New Super Mario Bros. 2 is right around the corner, and we here at Capsule are excited to get our coin loving hands on the game. One month can be quite a wait though, so Nintendo have announced that they will be slashing prices on the best Mario titles in the eShop so that fans can contain that urge for the time being.
Check out the dates and titles participating for yourself:
July 26 – Aug. 1 – Super Mario Bros. – $3.99
Aug. 2 – Aug. 8 – Super Mario Land – $2.99
Aug. 9 – Aug. 15 – Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins – $2.99
Aug. 16 – Aug. 22 – Mario’s Picross – $2.99
Not too shabby. I know a buck doesn’t sound like much, but Nintendo doesn’t have to cut any of these prices to get them to sell, and every little bit helps. New Super Mario Bros. 2 lands in stores on August 18th, so until then, take advantage of these sales while you can.
Need some inspiration on things to do with that fancy Parrot AR.Drone? Parrot has released their latest iOS app that works with their line of remote controlled aerial drones. AR. Rescue 2 takes the camera on the Parrot AR.Drone 1 and 2 and gives players a shooting/piloting game that will require players to pilot around their environment and collect pieces of the alien rockets scattered around the world using their iOS device in Augmented Reality. Players will need to lay an AR base down to help the aliens rebuild their rocket while protecting them from the crunchers, flying robots bent on destroying your drone. The AR.Rescue 2 app is available for free on the iTunes App Store here. An AR.Drone or AR.Drone 2.0 will be required to play this game.
A while back, Majesco announced some nice value packs that are soon to hit the DS and Wii, which puts two older titles into one package for a fraction of their original price-tag, which means Mama is seeing six re-releases in one day.
Mama’s Combo Pack Volume 1 includes Cooking Mama and Cooking Mama: Outdoor Adventures,
Mama’s Combo Pack Volume 2 includes Cooking Mama 2: Dinner With Friends and Crafting Mama, and finally, the Wii will be seeing some love when both of the Cooking Mama titles revisit the platform in Mama’s 2 Pack. Yes, that’s a whole lot of Mama, and all will be out on August 14th for us to dine on.
IronMonkey Studios and Firemint has been merged by EA to become FireMonkeys. Melbourne, Australia based IronMonkey Studios has made titles such as the Sims 3, Mirror’s Edge, Dead Space, and Need For Speed Hot Pursuit for the mobile platforms. Also based in Melbourne, Firemint has hit games such as Real Racing 2, Spy Mouse, and Flight Control Rocket to the iOS platform. This merger makes FireMonkeys the largest game development studio in Australia. FireMonkeys will be working out of the EA Melbourne studio on separate products and new collaborations. FireMonkeys is also looking to hire staff to fill new positions on the FireMonkeys team.
The Farm 51 has started giving more information about their Project Adventurer, a working title. Adventurer sees players exploring the 1930’s adventure scene as a private investigator caught up in the search for an ancient artifact as anyone who was anyone at that time seemed to be.
But, players shouldn’t worry too much about jungle dysentery as they can see from the gallery below the game is set to feature a variety of locations including an inhospitable frozen landscape complete with frozen corpses. Additionally in the gallery, players can check out the antagonist known as The Sentinel, a Mayan king of The Lost City, who now guards it from all who would enter.
Project Adventurer is an action/adventure/FPS utilizing the Unreal 3 engine that is set for release on the Xbox 360 and PC in 2013, but with hopeful plans to be making it’s way to the PS3 as well. Let’s hope that The Farm 51 can nail down a more definite title soon as well.
Match three is a pretty standard genre for casual gaming as it’s pretty easy to understand the concept and then it’s simply balancing out scoring. So, what big changes could a game like Monster Cube be adding to spice things up? Make it a 3D cube of things to match, so players have to race the clock to dwindle the cube down, as opposed to clearing a board.
With more than just having to clear as much of the cube as possible, there are missions for players to take on and try to complete. Those looking for a more frantic experience can play in Fever Mode.
Monster Cube is a game coming from Brazilian mobile developer Monster Juice onto the App Store and Google Play. Even better players can check out the game for FREE, so there’s no reason not to. Players can download it for their preferred mobile device on Google Play or the App Store.
Well, everyone, Konami might be at it again. It looks like Konami is trying to recruit for a new dedicated PES production studio that will be based out in London. The office will work with the main studio that is based out in Tokyo to try to capture the local culture of football and keep the Pro Evolution Soccer series fresh and new! The Konami president Shinji Hirano reported, “We are looking for a number of creative people who can help us elevate PES to whole new levels. As part of Konami’s commitment to ensuring PES captures the majesty of European football, we are looking for people to help capture the very essence of the beautiful game and bring it to life.” He later said, “”We look forward to meeting interested parties at GDC Europe.”
That being said, anyone who is interested in sculpting the future of the PES franchise should head on over to Booth #165 at GDC Europe 2012 also for those of you who live in Europe you can expect a demo for PES 2013 to be released tomorrow!
