If you’ve played any of the other games in the Pokemon Rumble Series you’d know that certain passwords get released every week or so at the beginning of the games run, Pokemon Rumble U is no different. We’ve missed out on the first few couple weeks of releases but the passwords are still valid, and will be for a while, and we have a list of the up to date releases below:
Garchomp – 51830476
Hydreigon – 69283763
Serperior – 10986334
Dragonite – 11009560
Zoroark – 13540269
Piplup – 19876976
Chandelure – 94720173
Elektross – 28563923
Bulbasaur – 74465213
Stunfisk – 98993224
Snivy – 20448123
Snorlax – 71098343
Charizard – 26495673
Oshawott – 63664750
Nintendo has released details on the games file size, it will be 832.5MB big and the save game file will be about 16MB. This will allow the game to be downloaded on both the Wii U Basic edition as well as the Premium edition because it does NOT require an external hard drive to house the data. The game is planned to go live on Wednesday at midnight so keep an eye out on more news on the game as it comes.
Another week, another episode of CC Unplugged. This week, Dustin Spencer, Luke Halliday, and Travis Bruno come together to discuss a heap of Nintendo news, including the Virtual Console release of Earthbound and the upcoming sequel for “A Link to the Past“. For our topic, we talk about licensed games and how important they are for the industry, as well as go through some past history of the best and worst from the genre.
We also have yet another GIVEAWAY! For this episode, we are giving away a Virtual Console code for Super Mario 64. To enter, just listen to the podcast and send the answer of that magical question to [email protected], with a subject line that reads CONTEST ENTRY: SUPER MARIO 64 with your name in the email itself (as we will read the winner next week). Simple as that!
Get your license ready, tell your friends, and be prepared to get UNPLUGGED!
Special Mention to our partners over at Razer, us here at Capsule Computers we are geared by gamers, for gamers. Check them out on Twitter and Official Website.
God Mode Developer: Old School Games Publisher: Atlus USA Platform: PC (Reviewed), PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 Release Date: April 20th, 2013 (PC/Xbox 360), April 23 (PlayStation 3) Price: $9.99 USD or 800 MSP Available here for PC and here for Xbox 360
Overview
God Mode is Old School Game’s third person co-op shooter for Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. The game is a throwback to old school shooters where players fought off hordes of the undead and demons instead of fighting a war in a generic Middle Eastern country.
Story
God Mode is light on the story, instead having a simple premise and a variety of darkly funny ways the player met their untimely end. The player has died and is now in Hades or “hell in a toga” explains the narrator. Now the players must navigate ancient Greek and Roman themed mazes while fighting off the undead hordes to escape Hades and become an immortal. Most of the stories of the player’s untimely demise range from “Wow, I feel bad chuckling at this” to downright funny, but a few fell into the not funny category.
Gameplay
God Mode is a simple third person co-op shooter. There are some extensive player customization options including a variety of skins, weapons, and abilities. All the classic weapons spanning multiple genres of shooters make an appearance in God Mode including the shotgun, assault rifle, plasma pistol, rail gun, and crossbow. The weapons have seven possible upgrades that are limited by level and cost in game gold. Each player has access to a variety of abilities that can be activated when the player’s rage bar is filled. The abilities effects are varied in their utility. Co-op players can choose teamwork friendly abilities like Salvage or solo players can opt for abilities like Shield that protect them for a limited period of time.
The weapons and skills require a hefty amount of experience and gold to purchase. Although I found it reasonable to hold back the weapon upgrades and skills until the player achieved a certain level, I found locking away the different weapons in the same manner was rather frustrating. Weapons of choice is an extremely personal decision. What benefits one player’s play style may hinder another. In the beginning, Players are stuck with a submachine gun and a double-barreled shotgun and slowly grind out the necessary gold and experience for other weapons.
Five maps ship with God Mode. Each map is broken up into several small sections where several waves of undead horde are thrown at the players. Being an old school styled shooter, the regenerating health system made popular by Call of Duty 2 is out the window in favour of traditional health and armour pickups. Health, armour, and ammo can be picked up at set places on the map or found from the corpses of dead foe. Occasionally bonus gold is appears on the map after a breakable object like a pot is destroyed or a large enemy like a Minotaur dies. At the end of each map, players are teleported into a peaceful temple with respawning gold pickups and friendly fired turned on. These either turn into a no holds barred firefight for every bit of gold or a polite run around the room.
There is a large variety of enemies to do battle against visually, but end up breaking down to mini bosses, chargers, melee, and ranged enemies. Although the player can roll out of the way of incoming attacks, the gameplay often boils down to backpedalling endlessly while firing round after round of projectiles into the enemy. Boss fights had very little to make them unique beyond being a bullet sponge.
