PSP owners who want something new to play are in luck this week, as an absolute treat has been delivered. Aksys Games new strategy RPG Ragnarok Tactics has hit shelves today, delivering an epic story with five different endings, as well as that familiar Ragnarok universe that fans know and love.
Here is some more details for those of you just learning of this game:
Long ago, a ferocious war, which came to be known as the Holy War, was waged. It was during this bloody conflict that humanity erected a magical barrier to keep both gods and demons from overrunning their world. Once the war was over, it was believed that peace would return. However, humanity soon began to turn on itself, and war began anew.
Many centuries after the Holy War, the Branshaldo Empire and the Aura Republic engaged in an extended war for control of the Grantria Peninsula. The conflict eventually ground to a halt and an uneasy truce was reached, as neither nation had the resources to continue fighting. Even so, the animosity between the two parties never faded, but smoldered beneath the surface, always threatening to explode into flames. In the resulting tenuous peace, the people of the peninsula began to resume their normal lives, always aware that the war could resume at any time.
It was against this backdrop that the protagonist begins their fight against rival factions, hordes of ravening monsters controlled by enigmatic puppet masters, and even their own dark impulses…
Features:
· Immersive Story –With multiple factions to support and a plethora of different endings to pursue, Ragnarok Tactics has a vast wealth of original story content for players to enjoy.
· Engaging Strategic Battles – Go beyond standard strategy RPG combat with a variety of unique tactical mechanics, such as the Overdrive, Burst Strike, or even resting mid-battle!
· Interact with Friends – Using the Playstation®Portable’s adhoc capabilities, you can exchange weapons and unlock extra features with your friends.
· Customizable Characters – True to the spirit of former Ragnarok games, Ragnarok Tactics features customizable characters complete with modifiable skills, stats, and job classes.
You can pick up Ragnarok Tactics as of today in either PSP UMD format, or digitally for your Vita or PSP via the PSN.
Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop Studio: Pariah Publisher: Beyond Home Entertainment Format: DVD (Reviewed), Blu-Ray Release Date: November 1, 2012 Price: $19.95 – Available Here
Overview
Back in 2010, Conan O’Brien had to make a decision…a decision that was unselfish and kept the legacy of The Tonight Show pure, by not allowing it to move into the AM for the first time in it’s history. Jay Leno got his old job back – the one he promised to give to Conan – and Conan left NBC with a fat pay-check for his troubles. This documentary gives us a candid look at Conan and his crew as they embarked on “The Legally Prohibited From Being Funny On Television Tour” soon after, and it suffices to say that you have never gotten an inside glimpse at the psyche and inner workings of Conan O’Brien, like this, anywhere else.
Story
The start of Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop briefly recaps the widely publicised events that led to Conan being unemployed and him coming up with the idea for The Legally Prohibited From Being Funny On Television Tour. Moving forward, we see the beginning stages of the tour’s preparation, while Conan speaks candidly to the camera about how he felt after the whole NBC Tonight Show debaucle. It’s obvious that Conan harboured a lot of anger and resentment over it all and needed this new outlet to prevent himself from self-imploding and possibly falling into a depression. He jokes about it, but there’s this unsettling truth behind the façade he puts up. Comedians and creative types famously deal with their issues in this way, so it’s not a new concept.
“Oh, I just rubbed this microphone into my leaking eye!…Seriously, no one touch this microphone!”
The tour gets rolling, and we see the utter and total commitment to perfection from Conan, putting more stress on himself than is necessary. But that’s who he is. And it’s not for himself, it’s for the people; his audience; his fans. He recounts a story about a guy whose friend says Conan blew him off when he approached him for an autograph. Conan says “That’s not possible! I said it with authority, like the way you would say when he says “a friend of mine says you shot at him with a 22 handgun!” That’s not possible!” It’s a very endearing trait, and one that is becomes all the more evident throughout the film as Conan just can’t refuse a conversation, a meet-and-greet or a photo op with someone, even when he feels he is in danger of losing his voice for the next show. He even did a “secret show” with Jack White at White’s studio!
As the crew travels from town-to-town, from coast-to-coast, numerous celebrities stop by to say hello backstage, including Jack McBrayer, Jon Hamm, Megan Mullaly, Nick Offerman and Jim Carrey. Carrey actually appeared on a couple shows throughout the tour, as did lead singer of Pearl Jam, Eddie Vedder and fellow TV funny-men, Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart. Jack Black and Kyle Gass, Tenacious D, also meet Conan backstage at Bonnaroo, where they were performing and Conan was presenting the musical guests throughout the day. Seeing Conan constantly riff afterwards about hosting Bonnaroo and matter-of-factly proclaiming “I know Nas!” (he barely knows who the rapper is!) is hysterical! He never switches off, even when he is exhausted! At the end of the documentary, Conan states that “anyone who knows me, who watches this says “now, that’s just raw you!””, and now the rest of the world can see it too. Personally, I gained a lot of respect for the man because of it.
