Welcome to another episode of CC: Anime, Capsule Computers Monthly Anime Podcast! In our eighth episode, the CC: Anime crew discuss the latest anime and manga news, take part in the “Anime Anarchy” game show segment, as well their impressions of the Summer 2012 anime season.
We also have a huge giveaway this month. Do you want a chance to win a copy ofDurarara!!– The Complete Seriesfrom Siren Visual? Follow this linkto find out how.
Cast: Luke Halliday, Travis Bruno, Benjamin ‘Linkage Ayexe’ Webb, Simon Wolfe and Philip Federico
We hope you enjoy CC: Anime Episode 08, be sure to let us know what you think.
We all play games to have fun right? Well, apparently all of us who want to find enjoyment in games are complete and utter buffoons lacking even a modicum of intelligence. We all would rather challenge our thumbs instead of our minds. At least according to David Cage, that is.
That’s right the pompous head of Quantic Dream is at it again with his outlandish and much reviled nonsensical comments. This time around he is claiming that he knows what you want, even if you don’t know you want it, and that he doesn’t want players to have fun with his new game Beyond: Two Souls.
In a recent interview with EDGE Online, Cage proceeded to grace us with his usual misguided sentiments, most prominent of which is that he’s “not interested in giving [players] ‘fun’.”
Cage went on to state, “My goal is to surprise people, to give them something they want without knowing they want it. I want to create an emotional journey, a unique experience.” He further commented, “I am not interested in giving them ‘fun’, I want to give them meaning; I don’t want to challenge their thumbs, I want to challenge their minds.”
Clearly the man is on one of his ego-trips yet again, but to add a sense of hypocritcal finality, Cage closes the interview with EDGE by saying, “Maybe this is not what most people out there actually want, but this is the goal I set myself with Beyond: to create something different.”
I think this all pretty much speaks for itself.
Do you play games to have fun? What do you think of David Cage? Let us know in the comments section below.
Braid and LIMBO are the poster children of indie games. They’re the ones everyone plays, but they’re gateway indie games. From there some will move onto the harder stuff, fully detaching themselves from the “mainstream” and sneering at anyone ignorant enough to enjoy Call of Duty.
My indie inclination began, as it so often does, with Braid and LIMBO, but the candy that finally lured me into the indie game unmarked van was The Binding of Isaac.
With Super Meat Boy co-creator, Edmund McMillen, at the helm, The Binding of Isaac is a twisted little title that blends dark humour, a creepy aesthetic, and addictive gameplay elements from dungeon-crawling RPGs and old-school arcade shooters.
The game parallels the Bible story of the same name, in which God tests Abraham’s faith by asking him to sacrifice his son Isaac. As Abraham prepares to commit the deed, God intervenes at the last moment, declaring it a rather douchey test of faith.
The game begins with a cute little animation detailing that story, minus the divine intervention. Isaac escapes his mother’s holy wrath by fleeing into the basement, where he must fight deformed, childlike, increasingly-disturbing enemies, and eventually, defeat his mother.
As expected, the game is full of religious references. Biblical iconography is rich ground for games to explore, but many won’t, as it courts controversy – Isaac’s Nintendo 3DS port was cancelled at the last minute due to concerns of blasphemy.
Beyond religion, the game is largely about childhood, told in a deeply personal yet universal manner. It exhibits a childish humour in bodily fluids; demonstrates a hyperactive imagination; presents the parent as a Godlike figure; touches on sibling relationships; and plays on familiar childhood fears of monsters hiding in the dark, of not fitting in, growing up, loss, pain and death.
The way the game combines elements of these two themes makes for a fascinating world, unique among games. Isaac uses items that are either Biblical artefacts – the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Crown of Thorns – or traumatic childhood memories – the severed head of his dog, the spirits of his siblings. He fights enemies with traits, names and designs along the same lines: among what seem to be his deformed brothers and sisters, Isaac faces the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and personifications of the Seven Deadly Sins.
There are some truly dark moments, involving themes that are not often examined in video games: during later playthroughs, Isaac journeys into his mother’s womb and fights an unborn fetus, dragging up uneasy implications of abortion.
There’s not a lot of direct storytelling, but we slowly come to know Isaac far more intimately than most video game characters. We see his fears through thoughts and dreams as he lies in the cold darkness, shivering, crying. His extreme vulnerability makes him one of the most sympathetic characters in gaming: his only defense is his own tears, and when he dies, he loses everything. Hell, even increasing his strength via power-ups carries a gruesome price: new abilities will transform Isaac physically, often through painful injuries. Collect a few, and soon Isaac will be a gnarled, barely-recognizable mess.
