This weekend Grasshopper Manufacture showed off the first trailer for Killer is Dead during the Lollipop Chainsaw Summer Gratitude Festival. While the trailer has not been released yet to the public, Japanese website Game Watch happened to attend the festival and was able to write down many details about the game.
According to Kadokawa Games CEO Yoshimi Yasuda, the video was meant to be a special gift to the press who could make it to the event and the video featured a man in combat with a sword in his right arm while his left arm was entirely robotic. The man appeared to be the main character and he was alongside a female executioner. From what was shown, the video contains the same Suda feel as past games, with “high-contrast shading.”
Famitsu happened to report that the title will feature a shading style similar to what was used No More Heroes combined with the colorful and stylish feeling that Lollipop Chainsaw contained. Nothing more was revealed about the game at the moment, besides Suda saying he wanted the game to have a large amount of beautiful women. To close out the event the group revealed that Lollipop Chainsaw is the highest shipped game ever in Grasshopper Manufacture’s history with over 700,000 units shipped worldwide. We shall update you if the video of Killer is Dead happens to make its way online.
If you were hoping that Square Enix would be announcing a sequel to The World Ends With You when their countdown ended, then you will probably be a little disappointed to learn that, now that the countdown is indeed over, they have instead revealed that the game is going to be released on the iPhone and the iPad. Exciting.
The game will now be called The World Ends With You: Solo Remix and allow players to control two characters, though they will now be on the same screen. The iOS version of the game will feature 60 songs, a brand new fusion system and HD artwork. To go along with this announcement the company also released a new trailer for the title which can be seen below.
Those interested in picking up the title will be interested in learning that it will be released tomorrow on August 27th in both English and Japanese and will cost $18 on the iPhone and $20 on the iPad.
Welcome to the Second episode of The Gaming Connection with me as your host, Benjamin “LinkageAX” Webb. In this weeks extra-long second episode of the series, we take a look at the recently released and super-special awesome: Guild Wars 2. Most of this episodes gags are in the first 5 minutes, so feel free to skip ahead to the meat past that.
Also for the first time in the series, we have actual gameplay! And yes, the opening sequence is sped up just a little.
The Episode is titled The Gaming Connection with LinkageAX – Guild Wars 2. Hope you enjoy it!
Middle
– Why Guild Wars 2?
– What I’m liking
– Launch day issues
– Things I’m disliking
– Anything Else I might think of on the fly
Ending
-Closing Statements
-Connecting with you: What is your opinion on GW2 so far? #GamingConnection
-Send answers via Twitter, Comments Section below or my email [email protected]
-Check out my twitter @LinkageAX
-Check out our official website https://www.capsulecomputers.com.au
-See everyone off
-Adios.
Just remember guys, you can contact me on Twitter with any feedback and responses for the show @LinkageAX. You can also reach me privately at my email address [email protected].
The opinions shared in this series are my own and not reflect the views of Capsule Computers as a whole. Check out the video embedded below for this weeks Gaming Connection goodness.
It was revealed today that Nippon Ichi Software and Idea Factory have formed a new company which they are currently calling Preapp. The company will be based in Yokohama and was actually created back in July with only five employees.
The companies chose today to reveal the company because it began operating today with former NIS America president Haru Akenaga leading the company. The purpose of Preapp is to focus on overseas business consulting and licensing. Akenaga himself actually owns 75% of Preapp while Idea Factory and Nippon Ichi only hold 10% of the company which means it was likely Akenaga’s idea originally. Those interested in checking out Preapp’s site can view it here (in Japanese.)
A new trailer for Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn has been released this past week. As you can see in the trailer, it goes deep into detail on how the main characters of the web series feel about being at the academy and how they all feel about the “threat” they think they are up against. You learn some background info on the characters through their narration while the whole trailer is playing.
Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn will be releasing on October 5, 2012, on Machinima Prime and each episode will be about fifteen minutes in length. The game itself, Halo 4, will be releasing on November 6, 2012, on the Xbox 360.
Check out the trailer embedded below for more info.