What is the Stick of Truth? To be honest I am not too sure, but after THQ showing of South Park: The Stick of Truth at Sun Studios, I want to jump headfirst into South Park and find out.
THQ opened their presentation of South Park: The Stick of Truth by introducing us to the game’s protagonist which just so happens to be ‘You’, the player. Who’d have thunk it? The video demo featured the game’s opening moments which involved a hilarious bit of comedy about the protagonist’s parents wanting to ‘Bless, their house’ in which they have just moved to. They shove you off telling you to ‘make friends’ so they can have the house alone to erm.. ‘Bless it’. The player in the demo knocked on the door which caused the player’s father to come to the window naked telling you to ‘go and make some friends’ in a hurrying manner. This shows us that their is a level of interactivity with the environment, this was confirmed later on after the player made friends with fan favourite character Cartman.
The general plot of South Park: The Stick of Truth is that the entire town of South Park has been swept up in yet another craze, this time live-action role playing and in classic South Park fashion, it all gets unbelievably out of control. The LARPing plot lends itself well to an RPG game and it seems to work wonders here in the world of South Park in which it pokes affectionate fun at the genre itself.
As the demo progressed, Cartman (after accepting the player into his ‘guild’) asks the player his or her name. Upon giving your name which you type in yourself, Cartman says ‘So your name is Douchebag?’ which elicits a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ choice. Selecting ‘No’ provided another question from Cartman, ‘Are you sure your name’s not Douchebag?’ Yet another ‘No’ elicits one last response ‘Okay then Douchebag!’ and from then on you are referred to simply as ‘Douchebag’. It’s an affectionate jab at a long running trapping of voice acting in RPG games that allow players to name their characters and it works astonishingly well in terms of humour.
After that little exchange, the player was set free to roam Cartman’s secret base, which featured a whole lot of interactive environment items such as ‘The Rock of Insanity’ and the ‘Pool of Vision’. It’s all very well detailed and gives true life to the world of South Park. Following this a brief cutscene ensued in which the titular Stick of Truth was stolen by another guild referred to as The Elves.
Once that cutscene concluded the demonstrator informed us that they were fast forwarding to an event later in the game in order to show off combat. The battle mechanics are best described as a cross between Paper Mario and Chrono Trigger, there is a real time aspect reminiscent of Chrono Trigger with a reflex component that harkens back the feeling of Paper Mario. It makes for a good mash up and it fits perfectly in the context of this game.
The player’s character is fully customizable and is able to use a variety of weapons, attacks and summons based upon various parts of the more than 15 year long South Park lore. I personally found it absolutely hilarious that the character Mr. Slave could be used as a summonable character. I found it even more hilarious that his special move is the same ‘move’ that he used on Paris Hilton in a certain episode of the series.
This is certainly a game that is catering to it’s source materials fans and with Trey Parker and Matt Stone working closely alongside the development team on the game, you can trust that this game has the South Park seal of approval. As the presentation ended we were treated to scenes of an epic war that occurs later on in the game. As a fan myself I couldn’t help but notice the plentiful easter eggs sprinkled throughout the vast battle and left the presentation feeling like a giddy school girl who just discovered that they are making a new High School Musical movie.
All in all, this could very well be the best South Park game to date. It has all the makings of a great RPG game as well as a great game in general. My only qualm was that I just couldn’t get enough. I wanted more of this game and I know for a fact that after this preview, I much like the LARPers in the game, will be looking to get my filthy mits on the Stick of Truth when it finally launches.
Endless Space Developer: Amplitude Studios Publisher: Amplitude Release Date: 04 July, 2012 Platform: PC Price: $29.99 (available here)
Overview
Endless Space is the latest entry into the 4x genre, which for the uninitiated, comprises explore, expand, exploit, exterminate as core gameplay ideas. Typically turn based strategy games but also taking in some real time examples, the genre toes a fine line between tedious and intriguing, inaccessible and complex. Economy management, army building, colonisation, scientific research, it can either be a time sucking vortex that manages to make six hours seem like one, or a lengthy slog through a ton of incomprehensible menus.
The studio behind Endless Space is French independent developer Amplitude Studios, who carry the tagline of ‘Gamers who know how to make games’. Indeed Endless does feel very much like it has been built by people not only well versed in the genre but those who enjoy it as well, and the game is sure to appeal to most fans of this particular style.
Gameplay
The gameplay mechanics of Endless Space are very familiar to veterans of this genre. Starting out with virtually nothing, players must pick their own path to victory, taking turns to build new ships, spend resources and build an empire. There are a good variety of factions on offer, each with a distinctive set of strengths and weaknesses that lend themselves to a particular style of play. You can play as anything from science led Amoeba to all consuming Cravers, with up to seven other AI or human players available to cause you problems. If you so desire you can even customise your own faction, which is just one of the ways in which Endless Space quite willingly puts itself in players busy little hands. Game set up shows off a great array of customisation, but in all honesty there’s very little here not seen before.
