Fans of Capcom have probably been wondering which games would be becoming available for their Arcade Cabinet series appearing on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. Well, Capcom have released a list of all the games that are currently planned to appear on the service, as well as their prices and release dates.
What’s interesting is that the titles will be appearing from February into may and will recreate many classics from 1984-89. Players will also have the ability to share videos and screenshots of their gameplay experiences. Even more interesting is that when you purchase all of the games in the catalogue, players will gain access to an additional two titles absolutely free.
Alien Breed Developer: Team 17 Publisher: Team 17 Platforms: PlayStation 3 (Reviewed), PlayStation Vita Release Date: February 6, 2013 (EU), February 12, 2013 (US) Price: £6.49/€7.99/$9.99 – Available Here
Overview: Alien Breed has been around for over two decades. It was originally released for the Amiga in 1991, just a year after developer Team 17 opened its doors. Though it has gone through severaliterations, Team 17 have decided that it was time to grace the public with a re-release of their original blockbuster, as well as bundling a few other goodies along with it for the ride. How does it hold up? Should it be hoisted to its own home world or left on the space station with an active nuke? Let’s find out.
Story:
The story of the Alien Breed series is fairly standard science fiction fare. The year is 2191. Humans are no longer bound to stay on our home world and space colonization abounds. Just like people, crime has spread across the galaxy, so the I.P.C. is formed. Two of the IPC’s crack agents, Johnson and Stone, are called in to check out a renegade station that has gone completely dark. Little do they know what awaits them inside.
Gameplay:
For the uninitiated, Alien Breed is a top-down shooter with a bit of a survival-horror vibe. As you walk through each level, you will pick up money, health kits (that’s right kiddos – no regenerating health back in the day), and keys to open doors with the primary goal of working your way down through the space station one floor at a time, usually destroying the previous floor before you do.
The PlayStation Network’s re-release comes bundled with quite a few goodies for fans of the original Alien Breed. On top of the original six-level game that was released over two decades ago, the package also comes with four additional pieces of material to play through. Alien Breed: Special Edition, long considered to be the peak of the Alien Breed experience, comes with 12 levels (including the original six) to play through. Also included are the Convergence, Valiance, and Synergy packs, each of which contain four levels. Start to finish, that puts this overall package at 30 levels to play through.
On top of the added level packs, several other goodies have been tossed in too. The game includes the original experience, complete with 16-bit graphics, original sound effects, and the inability to shoot at anything you aren’t looking at. Given how far games have come in the last 22 years, it can be hard to swallow this version if you weren’t a fan of the original to begin with. Newcomers will likely want to give this a go just to see what it was like then go right back to the Enhanced version.
The Enhanced version has done wonders for updating the game over the years. The entire game has had a graphical facelift. On top of that, the sound effects have also been brought up to date. The most notable update, though, is in the control scheme. The enhanced edition allows players to use their right joystick to effectively turn the game into a twin stick shooter. This does wonders for playability, though at times it will actually make you question whether the game should be even harder than it is.
Regardless of the version you play, the mechanics are the same. Each level is set up like an intricate maze with a goal to reach. There is always a short story setup to let you know why you’re doing what you’re doing. The goals usually wind up boiling down to reaching a point or multiple points on the map and either touching them, blowing them up, or destroying whatever creatures lurks there. Along the way, you’ll pick up keys to get you through doors. There are also one-way laser-based doors. One of the most frustrating things about the game, especially to newcomers early on, is going through one of these one-way doors with no keys and getting trapped inside a room with five lives to spare. There’s literally nothing you can do at that point but end your run of that level and start again. It can be infuriating.
The really difficult part comes after accomplishing your goal, though. The screen will turn red and you will have a timer, usually 60 to 90 seconds, start timing down. With alarms blaring, you will have to make a mad dash to a lift to get off the level. While this sounds fairly basic, it’s compounded with the fact that you’ll have to work your way backward through the maze, taking out the xenomorphs you encounter along your way. If you take a wrong turn, it can land you in a dead end, wasting precious seconds that could cost you your life. It’s a truly exhilarating experience, but it can end in total disaster, forcing you to replay the entire mission.
When you first start the game, you’re equipped with only a machine gun. As you earn money, though, you can go into an in-game menu and purchase new weapons. These include things like shotguns, laser rifles that bounce off walls, flame throwers, and more, and give the game a fascinating and much needed change of pace, as you’re usually ready to try something new by the time you can buy it. Much like the Contra series, this gives you a whole slew of ways to take on the alien horde. There are a total of 12 guns to buy, giving you a full array of firepower at the end of the day.
