While Playstation Plus members may already been enjoying Jet Set Radio in all its remade HD glory, regular Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and PC players can now download Jet Set Radio via PSN, XBLA and Steam respectively.
Originally released for the Dreamcast more than a decade ago in 2000, Jet Set Radio puts players in the crazy world of Tokyo-to where rollerblading graffiti gangs fight for control of the streets.
The game itself is incredibly unique, and hands down has one of the best video soundtracks ever made. And thankfully 99% of the game’s original soundtrack is in tack.
Also if you’re a massive fan of the game, you’ll be glad to know that SEGA hasre-released the game’s soundtrack featuring all Hideki Naganuma’s originals, Richard Jacques’ Everybody Jump Around and Toronto’s Electric Tooth Brush, however unfortunately does not include any other licensed tracks.
EA Australia recently held a press event for their upcoming instalment in the enduring Need For Speed franchise, a reboot of the relatively popular 2005 title Need For Speed: Most Wanted featuring the same name. Capsule Computer’s Benjamin ‘LinkageAX’ Webb got to sit down with the game’s producer Leanne Loombe to discuss the hotly anticipated racing game, as well as some more trivial things like car colours.
Q: Hi, could you tell us a little bit about who you are, your position in the company and your input on Need For Speed: Most Wanted?
A. Sure. My name is Leanne and I am a producer at Criterion Games. I produce the UI and Auto-Log for the game.
Q. How long have you been working for Criterion Games?
A. About a year.
Q. So you didn’t work on any of their classics like Burnout?
A. No I didn’t unfortunately.
Q. What exactly led you to work with Criterion? Where they always a company you wanted to work with?
A. Yeah, well I love cars and I love games so it’s the perfect job.
Q. Moving on to Need For Speed: Most Wanted. Have you played the original Most Wanted game?
A. Yes I have actually.
Q. What would you say makes this new Need For Speed: Most Wanted superior to the classic Need For Speed: Most Wanted?
A. As I said in my presentation [prior to interview] this is not a sequel at all. It is out own version, our own re-imagining of Most Wanted. We really loved the premise behind it – becoming the ‘Most Wanted.’ So we wanted to integrate that with friends. That is really important to us because of course friends is a part of everything and gaming is better with friends anyway.
So in our version of Most Wanted it is more about becoming the ‘Most Wanted’ amongst your friends. In the game’s open world you can be driving, racing, chasing, exploring and competing against your friends.
Q. With the previous Need For Speed game, Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit, it didn’t have as much customization in it as we were use to in this franchise. Will this game feature a deeper level of customization than Hot Pursuit?
A. Well we have a lot of gameplay customization, it is not all about visual, more about changing the way the car actually handles and such. As you progress through races, you will unlock mods for your car which you can equip. So in that way it gives a sense of ownership to the player of their actual car and obviously it can be tailored for the demands of the races as well.
The mods that we’ve got are tyres, so you’ve got offroad, track and re-inflates. Then you’ve got engine, chassis, transmission (so long gear and short gear) and nitrous as well.
Q. Yeah, cool. I recall you mentioning earlier during the presentation something along the lines of each players beginning with a different car in each race. Could you please explain why it is this way?
A. Of course. So with our version of Most Wanted we decided to throw convention out of the window and almost all of the cars available from the very start of the game. For example when you load up the game, the first car you find is going to be different to the first car that I find because you might be travelling in a different part of the world to me. Because it is an open world you can go where you want to go and find cars that you want to find essentially. So if there is a particular car you want you have to travel the world to find it.
Q. Okay. So tell us a little bit about progression in this title. Is it more linear or can you do things in your own way at your own pace?
A. Well you can do anything at your own pace and that’s what the ‘speed points’ system is for anyway. Everything that you do in the game is earning you speed points. You basically decide how you want to earn those speed points. There are all kinds of ways like collectables, destruction gameplay, going through billboards and speed cameras, getting in pursuits with cops and getting out of that, finding all of the cars and milestones in the game as well all of which get you speed points. There is also certain things you can do in the car like drifting, you know that kind of thing. Of course you’ve also got the races to get speed points with.
The single player progression side of things is that we keep 10 cars back from you in the open world. So they’re not actually available to you. They are called the ’10 Most Wanted Cars’ and you start at number 10 and work your way up to number 1. When you get enough speed points the ’10 Most Wanted Cars’ become available. You must do a one on one race with him and once you defeat him he will be released into the open world and you must go and find him and take him down. After you do that you get that car. So yes, that is the single player progression we have in there.