Everything that happens to him is entirely undeserved, and this is where the game design feeds back into the themes. Randomly-generated dungeons supersede the forgiving hand of a designer, meaning that levels are often unfair. You found a golden door, no doubt hiding sweet loot, but there’s no key in the level to open it? Sorry kid, life’s not fair. Game design, and by extension gamers, take for granted that for every obstacle there’s a way around it, but that’s not always how things work.
This occasional unfairness harks back to the early days of gaming, when built-in challenge could all but break players, but success was all the more satisfying as a result. It borrows elements from two old-school, notoriously-difficult genres: arcade, twin-stick, bullet-hell, shooter games like Ikaruga or Geometry Wars, and dungeon-crawling RPGs like Baldur’s Gate or the early Zelda games.
Randomization and perma-death encourage repeated playthroughs, and conjure memories of arcade game design. It all contributes to the game’s addictiveness: a different layout every playthrough means that victory always feels just out of reach. Died? The next try could give you good stuff. Died again? Well, maybe the next one. Or the one after that.
Wrapped around that addictive gameplay core is a great visual style, very characteristic of Edmund McMillen. If you’ve seen Indie Game: The Movie, you’ll recognize his personality and style, which the film explores in relation to his previous project, Super Meat Boy. He discusses a love of drawing monsters as a kid, and the artwork shown looks very familiar – obviously McMillen was in his element designing the disturbing creatures Isaac faces.
Perfectly complementing the visuals is Danny Baranowsky’s haunting soundtrack. Reviewing games, I always have the most trouble discussing the sound design. I just don’t have the musical vocabulary to explain why I like or dislike something. But even to someone as musically handicapped as myself, Baranowsky’s compositions perfectly capture the emotions of the game: each piece of music is at once mysterious, ominous and unnerving.
The Binding of Isaac has all the hallmarks of a great indie title: it’s modest in scope, with massive replay value, genuinely addictive gameplay, and an incredible art style and soundtrack. But its appeal runs deeper than that: it feels like the most personal game I’ve ever played. Isaac’s fears are relatable, and in revealing them, McMillen has bared his soul creating this game.
Disney are notorious for having limited home releases of their classic movies – their Platinum and now Diamond ranges will hit shelves for a year or two and then disappear into ‘the vault’, leaving titles like Beauty and the Beast and the Lion King unavailable, often for years. The Diamond range is the most recent series of releases and is the first range to come in the Blu-ray format.
Fans of the classic Disney toons of yesteryear will be pleased to hear that 101 Dalmations and it’s follow up, 101 Dalmations 2 London Adventure are both heading for a release on Blu-ray on August 15 this year. Although 101 has seen a relatively recent release on DVD (2008), Blu-rays of remastered animated films are often an incredibly improved experience that are more than worth a revisit.
Both movies will also release on DVD and digitally, with the original film offering a highly extensive selection of extras, including deleted songs, original TV spots from 1961 and a good dose of behind the scenes features. As usual with recent Disney releases, the Blu-ray will be accompanied by a DVD to make sure that every member of the household is kept happy.
Today Viz Media announced that they are going to be offering the Blue Exorcist manga digitally a full three months before the release of the physical version of the same volume. This will begin with the eighth volume which has already been released digitally, while those who prefer a physical copy will need to wait until November 6th.
For those who don’t know Blue Exorcist follows the story of a boy named Rin Okumura who was raised by a famous exorcist. One day however he learns that he is in fact the son of Satan when Satan himself slays his protector and father figure. Vowing to get revenge, Rin vows to destroy Satan and learn how to become an exorcist.
Interestingly enough, the Xbox 360 version of Persona 4 Arena has been having issues with its online play. Atlus has acknowledged the issue and stated last week that they were investigating the problem. Gamers in the West were concerned about this news, as unlike Japan the Xbox 360 version of titles often sells equal or not better than their PS3 counterparts.
Well today the game’s official blog was updated by director Kazuhisa Wada. In this update he apologized for the issue and stated that the developer of the game, Arc System Works is working on a patch for the game and in fact it has already been completed. Now all gamers have to wait for is testing and authorization. It is good to know the patch is almost already ready and this means that the patch will likely be ready for release in North America when Persona 4 Arena hits stores on August 7th.
There have been rumors circling the internet for a while now that Peter Jackson’s latest foray into Middle Earth was suddenly becoming a trilogy rather than a two parter. Given that even two films was something of a surprise way back when the films were announced, this speculative third film was initially viewed with some doubt.
