XSEED Games has pulled off a nice little coup today as they have announced that they will be bringing Rune Factory 4 over to North American 3DS this Summer. Now while this isn’t the first time XSEED has published a Rune Factory game, the series has largely been published by Natsume until now.
Rune Factory 4 saw the highest sales in franchise history in Japan when it was released last year and features a number of improvements to past games. Rune Factory 4 allows players to choose a female or male character that falls from the sky and becomes the princess or prince of Selphia where they must try to manage the village within the game. While very similar to harvest moon in many regards, such as farming, cooking and crafting, it varies greatly by offering players monsters to fight and tame. In fact, you can even date and marry a few monster-human hybrids alongside basic human characters.
While it had been rumored that XSEED Games would be bringing Grasshopper Manufacture’s next title, Killer is Dead, over to North America the company has never confirmed the fact. That is until today when the company announced that they will indeed be bringing the title over to North America sometime this summer while Deep Silver will be bringing it to gamers in Europe and Australia.
In Killer is Dead players take control of Mondo Zappa, a man who wields a katana with his right hand and a left hand that can change into a number of different weapons including a drill. Mondo is an executioner who is tasked with killing the worst criminals in the world.
Today EA Sports announced something with so many vague details, we barely know what to tell you besides to look at the image above. Either way, today the company released the above image stating that they are planning on releasing something on August 27th that has to do with Madden.
It could be another name for Madden NFL 14 or a game that will celebrate the 25th anniversary of the series which is happening this year or something else. Currently no platforms have been revealed but one can expect the game to appear on nearly every major platform available at that time.
NASCAR has recently unveiled the new 6-Gen stock cars that will be used for their official races. Now you can take them for a spin in the new NASCAR The Game: Inside Line DLC. The NASCAR Gen 6 cars bring the brand new Chevrolet SS, Ford Fusion and Toyota Camry models into the game with detail that will make them look more like the show room models than ever before. The new DLC will be hitting the Xbox 360 and PS3 in late February.
With the Inside Line Highlights DLCs along side the upcoming one, the player can recreate races with race data with their new cars. They can now relive or rewrite different racing events with the new Gen 6 cars.
PopCap has officially unlocked its doors on their newest game creation – Hidden Agenda. Exclusive to Facebook, Hidden Agenda mirrors many aspects that players of PopCap titles have come to love. Those familiar with the (HOG) format – hidden object game, not a hog farm – can expect many mysteries in a town mixed with a plethora of speaking animals. As an up-and-coming investigator, you are tasked with finding title’s own hidden agenda between two rival families.
To take part in the beta, join Hidden Agenda’s Facebook page (here). Take a look at the open beta launch trailer below to decide if this hidden object game is for you.
Bulkypix’s latest game Redneck Revenge: A Zombie Road Trip has been officially dated for a February 14th release. The game was developed in house for iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Android, and Blackberry. To celebrate the announcement, Bulkypix has released a new trailer for Redneck Revenge: A Zombie Road Trip featuring in game footage.
The game features a variety of modern firearms, improvised weapons, and unlockable clothes to dress up the hero, Red. Players will defend their position to the death as they race to uncover the source of the mysterious zombie outbreak across four different worlds.
The game is priced at $0.99. Check out the new trailer below.
Back at E3 2012 when Dead Space 3 was first officially announced, there were looks of horror on people’s faces and it wasn’t because of the Necromorphs. But rather at the game’s “sudden” change of direction from a straight out survival horror game to what looked like ‘Gears of War mixed with Lost Planet’.
But one feature that we never expected to be in a Dead Space game was that of co-op, perhaps one of the most controversial addition to the latest game in the highly successful and critically acclaimed series.
But wait a minute; haven’t we all seen this before: A successful survival horror series introducing a new setting, features, and gameplay in order to make the game more popular with wider audiences? Oh yes that’s right Resident Evil 5 back in 2009.
Ticking all the boxes of the path that Resident Evil 5 took, Dead Space 3 has introduced co-op gameplay whether you like it or not – but unlike Resident Evil 5, Dead Space 3’s co-op experience differs greatly, and thankfully so. Built from the ground up, Dead Space 3’s co-op mode cherry picks the best parts from other games that offers a co-op mode such as Resident Evil 5, Halo, Gears of War, Fable 2 & 3, and leaves out the bits that made them suck.