The Australian division of 2kGames have released a new trailer for the upcoming tactical strategy game, XCOM: Enemy Unknown. This trailer is titled Casualties of War and takes a look at the importance of keeping your agents alive in the field of combat.
XCOM: Enemy Unknown is a reboot of the classic X-COM franchise from the early nineties and follows the invasion of Earth from alien foes. What made this series standout compared to other games at the time was a focus on tactical decisions from not only a combat perspective, but from a business/ military perspective also.
The concept of ‘Perma-death’ is also a concept that was largely involved in the series where players would be able to have their field operative get killed at any moment and they would be unable to resurrect them. This gave players a kind of connection to their units and having them lost is something most players did not like. This rebuild also carries this perma-death feature and this is what the trailer showcases.
Be sure to check out the trailer embedded below for more info.
Developer: Phosphor Games Studio Publisher: Zynga Platforms: iPad (Reviewed), iPhone, iPod Touch Release Date: August 16th, 2012 Price: $6.99 USD/$7.49 AUD Get It Here
Overview
Zynga partnered with game developers Phosphor Game Studio to publish Zynga’s first console quality core game. Phosphor Games Studio is already experienced with both casual games in the form of Kinect Adventures and the core game market through hit iOS action-adventure game Dark Meadows making it a perfect partnership for Zynga. Horn is an action-adventure game in the spirit of Legend of Zelda and Infinity Blade, can it draw the best of both worlds?
Story
Horn is loosely based on the stories of King Horn, a Middle English tale from the thirteenth century. Players take on the role of Horn, a young blacksmith’s apprentice who wakes up one day to find his village in ruins and all the living beings turned into giant magical creatures called Pygon. Horn manages to narrowly defeat one and takes the loud mouthed, abrasive, and foul tempered head with him on his journey to lift the Pygon curse from the land.
I found the story to be interesting and well written even though the story follows the traditional young man who is the only hero who can save the world archetype. The plot is moved forward through cut scenes that look like they came right out of a child’s storybook and in conversations between Horn and his contemptuous sidekick. Those conversations are witty and extremely funny; however I only wish there were more. It seems like these conversations are only triggered in at specific times in the levels. It would have been nice to hear more banter between Horn and his side kick to fill some of the quieter moments in the game.
Gameplay
Horn takes combat elements from Infinity Blade and adds adventuring mechanics from Legend of Zelda. Those looking for a wide open world to explore will be disappointed, as Horn is actually a very linear game. Players who are willing to explore not far off the beaten path will be rewarded with small areas full of bonus Pygite and Cores. Puzzles are just challenging enough to be interesting without being head banging annoying.
The combat is a slightly modified version of Infinity Blade’s slashing mechanics. There are buttons for dodging left, right, and up, drinking health potions, and a special bomb potion that will momentarily stun the enemy. Each enemy type has a core that can be attacked to inflict extra damage and specific attack patterns that need to be dodged. Each fight is judged out of five stars and the monetary reward is given out accordingly. Sometimes the five star rating feels a little arbitrary as there has been times I downed a monster in what I thought was record time, destroying the armour that hides the weak point and mercilessly beating down my opponent without taking any damage yet only being rewarded four stars for the fight. It would be very nice to see a minimum score required for a full five star rating so I could compare my performance against the expected five star performance.
There are plenty of weapons and items to craft and use in Horn. Alongside the two types of potions and Horn’s arm mounted crossbow, there are four subtypes of weapons to craft, swords, axes, war hammers, and long stick based weapons. Initially, only three of each type of weapons is available for crafting. Additional blue prints will need to be found, scattered across the world or purchased from the in game app store. Extra costumes, Pygite, and Cores can also be purchased through the in game app store for real life currency, although the game paces itself perfectly that it is completely unnecessary to purchase anything from the store to enjoy the game.
The controls are well implemented in Horn. Tapping moves Horn from place to place to place. The game is extremely responsive to tap commands. I only wish that there was an option to increase the size of certain UI buttons. Playing on an iPad can cause the dodge buttons to be too small to use comfortably at times.