Visual
Conan waiting to voluntarily perform at his Reunion Class Talent Show!
In 16:9 widescreen format, Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop looks as good as a standard definition shot documentary can look on DVD. Its very rare, nay, unheard of, for someone to renounce a documentary because of it’s visual quality. In regards to other visual aspects, there is no artifacting other than a visible, but easily ignorable, vertical green line at the left side of the image border, and the disc menu is quite basic. I would have liked to have seen a scene selection sub-menu considering it is a full-feature length film and people will surely have their favourite moments that they might like to pick out and re-watch – a memorable scene with Jack McBrayer comes to mind. Poor Jack…someone needs to fight back against Conan!
Audio
Again, being a documentary filmed with inexpensive filming equipment, you get what you bargain for with the sound. Having said that, the audio is clear enough throughout in 5.1 Dolby Digital, and, bar a few off-screen quips, every word that is spoken is sufficiently captured. There are moments where director Rodman Flender’s filming circumstances are not ideal or optimal for capturing audio from his subject, but this is again the very nature of a documentary. The footage on-stage in particular sounds great as every musical performance is crisp and clear. Naturally, there are no alternative language tracks, but also no subtitles either.
Extras
Conan rocking out amongst the crowd!
The special features on this DVD amount to a total of 10 deleted scenes, running around 42 minutes long. Some of the bonus footage revolves around the “8 Stages of Mourning” bit Conan did on-stage, during the tour, a look “Inside the Writer’s Room” and the moment when Conan and Co. start “Tweeting the TBS” deal out to the public. I loved all of this additional footage, as it is the same quality as what was left in the film, but was only cut for a better flow and a tighter run-time. Going into this review, I had heard of some more extras that were nowhere to be found on this disc (an interview, interview bloopers and commentary track), although I assume they can be found only on the Blu-Ray release. If you’ve got a Blu-Ray player, and the extra cash to pony up, I would purchase the Blu-Ray version just for that reason alone.
Overall
Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop is a great documentary. Being a fan of Conan’s, I appreciate this release much more than the average person would, and I understand that. But, as a documentary, it holds up on it’s own merits. The side of Conan we see here is completely foreign, and will either reinforce your love and respect for him, or it will catch you off-guard and change your opinions of him all together. Regardless, I think this is worth seeing. He truly can’t stop, and it’s a scary attitude, but also an admirable one. So if you’d like to gain a better understanding and appreciation for what makes the man, Conan O’Brien, tick, whilst also being entertained with inside footage of the ‘Legally Prohibited’ tour and its backstage antics…you can’t stop here, buy the DVD!
Spy Hunter, a reboot of the 1983 original game, is now available for the Playstation Vita and the Nintendo 3DS . As it was in the original game, the player once again assumes the role of the “Agent,” the driver of the high-tech G-6155 Interceptor supercar, armed extensively with advanced weaponry and ready to take on a global terrorist organisation set on world domination.
The Interceptor seamlessly transforms from supercar to off-road assault vehicle to speed boat, allowing players to select which path to follow in the game’s branching mission tracks. Players can also customise and upgrade the Interceptor’s weapons and high tech gadgets throughout the game. The Agent will have additional support in the form of an unmanned aerial support drone. Spy Hunter also features thrilling crash choreography and a camera system that follows the action in slow motion. The launch trailer can be seen below.
Welcome to another episode of CC: Anime, Capsule Computers Fortnightly Anime Podcast! In our eleventh episode, the CC: Anime crew discuss the latest anime and manga news, take part in the “YES or NO” round table segment, as well their thoughts on the Kuroko’s Basketball Incident and The Mystical Laws.
Cast: Luke Halliday, Travis Bruno, Benjamin ‘Linkage Ayexe’ Webb and Michael ‘Spike’ Marr
We hope you enjoy CC: Anime Episode 11, be sure to let us know what you think.
The guys over at gearbox should be proud of their achievement in selling over 5 Million copies of their latest first-person shooter RPG, Borderlands 2. Us here at Capsule Computers loved the game and are unsurprised that it has done so well. Check out our reviews for the Xbox 360 and PC versions.
