The ‘Out of This World’ 1991 action/adventure precursor, Another World, has finally hit Steam!
I say finally, because it was only a matter of time… the cult classic has been ported to almost a dozen different platforms since it’s initial release. It has only recently been selected to be one of the few video games spotlighted at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. And now, developer DotEmu and creative mind behind the original Eric Chahi bring the enhanced title to a whole new generation of gamers on the PC and Mac with this release, which has been remastered with improved graphics and audio work.
There are also 3 difficulty modes and the option to play the game as it originally appeared without the updated graphics, much like what was done with the Secret of Monkey Island remake. Another World – 20th Anniversary Edition also comes with a Development Journal and Making-of video feature that will let you discover how this edition was created.
You can purchase Another World – 20th Anniversary Edition on Steam for $9.99. ALSO has a special offer, Another World will be 99c on Google Play Android Store. Check it out here.
WRC 3: FIA World Rally Championship Developer: Milestone S.R.L. Publisher: Namco Bandai Games Platform:Playstation 3 Release Date:March 26, 2013 Price:$39.99 – Available Here
Overview:
The racing game genre is home to a number of sub-genres underneath its umbrella. Whether it is street racing games, open world games, realistic racing games, cart-racing games and of course rally racing games, there is a lot of different ways to have your slice of racing cake and eat it too. WRC 3: FIA World Rally Championship is obviously a rally racing game and as one would expect focuses solely on rally racing. This of course means you’ll be taking vehicles off the asphalt and onto the more gritty terrains of the world. WRC 3 is a rally game in all traditional senses, but does it become more than simply just another rally game?
Gameplay:
WRC 3: FIA World Rally Championship is a very classic styled rally game. Its simple and straight forward for the most part, but painfully lacking anything that makes it special. It comes off as uninspired and pedestrian in all of its facets. But for the most die-hard rally fanatics that really would be enough.
The game features three main gameplay modes; WRC Experience, Road to Glory and Multiplayer. Each mode gives players the rally experience in a slightly different way. The WRC Experience is your standard exhibition type of mode which allows you to have your expect free play. They break up the WRC Experience mode into Single Stage, Single Rally and Championship. As you can imagine, Single Stage allows you to do just one quick race, Single Rally places you in a number of races and Championship places you into a championship tournament of races. It is all relatively straight forward and is definitely the best mode to practice on as there are no stakes to these races.
The Road to Glory mode is WRC 3’s main campaign mode which tasks you with participating in a variety of rally races across the globe as you work your way up to the much hyped ‘Ultimate Battle’. You create your driver and begin racing in order to build yourself up to become the best rally racer or something of that nature. It is all relatively simple but there is one fatal flaw in this mode – you are constantly forced to use different vehicles. Being forced to change vehicles ultimately prevents you from getting good with any of them. It is troublesome to say the least. The Road to Glory mode is of course the focal point of the game, being the campaign mode and all, but it feels shallow and tepid at best.
One of the main problems with this game is that every mode feels the same. Somehow they managed to make single player and multiplayer feel no different from one another. When playing the multiplayer mode you simply race alone and try to get the fastest time, you don’t see your opponents vehicles beyond an untouchable wire-frame that represents where your opponents are in the ‘race’. You feel just as alone as if you were playing single player. Now I know that this is common for rally games, but it really shouldn’t be, it makes the entire idea of multiplayer meaningless because an online leaderboard can do exactly the same thing without requiring you to wait in a lobby to have a race alone at the same time as other players racing alone with the only thing resembling company being the wire-frame of a car driving through you. It is just illogical and feels completely inconsequential.
The control scheme in WRC 3 itself is quite alright, taking a few nods from the Forza franchise funnily enough. You can choose to play the game simply with one trigger and the control stick or you can go the full nine yards and use the whole shebang, but the most simplest control scheme is most likely going to be the choice of many.
WRC 3 does feature a plethora of vehicles and settings that are sure to excite most rally fans. There is a great deal of cars and locations to choose from, but it can feel like a lot of these blend together due to a significant lack of variety among the many vehicles and locales.
It is worth mentioning that the game experiences some rather severe lag during menu screens, often failing to register any input from the controller until repeatedly pressed. Other times it will simply load incredibly slowly or respond to your actions very slowly. This is even worse when playing online.
