So far every time that Lightning has appeared in a new Final Fantasy title she has been given a brand new outfit to wear and that isn’t going to change with Lightning Returns. Today in this month’s V-Jump we have been given a look at Lightning’s new costume which can be seen to the right.
A larger version of the scan can be seen below as well as a few screenshots of in-game footage as well. Lightning Returns follows the story of, you guessed it, Lightning, who has awoken from a long crystal sleep and must try to save a collapsing world. Monsters are rampaging through the cities and they can be stronger or weaker depending on the time of day. The magazine also mentions that a trailer for Lightning Returns will debut at Jump Festa on Saturday, so be ready for that.
Just in-case you happened to forget that these were coming out, here’s a little reminder for ya. Today Capcom has released three new multiplayer modes for Resident Evil 6 (Review here) that are exclusive to the Xbox 360 verson of the game. These multiplayer modes will come at a price of 320MSP ($4) each or in one pack for 720MSP ($9) for all three of them.
The three modes are called Predator, Survivors and Onslaught. Predator mode involves short rounds with up to six players taking turns playing as the Ustanak and the rest of the humans trying to avoid capture and survive while dealing damage to the Ustanak. Survivors is a take on the basic deathmatch mode. Anytime a player is taken down, they will respawn as an enemy character and can only return to the human side if they manage to kill another human player. As for Onslaught mode, two players must try to clear waves of enemies while trying to chain combos together. What makes this unique however is the fact that a successful combo chain will actually send enemies into your opponent’s game.
Today Zombie Studios, the company behind games such as Blacklight Retribution, the SAW titles and even Frogger Hyper Arcade Edition, have announced that their next game will make use of Unreal Engine 4. At the moment there is only a little bit of information about what the game will actually be, though it currently has no name.
The game is going to be a psychological thriller that will be released exclusively on the PC sometime in the second quarter of 2013. This marks the second studio to announce their work with the new engine, as Square Enix was the first company to do so a few weeks ago.
Have you been looking for the perfect Infinity Blade tee shirt to complete your ensemble? Perhaps Jazz Jackrabbit screams “Old School” and you’re totally on board? Maybe you want a Cole Train poster for your dormitory or you’re just looking for a Gears of War hoodie as that perfect gift for your brother for Christmas. Whatever Epic gear you’re looking for, Epic Games has you covered.
Today, Epic Games opened their official online store. The store features everything from tee shirts to posters and prints to games and more. They’ve even got gear for fans of the Unreal Engine!
Whatever your Epic tastes, be sure to head over and check out their store here.
Do you pine for pinball, completely unable to satiate the never-ending hunger for more multiballs and high scores? If you’re the owner of an Android smart phone or tablet, you may have just hit your jackpot.
Zen Studios, the company that created Marvel Pinball and Pinball FX2, announced today that they’ve released Zen Pinball HD for the Google Play platform.
Zen Pinball HD is free and will come with one free table called “Sorcerer’s Lair.” The game features 15 tables straight out of the gate. For the first week after the game’s release every Marvel themed table is on sale for $0.99.
Now you don’t have to stand in line at the supermarket wishing you were playing pinball. You actually can!
Arakawa Under The Bridge Season One Studio:Shaft Publisher: Hanabee Formats: DVD Release Date:Out Now Price: $44.99 (Buy Here)
Overview
Do you like your Anime being strange and unusual? Do you like love stories where things are just bizarre and the love story is a minor addition? Then you will most definitely want to check out Arakawa Under The Bridge! This series is a hilariously unique experience that will have you in tears from laughter. Why is that? Read on to find out.
Story
Arakawa Under The Bridge follows the story of Ko, CEO of one of the largest companies in Japan and son of one of the greatest businessmen to have ever lived. His family has only one rule and that is to never be indebted to anyone. However, early on in the series, an accident happens where Ko is put into immediate danger and has someone rescue him and save his life. To ensure that his debt is repaid to this girl, Nino, he must become her lover and live under a bridge until his debt is repaid.
The series is a hilarious show filled with a bunch of bizarre and often nonsensical stories that involve even more strange and eccentric characters. This is especially true early on in the story where it is introducing all of the main cast and their particular quirks.