On the milestone, 2k had this to say –
“We’re thrilled with the momentum of Borderlands 2 and it’s really a testament to all the hard work that the team at 2K and Gearbox put in to make this a must play game,” said Christoph Hartmann, president of 2K. “The Borderlands series has never been more popular, and with continued support through substantial add-on campaigns, Borderlands 2 has cemented itself as one of the industry’s mega franchises.”
If you’re a Borderlands fan and haven’t yet picked this up, you probably should as there are plans to launch an additional three DLC expansions to the game. There is already one addition out, check out our review for that here. Congratulations to Gearbox and 2k on this achievement.
I have to say that it is quite obvious that 2k is quite easily the biggest and bestest game publisher at the moment, not only releasing this great franchise that will surely have amazingly awesome expansions, but they are also releasing other greats in the future, like the upcoming Bioshock Infinite. And with XCom having just been released and doing incredibly well, I have to say it’ll be great seeing where they go.
GUILTY GEAR XX ΛCORE PLUS Publisher: ARC SYSTEM WORKS Developer: ARC SYSTEM WORKS Platforms: XBLA (reviewed), PSN Release Date: October 23, 2012 (XBLA); November 1, 2012 (PSN) Price: 1200 MSP – Here
Overview
When playing fighting games, you want to develop a connection with a character and become comfortable with their fighting style. GUILTY GEAR XX ΛCORE PLUS offers a plethora of characters to choose from with a wide assortment of abilities and unique characteristics. But how effectively does the title collaborate a vampire, robot, policeman, and pirates all under one roof? Let’s check it out.
Story
You can expect little storyline and primarily just action from this genre. However, GUILTY GEAR XX ΛCORE PLUS pulls a clever move by offering a variety of modes to play. Once such mode is the Story Mode where you can pick a character and progressively fight through their own unique storyline.
Story Mode proves to be interesting as well as cheesy in many moments. For instance, a character named May is searching to uncover her true identity. Some random encounters with other friendly characters will turn hostile in moments when she cannot access information readily. Why not welcome a new person to the Jellyfish Air Pirates, an all girl pirate crew, by sparring them on the deck of the ship? She eventually runs into a male character – wielding fan blades mind you – who provokes her to attack him to cheer her up. After defeating him, May is of course feeling a lot better about herself and continues to strive to discover her identity with her newly acquired friend.
Gameplay
Button mashing has potential to get you far in the title, but opponents become increasingly tougher and more responsive to every move. Therefore, training is available as an option from the start menu. Learning combos will be a godsend once reaching harder foes and performing unique missions. And if you choose to train a lot (let’s say 10 hours), you will unlock an achievement. After doing that I think you will certainly have a handle on any character.
Beyond training, players can take part in several different modes such as Arcade, Mission, M.O.M., VS CPU, Team VS CPU, VS 2P, Survival, and online matches. Arcade Mode provides the classic battle experience as players battle for the default two consecutive wins in order to continue to the next foe. The next opponent in line is normally harder to defeat with the final boss being ridiculous even on Beginner difficulty.
Twenty-five missions are available for completion in the game’s Mission Mode. Each mission offers players a goal to complete under specific conditions. Once the condition has been met, the player is given a grade according to his/her performance. Once such mission asks the player to use only normal attacks to defeat an enemy. Other missions will have the character’s jump disabled fending for dear life against a ground attacking opponent. How evil can the developers get?
Survival Mode is a thrilling gauntlet that lasts as long as your character has life. What makes survival tougher than other modes is that health can only regain a little per match, so the objective quickly becomes to kill opponents as quickly as possible. The only exception to this would be by attaining a “life max” bonus after defeating a shadowy figure at every 20 survival levels. The dark figure is just depiction of an alternate character with enhanced powers.
Probably the mode that is the hardest to master alongside Survival Mode is M.O.M. Your attacks deal damage to your opponent as well as drops money bonuses. As you consistently deal damage, the bonus meter raises and dishes out more cash to pick up. Life does not regenerate in M.O.M., so defend it well. Reaching a million and billion point levels will result in a nice cash-in achievement.
Versus Mode is what you expect out of a fighting genre. Pick two characters, and begin dueling each other. However, this time versus is split into a few categories: VS CPU, TEAM VS CPU, and VS 2P. Being self explanatory VS CPU and VS 2P hold the concept but one is facing a computer opponent and the other is facing a local player. TEAM VS CPU requires the player to choose three characters to face against three computer opponents. Once a character’s life diminishes, the next combatant chosen is up for battle facing the current opponent. The player with the last character standing is the winner.