In a rare case of internet based smoke where there is fire, it turns out that there will actually be a third movie, as revealed by Peter Jackson himself via Facebook.
Here’s just a snippet of what the director had to say:
It is only at the end of a shoot that you finally get the chance to sit down and have a look at the film you have made. Recently Fran, Phil and I did just this when we watched for the first time an early cut of the first movie – and a large chunk of the second. We were really pleased with the way the story was coming together, in particular, the strength of the characters and the cast who have brought them to life. All of which gave rise to a simple question: do we take this chance to tell more of the tale? And the answer from our perspective as the filmmakers, and as fans, was an unreserved ‘yes.’
An unexpected journey indeed. No word as yet on the title of the third film (A Hobbit’s Journey and There and Back Again comprise the first two), but now that the cat is out of the bag expect a lot more news surrounding the production.
Jackson and his team have certainly proved themselves as appropriate guardians for Middle Earth before, and given the fact that the motivation behind this third episode is the desire to tell a complete and epic tale, things should turn out well once again. Of course there is no doubt the money crunching executives are more than happy to have a sixth Jackson directed Tolkien adaptation kicking around, given the colossal success of The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
The first part of the trilogy will be released in cinemas on December 14 this year.
It seems like only yesterday when Aksys dropped Blazblue and it took the fighting game genre by storm, but it has actually been a whole three years now. With that comes a reason to celebrate, and Aksys have plenty of contests for the fans that helped build one little game into a full fledged franchise.
Here are the details of what to expect:
As a thank you to our fans, Aksys Games will be hosting three contests from August through October to celebrate the 3rd Anniversary of BlazBlue’s U.S. debut. Fans will get a chance to win exclusive content including a “Jin Dakimakura,” signed illustrations by the Arc System Works’ BlazBlue team and an exclusive 3rd Anniversary BlazBlue banner to hang proudly on their wall! Check www.aksysgames.com/blazblue/ for contest announcements and details in the near future!
Make sure you check out that link to get in on the potential swag coming in the near future, and here’s to three more years of Blazblue dominating all over again. Congrats Aksys!
Deadlight Studio: Tequila Works Publisher:Microsoft Platform:XBLA Release Date:August 1, 2012 Price:1200 MSP – Available Here
Overview: Games with a zombie apocalypse of some sort have become quite popular over the past few years, where seeing a zombie-based game released every other month isn’t surprising. As such, many people have slowly begun growing tired of the zombie genre as a whole. However what happens when you take a zombie apocalypse and combine it with a different gameplay style to create something fresh?
That is what Tequila Works has promised with their XBLA release Deadlight. Being a side-scrolling puzzle-platformer based off a zombie apocalypse, does it offer a fresh experience worth trying out or one that may be better off forgotten?
Story: Our zombie apocalypse, or shall we say “Shadow” apocalypse as the undead are called in this game, has occurred a few months in the past by the time players jump into the role of Randall Wayne. Now Randall’s daughter and wife had been staying in Seattle at the time of the zombie outbreak while he himself was in Canada. As such he has slowly made his way across the Shadow filled land to try and find them.
Randall has met up with a group of survivors who have told him about a supposed safe zone somewhere in the city of Seattle. With hope in his heart Randall begins his journey through Seattle, however this may be easier said than done as a large force of armed men seem more than willing to stop Randall, all while the Shadows attempt to eat him alive.
Now Deadlight’s storyline is more than a little unoriginal with focus around a man trying to find his family in an undead apocalypse. However it is told in a decent enough fashion throughout the earlier parts of the game with plenty of suspense tied in with dark and mysterious clues about the events occurring in Seattle. However these events slowly dwindle further and further into cliché territory, making the ending of the title not only completely expected, but ultimately irredeemable.
Interestingly enough, Randall does write a diary and a few tidbits about the events before the player steps into the shoes of Randall are hidden away here. It is worth noting though that a large bulk of these diary pages are collectibles that need to be found to be read, though once the player does find them all they are certainly worth a look through. However this does very little when you consider that, at the very best, Deadlight is a title that can be completed 100% within three hours.
Visuals & Audio: Although Deadlight may be a short game, it is also an absolutely beautiful title with an exquisite amount of detail put into the game’s world. Although the title plays on a 2D plane only, the world is designed with a 3D background that often has a number of events occurring in the background, such as Shadows moving around or destruction.