As you progress through the game, whether you conquer or die, moving from level to level or across campaigns, your progress stays with you. If you’ve unlocked a gun at any point, you can always access it later. This gives the game a real sense of accomplishment and it can be fun to show off your arsenal to friends.
Speaking of showing off your arsenal to your friends, you can have a buddy jump in to play couch co-op or online co-op with you. It feels great and the pair of you can choose whether to stick close together or split up to explore some more. While the game is great on its own, playing games like Alien Breed are always much more entertaining with a buddy.
Visual & Audio:
The retro graphics and audio are true to their 1991 release. It feels like being a child again. That said, the visual and audio upgrades in the Enhanced version are very much appreciated. Everything is a bit crisper, including sound effects. Don’t expect much in the way of music, though. There is only one sci-fi track that plays at the menu, and music is completely non-existent in the middle of gameplay. Sound in-game amounts to little more than the humming of engines, the sounds of firing guns, the screams of dying aliens, and an incredibly obnoxious AI that will let you know when you need a key or health over and over and over again.
Overall: Alien Breed is a great package that brings back a classic game but updates it for playability and presentation in the process. There are a few minor bugs that will annoy from time to time, and the sound design feels virtually non-existent, but the gameplay is a lot of fun and for the price, you’re getting the game on both PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita. This is definitely one title shooter fans and people with old-school sensibilities should check out!
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
EA Mobile’s iOS smash-hit ‘The Simpsons: Tapped Out’ has now made it onto the Google Store. Having hit #1 on the iOS sales charts across 20 countries, the freemium title is now available to over 1,600 Android devices.
Group GM of EA All Play’s California and Bight Studios, Aaron Loeb, says; “It’s particularly exciting for us to bring The Simpsons: Tapped Out to Google Play for the first time and introduce a new audience of Android consumers to one of EA’s most successful and engaging mobile games.” Up to 3 million daily users can’t be wrong, so if you’re an Android user, now is the time to build your own Springfield. Download it from the Google Play store right here.
EA Mobile has also brought the two-player word-guessing game, ‘Word Smack’, to the North American Google Play store. In Word Smack, you will challenge your friends to “turn-based word-smacking fun”. The fun of the game is to discover as many 5-letter words as possible across 3 increasingly difficult rounds. Advantageous power-ups enable you to maximise your score, with the person who correctly guesses the most words in the fewest rounds being the ultimate winner. Download it for Android devices here.
Assassin’s Creed fans have a new reason to rejoice. Ubisoft have now announced that the famed brand will be getting it’s own action figure line, with McFarlane Toys leading the project. Yes, that means some high quality action figures, and the first wave seems to have a lot of promise.
Here are the details:
McFarlane Toys’ Assassin’s Creed series 1 will consist of seven figures including the fan favourite characters of Connor and Haytham Kenway. Connor will come as two action figures – one in his Assassin’s Creed III traditional Assassins garb and the second, as Ratonhnhaké:ton in the upcoming “Tyranny of King George” storyline. Each figure will be sculpted in the hyper-detail the award-winning McFarlane is known for with collectors and fans.
The Assassin Creed figure line of figures will stand approximately six inches tall, include an average of 25 points of articulation, and will come with a unique code that unlocks exclusive Assassin’s Creed video game content!
McFarlane Toys will be displaying a first look of the upcoming Assassin’s Creed action figure prototypes at the International Toy Fair show, February 10-13, booth #4921.
This licensing agreement is a pretty big deal, as it means the lore of the franchise can branch out even more. Making matters sweeter is that these figures will launch this summer, so keep an eye out as those temperatures rise.
The Hunt is on. Well, that is what EA want you to believe with Crysis 3, that is. Honestly, the game is looking sharp and is heading into it’s release date, so of course heavy promotion is a thing right now.
This sequel’s latest trailer shows off some fine looking gameplay, accompanied by “Liquid State” by Muse and set in an urban rainforest of the New York City Liberty Dome. It’s a great trailer, and one clip of what is sure to be many as Crysis 3 nears it’s February 19th release date. Check out the footage below, and crank of those speakers as this tune is pretty damn awesome with the gameplay bits used.
Gamevil’s latest iOS title, an “interactive line defense RPG” called ‘Battle Line’, is out now for FREE on the App Store!
Developed by eZENplus Inc., Battle Line real-time strategy with action and RPG elements. It takes place after an evil rises from underground to torment the world. The heroes must, of course, defend against this ominous force and banish it forever, restoring peace to their lands.