In order to play online against other real time competitors, you must have a Xbox Live Gold membership. The online portion allows players to fight in two separate formats: ranked and player matches. Player matches are non-ladder games that can be used as practice for online play. By engaging in over 100 of these matches, you will have unlocked an achievement. The negative aspects of player matches are that not many players are readily available and that there may be a waiting period for an opponent to accept/decline the match. After several attempts of using the player match lobby, I retrieved the same opponent offering a repetitive experience.
Ranked matches happen quite frequently and offer more of a variety in opponents than my experience in player matches. Upon completing a ranked match, your global ranking is updated on the leaderboard. Statistics are also kept track for win/loss percentages and total games played. Rank experience works like a level system with your first rank being “Civilian”. As you earn experience by winning matches, your ranking slowly increases.
Overall difficulty cannot be changed during matches nor battles. This, however, can be done during the main menu selection in game options. One aspect to point out is that even though there may be differences in switching from “Normal” to “Beginner” difficulty latter battles in Arcade Mode prove tough to beat.
Audio/Visuals
The entire anime theme intrigued my senses as I felt involved in a wonderful mix of Naruto, One Piece, and BlazBlue character types. With the “Heaven VS. Hell” message at the start of each match, characters truly emanate their good/evil auras. One character in particular named Eddie really shines as an evil manifestation. Just by looking at his character you can see an evil presence surrounding him like a blanketing shadow. In fact his moves meld into shadow figures!
Another visual aspect that players can appreciate is multiple character skins. Being able to alter skins before battle allows players more personal customization to their favorite character. With five buttons able to select a character on the selection screen, there are five potential alternate skins. But the negative about having each of these skins available is that you cannot see them before the battle commences – only a downfall if you don’t know what button to press.
Special effects make the game stand a part from other fighting games. This can be seen through special moves like Potemkin using his strength to deliver a spine-breaking blow to Johnny. That’s got to hurt! Another instance that special effects can really be noticed is during the boss battle at the end of Arcade Mode. In my experience I-No – nearly topless lady with the guitar, uses an amp to blare musical notes every-time she takes significant damage. These attacks are avoidable, but the sporadic direction of these moves make her nearly impossible to defeat.
GUILTY GEAR XX ΛCORE PLUS did exactly what an anime is suppose to do – keep original voices and use English text. The voice acting in Japanese brings the characters to life by using raw emotion in every sentence. More often than not this emotional experience between voice and character is lost when dubbed to another language.
Overall
Negative aspects holding back GUILTY GEAR XX ΛCORE PLUS would be overall difficulty and online play. Button mashing will get you only so far until you have to train yourself to learn a character’s move list. The difficulty from “Beginner” to “Normal” can hardly be noticed in Arcade Mode when fighting the final boss. As far as online play, your experience depends on what mode you select and how long you are willing to wait for a match or new opponent. Ranked matches prove to be more diverse where player matches may have you waiting for opponents or replay previous ones.
In the end, GUILTY GEAR XX ΛCORE PLUS delivers a prominent fighting game on most fronts. You can expect a challenging experience in any difficulty and a variance of gameplay with all of its selectable modes. While this title has seen several releases, the move to Xbox Live Arcade will surely have a positive impact.
A new trailer for the upcoming One Piece movie, One Piece Film Z has made it’s way online and along with it is the first chance to hear one of two Avril Lavigne tracks that will be featured in the film.
The trailer shows off a variety of scenes from the film and prominently features the Avril Lavigne cover of Joan Jett’s ‘Bad Reputation’. Lavigne will also contribute a cover of Nickelback’s ‘How You Remind Me’ which rumoured to be featured during the film’s climactic battle.
Be sure to check out the trailer below and let us know what you think in the comments section.
Welcome to my weekly Hunter x Hunter episode impressions. This week, I go through episode 53 and 54 of the 2011 version of Hunter x Hunter. What did I think of the episode? Watch below to find out.
Got any questions for Anime Say? You can send me a tweet on my official twitter or alternatively drop me an email at [email protected]. I will do my best to respond to your tweets and emails as well as try read some out on the show.
What do you think of this episode impression? Let us know in the comments section below.
Angelica Weaver: Catch Me When You Can Collector’s Edition Developer: MumboJumbo Publisher: Big Fish Games Platform: PC Release Date: September 12th, 2012 Price: $19.99 – Available Here
Overview:
Casual games are a pretty widespread market in this day and age, which means that there are not only lots of players looking for something fun and easy enough to play as well as lots and lots of games all vying for their time and money. One good idea for games is to know exactly who their market is, so that they can make the best quality game for those that would enjoy it. What kind of market does a game like Angelica Weaver: Catch Me When You Can go for? Puzzle for sure as their are plenty of hidden object scenes, but the game also totes its story. So, exactly what kind of player is going to have had the best time at the end of the play?