Actually that’s one of the things that I really liked about the story in this series, the way they handled introducing each of the main characters. Almost every character had an episode or a chunk of an episode dedicated to explaining who they are, their personality quirks and their love interests. What makes this show even more odd is that nobody seems to have a mutual interest in each other outside of Ko and Nino. This makes for some pretty hilarious comedy later on in the series. Especially when you have an incredibly young girl transforming into a hulking she-beast that puts Goku to shame in physique.
The story of Arakawa Under The Bridge is very character driven, as opposed to being story driven. In fact, their isn’t much to the story outside of character interactions until the last 4 episodes or so. And even then it is still pretty much the same old, same old, but with some big event happening in the background. In fact this event leads to a confrontation between Ko and his father, the main antagonist of this storyline.
One thing that is never explained in the series is why all these weird characters are living under the bridge in the first place. Why is there an English Nun/Super Soldier living there, what is the deal with the Kappa? Why does a Venusian and a Rock Star live there? Nobody knows. Is it important to the story that you know this? Not at all.
I really enjoyed the story of Arakawa Under The Bridge Season One, it was hilarious and filled with odd characters. I definitely can’t wait for Season Two.
Visuals
Arakawa Under The Bridge has a rather interesting visual style. It’s actually one of the first things you notice about the show. At first it seems a bit off, especially if you’re used to more traditional looking Anime, but after watching it for an episode, you realise how perfectly it fits and you just accept it.
What was interesting about this series most of all in the visuals, was how each segment of the show looks entirely different. For instance, the sequence before the opening credits is letterboxed and has a more hazy look to it. From there you move into the opening credits, which are pretty unique looking and then you have the episode itself, which is more usual looking but still stylistic. From there you have the ending credits which are weird and then the episode previews which are live-action shorts featuring a person in a kappa costume doing weird stuff.
I have to point out though, that series has a lot of bizarre moments in it and that the visuals carry these scenes perfectly. In fact, the bizarre becomes so common that you just start to accept it as part of the reality of the series. This doesn’t stop it from being funny, its just that you become accustomed to the humour and accept it almost immediately without questioning it after a short while. I think this allows the gags to become more and more unrealistic as the show progresses.
Overall Arakawa Under The Bridge brings it’s unusual visuals together in a unique and hilarious manner. This goes on to create a rather interesting, fresh and hilarious series that could have turned out rather dull and without personality.
Audio
Arakawa Under The Bridge doesn’t suffer from the same issues that plague western comedies. There are no unrealistic slapstick effects plugged into everything that happens, all there is really is a lot of yelling and some of speech patterns are switched up to be more comedic.
The opening theme is quite unique. It sounds really, really sweet but then you read the lyrics and you start to wonder what they’re really about. To me they read like they’re about a woman playing a guys emotions for her own sick amusement. That’s just my interpretation though.
I like how all of the characters voices really suit and carry the character that they represent. At no point do you question why a certain character has a certain voice, because they just fit the character so well. I mean, even the little girl character, I usually loathe the shrieky voices of children and cute girls in Anime. In Arakawa, this one voice was my absolute favourite. You just knew that something sinister was lurking beneath that cute sounding exterior.
The Hanabee release only has subtitles as far as I can tell, so there is no English dub. However this does not make this package any less worthwhile. It is hilarious in Japanese and I don’t think you’ll disagree.
Extras
Extras! This release has a buttload of extras found within. In general these are the Special Features found on the second disc. However, there is also a reversible cover and a small pamphlet on the inside showcasing some of Hanabee’s other releases.
Man, what was in those Special Features? Well there are the televised previews for each episode, you’ve got trailers, ending cards and more. These are an amazing addition to such an awesome series. Definite value add to this package.
Overall
Overall Arakawa Under The Bridge is easily one of the most insanely hilarious Anime series that I have ever seen. It’s just so strange and bizarre that you can’t help but be drawn into the wacky hijinks. The show also something for everyone, there’s a little bit of action, a little bit of romance and a lot of comedy and drama. Definitely recommend giving this one a purchase.
Indie Royale is back with their latest bundle. As usual, Indie Royale is running a pay what you want bundle with a minimum price rising and falling based on how much other people pay. Those who pay more than $8.00 for the bundle receive a chiptune album with their purchase.
