I arrived at the, uh, office earlier today where one of our other staff members brought my attention to a particular article on another site that was about one Valve employees stance on the whole #1ReasonWhy Twitter tag where developers complain about sexism in the workplace.
What was most encouraging about this piece though, was not that there are female game developers shunning the hashtag, but that Half-Life 3 was accidentally confirmed. To Quote Christine Phalan on Half-Life 3:
Looking to the future, Phelan is certainly full of optimism and high-hopes. Having finally begun working on her beloved Team Fortress 2 (“it only took me since 2007, but I am finally on the project and I am super stoked!”), she’s also got her eye on a certain dream project that many gamers are dying to get an insight into.
“My dream project? Well, I’d love to work on Half-Life 3 some day…”
Right there, BAM! Half-Life 3 confirmed for being in development. This is a glorious day for gamers indeed.
Those of you who happen to be members of the PlayStation Plus service in North America will be happy to hear that when the PlayStation Network updates tomorrow you will be able to download BioShock 2 for the price of some storage space.
Outside of the free game there are a number of games that will be on sale for Plus members as well, in the form of Puddle for 50% off and the Rockstar Game Collection 1 which includes Red Dead Redemption, Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City, L.A. Noire and Midnight Club: Los Angeles Complete Edition for $53.99 which is 10% off of the standard price.
Today Namco Bandai revealed that not only will Level-5’s Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch be given a demo, and this demo arrives sooner than you may think since it will actually be released tomorrow, December 4th, on the North American PlayStation Network. As for what this demo will contain, there will be two areas to explore as well as two bosses to fight against in the form of the Guardian of the Woods and Moltaan whom can be seen above.
Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch is currently set for a PlayStation 3 exclusive release next year on January 22nd in North America and January 25th in Europe.
Warner Bros. Interactive entertainment has announced that the next installment in the Game Party franchise, Game Party Champions, is available today.
Developed by Phosphor Games, Game Party Champions is designed to be a game for all ages, where your skills will be tested in a variety of games, including table hockey, hoop shot and ping pong.
The game comes with 3 game modes: Quick Play, Story Mode and Party Mode, all of which are rendered in HD graphics, and is both GamePad Wii Remote compatible.
The latest in the Crysis franchise of PC killing games, Crysis 3, has recently had its website updated with the full list of PC requirements to run the game. As anyone with a gaming PC will tell you, the Crysis games have generally set the benchmark for computing power required to even run the games.
In an odd move, the guys over at Crytek and EA have listed three differing tiers of specifications. These are the minimum specs to even look at the game, the recommended specs for playing the game comfortably and the hi performance specs for absolute awesomesauce levels of gameplay and graphics.
I have reproduced these specs below –
Minimum System Operating Requirements for PC:
• Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8
• DirectX 11 graphics card with 1Gb Video RAM
• Dual core CPU
• 2GB Memory (3GB on Vista)
• Example 1 (Nvidia/Intel):
• Nvidia GTS 450
• Intel Core2 Duo 2.4 Ghz (E6600)
• Example 2 (AMD):
• AMD Radeon HD5770
• AMD Athlon64 X2 2.7 Ghz (5200+)
Recommended System Operating Requirements for PC:
• Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8
• DirectX 11 graphics card with 1GB Video RAM
• Quad core GPU
• 4GB Memory
• Example 1 (Nvidia/Intel):
• Nvidia GTX 560
• Intel Core i3-530
• Example 2 (AMD):
• AMD Radeon HD5870
• AMD Phenom II X2 565
Hi-Performance PC Specifications:
• Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8
• Latest DirectX 11 graphics card
• Latest quad core CPU
• 8GB Memory
• Example 1 (Nvidia/Intel):
• NVidia GTX 680
• Intel Core i7-2600k
• Example 2 (AMD):
• AMD Radeon HD7970
• AMD Bulldozer FX4150
I was fortunate to have just upgraded my GPU on Saturday from the Minimum 5770HD to just below the Hi-Performance 7970HD (mines at 7870HD). Be sure to check out the Official Sitefor more info.
