It wouldn’t be a fighting game without DLC of some kind, even if its simply extra colors or glasses. Today Arc System Works revealed that they would be releasing some color variations and glasses as DLC for Persona 4: Arena. These new color variations will be released after the game comes out and the different glasses will appear on the player’s character sprite and animations.
Also if you happen to dislike the voice over and round announcers, Siliconera reports that you can buy some DLC to change that voice to either Mitsuru, Yosuke, Aigis, and Teddie explain menu options instead of the original voice, Margaret. Currently Atlus USA has not made any announcements about this DLC being released overseas in North America.
Want to play Far Cry 3 anytime soon? Well unfortunately that isn’t going to be happening because the title which was initially meant to be released in September has now been pushed back until December 4th in North America and November 29th in Europe. This holds true for each version of the game, Xbox 360, PS3 and PC though given Ubisoft’s track record with PC releases, it won’t be seen until 2013.
Anyways, Dan Hay, producer at Ubisoft stated that the reason for the delay was due to the team “taking more time to create the best possible gameplay experience” as “Far Cry 3 is a huge offering and we want every element of this insane, action-packed adventure to be of the highest possible quality for the players.”
If you haven’t pre-ordered Tecmo Koei’s upcoming Dead or Alive 5 then perhaps you better dig around for at least $5 to toss down because the company revealed a number of pre-order bonuses for the game. Those of us in North America who pre-order the title at GameStop or Amazon will receive a set of in-game bunny-style swimsuits for three members of the female cast with GameStop pre-orderers receiving the “DOA Angels” white swimsuits for Kasumi, Leifang and Hitomi, while Amazon gets the black “DOA Devils” swimsuits for Christie, Tina, and Ayane. Luckily those in the UK can choose which set of suits to receive if they happen to pre-order the game over there.
Revealed alongside the aforementioned pre-order bonuses is a special collector’s edition which will cost $79.99 in North America and be sold exclusively at GameStop while those in the UK will have to shell out a currently unrevealed price at Centresoft. This Dead or Alive 5 Collector’s Edition will include an embossed metal case, an art book, physical soundtrack, both sets of swimsuits as well as a poster. Could the poster be the nice Kasumi image below? Possibly…
Journey has broken records on the PlayStation Network by being the fastest selling PSN game ever, and now it seems that the game will be receiving a disc-based collector’s edition on August 28th in North America. Today thatgamecompany revealed that the collection will be released for a paltry sum of $29.99.
As one would expect, the Journey Collector’s Edition includes Journey, but it also includes flOw, Flower, soundtracks and commentaries for all three of the games, reversible cover art and a thirty minute documentary.
The full list of what is included in the collector’s edition can be seen below:
30-minute behind-the-scenes documentary about the making of Journey
Creator Commentary play-throughs of all three games
Three exclusive mini-games from thatgamecompany
Concept art and screenshot galleries for all three games
Original soundtracks for all three games
PS3 dynamic themes and wallpapers
PSN avatars including 8 exclusive new Journey avatars never released before
You may remember a big hullabaloo over the last few months where Zenimax’s (Bethesda’s owners) legal team was engaged in some rather drawn out legal proceedings with Mojang over their game Scrolls. Well, now that those legal proceedings have ended, it seems Mojang wanted to celebrate by showing off the game for the first time.
The gameplay trailer can be seen below which show that it is a game that some people probably won’t like but I digress. The title will use the same sort of “paid beta” system that Minecraft used back in the day, so those who buy the open beta early will get the game for a cheaper price.
It may seem a little sudden, but then again with modern day conveniences like motor vehicles and the ability to buy things online, acquiring the 1600 Microsoft Points required to purchase Skyrim’s first major expansion pack DLC, Dawnguard, is quite simple. If you want to be one of the first people playing the DLC then you better make sure you have those points because Bethesda confirmed today that the DLC will be released on the Xbox 360 tomorrow.
For those who don’t know, Dawnguard will see the rise of vampires in the land of Skyrim as the Vampire Lord Harkon has returned to put an end to the sun itself. Players will be able to choose between joining the Dawnguard and putting an end to his plans or join the vampires themselves and further their dastardly plot. Who will you choose to support when the life giving sun is at stake?
Have you ever come across a news article, an opinion piece, or even a text-book that you knew was just plain wrong on a certain subject? Recently, whilst perusing Kotaku, I had come across just one such article. Namely the one titled The Wii-U’s Power Problem. Essentially what it is that this article states, with the assistance of unverifiable sources, is that the Wii-U will not be able to run Unreal Engine 4 games and will be a significantly gimped gaming console in comparison to the super-mega-power-houses that are the supposed Next-gen Xbox and Playstation consoles.