Besides that issue, the game’s greatest issue is easily its trouble determining when it should refresh the player in a race. You can drive slightly off the track and the game will white out and respawn you on the track. However if you have totalled your car and flipped upside down but remained on the track, it will not respawn you instead leaving you hung out to dry without a way to roll over. It does eventually realize your predicament in such a situation but not for at least 30 seconds of being stuck upside down. It is way too sensitive if you go off the beaten track even slightly and its way too insensitive to anything that happens on the track.
All in all WRC 3 is a disjointed game technically. One that doesn’t aspire to be much more than a simple ‘dime a dozen’ rally game. There isn’t anything special about this game, it doesn’t even seem like it really tries to be anything more than the lowest common denominator.
Visuals and Audio:
Aesthetically it must be said that WRC 3 does have some impressive visuals. The realism in the vehicle design and landscapes is remarkable. The lighting effects are mind blowing and there is a lot to take in as far as visuals go. Unfortunately as great as the game’s aesthetics may be, it features an incredibly lackluster soundtrack that leaves a lot left to be desired. Comprising of generic techno beats, WRC 3’s soundtrack is contrite to say the very least, but much like the rest of the game it is what one would traditionally expect from a rally game – its bland and meandering at best.
Overall: WRC 3: FIA World Rally Championship is nothing special. It is a standard rally game that doesn’t break any new ground, but at the very same time it doesn’t make great use of the ground the genre has already covered. If you are a rally game fan, this is probably already on your radar. Just don’t expect it to blow you away as the game is underwhelming in every sense of the word. It has a number of issues and its positives are unremarkable by even the standards of the racing genre. This is simply not a very good game. Rally game fans will probably get a kick out of it though, even if they will tire of it very quickly. WRC 3: FIA World Rally Championship is a game best left to the hardcore fans and avoided by just about everyone else.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Fractale Studio: A-1 Pictures Publisher: Siren Visual Format:DVD Release Date: February 21, 2013 Price:$49.95 – Available Here
Overview: The idea of technology one day overtaking us biologically is one that has been mused about many times. Fractale is an anime that has its own thoughts on the idea. Would a digital world be a utopia or a distopia? Fractale can’t seem to make up its mind, but it manages to provide some interesting food for thought on the matter while being a lot of fun in the process.
Story: Like many series before it with a distant future setting, Fractale has a point it wants to get across. While it is easy to think that this is an anti-technology anime, it’s far from it. Fractale has a lot more on its mind and goes about conveying those thoughts with a surprising level of clarity.
The world of Fractale is varied yet incredibly distinctive. Mixing Ireland-esque country landscapes with the neon lights of a digital world, it works well to create a stark contrast between the two great extremes within Fractale’s world. This is a land of extremes and very little in between. On one side of the spectrum is the Temple who believe that the fractale system and digital way of life was the natural and most beneficial evolution for humanity and on the other you have Lost Millennium a ragtag band of terrorist rebels who long for the time before the fractale system came into being.
What makes Fractale so interesting however is that it doesn’t colour either side as right or wrong, instead it explores the validity of both sides opinions on what the world should be. It never does reach an answer, instead leaving that question hanging in the air. Maybe what’s right is what you believe in your heart?
The distance people have between them is a large focal point of Fractale. Technology puts up many walls between us, it is easy to let your mind escape into the digital realm and that fact makes the world conveyed in Fractale a disturbingly believable one.
Fractale is a short series with a curious amount of closure considering the immense scale of its cast and setting. There is no stopping for breath, there is no pit-stops along the way, Fractale is propelled by its sheer exuberance and commitment to the story it wants to tell. It knows what it wants to say and it doesn’t meander around the point. This kind of focus is definitely admirable and goes a long way to making this such a compelling series. Its pure forward momentum, something you don’t often see – it is a glorious sight to see.
The tone of the series can be quite frenetic going from light-hearted to dead serious at the drop of a hat, it does manage to stick the landing on the tonal shifts without coming off as forced due to its commitment and exuberance for the story it’s telling because of that it sells the emotion of the plot very well.
In terms of characterization, Fractale does a decent job at developing its cast but it puts a signifcant amount more effort into its primary cast in comparison to its tertiary characters. Clain makes for a great protagonist as he is well and truly in the middle of things, perpetually unable to take one side over the other, this allows him to move between both sides and explore the positives and negatives of both conflicting side’s ideology.
