Tecmo Koei America has confirmed that Dynasty Warriors 8 will be hitting Western shores on July 16th, for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
Following in the tradition of previous titles in the franchise, Dynasty Warriors 8 tells the tales of the Kingdoms of Wei, Wu, Shu and Jin through the eyes and actions of multiple historical military and political figures of the time as they fight to gain control over the Three Kingdoms of China.
What’s unique about this entry is the inclusion of different endings and extra modes that breeds replay-ability like never before. You can expect the tried-and-true Story Mode, but with brand new characters, episodes and “What If?” scenarios that break away from historical fact to provide a branching, alternate history of events depending on your choices made throughout the experience.
There will be over 40 completely fresh stages ranging from verdant plains, desolate wastelands and sharp ravines to huge castles and more. On the character side of things, that number grows to 70+, with franchise veterans returning alongside a newly playable (but familiar face) and two first-timers in Xu Shu and Li Dian.
Check out the gallery below for all the character art currently released (which includes the new characters). Also watch the opening cinematic here and a 12 minute gameplay video if you are so inclined.
Bodacious Space Pirates Part 2 Studio: Satelight Publisher: Hanabee Release Date: Out Now! Format:DVD, BD(Reviewed) Price: $59.99 – Available Here
Overview
Bodacious Space Pirates Part 2 is the second part of the Hanabee release for the Anime series Bodacious Space Pirates. We have reviewed the first part of the series previously which can be found at this link here.
Bodacious Space Pirates is an Anime adaptation of the light novel: “Mouretsu Pirates” authored by Suichi Sasamoto and is currently at 9 volumes. The Anime adaptation was animated by Satelight and covers 26 episodes. The second part of the release contains episodes 14-26 and picks up right after the events of the first part.
Story
Bodacious Space Pirates follows the story of Marika Kato who inherits the captaincy of a pirate ship called the Bentenmaru as well as its crew from her seemingly deceased father that was the previous captain of the space pirate ship. The second part of the series deals with the Bentenmaru crew and its adventures in space piracy. This particular part deals with a few arcs.
The first arc in this part of the series involves the aftermath of a deadly illness incapacitating the crew of the Bentenmaru and so Marika must enlist the assistance of a new crew to ensure that the Bentenmaru is able to continue pirating, else they will be likely to lose their Letter of Marque. The second story arc involves a race involving a small space shuttle and the students in Marika’s school Space Yacht club. The final arc sees all of the Space Pirates in the stories universe gathering together to battle a final and powerful enemy.
What I really liked about the story in Bodacious Space Pirates was how each arc in the story was handled. Each took a fair few episodes to get through and it really felt like you were engaging with an ongoing story rather than watching a bunch of standalone episodes vaguely stuck together. However, converse to that, I really disliked how the crew of the Bentenmaru was essentially sidelined for two entire story arcs on this particular side of the series. While the arcs were enjoyable in themselves, I actually enjoy the Bentenmaru crew more than the schoolgirl crew, so this is where my disappointment comes from.
One last thing that I want to mention is that it was clear from the ending of this part that the team were setting up for another season or something. Towards the end there all of the pirate lore was building up nicely and all of the characters were faced with an important question. While it does sort of go answered, it is unclear as to what the pirates do afterwards really. If there is a series revival or a second series, I’d definitely be on top of that.
Video
I think that I mentioned this in the last review, but Bodacious Space Pirates has some rather interstellar space ship designs. I hope that when I live to see the space age, that we get spaceship designs as great as the ones presented in this series.
What was notable was the amazing visual fidelity offered by the Blu-Ray version of the series. If you are to watch Anime in any format, it has to be in the superior Blu-Ray format. This is especially true for Bodacious Space Pirates.
My one issue with the video in this particular series, and this was present on the first part as well, was that each episode seems to be encoded with scanlines. This means that you might have to manually tell your player to de-interlace the video. While a minor annoyance, it would have been nice to have a version of series available that supports televisions newer than 2003.
Once again the character designs in this series are amazing. And now that we get to see a larger portion of pirates and other assorted characters, it’s great to see some amazing costume designs. What was particularly enjoyable about this is that one character aboard the Bentenmaru is actually quite the attractive woman when she’s given the opportunity to showcase her body. I was actually confused as to who the character was for quite a while considering how different she appeared.