Towa no Quon Complete Collection Studio: BONES Publisher: Madman Format: DVD Release Date: October 24th, 2012 Price: $59.95 – Available HERE
OVERVIEW
Imagine a not too distant futuristic world where forces, both mystical and technological are locked in a power struggle in urban Japan. Traditionally, these two forces are always shown to be pitted against one another, always vying for superiority in some new incarnation. Towa no Quon is one of the latest anime series to weigh in on this conflict. It demonstrates the hallmarks of an intense action series, yet also features numerous comedic and dramatic elements. This is a universe where prejudices are made against the mystic and technology dominates the world order. Violently.
Described as “A Wild Dance of Chaos”, Towa no Quon sets out to be dramatic, funny and most importantly, rife with plenty of ass-kicking. Is it a collection worth owning? Only one way to find out.
STORY
To most kids who idolise superheroes and spend plenty of time playing games and pretending to be them, the idea of gaining superpowers would sound pretty awesome. Towa no Quon spins this on its head, taking place in a futuristic image of Japan where people who develop mystical superpowers are hunted down and violently eliminated. What’s more intense is that this standard applies to anyone. Male, female, healthy, sick, young or old. An organisation called The Order imposes this brutal law throughout the world, and are shown to be ruthlessly effective.
The protagonist of the series, a teenager named Quon, is one such person who has developed these strange mystical powers. His personality is very much of the caring variety, often putting the needs of others ahead of his own. He is part of a resistance group called the Attractors, whose aim is to get to these children before the Order’s cyborgs do, to offer protection and training in the use and control of their new abilities. Quon’s most notable power is his ability to transform into a fierce blue battle form, called Insania. Acting as the group’s main field agent, Quon is one of the few combat capable Attractors responsible for rescuing and protecting these other kids, who he describes as “the same as him.”
What I particularly enjoyed about the variety of characters in this collection is the creativity of many of the powers possessed by the Attractors, and their wards. Each character displays talent with a huge variety of different powers such as super speed, combat transformation, regeneration, healing, teleportation and even the ability to become a living computer. The Attractors typically operate as a team, with each member bringing something unique to the table, and allowing the children they rescue to do the same. They each have distinctively different personalities, from friendly, to voluptuous, to arrogant, to innocent which makes the interrelationships and teamwork aspects feel all the more real. It features the same team-mentality appeal shown in western animations like X-men, where viewers imagine themselves being part of the team with their own unique abilities.
There’s no doubt that Towa no Quon is a short series. Containing only six 50-minute long episodes, the need for plot movement to take place in a restricted time frame is fairly obvious. Originally designed in a movie-series format, much like Hellsing Ultimate and Gundam Unicorn, interest in the plot of such a series can be made and broken on the frequency of successive releases. There are a lot of questions that will immediately spring to mind when first watching, and it will demand the attention of the viewer to understand many of the plot points that will eventually take place. As a collection of the entire series, the viewer has the ability to watch everything in quick succession, eliminating the hassle of long waiting periods between releases.
Towa no Quon treads around quite a number of moral issues. It raises the social question of: how far are we, as humans willing to go to impose or maintain a state of safe order? It is very much a reflection of modern day themes of censorship. Is it best to hide and suppress dangerous or chaotic influences, at any cost? Or should total freedom be considered a paramount social value, even if it means harm could befall people as a result? Towa no Quon certainly is an example of a series that fondly portrays the latter. The moral arguments here are subtle, and not overbearing. If you’re the kind of viewer that likes to analyse the existential implications of a given piece, then it’s available to do so. Of course if you couldn’t care less about that sort of thing and just want to see the blue fish man wail on a bunch of robots, then you can enjoy that too.
In watching the collection, mostly due to Quon’s ability to transform his body with mystical powers, I couldn’t help but be reminded of other similar anime series such as Xam’d and D.Gray-man. Towa no Quon is like a bite sized version of these series, delivering very similar calibres of story and action in a shorter series.
VISUAL AND AUDIO
Towa no Quon is visually spectacular. The fluidness of the animation, particularly in battle scenes is a boon to the series. In an action oriented anime, it is always important to be able to follow the flow of battle. The visual representations and manifestations of the Attractors powers are also pretty cool, with huge varieties of colours and bright special effects, which contrast against the dark steely design of The Order’s mechanical forces. Character designs are also quite good, but it will be hard to not draw visual comparisons to other anime if you watch plenty of it.