To make things even creepier, the majority of the game features some extremely dark shadows with the player character often obscured by these shadows. This makes for some rather spooky moments as you navigate dark desolate areas and suddenly see the eyes of a Shadow appear in the background.
Deadlight also does a great job creating a suspenseful atmosphere with Shadows moaning in the background and the environment. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for the title’s limited voice acting, as Darrell Wayne’s voice actor does a rather emotionless job playing a character that has undergone many hardships and is struggling to find his family.
Gameplay: As mentioned earlier, Deadlight does something different with the zombie apocalypse by creating a side-scrolling platformer with a few zombies mixed in. The game itself features three different Acts with the transitions between levels usually occurring rather flawlessly, only occasionally interrupted with a brief cutscene or loading screen.
While the genre for this zombie survival game is a breath of fresh air in what has quickly become an FPS-fest, there are a number of issues with the game itself. Interestingly enough, Randall is unable to swim in the slightest is unbelievable, especially given the simple reason given. This is made worse by the fact he can literally drown in water that he could poke his head out of if he stood up.
To survive the zombie apocalypse there are a number of weapons and tools you can acquire as the game progresses, though there are a number of times these weapons are either taken away, and even given back, with literally no explanation or reason, like Randall simply forgot he had a revolver in his trenchcoat. While Randall’s rather lackluster wielding of a fireman’s axe is believable, he is capable of readying a fire-arm with the speed of someone with arthritis.
Rather than creating a game full of suspense, this actually creates a slew of meaningless deaths that help pad out the game’s length, especially when there are multiple areas where “Shadows” will continually respawn out of nowhere. Later on in the game there are even a few enemies with firearms that are capable of putting Randall down with one shot, which makes his slow-drawing all the more tedious and memory based.
Thankfully, Deadlight’s platforming and running sections are slightly redeemable. There are a number of moments players will have to either run from and through a massive group of zombies, with a guaranteed death awaiting you if you happened to be caught. These moments are usually highly suspenseful and well done. Along those same lines, players will also have to jump from area to area under pressure as well which make for some of the most exciting segments of the game. Unfortunately this excitement slowly drains away after the first act of the game, replaced with dread and repetitive memory based trial and error jumping that prevents the title from becoming truly enjoyable.
It is also worth noting that the title is rife with bugs and a number of other glitches. One of the most alarming is the fact that the title will often give the player a “profile update error” stating that your save progress cannot be saved for a given reason. There is no real reason for concern as the game is still saving but it is an issue nonetheless. There are also a number of times that Randall will literally become stuck in the environment, either becoming completely immobile or able to move only a few steps in any direction before becoming re-stuck.
In fact, there was one small jumping puzzle which simply had me stumped for quite some time, however I was able to cause a glitch to occur, creating a movable crate that floated in the air, allowing me to easily make a jump that seemed absolutely impossible before, though likely it hinged upon the aforementioned pixel-perfect jumping.
Overall: At the very start, Deadlight seemed like it had plenty going for it. Unfortunately, the further into the game the player gets the more issues will arise. In fact, nearly all the aforementioned bugs and issues started occurring past the midway point in the short title. With an artificial difficulty being the only thing padding out the title’s length and a simplistic storyline with only a few shining moments, Deadlight had moments of greatness which were far outweighed by the game’s lack of polish and price tag.
With just over three weeks left until the release of the latest Transformers outing, Activision have released a smash heavy trailer to show off the multiplayer modes of Fall of Cybertron. The title will launch on August 22 in Australia on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360, and is the third Transformers title to be released by developers High Moon Studios.
The multiplayer mode will include 10 battle maps and feature 5 different game modes, with Escalation mode being a particular highlight in the trailer. A co-op style of gameplay, Escalation is essentially another Horde mode, with 4 players fighting off waves of enemies in ever intensifying combat.
Other news included with the release of the trailer is the ability to create a custom Transformers character to take into the multiplayer battle grounds. Although classic models will be available, it looks like there should be a good amount of room for creativity, with the usual set up of having different parts available for purchase. The keen eyed will spot that as well as being able to buy armor and parts there is a ‘personality’ tab snuck in there, as well as one for ‘loadouts’.
We all play games to have fun right? Well, apparently all of us who want to find enjoyment in games are complete and utter buffoons lacking even a modicum of intelligence. We all would rather challenge our thumbs instead of our minds. At least according to David Cage, that is.
Today Viz Media announced that they are going to be offering the Blue Exorcist manga digitally a full three months before the release of the physical version of the same volume. This will begin with the eighth volume which has already been released digitally, while those who prefer a physical copy will need to wait until November 6th.