God Mode has several modifiers that make the game more interesting. Each section of the maze has a Test of Faith modifier that can range from silly to helpful to downright deadly. Similar to Halo’s skull modifiers, Oaths provide an experience and gold bonus at the cost of a challenging modifier like less effective health pickups. These modifiers help breathe a little life in an otherwise bland shooter.
I am not sure if Old School Games set out to reinvent the wheel or never picked up a modern shooter made in the last 10 years when designing the controls. PC players will need to go in and change the default keys right away as keys as the default binds are non-standard. The slider bars seem to have lives of their own. One would expect that when clicking on a slider bar, the slider moves to where the mouse pointer is or the closest notch. Instead, the slider moves where ever it feels like and the mouse button needs to be held and dragged around until the slider falls into place. There is no rhyme or reason in the response of any slider in the options.
After the poor experience I had with the PC controls, I figured that maybe the controller would provide a better experience. I was sorely disappointed. Console shooters these days tend to follow three basic layouts, Call of Duty, Halo, or Gears of War. God Mode provides two layouts available in right or left handed modes, a strange default one and a FPS layout that vaguely resemble Call of Duty’s control scheme.
Visuals
God Mode looks good. Ancient Greek and Roman mythology heavily influence the design of the maps and enemies. The game runs smoothly on the PC without any frame rate drops. There are a wide variety of character customization options, but most of them are rehashed versions of a small handful of base designs and they are almost all locked away behind level and gold requirements.
Audio
God Mode’s audio experience is excellent until other players are involved. The narrator reminds me of Hades from Disney’s version of Hercules. The sound effects sound great and the background music works. However, the terrible VoIP implementation makes playing with random players extremely irritating at times. There is no option for push to talk microphone controls or way to disable the in game VoIP in favour of third party solutions like Teamspeak or Mumble. Instead the microphone defaults to whatever Steam uses as the microphone and transmits whenever it hears sound. Even worse is the fact players can only be muted in the lobby. I could not figure out how to mute players while in game. The crowning failure of God Mode’s audio is the fact the VoIP sounds laggy no matter how good the connection. Players cut in and out and carrying on a conversation is practically impossible. Considering the game is billed as a co-op shooter, the terrible VoIP is inexcusable.
Overall
God Mode had a lot of potential to be a fun arcade shooter. The ideas were sound, but Old School Game fell flat on their face on execution. Although the game has some sound ideas, the lousy controls, terrible VoIP implementation, and boring gameplay hamstrings God Mode.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Alongside Flowers of Evil, Sentai Filmworks also announced the addition of the first season of Uta no Prince-sama to it’s roster of anime. The plan for the 13-episode series is that it will be released and available on select digital outlets in the not-too-distant future and, like always, a home video release is slated for sometime later on this year.
Uta no Prince-sama features direction by Angelic Layer‘s Koh Yuh, series composition by Nodame Cantabile‘s Tomoko Kanparu, and character designs by Mitsue Mori.
The synopsis from Sentai’s press release:
When Haruka gets the chance to take the entrance exam for Saotome Academy for the Performing Arts, it seems as though she’s one step closer to her dream of composing songs for her favorite singer, Hayato. However, this is no gleeful high school musical experience, and Haruka’s hiding a dreadful secret that may silence her musical ambitions forever. And even if she does get into Saotome, the competition will be more brutal than going on Japan’s Top Idol! That’s because, as a writer, Haruka could be paired with any one of six radically different male singers. Will it be upbeat Otoya, serious Masato, flirtatious Ren, split-personality Natsuki, optimistic Syo, or the unapproachable Tokiya, who’s rumored to be Hayato’s brother? And just to make things more complicated and awkward, writers and singers are expressly NOT allowed to become romantically involved! Can one girl and six handsome young men learn to make beautiful music together in a strictly Platonic sense? They can if the oddball staff of Saotome, most of whom are current and former idols themselves, have anything to say about it in Uta no Prince Sama!
At the Infinite Stratos All Night Festival event, it was confirmed that the series is to receive a second season. It will be a continuation on the previously released season, adding the characters Takenashi and Kanzashi Sarashiki from the original light novels.
Yasuhito Kikichi will once again direct the series at Studio 8-Bit, but Kumi Horii (Zone of the Enders) will now handle the character designs. Mechanical designs will be handled by Takeshi Takakura and CHOCO, who also took over illustration of the light novels. The score will once again be produced by Hikaru Nanase. Overlap has also announced that they will resume the light novel series as a part of the “Infinite Stratos Reboot Project.”
We previously reviewed Infinite Stratos season 1 which you can see here. Check out the videos for season 2 below.
Announced during their panel at Supanova Pop Culture Expo Gold Coast, Madman revealed several new acquisitions. The series acquired are:
My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU:
“Hachiman Jikigaya is a antisocial high school student with no friends or girlfriend and as a result has a distorted view on life. When Hachiman sees his classmates talking excitedly about their adolescent lives he mutters “They’re a bunch of liars”. And when pressed about his future dreams he replies “Not working.” However things start to change when a teacher forces Hachiman into the volunteer “service club” and he encounters the school’s prettiest girl, Yukino Yukinoshita.”