Fractale is compelling anime through and through. It proposes a lot of a questions in regards to dependency upon technology but it does ultimately play it safe acknowledging the benefits of technology as well as the fallacies of it. Much like its protagonist Clain it chooses the stay in the middle of things instead of taking sides, leaving it up to the audience to make up their mind.
Visuals and Audio: A-1 Pictures are not exactly known for their consistency in production, but the animation work on Fractale is utterly gorgeous. From start to end, the quality is upheld without any drops, an admirable effort indeed. The character designs are very distinctive and rather memorable in their own right. The landscapes are beautifully composed with a great deal of variation between them which keeps it fresh throughout. The animation is as fluid as can be and is easily A-1 Pictures best work to date.
Fractale did have some issues with musical timing however, there were some instances in which the backing track does not fit the scene. For example in a violent battle scene an uplifting track is playing that completely exists in conflict with the action taking place on screen. This is of course doesn’t occur too often, but it was often enough to catch my attention. The opening and ending themes for the series are nothing special, but they are decent enough.
This release from Siren Visual happened to feature an excellent English dub from Funimation, which was incredibly well done with great performances all around. It was rather bothersome that the English audio was not the default setting on this DVD however. This is of course not an issues if you prefer Japanese audio with subtitles over English dubs.
Extras: Siren Visual have done an excellent job with this complete series release of Fractale. If you are a special features junkie there is a great amount of bonus content for you to sink your teeth into once you’ve finished watching through the series itself. Siren have included an two impressive audio commentaries on this release, the first for episode 1 and the second for episode 7. Both commentary tracks feature the cast and crew behind the English dub of the series. To wrap up what is a solid release, Siren have also included your standard trailers that you’d find in most releases.
Overall: There is a fine line between fun and silly, Fractale walks that line yet always manages to have one foot firmly planted in the fun side of the equation. Never missing a beat the only momentum Fractale has is forward. It is a compelling ride from start to finish that while proposing more questions than it cares to answer, does manage to be thought provoking through its inability to choose one way or the other. It lets you decide for yourself and in most cases that would come off as lazy writing, but in Fractale it works and it works well. It is a thoughtful series that overcomes its flaws through its energy and strong focus. There isn’t any wasted time in Fractale and it succeeds where many other series of its kind have failed, it has a sense of purpose that is given true closure despite having so little time to tell such an immense story. Fractale is special in many ways and it is definitely worth the price of admission.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
It’s only 5 days into April, but this month will go down as one of the worst in recent memory as it relates to lay-offs. Now, we’re hearing that SEGA Studios Australia are shutting down later this year…
First, High Moon Studios and Square Enix LA release many members of their staff (over 40 confirmed in the case of High Moon), then Disney announce that they are shutting down a truly legendary games developer in LucasArts – who’ve been entertaining us for more than 30 years – and now this. It’ not a surprise by any means, but still not nice to hear. Their last title was London 2012, but before that they were working on numerous titles under British developer The Creative Assembly, including Medieval II: Total War.
The studio was restructured just last year with a reported focal shift to the digital marketplace. Also last year, in June, the European and Australian SEGA offices were closed. Being an Australian, and a graduate with a Bachelor’s Degree in Interactive Entertainment, reading news of this sort is all the more upsetting. But, the sad reality is that it happens so often, that you come to expect it now.
UPDATE: Microsoft have since apologised for the comments below, made by Microsoft Studios Creative Director, Adam Orth;
“We apologize for the inappropriate comments made by an employee on Twitter yesterday. This person is not a spokesperson for Microsoft, and his personal views do not reflect the customer centric approach we take to our products or how we would communicate directly with our loyal consumers. We are very sorry if this offended anyone, however we have not made any announcements about our product roadmap, and have no further comment on this matter.”
Firstly, these are rumours (as always) and should be take with a grain of salt. But according to even more of Kotaku’s “sources”, the next Xbox may go so far as to prevent you from starting a game or app unless you are connected to the internet, and may also interrupt your services/gaming session if your internet drops out for more than 3 minutes straight.