Q. Okay then, but is this progression part of some kind of story-line?
A. No you must defeat all of the ’10 Most Wanted Cars’ and you can become the ‘Most Wanted’
Q. So to confirm, there is no story-line at all in this game?
A. Nope. No narrative at all.
Q . Alright. With the 10 most speedy guys, which one has the fastest car? The one at the end?
A. Yes of course. So the number 1 ‘Most Wanted’ car is obviously the most desirable car. As you go through the ’10 Most Wanted’ cars they become more and more desirable as you go. Oh and they are all white.
Q. They’re all white?
A. Yep.
Q. Can you recolour them?
A. No they’re all white.
Q. What do you mean they are all white?
A. They are white in colour.
Q. Okay?
A. I mean in the original Most Wanted they are called the ‘Blacklist’ and this is our ‘Most Wanted’ list which has white cars instead.
Q. So you can’t recolour them at all? You can’t drive through something and spray paint them red?
A. [Laughing] Well I guess if you want to you can. But when you are actually racing them they are white.
Q. Oh I see, I just personally prefer a red colour.
A. [Still laughing] Okay!
Q. Moving on then. We had a go of the multiplayer and it seems pretty insane. Does it vary? We just pretty much played the same 5 match types over and over.
A. Yeah well obviously that is only a small sub-section for show here, so we can only keep it in one place of the world. But in the actual game, there will be many different speed lists for you to choose from. That’s not all though you can create you own speed lists. For example if there are certain events that you really like you could have a speed list of all those events.
There are 5 events to each speed list. The events are team race, race, challenge, speed test and within challenges and speed test there are lots of different variables. It really makes many different challenges in multiplayer.
Q. So is it drop in drop out multiplayer? Is it with randoms or friends?
A. Yes it is. You can do a public or private game and of course a friends game as well. Also if you are in single player free drive you can hit up easy drive multiplayer and you can stay where you are in the world and matchmaking will just happen. We are all about leaving you in the game world and not taking you out into any menus or anything like that.
Q. Cool. Just to finish this up, do you have any final comments about the game?
A. Well I just have to say that I think it is something unique to bring to Need For Speed like having all the cars available at the start and friends connectivity. It just means you get that unique gameplay and we think that is really powerful.
Q. Thank you for your time.
A. No, thank you!
That concludes our interview with Leanne Loombe producer at Criterion Games. You can check out our hands-on preview of Need For Speed: Most Wanted on mobile devices here and our console preview here. As always let us know what you think in the comments section below.
Hey there Planeswalkers! Tired of using the same old monochromatic decks in Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013? Are you a player who yearns for the use of a deck that isn’t limited by the imagination and play strategy of a single colour? Do you REALLY hate those ‘Protection from…’ cards? Or are you looking for more card game based challenges after systematically DESTROYING every opponent in the video game?
Then good news everyone! Today, Wizards of the Coast has released the first expansion pack for the most recent in the ‘Duels of the Planeswalkers’ video game series. Outfitted with brand new multi-coloured decks, brand new opponents and brand new challenges to test your mental mettle. Check out the official announcement from Wizards of the Coast below:
Today, Wizards of the Coast released the Magic: The Gathering – Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013 Expansion. Available on Xbox LIVE Arcade, PlayStation Network, Steam (PC) and iPad*, the Expansion builds upon the highly-acclaimed game with content that sets the tone for the upcoming Return to Ravnica block. Featuring five of the guilds of Ravnica, players can begin to get a taste for what each guild stands for and what their playing style is.
The Duels 2013 Expansion alsoincludes the following new features:
Five additional playable decks: Take on your opponents with two-color decks that correspond to the Azorius, Golgari, Izzet, Rakdos, and Selesnya guilds.
More Campaign Levels: 5 new single-player campaign levels and 5 new single-player revenge campaign levels.
Five Additional Challenges: Added puzzles to solve.
Additional persona portraits, achievements and trophies to unlock, and more!
The hard hitting game of rugby league will return to consoles quite soon as Tru Blu Entertainment have revealed the release date of Rugby League Live 2. Australian and New Zealand rugby league fans can expect the game on October 11 for both the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. The game is being developed by Big Ant Studios, who were behind Rugby League Live and AFL Live. This is the second game for the sport of rugby league.
