juarez: Gunslinger.
The video, entitled “The Story of Silas Greaves”, features a folk-song – not unlike those speaking of legends from the past such as Billy the Kid – proclaiming Greaves to be “a man legends fear…a four-holstered reaper, crying bullets for tears.” You can view the trailer embedded at the bottom of this article.
Also check out the reveal trailer here. The game comes out on May 22nd for XBLA (1200 MS Points), PSN and PC digital ($17.95), with special pre-order bonuses for an exclusive Uplay edition. There will also be a physical retail copy for PC owners who want something tangible, released the next day on May 23rd.
We’ll pick 3 lucky winners on the 20th of May. Make sure you use a valid email when you register/post your comment so we can email you if you are one of our winners.
Eternal Darkness is one of those games that is etched into my brain forever, a game with the ability to make mess with you, making players jump in terror from demonic incantations and question their own sanity as they wonder if what they just saw on screen was real or a mere hallucination. So it is with great excitement for many that Dennis Dyack (ex Silicon Knights) and the rest of the Precursor Games team have announced that the Kickstarter campaign to fund the ‘spiritual sequel’ will begin in under 7 hours.
Currently planned for release only on PC and the Wii U, the next installment entitled Shadows of the Eternals will be a complete game broken up into 12 episodes, with 1.5 million required to fund the first episode. There is already a lot of eyes on the project that many gamers have been waiting 11 years, since the release of Sanitys Requiem in 2002 to get their hands on. Sanity’s Requiem still sells on average for around $40, testament to the games groundbreaking qualities in the puzzle horror genre. Hopefully funding will come quickly and generously and Precursor can make use of the Wii U’s unique gamepad for another innovative and immersive experience.
For more information head on over to http://www.shadowoftheeternals.com/ and keep an eye out today for the start of their kickstarter campaign.
Microprose’s Special Forces: Team X will be getting a Steam sale starting May 6th. It will be on sale for $4.99 USD for one full week. After that, the game will only cost $9.99. Currently, the game costs $14.99.
Special Forces: Team X is a 3rd person team based shooter that features constantly changing maps, five multiplayer modes, and a unique comics style graphics.
Microprose released the following statement in regards to the game’s rocky launch:
“Initially, the game launched with a bug that could randomly reset character XP under certain conditions, and we deeply apologize to any of our players that had to experience this. However, since then multiple patches have been released on Steam to address the issue and also to subtly alter the play mechanics based on customer feedback, which we believe now delivers a faster paced and smoother experience. We are hoping that this price drop will bring players into the game that may have been scared away by the initial launch problems.”
Rurouni Kenshin: New Kyoto Arc Studio:Studio Deen Publisher: Sentai Filmworks Format:DVD, Blu-ray (Reviewed) Release Date: March 5, 2013 Price:$39.98 – Available Here
Overview: If you were to ask almost any anime fan about the first five anime they watched, a number of them would likely mention the Rurouni Kenshin anime series which aired in North America ten years ago. Now almost a full decade after the series stopped airing, Sentai Filmworks has released a special OVA set created by Studio Deenin 2012 to put a different spin on one of the most popular story arcs in the original anime, the Kyoto Arc. However has this well-known story arc transitioned successfully into a ninety minute OVA release?
Story: Considering the limited run-time of the OVA set, the story picks up rather abruptly by focusing on Misao Makimachi, a member of the Oniwabanshū clan of ninjas. However with the leader of her clan missing and many of their clans’ best fighters missing with him, Misao is searching for the one man who her master was looking for, Kenshin Himura.
Upon finding Kenshin and learning the fate of her clan members, Misao continues to travel alongside Kenshin in the hope that she may still find her master, though by doing so she finds herself embroiled in a plot that may set all of Japan ablaze, starting with Kyoto. With the deadly swordsman Shishio pulling the strings and a number of enemies in their path, will Kenshin and his allies be able to put a stop to his plans?