I did encounter a few bugs in Horn including falling through the world, getting stuck in places and unable to move, and the game completely freezing. Thankfully these problems are few and far between. Levels are short enough that restarting the game is not too painful. Additionally, replaying the bugged area did not cause repeat errors.
Visuals
Horn is a beautiful game. The graphics take full advantage of the new iPad’s Retina display and runs without any slowdowns. Unfortunately there are clustered areas of the game can become a little visually repetitive. Although each zone is visually distinct, playing through each zone involves seeing what looks like the same dungeon over and over for six missions. The animations are well crafted and realistic. Horn is able to smoothly transition from running to climbing and back again.
The art style used for Horn is extremely traditional and reminiscent of a slightly more muted Fable. Earthy tones are heavily favoured in the colour palette. The cut scenes are animated like the storybook portions of the Shrek franchise with lots of 2d paper effects.
Audio
Horn is a fully voice acted game with a wonderful score and great sound effects. The voice acting is top notch with believable voices and strong acting performances. The score is worthy of a big budget console title. It provides the right amount of tension and helps create the whole Middle English fantasy theme. The sound effects are also well done. There are lots of ambient sounds to help immerse the player in the environment. Sound effects are varied and combat sounds extremely deadly with crushing blows and singing sword slashes.
Overall
Although plagued with a few technical bugs and small wish list of minor features that would make the game better, Horn manages to be an excellent effort from Phosphor Game Studio. Although not a perfect grand slam for publisher Zynga as their first foray into the core gaming market, Phosphor Games Studio delivers a solid home run by mixing the tried and true Infinity Blade combat formula with console style character driven adventure games. Priced at the same premium $6.99 price point as Infinity Blade II, Horn is worth the purchase thanks to a tight audio/visual package, strong gameplay, and entertaining story.
Still left with a bruise after beating your head against the wall after succumbing yet again to another Dark Souls boss or battle, well Namco Bandai have further added to your gaming woes with the release of Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition for all PC users. Finely tweaked for the PC, the new addition loses nothing in translation and retains all the challenging and immersive gameplay seen in its predecessors. For the true collector, Namco Bandai have included within the day one edition a plethora of goodies including an art book, CD soundtrack, behind the scenes DVD plus more.
Dark Souls: Prepare to Die edition will include huge new maps and environments as well as previously unseen bosses, enemies and non playable characters to interact with as well as masses of new armour and weaponry for players to utilise on their journey back to Lordran. Players will also be introduced to the dying kingdom of magic known as Oolacile where they battle to keep it from being engulfed by the darkness and save its people. Separate stand alone retail versions of Dark Souls: Prepare to Die edition for XBox 360 and Playstation 3 are also on the way and will include the original Dark Souls game as well as all the bonus content, available from most retailers coming 26th October 2012.
Dark Souls: Prepare to Die will be the first game from Namco Bandai that includes Game registration allowing players to accumulate points that are redeemable against downloadable content as rare in game items via the VIP corner for free.
Overview: There are many different types of fighting games out there and in recent years some of these fighting games have begun developing a certain level of oddity about them. However all of these current titles barely hold a candle to a title originally developed and released to arcades by Capcom back in the ‘90s. JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure first came to consoles in the year 2000 and brought with it some of the strangest fighting gamers had seen. Now twelve years later, Capcom has brought a digital HD version of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure to modern day consoles. Does this title still stand up after all these years?
Story: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure HD doesn’t feature an extensive story mode or anything similar to that, instead it features a standard arcade mode like story that develops as each character makes their way through a number of fights. Each character’s storyline is different, especially the main ones such as Jotaro or Dio which feature more story points than secondary characters.