Rugby League Live 2 will feature competitions from Australia and England, with clubs from New Zealand, Wales and France involved in those competitions. The game will also feature improvements and changes to gameplay, a 10 year career mode and commentary from series regular Andrew Voss and newcomer to the series Phil ‘Gus’ Gould. Both are part of Australian channel Channel Nine’s rugby league coverage.
Sony started off the Tokyo Game Show festivities with a press conference today, which is the day before the big event starts. During the conference, a ton of new announcements flowed out of the conference. Want to see what they were? Well, this article is all about bring all of the news together for your convenience. You can check out each article below:
In other news, the Playstation Store will be getting a change in appearance to coincide the release of the Super Slim PS3. No other details were revealed except for an October implementation. Sony also diverged into their Tokyo Game Show. In total, there will be 60 games playable: 30 PS3, 27 PS Vita and 3 PSP. The PSP will also receive a price cut in Japan, although to what price was not discussed. Gaikai, Sony’s newly acquired cloud service, also made an appearance, although not much was discussed.
During their Tokyo Game Show conference, Sony revealed a brand new slim PlayStation 3, which many are dubbing the “Super Slim” PS3. Now that it has been announced in Japan, Sony in America isn’t about to slouch and let fans in North America go without release information. It has been announced that there will be two different models of PlayStation 3 released on September 25th in North America, a 250GB version and 500GB version. The price for the 250GB version will run you $270 while the 500GB one will cost $300.
A Uncharted 3 bundle of this Super Slim PS3 has also been revealed for North America. This version will come with the Game of the Year Edition of Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception as well as a $30 worth of gear for Dust 514, though the bundle will only include the 250GB version of the PS3. The price of this bundle is currently unannounced. Anyone notice the strange pricing discrepancies between the 250GB and 500GB version? It seems only logical that most consumers will spend only $30 for the larger memory space.
During Sony’s pre-TGS conference today, Marvelous AQL announced three new games for the Playstation Vita. The first of these games is a third iteration in the Valhalla Knights series. Valhalla Knights 3 will be released in 2013 with no concrete release date. The game will be priced at ¥6,980. That is presumably for the physical copy. A downloaded price has not been announced.
While little information was scarce, Marvelous AQL producer Yoshifumi Hashimoto has revealed that the game was originally in development for the Playstation Portable before a decision was made to shift the development to the Vita. The previous two iterations were released exclusively to the Playstation Portable and were released in the West as well, so there is a chance for localisation.
Announced at Gamescom, Puppeteer was one of two games in development from Japan Studio, with the other being Rain. While Rain did not make an appearance at the conference, Puppeteer has received a new trailer. It shows off some scissor action as the player uses magical scissors to defeat various enemies and navigate through various levels, all taking place on one theatre stage. The magic scissors belong to a puppet boy named Kutaro, whose wooden head is devoured by the Moon Bear King. Kutaro must defeat the Moon Bear King to retrieve his head. Puppeteer won’t see a release until 2013. The trailer can be seen below.
Today during Sony’s Tokyo Game Show press conference the company revealed a new app that will be released in Japan that will allow PlayStation Vita owners to buy and read both comics and manga on their portable gaming device. The SCEJ president, Hiroshi Kawano, stood up on stag and revealed how the reader will work.
To show off how great the visuals of each manga will appear on the Vita, Kawano used One Piece and Fate/stay Night as examples. Users will be able to turn pages with a simple swipe of their fingers or with the shoulder buttons. Users of the app can also turn the Vita vertically to read each manga page by page instead of scrolling. Currently the Reader app will be released in October in Japan with over 3,000 manga to read at launch.
With Viz Media offering an app for most smart phones that allows users to read digital manga on their phones, could we possibly see something like this in North America in the future?
While there have been a few rumors circulating about a possible sequel to 2011’s God Eater, it never was officially confirmed by Namco Bandai. Well today during Sony’s Tokyo Game Show conference the company announced that they are planning on releasing God Eater 2 on the PlayStation Vita as well as the PSP in 2013.
The company talked a little bit about God Eater 2, stating that the game will be faster, feature more strategic battles and larger monsters to take on than the first game in the series. The title will feature the same content no matter which version is purchased, though the Vita version will have superior graphics. It is worth noting that God Eater Burst 1 was released in North America and Europe in 2011 so there is a good chance we will see God Eater 2 in the West as well.
Update: An “Introduction” trailer has been released by Namco Bandai and can be seen below.