Trying to determine a target audience for this release is difficult. For those unfamiliar with the franchise, trying to jump in at this point would not only be a confusing mess with almost zero character information provided, only a bit of information regarding Shishio’s plot and barely any context outside of that. For those who have seen Rurouni Kenshin and experienced the Kyoto arc already, they will find themselves immensely disappointed with what is presented here.
Attempting to cram everything from the Kyoto Arc into only a small time-frame means that not only is the storyline poorly handled, even the battles are pathetically handled and many of them have been skipped entirely. Shishio still plays a rather effective villain and his plans to overthrow the Meiji government and his way of thinking certainly make him an intriguing enemy outside of his mummified appearance.
Unfortunately outside of that, there is almost no original content here outside of a change of venue for most of the aforementioned climactic battles. Despite mentioning how this release is a “new perspective” from Misao’s eyes of the events of the Kyoto Arc, practically every important event, including most of the battles, occur quite a distance away from Misao’s actual location.
To make things even worse, the various allies of Kenshin’s are mistreated to such an extent that outside of a brief meet-up, viewers wouldn’t even know that these characters are actually friends and even then, numerous characters which are meant to be developed in this arc barely are referenced but still appear as if viewers should already be expecting them.
Rurouni Kenshin: New Kyoto Arc may be worth re-visiting for the most die-hard fan of the series or those who maybe never experienced the original arc despite catching earlier bits of the series, but ultimately it not only pales in comparison to the original, it barely tells a proper story outside of a few battles which may as well be the lowest-key affairs given the amount of attention paid to them and Shishio’s ultimate plan.
Visuals: If there is one thing that the Rurouni Kenshin: New Kyoto Arc truly excels at, it is backgrounds. While it may be a strange focus, one of the first things that will likely catch the viewer’s eye is how extravagant some of the scenery is in this release. There are numerous locales visited over the course of the series and even when night falls, extra attention has been given to make sure every scene looks its best.
As for the characters themselves, Studio Deen has kept the same type of character designs used in the original series but more modern techniques have been used to create the characters, which means some minor details have been lost in transition but everything is vibrantly presented with bright colors and thanks to the incredible backgrounds, the characters almost always are great looking.
Unfortunately the battles which used to be the highlights of the original Rurouni Kenshin series are poorly represented with this release. Perhaps it is due to the time constraints of the release, or perhaps they were worried about the budget, but nearly every single fight lasts no more than thirty seconds and most of the action isn’t even shown to viewers, instead giving them a “Dragon Ball” effect of characters fighting too fast to be seen.
Audio: Now this release contains both the original Japanese voice work and the new English dub provided by Sentai Filmworks. However the first thing viewers should note is that the voice actors who provided the voice work for the Rurouni Kenshin anime which was broadcast on television were not called to work on this project. Instead Sentai Filmworks has chosen to go with an entirely new English voice cast for the New Kyoto Arc.
Now while this change in voice actors wouldn’t be too much of an issue if it wasn’t for the fact that the dub is sub-par at best. Outside of Misao’s voice actress Meg Bauman providing a decent job, the rest of the characters are voiced so poorly and without any emotion that their characters appear to simply be going through the motions without caring about the events occurring at any given time. The dreadful voice acting means that even though many may wish to check out the English dub, simply sticking to the Japanese voice track is likely the best choice.
Extras: Unfortunately the only extra features included with Sentai Filmworks’ Rurouni Kenshin: New Kyoto Arc are trailers for other Sentai releases and credits for the disc, meaning bonus features are pretty much non-existent.
Overall: Rurouni Kenshin: New Kyoto Arc finds itself in a strange place. Newcomers will be left scratching their heads at nearly everything happening in this release while old fans will be left disappointed by this paltry offering. By forcing a popular story arc into a limited time frame, not only does the story suffer greatly, but even the sword fights are cut to a bare minimum. This is quite a shame however as the New Kyoto Arc is presented with gorgeous animation, character design, and background work and witnessing a longer fight would certainly have helped this release be at least partially decent. Instead the New Kyoto Arc is presented with a poor English dub, a terribly handled storyline and barely anything fans of the series would appreciate or newcomers would understand.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