Of course, we are not going to be comforted by Microsoft that these rumours are false, and will never know the truth until its reveal, but the sheer number of similar stories floating around the internet is worrisome. The aforementioned source stated;
“If there isn’t a connection, no games or apps can be started. If the connection is interrupted then after a period of time–currently three minutes, if I remember correctly–the game/app is suspended and the network troubleshooter started.”
It’s also fair to point out that there have been other “sources” who discount this, and even if it were the case we’d like to think that it is something Microsoft can alter/change their mind on with a firmware update. The bottom line is that I personally do not see people purchasing the console if this were true and Microsoft know that. They must, right?…
Well, according to Microsoft Studios’ Creative Director Adam Orth’s words on Twitter today, they may not see the issue. As disconcerting as his initial statement is, his response to criticism from BioWare designer Manveer Heir was even more troubling;
Orth: “Sorry, I don’t get the drama around having an ‘always on’ console. Every device now is ‘always on’. That’s the world we live in. #dealwithit.”
Heir: “Did you learn nothing fromDiablo III or SimCity? You know some people’s internet goes out right? Deal with it is a shitty reason.”
Orth: “Electricity goes out, too.”
Again, I think there is a distinction to be made between ‘always-on’ and ‘always-online’, and given the earlier report that said all games would be required to be installed onto the next Xbox’s hard drive, I just don’t see the above being a reality. Do you think Microsoft would actually do this? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
Are you afraid? Well you should be. This week on CC Unplugged, Dustin Spencer, Luke Halliday, and Travis Brunogather around to talk about the state of the survival horror genre. Is it a dying breed, or are franchises like Resident Evil, Clock Tower, and Silent Hill set to make a comeback? Also discussed is the Walking Dead season finale, Bioshock Infinite, and a decent amount of talk about the current events in the industry.
Download below if you dare, tell your friends, and 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.
It may have took the changing of a law, but Mortal Kombat: Komplete Edition is finally hitting Australia. Yes, it’s late – but for good reason (well, maybe not…but it has an excuse anyway). May 1st, the complete package will be coming to the Xbox 360 and Playstion 3, set at a price of $39.99.
Out of the entire genre, Mortal Kombat is definitely my favorite, and this particular game happens to be my personal top choice out of all of the releases for the franchise to date. You can check out our review for the game here, and smile Australia, you win!
Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon sounds like an April Fool’s joke, but the fact that it was listed by theAustralian Classification Boardconfirmed to everyone that this was a real retro spin-off. Now, the first screenshots of the game have leaked online and you can view them in the gallery below!
No official information has been released on the title outside of what was gleaned from the teaser site that went up on April 1st. The story description found there reads:
The year is 2007. It is the future. Earth has been ravaged by a nuclear war and new paths for peace must be found. A U.S. cyborg army may have found a solution: a powerful bio-weapon on a distant island. A Mark IV Cyber Commando, Sergeant Rex Power Colt has been sent over to gather information and figure out what the hell is going on.
There are also two amazing Tron-like music tracks found on the site called Power Core and Sloan’s Assault that you should give a listen. This whole expansion – or whatever we should call it – is truly a Far Cry from the norm of the series (I’m sorry), but everything 80s is cool again. Stay tuned to Capsule Computers for future updates!
Sega have been very hush-hush when it comes to the Wii U version of Aliens: Colonial Marines. As of now, – nearly a week after the “first quarter launch” window scheduled for the game, things look to be staying the same.
When questioned by an interviewer over at Gamespot, Sega replied with this:
Still no comment on ACM, sorry!
Yeah, another decline for conversation on what was once looking like a promising addition to the Wii U’s line-up. With all of the quality problems and the whole misleading demo though, are we really surprised…? I still kind of expect to see A:CM released eventually on the platform, though it will be probably done after a few tweaks and in a low brow manner. Stay tuned, as if anything is revealed, we will be sure to post an update.
Truth, Justice and the American way has never looked so good!
The full costumes of Superman, Zod, Faora and Jor-El have been revealed via collectable statues. Valued at $129.00 these statues go on sale in May and are looking remarkable, or as the cool kids these days would say “swag”. Zod in particular is looking dramatically different than the 1978 film with a very armoured outfit as opposed to the spandex look. What has my curiosity is Jor-El holding what looks like a gun….a human-made gun. Could this be a reference to a particular plot point? Who knows!
I suppose we’ll have to find out when Man of Steel flys into theaters in 3D and 2D on June 14.