Learn from the mistakes of other co-op games, Dead Space 3’s co-op mode isn’t forced upon players with a AI companion following you around when you’re playing by yourself – but rather it’s fully drop in drop out meaning a friend can join your game wherever you are, not matter each other’s individual progress.
Speaking with Dead Space 3 Producer John Calhoun at a recent hand-on preview with a near finished build of the game, he explained that Dead Space 3’s co-op mode is the most challenging thing the development team has undertook from both a technique and gameplay stand point.
As the co-op is drop in drop out, co-op needs to be valuable to both players, and to achieve this all progress and actions carried out in a friend’s game such as items found, weapons crafted or chapters completed will be remembered and saved to the second player’s profile – meaning that the time spent won’t be wasted.
There are no limitations with drop in drop out co-op, as Calhoun explained “If you played Dead Space 3 all the way to the very end, and your friend picks up a copy he can join you at the very end even though he’s never played it before.” It’s all about player choice in Dead Space 3.
And with that said, you don’t have to play co-op if you don’t want to. There is no significant difference in terms of story playing through the game single player or co-op. The goals and objectives are still the same; players won’t be missing out on important story facts if they stick with single player or visa versa with co-op.
What changes between the two modes is tone of the game. As Calhoun explained, “[The game] changes its tone from one of isolation and individual survival. When you’re playing co-op it’s about two people who come from very different backgrounds – engineer and a solider who have to rely on each other to survive. They talk to each other, they disagree, they yell, but they also share in their triumphs and successes so that’s very different tone and changes the way the game feels. While it’s not true to say the game’s story is completely different, it’s true to say that the game feels different and players will experience it differently.”
Again it’s entirely up to players if they choice to play Dead Space 3 in co-op or single player. It’s an option for those that want it, and those that don’t want it don’t have to play it. John Carver the game’s second protagonist fits in perfectly no mater what mode you choice, and his story is told regardless of the mode you choice to play. Players aren’t going to miss out on a major plot point because of their choice of mode, the game has been built around both modes and accommodates for the addition of a secondary player at any given time.
Cognition Episode 2: The Wise Monkey has just been released for PC and Mac. Being the second part of a four episode adventure, Erica Reed’s tale grows darker and more mysterious when more field agents are thrown into a serial killer’s war path. Knowing well the art direction in the first title, The Wise Monkey proves to be the vomit wielder/messy drawers of the bunch thus far. Players will experience gauged out eye sockets along with suspenseful twists that will place more than your own life at risk.
Phoenix Online Studios has Cognition Episode 2 available as well as the “Season Pass” at their online store (here) and has also made it available on other websites such as GamersGate, Zodiac, JustAdventure, and GameFly (here). To catch a preview of the title just look below at The Wise Monkey trailer.
A single image posted to social media tells it all. The wait will soon be over for Rockstar Game’s highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto V, with the game official receiving a release date of September 17, 2013. While this may be four months later than originally planned “Spring 2013”, finally we get have some closure.
Over on Rockstar’s official website, the GTA team explained the descsion to move the game back by a few months,
We know this is about four months later than originally planned and we know that this short delay will come as a disappointment to many of you, but, trust us, it will be worth the extra time. GTAV is a massively ambitious and complex game and it simply needs a little more polish to be of the standard we and, more importantly, you require.
While the delay might be disappointing to some eager to get their hands on the game, a little wait longer for the dev team to continue polishing the game seems fair and reasonable enough.
Grand Theft Auto V is set to be released for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 on September 17.
The planned re-releases of all 6 existing live-action Star Wars films, in 3D, has been put on the backburner as the focus moves towards Episode VII and beyond in the timeline.
The following is an official statement from StarWars.com:
Lucasfilm has decided to postpone this fall’s scheduled release of Star Wars Episodes II and III in 3D. Given the recent development that we are moving forward with a new Star Wars trilogy, we will now focus 100 percent of our efforts on Star Wars: Episode VII in order to ensure the best possible experience for our fans. We will post further information about our 3D release plans at a later date.
Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace has already been released with a 3D conversion in February of last year, but now Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith will have to wait their turn. The reception to Episode 1’s conversion was very mixed, so maybe this is the best move for everyone. Not only should new content take precedence – and it is – but, now with this indefinite delay on the 3D re-releases, the technology will have improved that much more and the end result will undoubtedly be much better.
On a side-note, does anyone want to tell Darth Vader that those anaglyph 3D glasses are cheap and outdated?