That said the presentation and user interface of Endless Space is very well designed, and although the tutorial could do with a little more interactivity there are very few things that will permanently puzzle. Every significant event is flagged up by a handy notification, cutting down the time spent delving through menus. Almost any piece of info needed can be found with a simple mouseover, a good thing too given that technologies like ‘Relatavistic Markets’ don’t scream out the obvious benefits like the tech trees of past/present set games.
The space setting does give the game a very lifeless feel, and although I did adapt to it after a while Endless Space never hits the charm or personality levels of other genre stablemates. Diplomacy is very much a small part of the game and despite an opening impression of a deep wealth of lore, there are next to no appearances from it ever again. There is something slightly soulless about this game, particularly in single player, and whilst it is exceedingly well built there is no particular factor or mechanic that stands out, nothing with a WOW factor. Multiplayer of course helps to up the human factor, but what kills it stone dead again is ‘kill the host, kill the game’.
Small gripes aside it is easy to lose hours to once the initial bout of learning is over. The AI is by no means a pushover even on normal difficulty, and opposing factions are not the only thing out to ruin your chances of galactic domination. Planets have a massive variety of factors that can make or break them as settlements, with terrain types, size, moons and anomalies (such as a hollow core or long seasons) demanding a well thought out research path to make them effective in your empire.
There are also heroes to be recruited, who depending on their speciality can either run a star system for you, or bolster your military. These guys level up with use and can be tailored to even more specific strengths. Ships too can be designed by the player, allowing parts unlocked by scientific research to become important features of your fleet. It may be too much of a hassle for some, but the ability to build yourself a tailored flotilla with a customised leader will add an extra layer for those predisposed to win by extermination.
The actual combat is a little unusual, and sees the camera pull out from it’s distant view to let you in on the action. This can all be skipped via an auto-battle button, but if you opt for the manual conflict then there is more of chance to outdo the odds that may be stacked against you. Battle is split into three phases, and each side picks from a set of ability cards to perform in each round. It’s pretty much rock paper scissors with sci fi terminology. The animation of the ships battling out is great to see the first few times, but eventually it becomes a time sucking repeat to be skipped over in favour of more important things. Combat is a little restricted strategically, and those who favour aggressive play styles may not find enough grit here to satisfy when repeated ad nauseam.
It is easy to play Endless Space for hours at a time, but whether it can rip fans away from established franchises like Civilisation is debatable. Whilst the build is strong, glitch free and logical, it is also lacking in personality. A strong lore is hinted at when creating a new game, but it disappears almost entirely when in action. Character and charm is what turns games like these into life consuming entities, and Endless Space never quite hits that mark, instead floating around the mildly addictive tideline.
Audio and Visual
From a design point of view Endless Space is slick, simple and easy to manage. The graphics aren’t going to tax systems very heavily, but they still do a very good job and provide pretty space scenes and details. Icons and text are clear and the whole user interface makes sense, is easy on the eye and manages to convey a lot of information without becoming cluttered. The sound is fairly limited, and although the atmospheric music is suitably chilled sci-fi that doesn’t prevent it from becoming boring. A smidgen of voice acting could have been expanded upon to help the titles personality problems, and the effects suffer from a similar lack of spark. They are there and they function, but that’s about it.
Overall
Endless Space is an impressive entry into the 4x genre but not one of it’s brightest stars. It’s unlikely to convert those not already a fan of the style, but for those who already know their empire building strategy there is a substantial, smart title here ready for some copious amounts of time to be spent on it. The voltage needs to be turned up on the personality, combat and sound design, but the generous amount of things to manage and the rock solid interface will go a long way to hooking in genre fans.
Astro Gaming released a new trailer for their up coming fully wireless headset, the A50. Priced at $349.99 AUD, the Astro A50s is a fully wireless headset sporting Dolby Digital 7.1 surround sound. The infamous Astro Mixamp is built into the headset and the transmitter. This provides optical in and AUX in inputs while providing USB Power and voice, a USB charging port, and a handy optical pass through mode. The Astro A50s are compatible with multiple systems, so whether your gaming preference is Xbox, PC, Playstation 3, a mobile platform, or a little bit of everything, the Astro A50s will be ready. 5.8GHz KleerNet technology paired with high quality headphones brings audiophile grade sound with the lowest possible interference possible for gamers everywhere. The A50s will be available at EB Games and JB Hifi in Australia and New Zealand in August.
Match three is a pretty standard genre for casual gaming as it’s pretty easy to understand the concept and then it’s simply balancing out scoring. So, what big changes could a game like Monster Cube be adding to spice things up? Make it a 3D cube of things to match, so players have to race the clock to dwindle the cube down, as opposed to clearing a board.