Unfortunately, considering JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure HD is based off of a manga of the same name, a lot of the story and some of the fighting aspects themselves will be lost on those who are unfamiliar with the original material as the game does little to introduce the premise. Thankfully, though it takes quite a large amount of playing, most fighters’ story modes blend together into a mildly understandable story,
Visuals & Audio: Obviously with an HD version of a game coming out, one of the biggest improvements to the game should be the visual section and it is certainly true that the visuals have been smoothed over a bit in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure and thankfully the smoothing over of these characters’ appearances didn’t disrupt the title’s art style much. With their sprites smoothed over and their attacks still as flashy and over-the-top as ever this creates a rather good looking fighting game for a title as old as this, though for those who prefer it, the game does provide original sprites without the smoothing filter.
It is also worth noting that Capcom did not attempt to force a widescreen acceptable ratio on the game and instead provided a standard ratio that includes some nice looking artwork of the fighting characters along the sides. These little portraits look much better than a forced ratio increase and add a bit of style to the game as a whole.
As far as soundtracks go, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure HD seems to have kept the same soundtrack as the original title, though this really doesn’t do it many favors as the background music is mostly forgettable with only a few tracks that may catch players’ interests while the sound effects for the game itself have been given the same treatment as the music, leaving a rather dull impression.
Gameplay: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure HD features a rather large list of characters to choose from, with 22 characters playable right off the bat. This means that any fan of the series will likely be able to pick out their favorite character from the roster. It also worth noting that these characters come in every size and shape imaginable as fighters can even select a little dog called Iggi to fight as. What makes these characters even better is the fact that most of them have a very diverse moveset full of basic as well as very strange attacks.
Players will be using a standard combination of light, medium and heavy attacks to deal damage to their opponents in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure HD, though there is also a “stand” attack. These stands bring another fighter/creature into the battle which will fight alongside you, these stands can deal out large amounts of damage and can even take damage in the place of the player. These stands provide a lot of variety in fights and players can choose to fight in many different ways while using them, though it is worth noting that some characters do not have a stand.
One thing that is worth noting with JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure HD, it is not one of the easiest titles to pick up and play but thankfully the title does contain a training mode that allows players to practice attack inputs and combinations. This is almost essential actually thanks to the varying movesets between players, oddity of some attacks and difficult enemy AI.
Outside of training mode there is also the aforementioned story mode to choose from, a challenge mode and a brand new online multiplayer aspect. The challenge mode allows players to fight through a number of opponents, with players selecting a small bonus at the end of each successful fight. This challenge mode is rather simplistic and mostly works to show the player’s skill.
Although very little single player wise was added to the game, online multiplayer is something that has been added into this HD release and it provides a rather lag-free arena for players to face off against others from around the world. Unfortunately Capcom provided a bare-bone version of online multiplayer, allowing people to select either player or ranked matches. Players can also upload replay data of their matches if they feel like or allow for online matches to happen during single-player modes, though even with these additions the mode feels very minimalistic.
There is one thing that is quite strange about JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure HD release however and that is the fact that Capcom chose to release the title for $20 which is quite expensive for a digital title. While many would have expected a $10 price range or even a $15 release, this is far too much money to ask for the title thanks to the fact that, while the HD does look good and it now has a bare-bones online mode, nothing was done to make the title better.
Overall: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure HD is certainly one of the odder fighting games you could pick up but those who do will find a story with some rather humorous elements and characters. With Capcom’s “HD” improvement to the title the graphics have seen a decent improvement and the online mode will please some despite the fact that it was given a bare-bones treatment.
Unfortunately the company chose poorly by placing a $20 price tag on a title that, ultimately, received barely any additions to keep gamers interested. There are many other, cheaper, fighters out there which improve upon what JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure was known for, but for what it is worth gamers may find themselves drawn in by the crazy fighting styles and the game’s unique appeal.
Welcome to Capsule Computers’ weekly anime segment, Anime Say! This week, I dive into a topic that many shonen anime fans have been discussing over the past year, what is better: Hunter x Hunter 1999 or Hunter x Hunter 2011?
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 the latest episode of Anime Say? Let us know in the comments section below.
Welcome to Capsule Computers’ weekly anime segment, Anime Say! This week, I dive into a topic that many shonen anime fans have been discussing over the past year, what is better: Hunter x Hunter 1999 or Hunter x Hunter 2011?