Audio
Once again for this half of the series the awesome opening by Momoiro Clover-Z returns. It is also followed by the catchy ending theme from the first half of the series by the same group. Actually, speaking of music, the entire background audio for this half of the series was also fairly enjoyable. I particularly enjoyed it whenever things would get more intense and the music would start picking up.
By this point in the series the English dub has actually improved quite significantly, or at least, I have become accustomed to the English speaking voice actors for each character in the series. However, I still have to admit that the Japanese dub is the superior speaking audio track for this particular series. Unless you’re a person that hates subtitles or is unable to keep up, I’d recommend listening to the Japanese audio dub, but for those that would prefer it, the English dub is also pretty good.
The last point that I want to talk about is how cheesy some of the dialogue is in this series. While the first half of the series had its share of cheesy moments, this half ramped it up significantly. I think that they were trying to romanticise space piracy somehow, but they ended up overdoing it a little and you kind of get sick of hearing about how awesome it is to be a pirate in the vastness of space.
Extras
Once again, even after flicking through the releases filesystem, I couldn’t find too many extras included with the packaging. I did find a bunch of Hanabee trailers, as well as clean opening and closing animations. It also features a teaser trailer for the series.
The reverse cover-art is a picture of space featuring the Bentenmaru and it features an episode listing. As someone who loves reverse artwork, this was a little disappointing, especially considering many other Hanabee releases have such amazing artwork on the flipside. But, eh, you don’t watch the interior of a DVD/BD case too often, do you?
Overall
Bodacious Space Pirates Part 2 is an amazingly entertaining package that, in my opinion, is superior to the first part in many significant ways. Better stories, better dubbing, more awesome spaceships and even more. I’d definitely recommend this series to anyone (as a whole, because it’s a bit weird recommending just part 2 by itself) and anyone that has seen the first part will definitely be wanting to grab this second part of Bodacious Space Pirates.
The latest issue of Weekly Shonen Jump magazine has leaked online and along with it news regarding the next ending theme song for the Hunter x Hunter anime series.
It has now been confirmed that YUZU will once again contribute a song for the Hunter x Hunter anime after having previously performed the third ED theme ‘Reason’. The latest Weekly Shonen Jump announced the the fourth ED theme will be ‘Nagareboshi Kirari’ by YUZU.
Hunter x Hunter fans may recognize the song title from the Hunter x Hunter: Phantom Rouge film’s OST as the song was previously performed by the voice actress of Gon, Killua and Retsu; Megumi Han, Ise Mariya and Hirano Aya respectively. The song will be rerecorded by YUZU for use as the ED theme for the Chimera Ants arc
You can listen to the original version of ‘Nagareboshi Kirari’ below. What do you think of YUZU returning to perform another ED theme for the Hunter x Hunter anime series? Let us know in the comments section.
Following the disappointing news that High Moon Studios has laid off 40 of their staff, there comes more sad news in the form of lay-offs at Square-Enix’s Los Angeles office.
Square-Enix made a statement to Polygon in regards to the terminations, “We can confirm that Square Enix’s Los Angeles office has eliminated a number of positions as part of the corporate restructuring announced last week. This is an unfortunate situation and we are offering assistance and severance packages to any employees affected by this, we want to thank them for their hard work and sincerely wish them well in the future.”
The Los Angeles office for Square-Enix has previously seen lay-offs back in December of 2012. These terminations however are linked largely with the companies mass restructuring. Interestingly enough this announcement has come just short of a few hours following Square-Enix revealing the disappointing numbers for games like Tomb Raider, Hitman Absolution and Sleeping Dogs.
It always very sad to hear of such news and we wish those who were made redundant the best in the future endeavors.
One of Pokemon’s most popular mascots, the powerful Mewtwo, could be getting an all new form or perhaps an evolution, that is if you believe the image currently circulating Japanese message boards is real.
The scan containing the image of this Mewtwo looking Pokemon is about the latest movie releasing later this year. The movie is called “Extremespeed Genesect – Mewtwo’s reawakening” so it doesn’t seem completely implausible that Mewtwo could receive some sort of new form. The movie is set to focus on the legendary Pokemon Genesect and it is not yet known how Mewtwo factors into the movie except that it fights a shiny form of Genesect and protects Ash and company from its attack.