Sankarea:
“Chihiro Furuya is obsessed with zombies, to the point that he dreams of his first kiss being with a zombie girl. When he unexpectedly gets to know a sweet girl by the name of Rea Sanka they work together to resurrect Chihiro’s pet cat Baabu. But Chihiro soon discovers that Rea wants to escape from her responsibilities by becoming a zombie herself and plans to use his “resurrection potion” to do so.”
Psycho-Pass:
“It’s the near future where it’s possible to instantaneously measure and quantify a persons state of mind, personality and probability of committing crimes through a device installed on each citizen’s body called a Psycho-Pass. When a person’s “Crime Coefficient” index is too high the enforcement officers of the Public Safety Bureau’s Criminal Investigation Division are called in to pursue and apprehend the person in question, with lethal force if necessary. It’s the near future where it’s possible to instantaneously measure and quantify a persons state of mind, personality and probability of committing crimes through a device installed on each citizen’s body called a Psycho-Pass. When a person’s “Crime Coefficient” index is too high the enforcement officers of the Public Safety Bureau’s Criminal Investigation Division are called in to pursue and apprehend the person in question, with lethal force if necessary.”
(Check out some first impressions of episodes 1 & 2 here)
Madman will begin streaming My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU in the Madman Screening Room beginning April 25th. There has been no word on when the other series will be aired, other than that Psycho-Pass will be aired “in the near future.”
Attack On Titan has blown up in popularity recently with the introduction of the new anime, only in it’s third episode, and some awesome merchandise releases people are going absolutely nuts, so much so that people seem to have forgotten about the live-action adaptation that has said to have been in the works. The new project’s teaser site has confirmed the rumors of talks from last year and the movie is now pushed back to 2014 but it’s still coming! Hopefully nothing happens to stop it’s production…once again.
December of last year, Tetsuya Nakashima, director of the critically acclaimed movies Confessions and Kamikaze Girls was taken off of the project. Nakashima was removed due to disagreements between him and the films producers over the script.
In September 2011, the City of Itako website posted an October 3 casting call for 80 “healthy male and female extras to play the part of people fleeing in panic from giants who suddenly appear in a peaceful shopping district” which was seen as an early reveal of Nakashima’s existence when a local business man Tweeted about what was currently being filmed.
Only recently the Nintendo3DS eShop (Japanese) began streaming a trailer for the newest Pokemon game to be released which is Pokemon Rumble U. The latest in the Pokemon Rumble series Pokemon Rumble U will be set for release on the Wii U and will be the first Pokemon game to be released on the new console.
This game is a a successor to the two Rumble games that came before it; the original Pokemon Rumble which was released in 2009 as a Wii Ware game and Pokemon Rumble Blast that was released in 2011 for the 3DS. Much like the other games the gameplay and story revolve around Pokemon Toys that are brought to life and, in turn, pretty much become real Pokemon. The story in the latest game is about a bunch of Capsule Toys who accidentally fall into a river and get lost in the wild, the toys then set off on a wild journey back to the Pokemon Shop that they call home.
What set’s this game apart from the others is that physical figures, replicas of the in-game Pokemon toys, can be bought and used with the Wii U’s Gamepad. When the physical figure is placed on top of the GamePad, the built-in NFC, or Near Field Communication, sensor will detect the toy and place that particular character into the game itself to be used as a character. This may remind you of what Activision did with the recent game Skylanders not too long ago.
Both the game and figures go on sale Wednesday. The game will cost 1,800 yen or about US$18. The physical Capsule Toys will be distributed nationwide to all the different Pokemon Centers and they will go for 200yen or about US$2 each. For the people who pre-order the download card for the game at a Pokemon Center will receive a special Pikachu NFC figure as a bonus.
Officially us here in Australia have barely gotten a whiff of information on whether or not this game and it’s figures will be hitting our shores but considering both Pokemon and this style of gameplay (Skylanders) is just as popular here as it is overseas I can’t help but think we’ll be getting our hands on this soon.
Now go check out that Promo Video in our Featured Video section below and don’t forget to hit up our comments section and drop us a line!
Razer Carcharias Manufacturer: Razer Platform: PC, Xbox 360 Price: $69.99 USD Available Here
The Razer Carcharias is Razer’s entry-level headset. It is a full sized over the ear closed headphone with a unidirectional microphone. The Carcharias is designed for use with the PC and Xbox 360.