The audio quality of the series is of a solid standard, but isn’t anything mind blowing. Sound effects and musical scores are largely appropriate and the voice acting well selected, but Towa no Quon’s audio quality didn’t really do much to make itself really stand out outside of the dialogue. It’s not bad. In fact it’s quite good. It just isn’t spectacular.
EXTRAS
The collections second disc features the standard line-up of Madman published special features. These include original Japanese trailers as well as commentaries and textless opening and closing are available. Other Madman published series such as Heaven’s Lost Property also receive trailer spots on the extras section.
OVERALL
Towa no Quon is a damn downright fun series to watch. The action is fast paced and spectacularly animated. The characters are gradually fleshed out and a surprising level of depth for six episodes. And the voice acting is actually surprisingly well appropriated for the English dub. The real praise for this collection goes to its ability to tell a deep and engaging plot in such a limited run-time, a challenge for many great anime today. Odds are, most people will never have even heard of this collection. But don’t let sort of animosity towards the unfamiliar scare you off. Towa no Quon is an unexpectedly great series that’s definitely worth watching before you judge it.
Paramount Pictures have released the Official first poster for the upcoming movie of awesomeness, Star Trek: Into Darkness. The poster itself depicts a scene showcasing what appears to be a city of some kind with some other kind of ruin in the foreground. Between both of these things is what appears to be Captain Kirk doing his best imitation of Neo from The Matrix.
The latest chapter in the Star Trek reboot by J.J Abrams is set to be released on the 16.05.2013. Here’s a quote from the Press Release –
When the crew of the Enterprise is called back home, they find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization has detonated the fleet and everything it stands for, leaving our world in a state of crisis.
With a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one man weapon of mass destruction.
As our heroes are propelled into an epic chess game of life and death, love will be challenged, friendships will be torn apart, and sacrifices must be made for the only family Kirk has left: his crew.
Be sure to check out the Official Facebook Page for more info. See below for the full size poster.
Superbot Entertainment has announced that they will be bringing patch 1.02 to Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale in the near future. This brings several fixes, a new item and changes to LittleBigPlanet’s mascot, Sackboy. The new item will be Medusa’s Gaze, presumably an item from the God of War series. No details about the weapon from Superbot, but, if one is to divulge into the story of the mythical Medusa, the item would involve freezing the opponent since a glance at her eyes does turn the gazer into stone.
In addition, Sackboy’s Super Attacks are now going to take a little while longer to reach as the AP cost of all three have been increased. Jam Session, an attack where Sackboy throws a ball of jam, and Cakeinator, where Sackboy launches a piece of cake, have their AP gain reduced from their original figures. Changes to AI and the network are also part of the focus of this patch.
A new item, Medusa’s Gaze, has been added to the game
View Invites has been added to the Party Bar Menu
Voice chat icon added to loading screens
AI logic enhancements
Network performance improvements
Issue where players were stuck with a different character than the one picked has been addressed
Issue with matchmaking in regards to player skill has been addressed
Overall improvements to network connectivity
Sackboy changes
Level 1 Super – Increase cost from 100 to 150 AP
Level 2 Super – Increase cost from 325 to 400 AP
Level 3 Super – Increase cost from 600 to 750 AP
Jam Session (Neutral Triangle) – Reduced AP generation from 25 down to 10 AP
Cakeinator (Neutral Circle) – Reduced AP generation from 25 down to 20 AP
Speaking of Sackboy receiving a nerfing, are there any characters in the current roster that need to be nerfed? What about character that need to be buffed? Shout out your thoughts below.
Developer: BitMonster Publisher: BitMonster Platforms: iPad (Reviewed), iPhone, iPod Touch Release Date: November 20th, 2012 Price: $2.99 Get it Here
Overview
Lili is an action RPG game that was featured during the iPhone 5 Apple Keynote speech for its jaw dropping visuals. The game runs on the Unreal engine and features a quirky and kid friendly nonviolent gameplay that will appeal to both parents and adults.
Story
Lili is a student studying flowers. To complete her research, her professor sends her to the island of Geos to collect special flowers only found on the island. Unfortunately the rarest of the flowers are only found on the backs of masked Spirits who are in the midst of oppressing the population of constructs. Lili is a likeable heroine. She is smart, a little quirky, and extremely witty. The supporting characters are unique and have some genuinely funny interactions with Lili. The story is not the deepest or enthralling of stories, but that is not the star of the show. The quirky humour and the mounds of pop culture reference is the obvious gem in the story line. The humour is very similar to a Pixar movie. The humour is simple enough to amuse children and there a dash of adult humour.