There are five unique character classes available, allowing the player the opportunity to mix and match within the composition of their team to find the right combination of skills and attributes. There are four lines to be defended at once, and not even one enemy is allowed to pass, so you must be effective and your turns well managed
Many weapons can be equipped and upgraded, which each benefit the user with a specific skill. You can play against your friends in “Challenge Mode” in an attempt to climb the ‘Hall of Fame’ rankings. And with 9 unique worlds to discover and complete challenges within, Battle Line will keep you engaged for a long time.
Download it now from the link above. And if you’d like a look at the gameplay in-motion, check out the video below!
Cognition Episode 2: The Wise Monkey Publisher: Reverb Publishing Developer: Phoenix Online Studios Platforms: PC (reviewed), Mac, iPad Release Date: January 30, 2013 (PC/Mac); August 16th, 2013 (iPad) Price: Episode 2: $9.99; Season Pass: $29.99 – Here
Overview
Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller began with its first episode, The Hangman, introducing us to the endangered life of FBI agent Erica Reed. And now the second episode, The Wise Monkey, has arrived with growing intensity. Serial killing has gone beyond mere hangings as torturing victims by gauging out eyes, ears, and other body parts has become a common occurrence. Let’s see if Cognition Episode 2: The Wise Monkey has enough extra sensory parts to deliver another quality episode. Can you hear something?
Story
While investigating “The Hangman” file, she stumbled upon clues that led her to find the killer at the original crime scene. She discovered that “The Hangman” was killed similarly to his victims. But the killer’s next target was revealed to be none other than Madison Davies – Boston FBI director. The kidnapper left clues to “his” whereabouts hidden in a riddled document of the Salem witch trials. Upon reaching a restored court house, Agent Reed was soon taking on fire from a shadowed figure. By creating a diversion, Erica was able to get close enough to see the last breathes of Director Davies as she was vaulted off a balcony with a noose around her neck. Erica’s visions got the best of her then and prevented her from catching the unidentified murderer.
The director of the Boston FBI has been murdered, and Erica has been taken off the case for being “too close” to the incident. Tensions are high at the Boston office, and agents have stayed late into the early morning. Yet danger lurks even in the FBI quarters waiting to strike and take down another person close to Erica…
If a game could literally grasp your attention, my face would be breaking the computer screen. Cognition Episode 2 had my attention drawn from the start knowing the previous story of the first episode and coming to terms with the unfolding events that ensued. Sure the game has its downtime when you are gathering clues, but intense conversations and Erica’s visions pave the way to the story’s ultimate success as well as another cliffhanger ending.
Gameplay
After having played the first episode, I have noticed that most of the mechanics were transferred over. Some inclusions that the developers have added can be seen through a new psion ability – synergy and conversation decisions. Synergy like Erica’s other powers focuses on the memories of others. However, this time Erica can combine a group of inanimate objects and delve into a correlated memory involving the selected objects. For instance Erica can identify how to open a lock of a puzzle by combining similar objects that were at that scene. Synergy becomes one of her main methods of solving riddles in this episode and proves invaluable in the climax.
Being able to choose how to handle certain conversations will allow for different outcomes – especially in the beginning of the story. Believe it or not the decision whether to drink a cup of coffee or not alters your game, and I was pleasantly surprised that different cut-scenes where included for this alternate decision. While the decisions are a nice reprieve, the game remains linear at heart.
Every game has its faults, and The Wise Monkey is not free of these problems. One such problem occurred early on when investigating Agent Sully’s documents regarding The Wise Monkey case. When rummaging through the files I found myself stuck and unable to exit out of the screen. This glitch was experienced twice but was inconsistent leaving the game playable. A great way to avoid running into these situations is saving often – like any good gamer should.
Visuals
Romano Molenaar pleases the eyes once again by merging comic and gaming worlds with his amazing art direction. This time his style has grown darker as more grotesque imagery has entered the mix. How do severed eyeballs look so good?
More of a performance issue than a visual problem is the stuttering in Erica’s movements. At times the player will be able to notice a delay or change in Erica’s position. For instance this can be noticed when Erica is climbing and descending the stairs at Joey’s place. Prior to the current build some of the movements were worse and more noticeable as Erica would be walking through objects, sitting in air next to chairs, or traversing steps at odd lengths. Even thought the small stutter is present, it is not a make-or-break aspect considering how much has been fixed before the title’s launch.
Synergy is the latest addition to Erica’s “psion” powers which allows her to conjoin objects that share a similar memory. By collecting enough objects from a scene, Agent Reed is able to enter that memory and access information related to the scene. Players can see this visually develop by noticing a clearer image as more objects from the scene are linked with her synergy ability.