The box greeted me with a wonderful surprise. Razer took the extra step to provide all necessary cables for the Carcharias to work with both the PC and Xbox right out of the box. With the introduction of HDMI during the older and fatter days of the Xbox 360, owners were suddenly needed an extra audio cable to access the RCA or optical out. Things did not get much better when the Xbox 360 Slim was released. Although an optical out port was now found in the back of the console, those who used stereo speakers or headphones still needed to purchase an extra dongle. In the box, buyers will find the usual Razer paperwork, a chat cable for Xbox Live, and the dongle required to connect the Carcharias to the Xbox 360 when an HDMI cable is connected. The dongle is a great pack in considering they usually cost a couple of dollars at bare minimum on sites like Monoprice or DealExtreme.
The Razer Carcharias has an extremely generous 3 metres of cable that should have no problem reaching most home entertainment or PC set ups. The in line remote is located almost a meter down the cable and has three dials to control the game volume, chat volume, and bass level. Additionally, the jack for the Xbox Live chat cable and a switch to mute the headphones are located here. A green light that signals the status is also located on the in line remote, on means the microphone is recording and off means mute. I really liked this feature as I could quickly glance in a darkened room to see if my microphone was muted or not. I did not like how far down the in line remote was located down the cable. Sitting up on a computer chair, the in line remote would fall onto the ground. Although this is less of a problem for couch or recliner sitting console players, this can spell an early death to swivel chair using PC owners. In the span of my testing, the Razer Carcharias encountered a few brushes with death under the wheels of my chair.
The headset is extremely light, something that is actually good in a gamer’s headset. I could wear the Carcharias on my head for hours at a time with no discomfort. There is a generous amount of soft padding on the top of the headphones. The clamping tension is on the lighter side of the spectrum, opting to rest the weight on the top of the headphones. The size of the headset is easily adjusted and there is lots of room for the smallest to largest of heads. The ear cups are rather shallow, so the ears will rest against the inside surface. The padding around the ear cups is soft and is covered with a comfortable velour or microfiber type material. The headset allows moisture to escape, allowing for long gaming session without sweaty ears.
The sound quality is very good for the headset’s price range. The bass reproduction is excellent. The highs are decent but the mids struggle a little in comparison to the excellent bass. The adjustable bass levels span allow the bass to go from practically non-existent to overwhelming. Like many of Razer’s auidio offerings, bass heavy music genres like dance music and hip hop shine.
The biggest problem with the Carcharias’ audio quality is the noisy in-line amp. When no audio is playing, there is a very audible hiss. When there is music or an intense gaming session going, the hiss is inaudible. Because the headset is designed for the Xbox 360, some sort of in line amp is required. Some level of background noise is expected for a headset of this price range, but I found the Carcharias to be one of the louder headsets of this type I have listened to.
The game volume and chat volume switches only work for the Xbox 360. There is no onboard USB soundcard on the Carcharias. This means it is impossible to independently adjust the volume of VoIP applications and games as both programs feed through the 3.5mm audio cable. The only way around this problem is to plug in an Xbox 360 controller into the computer and route the VoIP’s sound through the controller.
The microphone is unidirectional and can be moved up out of the way when it is not needed. The microphone boom itself has a small area that can be bent to adjust the angle of the microphone. Since the microphone boom is a little short, there is no need for an external pop filter. The microphone is a hit or miss depending on the platform used. On the Xbox 360, the microphone performed well. The volume was spot on and was clear. When plugged into the PC, the microphone emits a very clear high-pitched whine and more background hiss. While the quality of the sound is good and the hiss could be ignored, the high-pitched whine is extremely annoying. Most likely, the low quality codec and the traditionally cheap headsets used with Xbox Live stops the high-pitched whine from rearing its ugly head on the Xbox 360.
For $69.99, Razer delivers a solid Xbox 360 headset. Unfortunately, the headset may be a jack of all trades, but it is only a master of the Xbox 360. The microphone leaves a lot to be desired on the PC. The sound quality is good for a headset at this price range if the white noise is ignored. The hiss is tolerable if you plan to use the same headset between the Xbox 360 or only plan on using it strictly with the console. At this price range, console headsets need an in line amp that produces a bit of background noise. If you are looking for a headset strictly for PC use, I recommend checking out a headset without an in line amp to avoid the ever present hiss.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Madman announced their acquisition of 009 Re:Cyborg yesterday and scheduled it for this year’s REEL Anime cinema screenings. The announcement was made at the Gold Coast Supanova Pop Culture Expo and fed to their Facebook page.
The film is a remake of of the classic Cyborg 009, and is set during a global coordinated attack on cities. A team of nine cyborgs are brought back together, but their leader now lives alone in Tokyo with his memories wiped.
This is the latest in a long string of re imaginings of the original manga. Three anime shows aired in 1968, 1979 and 2001 along with three theatrical movies.
009 Re:Cyborg is the second film announced for REEL Anime 2013, with Evangelion 3.0 revealed earlier as the first. Check out the official website for the film and the trailer below.