Story:
Who should the Chicago police call when an investigation has run out of leads? Well, in this game they turn to Angelica Weaver a person whose special abilities makes her the ideal investigator. What kind of special abilities? Reliving the final moments of a victims life is a good start. The case this game sets Angelica on she’s her more than just solving a few Chicago murders however, as this case is linked to one from London back in 1888. So Angelica is displaced in time to find the connection and solve them both. The transition and juxtaposition of the two locations is pretty interesting giving the game a nice variety of locations that all look good.
Storywise the game is very well put together, as there isn’t anything out of place or poorly executed. With the main character being psychic who can see and interact with 1888 as well as modern Chicago, players shouldn’t have any problem with the directions that the game takes, from the cat and mouse games with the suspect to the penultimate motive. It also makes sure to have a good length to it as well, while going through the game I thought I knew about how long it would last, but was pleasantly surprised when there was a few more areas to explore and get through.
What sets the Collector’s Edition of the game apart from the regular edition storywise though is the Bonus Chapter that players can unlock to tie up the loose ends of the case. As an additional piece of content it is pretty important to fully understanding everything that is going on in the game. Though it is pretty curious how being so important this bonus chapter will be handled should they want to add to the series, as it is more than just a little add on. Needless to say, those really liking story should definitely get their kicks here.
Gameplay:
Catch Me When You Can combines old school adventure gaming with hidden object games, though the adventure gaming aspect of it is fairly watered down to ensure that players don’t become too stuck. Interacting only with the mouse makes the game super intuitive, as all you have to do is click, and interaction points are fairly streamlined to easily indicate exactly what everything does. This does make the adventure game parts fairly straight forward as players will always know exactly when a tool or object is required to use or do something. Which thankfully, all the usable objects make sense for their require situations and don’t require the adventure game logic of using objects inanely together.
As the game is tailored more for the casual market with the hidden object gameplay, the game is also filled to the brim with hints, which means players would be hard pressed to get stuck in the story without any means of progressing. Likewise, the hidden object part of the game is also fairly present throughout the entire game, as a means of getting required items. As a bonus after the story as well, those players more in it for the hidden object puzzles can play the story scenes in a more traditional version of the hidden object game, which is pretty much everything anyone could ask of a hidden object game.
Other features of the Collector’s Edition include achievements, for those that love to unlock absolutely everything in a game. Most of these are related to the story puzzles, completing them under specific restraints etc, but others are for simply progressing through the story and collecting all there is to collect. This does add a little more depth to the gameplay, but for the most part is simply another thing to do.
Visuals and Audio:
The visuals are actually amazing for what one might assume this game to have knowing that for the most part the focus is puzzles and hidden object games. This may be due in part from needing the graphics to match from each part of the game and hidden objects games being notorious for using really photo-realistic objects. Regardless the reason, the game looks great both in cutscenes and actual gameplay, so that it really adds to the quality.
Audio is very well done as well, though very limited in scope. For the most part, the audio is simply Angelica talking to herself or out loud, but there is more voice acting though few and far between. Angelica’s dialogue doesn’t get repetitive, which is a good thing as the player listens to her enough that it could have been a problem. Music throughout the game is great though, both in fitting the mood and giving the player something to occupy their ears while they’re solving the puzzles.
Overall:
It’s easy to see that a lot of work and effort went into the game from a solid story that while a little out there is fun it see play out, to gameplay that is both easy to understand and get into, to beautiful looking visuals, and good sound. For a game geared towards casual and hidden object players, there seems to be enough to pique the interest of those that would like an interesting story. While not a game for everyone, casual players should definitely enjoy it and probably some other willing to give it a shot. I give Angelica Weaver: Catch Me When You Can Collector’s Edition
Welcome to my weekly JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure episode impressions. This week, I go through episode 4 and 5 of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. What did I think of the episode? Watch below to find out.
Got any questions for Anime Say? You can send me a tweet on my official twitter or alternatively drop me an email at [email protected]. I will do my best to respond to your tweets and emails as well as try read some out on the show.
What do you think of this episode impression? Let us know in the comments section below.
A new trailer for the upcoming One Piece movie, One Piece Film Z has made it’s way online and along with it is the first chance to hear one of two Avril Lavigne tracks that will be featured in the film.