This bundle includes FPSes Serious Sam Double D and Serious Sam: The Random Encounter, physics-platform puzzler Colour Bind, action puzzle platformer Offspring Fling!, point and click adventure Puzzle Bots, turn based strategy board game Little Kingdom, and an Indie Royale exclusive tower defense game called Namiko. This bundle’s chiptune album is Rhythm’n’Bits by Yaonn Turpin! Check out the bundle here.
And we’re back for another edition of Laike’s PC Download Deals. Christmas is drawing near, so if you’re looking to load up on some cheap games for a Christmas present for yourself or you forgot to buy a gift for that special gamer in your life, there is still time to save yourself!
First up is the Steam Midweek Madness Sale. We have grand strategy game Crusader Kings II on sale. Everything but the most recent few DLC is 75% off. If you’re a huge fan of grand strategy games and political intrigue, Crusade Kings II is a great game to play at a starting price or $7.49. The Stronghold franchise is also 75% off. Stronghold 3 Gold Edition is also $7.49. I personally suggest Crusader Kings II over Stronghold 3 Gold if you must choose between the two. The Steam Midweek Madness sales ends on Thursday at 10 am PST. Also, the Daily Deal is Jade Empire Special Edition for $3.74. I highly recommend this RPG game. I believe it is Bioware’s most underrated game, if you like KOTOR, give Jade Empire a try.
If you haven’t played bought Battlefield 3 yet, GameFly has it on sale for $13.99. Its a fantastic game, although it doesn’t recapture the original Battlefield 2 charm, it does a great job of updating the franchise to modern standards. Battlefield 3 activates on Origins. Check out our review of Battlefield 3 for PC here.
Get Games has Spec Ops: The Line for $7.49 for Steam. Although the multiplayer isn’t anything to write home about and the gameplay is pretty bland, Spec Ops: The Line has an amazing adult story that is worth the price. I highly recommend this piece of social commentary if you are looking for a story more potent than the Call of Battlefield popcorn action movie type stories.
Greenman Gaming has Dishonoredfor half price. Unfortunately there are no active GMG voucher codes, so there is no extra discount to be had here. I highly recommend this game, especially if you’re a fan of the Thief series. Dishonored activates on Steam. check out our review of Dishonored here.
GoG.com has the Defend & Conquer bundle on sale today. The bundle is a mix of tower defense and strategy games including Defender’s Quest, Anomaly Warzone Earth, Uplink: Hacker Elite, Defcon Darwinia, Multiwinia, and Spacechem. These games bough together are 75% off at $17.68. When the games are bought separately, they are only 50% off.
Coming on January 25th is the Planetside 2 Ultimate Empire Showdown event where players must choose a factions leader to follow into war against the other factions in the game. The leaders are current gaming icons in the Planetside 2 gaming sphere. From what I can gather, these leaders are players that have gone out of their way to create media content based on the franchise, like training videos and the like.
For the New Conglomerate team, we have the leader: Seananners who seems like a pretty cool guy. On the Terran Republic, we have the leader: Total Biscuit, who wears a nice suit. And then on my team, the Vanu Sovereignty we have: Tobuscus who seems to be more interested in goofing around than being useful.
For more information, be sure to visit the Ultimate Empire Showdown page and the Official Video, embedded below.
RedLynx has been busy with their second DLC for Trials Evolution. They announced the release of RedLynx TV Season 2 Episode 5 showing off some extensive video footage of Riders of Doom. The video shows off the ten new skill games, the new Trials bike, a new base world with 100 new objects for the level editor, and the 40 new tracks and tournaments. Buyers who do not own the first DLC will have access to all the level editor objects and features that was added in the first DLC. The Riders of Doom DLC will be available soon for 400 Microsoft Points.
Additionally, the RedLynx TV includes the results of last episode’s contest, intense scooter racing around the RedLynx offices, and the next 2100 MSP contest. Check out the video below.
So far every time that Lightning has appeared in a new Final Fantasy title she has been given a brand new outfit to wear and that isn’t going to change with Lightning Returns. Today in this month’s V-Jump we have been given a look at Lightning’s new costume which can be seen to the right.