Gameplay
Lili is a shining example of a game that was designed with the touch screen in mind. Although it has its problems in execution, the control scheme is brilliant. The game dispenses with the utterly irritating touchscreen direction pad in favour for a one tap to walk forward, double tap to run forward, and tap again to stop movement. To control the camera or change Lili’s direction, the player simply drags a finger around the screen.
The main mechanic of the game is picking flowers. To pick one, simply drag the flower away from the roots until it pops off. This mechanic is done both in and out of combat. Combat is a bit of a misnomer as they are more of an action sequence than true combat due to the lack of real violence. Lili chases down a construct and leaps on its back and begins plucking flowers off their back as they do their best to shake her off. A certain amount of white flowers must be plucked before the treasured red flower appears that ends to the sequence. Along the way, green and orange flowers can also be plucked off the Spirit’s back to refill the grip meter and earn bonus coins respectively. As each successive flower that is plucked off, a combo meter fills. If the player misses, the combo meter drops back to the start. The Spirit will shake causing the flowers on its back to move as the first hazard. As the game progresses and the difficulties ramp, new hazards such as bombs and Spirit guards with shields will make Lili’s adventure more complicated.
The combat controls can be flaky at times. Flowers do not always respond properly when plucked with the shaking of the Spirit. The least painful of these consequences is a broken combo chain, but the most annoying consequence results in Lili planting her hand onto thorns or missing an exploding bomb resulting in a large penalty in her grip meter. I found this made more difficult fights incredibly irritating.
The game is split between exploring the island and combat sequences. Thanks to the stunning visuals and witty pop culture references, exploring the island can be fun. However, I found combat to be extremely repetitive and became boring rather fast. Each fight becomes the exact same thing, open the map, find the Spirit, chase is down, start the combat sequence, wash, rinse, and repeat. There is no real change in strategy beyond using an item to help speed things along. Spirits guards are more of a nuisance than a real challenge.
Visuals
There is a good reason why Lili was selected to be one of the apps demoed on stage during the Apple Keynote. Lili is drop dead gorgeous. The game is full of bright colours and breath taking graphics. The island is lush, its citizens detailed, and the animals are top notch. The use of the Unreal engine causes some pretty lengthy load time and heavy RAM usage, but it is a reasonable trade-off for visual quality that hasn’t been seen since Infinity Blade II. The game is jaw dropping on the New iPad’s Retina screen and the game supports the iPhone 5’s wide screen. The visual mood is fitting for an island paradise. The art style slightly cartoony, reminiscent of the early days of the Playstation before brown became the popular colour palette. Lili joins Infinity Blade II as the bar all other iOS games are compared to for graphical quality.
Audio
Lili is a semi voice acted games. Lili has a set of generic speaking parts such as greetings that start some of the conversations in the game. The sound effects are excellent. The music is a great accompaniment to the overall environment of the game and the overall audio experience never feels too repetitive. Although this is not a game you will have to plug in headphones to get the most out of, Lili is an enjoyable audio experience that is worth turning on the speakers for. One minor quirk I did notice with the game is sometimes the game will play some of the sound even when the mute switch is engaged.
Overall
Lili is an excellent example of form over function. Although it has an excellent control scheme that is well thought out, it fails in execution due to spotty controls. The story is not the deepest or engrossing of tales, but the writing is witty, quirky, and funny. The game is absolutely gorgeous and the audio matches perfectly with the island theme, but falls flat on its face due to painfully repetitive combat. Lili had all the makings of a great game but unfortunately fumbled at the finishing line. I cannot bring myself to recommend the game at $2.99, but this game is worth picking up on sale if a patch to iron out some of the combat control issues is released.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Last we heard of Rayman Legends for the Wii U was that Ubisoft had inexplicably delayed it until Q1 2013, a vague date at best. However word has come in thanks to Pure Nintendo that a release date has now been revealed for this delayed and much desired installment in the rebooted Rayman franchise.
It now appears that Rayman Legends will release on the Wii U on February 26th, 2013 across North America. No release date for other regions has been confirmed nor has a reasoning for the game’s delay been revealed.
Be sure to let us know what you think of Rayman Legends release date in the comments section below.