Audio
From a character standpoint, Erica Reed has lost people very close to her while performing her job. Players can understand and feel an unnerving/frustrated feeling emitting from Erica through her voice tones. Too often I have encountered uninteresting voice-overs, but Erica’s character is portrayed with intensity and ferocity in finding the truth behind The Wise Monkey case before another death is claimed by a serial killer.
Those interested in taking the advantage of the Cognition Season Pass will be pleased to know that an original Cognition soundtrack will be included in the purchase. You just can’t beat a game that feels confident enough to unleash a standalone soundtrack…
Overall
So far the Cognition series has been hard to put down. I was unable to take my readied hands away from the keyboard when playing through both episodes and found myself engrossed with the story. Phoenix Online Studios has done well to make Cognition a series with immersion qualities similar to a CSI or NCIS television show. You do not want to turn the channel until you find out who the murderer is and understand the reason why they performed the sinful deed. Nor would you with this title.
I did feel that Phoenix Online Studios would have addressed bug issues more completely being their second time through. Before the final product was released many bugs could be seen and affected the title’s gameplay; however, the developers were thorough enough to either make adjustments or eliminate visual issues. What remains is an excellent point-and-click adventure with a few minor aesthetic setbacks.
Weekly Shonen Jump’s official website has revealed that a hour-long crossover anime special featuring One Piece, Dragon Ball and Toriko will air on the 7th of April, 2013 bringing Toei Animation’s 2 big series One Piece and Dragon Ball together again as well as bringing the up and coming Toriko into the fray.
The crossover will not be the first time these series have collided as One Piece has previously crossed over with both Dragon Ball and Toriko individually. There are certainly some interesting prospects for this crossover such as the potential to address why Toriko looks so very much like Goku with blue hair.
This anime special appears to tie-in with the upcoming PlayStation 3 fighting game Project Versus J which features characters from these three series in combat.
What do you think of this special anime crossover? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
As part of the 25th Anniversary celebration for the legendary RPG franchise Final Fantasy, Square Enix have decided to hold a 50% off sale on selected Final Fantasy games on the PlayStation Network.
The following titles are currently 50% off on PSN:
DISSIDIA 012[duodecim] Final Fantasy (PSP)
DISSIDIA DUODECIM Prologues Final Fantasy (PSP)
DISSIDIA Final Fantasy (PSP)
Final Fantasy Tactics: War of Lions (PSP)
Final Fantasy (PSOne Classics)
Final Fantasy II (PSOne Classics)
Final Fantasy IV: Complete Collection (PSP)
Final Fantasy V (PSOne Classics)
Final Fantasy VI (PSOne Classics)
Final Fantasy VII (PSOne Classics)
Final Fantasy VIII (PSOne Classics)
Final Fantasy IX (PSOne Classics)
We recently took a detailed look back on the history of the Final Fantasy franchise, perhaps our thoughts may help you decide which one of these titles you’d like to pick up? You can check out our Final Fantasy 25 year tribute here.
What do you think of this 50% off sale? What titles will you be picking up? Let us know in the comments section below.
Some interesting anime news has come out of NIS America today. The company has revealed that they have acquired the license to MADHOUSE’s “The Princess and the Pilot” anime movie and will release the film overseas in North America. The company will be giving the title their standard premium edition packaging featuring a collectable hardcover slipcase and a 32-page hardcover art book but it will only be available on a single Blu-ray Disc. The Princess and the Pilot will be available for purchase on May 14th.
If you want to check out a preview of what the show will feature, you can check out NIS America’s streaming trailer here.
As for the story of the movie, titled To Aru Hikūshi e no Tsuioku in Japan, NIS America describes it as:
The war between the Levamme Empire and the Amatsukami Imperium has been raging for years. In the midst of this struggle, the prince of the Levamme Empire declares his love for Juana del Moral and vows to end the war in one year, as part of his marriage proposal. When the Amatsukami catch wind of this, they assault the del Moral residence, targeting Juana’s life. As a last-ditch effort to bring the prince his bride, the San Maltilia Airforce employs a mercenary of mixed blood — a bestado — to fly Juana to the prince in secret. The pilot, Charles, accepts the mission … but traversing an ocean alone, and into enemy territory, proves a much more dangerous ordeal than anyone could have anticipated.
Some interesting anime news has come out of NIS America today. The company has revealed that they have acquired the license to MADHOUSE’s “The Princess and the Pilot” anime movie and will release the film overseas in North America. The company will be giving the title their standard premium edition packaging featuring a collectable hardcover slipcase and a 32-page hardcover art book but it will only be available on a single Blu-ray Disc. The Princess and the Pilot will be available for purchase on May 14th.