Not much else is known about the new Mewtwo form and this is still not proven to be real, but the magazine scan looks pretty legitimate.
Do you think it’s real and how do you feel about one of the most recognizable Pokemon getting a new form ? Let us know in the comments and check out the trailer for the movie if you have not seen it.
In a recent update, the team behind the MechWarrior Online video game have announced that the Highlander Mech is being added to the game alongside some new content for players to enjoy. The Highlander Mech is currently available in the Mech Lab for all players to acquire. Even further, the team have also added two new features which are the ‘Air Strike’ and ‘Artillery Strike’ abilities for players to use on the battlefield.
What’s interesting about these abilities is that these new features allow players to “call-in” Air Strikes and Artillery Strikes while on the battlefield. An Air Strike calls in bombers to attack a target location dealing 10 damage to units in that area. The Artillery Strike has a similar ability doing the same amount of damage.
Be sure to click on this link to see the full list of changes in the last patch.
Mark Rein, the Vice President of Epic Games, has decided to weigh in with his thoughts on Sony’s previously ‘unveiled’ PlayStation 4 console during an interview with CVG. Rein sang many praises for the PlayStation 4, in particular Sony’s decision to use off-the-shelf PC parts in the console.
“I think it’s a very smart move on Sony’s behalf to build this sort of enhanced PC architecture and then put so much in it. Let’s not forget it has 16 times the memory we had in PlayStation 3 – that’s not insignificant. Knowing that every machine has that… we can do crazy, ridiculous stuff with that,” saidRein clearly enamored with the console.
He further made the hefty claims that the PlayStation 4 may in fact be better than the majority of PCs on the market;
“When you think about Windows, even Windows for most people is tied to about 2GB of addressable memory space. This really opens up beyond what most PCs can do, because most PCs are running a 32-bit versions of Windows.”
Elaborating even further on his ecstatic shower of praise for the PS4, Rein added;
“It’s like giving you the world’s best PC. ‘We’re going to make it super convenient, we’re going to make it easy for you to get games on there, we’re going to start the games running while you’re downloading them and we’re going to perform your updates in the background.’ You’re not going to turn this thing off… you’re just going to sleep it and it’s going to come back on.”
Rein concluded by calling the PlayStation 4 a ‘perfect gaming PC’ which in and of itself is an interesting claim to make. What do you think of Mark Rein’s thoughts on the PlayStation 4? Let us know in the comments sections below.
Capcom Arcade Cabinet is taking arcade gamers back to 1985, with the release of Game Pack #2!
The 1985 Game Pack #2 will include all three arcade classic titles; The Speed Rumbler, Commando and Savage Bees.
Available globally from April 2nd on XBLA and April 3rd for PSN users; Game Pack #2 can be purchased for 800 Microsoft Points or AU$13.20 (US $9.99). In addition, there will be a individual sale to PSN users who wish to play Side Arms, Legendary WingsandTrojan from the 1986 Game Pack, for only AU $5.28 (US$3.99) each.
If you’re interested in playing the previous Capcom Arcade Cabinet games, read the reviews for the first 1985and third1986game packs.
Check out the 1985 Game Pack #2 trailer below and please let us know what you think of the game.
Joystiq earlier reported that an Activision spokesman had revealed to them that 40 full-time employees over at High Moon Studios had been laid off.
The spokesman was quoted as saying;
“Activision Publishing consistently works to align its costs with its revenues – this is an ongoing process. With the completion of development on Deadpool, we are taking a reduction in staff at High Moon Studios to better align our development talent against our slate. Approximately, 40 full-time employees will be impacted globally. We are offering those employees who are impacted outplacement counselling services.”
So it seems Deadpool’s release date of Summer 2013 for the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC will not be affected. But, we’d like say thanks to those devs who were let go and wish them the best in their future. Never nice to hear about this sort of thing.
The latest issue of Weekly Shonen Jump magazine has leaked online and along with it news regarding the next ending theme song for the Hunter x Hunter anime series.
One of Pokemon’s most popular mascots, the powerful Mewtwo, could be getting an all new form or perhaps an evolution, that is if you believe the image currently circulating Japanese message boards is real.