While I don’t doubt that the next iteration of primary gaming consoles will be significantly more powerful in comparison to the Wii-U, I have my doubts as to this anonymous source and, by extension, Kotaku’s assertion that the Wii-U will not be able to run Unreal Engine 4 games. This is complete and utter bullshit and I will explain to you why that is so.
First of all, let’s just glance at the technical specs that have been revealed to us, shall we? For those of you unfamiliar with these, you can take a look at them Here or Here. Now as we can see, there are a lot of technical words and nonsenses that will leave the average person lost, confused and possibly even a little daunted. As such, I shall point you towards the main focuses of my argument as to why the Wii-U, technically speaking, will be fine to run Unreal Engine 4 games.
First of all, we know that the Wii-U will be running from the ATI HD graphics line. Now, what makes these special is that these particular cards have their own graphics processors. These are designed to take the grunt out of processing certain kinds of data away from your primary CPU. But, with having, what is essentially a specialised CPU, we are able to harness that extra power and theoretically use it to process double the amounts of data when it’s not being used to its fullest. This means that with the right software, this can be used to alleviate stress on the CPU – bitcoin farming is one such example of this.
The Wii-U will also be running an IBM Power Cpu. We don’t have much to go on here as it could refer to anything on the Power line of architecture. However, both power 5 and power 6 are affordable and would easily eclipse the processing capabilites of the xbox360 and ps3. Just remember folks, clock rates are only for processing time and with a modern GPU, lower clock-rates can be tolerated. However, there are citations on a wikipedia article for the Wii-U which states that it may be similar to a Power 7 CPU, which is currently the latest in IBMs processing line. Many of you will remember this particular line as being famous for running that super-computer that could win a game of Jeapordy! in 3 seconds.
I’d reasonably expect 2.6-3.5ghz processing, probably 2.6 with some of the processing passed on to the GPU. However, you could probably still even go as low as 2.4, but at that point anything lower would simply not cut it for simple word processing duties. I’ve got my money on 2.6-2.8ghz personally. – http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/34683.wss
The RAM is one thing that we have no idea about, but we can assume that the device does have 8GB internal flash memory and it is expandable through SD cards and USB hard-drives. If a developer was smart, they could utilise the built in flash memory as backup ram and force the player to save to SD or HDD. There is software that does this already for USB flash drives. However this is all supposition on my part and would not honestly expect this out of a modern day console. – http://www.instructables.com/id/Use-your-USB-flash-drive-as-virtual-RAM/
These three points alone tell us that the Wii-U will be able to handle current gen games without breaking a sweat, it has even been showcased (Kotaku show this in their article). However their criticism is in UE4. Now, when UE3 came out, It ran fine on current gen PC’s at the time. It ran fine on the hardware that was released around it. Is it really that unlikely that a graphics engine would not be built to run on current hardware at minimum? The Wii-U is a step ahead of most gaming PCs these days, why would it not be able to run UE4 games?
Heck, even Unreal Engine 3 is ~Really~ versatile, I had Unreal Tournament 3 running on my old nVidia 5200 at 320×240 res with max settings at a very smooth frame-rate. Sure it looked like ass, but it worked. Why would Epic remove such versatility from their engine? At the worst, the Wii-U will see versions of titles with slightly reduced textures, or maybe a different lightmap. But if you’ve been PC gaming as long as I have, you will know that you can get the most out of a game with a little tinkering. I’m sure gamedevs will be doing just that with future titles should the Wii-U not be up to scratch.
Oh hey, a quote from epic saying that it is scalable –
“Artists and designers can bring their visions to life directly in game without programmer assistance via the new Unreal Kismet. This offers programmers the freedom to focus on core gameplay features and sophisticated systems. With significant new visual features, Unreal Engine 4 enables you to achieve high-end visuals, while remaining both scalable and accessible to make games for low-spec PCs.” – http://www.unrealengine.com/unreal_engine_4
So really, what is the Kotaku article even talking about? A quick 15minutes of research has shown that they simply have no idea about what it is that they’re trying to say and this anonymous source of theirs is probably a troll who saw easy money. Kotaku, I’m an anonymous source too, I’m telling you that the Wii-U is going to be 50,00000000000000000000 times more powerful than the “Xbox 720” and the “Playstation 4”; you can quote me on that in your next article titled “Why the Wii-U is 50-gigadrillion times as powerful as X720 and PS4”. You can stop reading here if you like, or you can continue reading on for my concerns with the current growth of the gaming console thingness.
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My primary concern with this gaming console generation is that it’s taking existing hardware architecture and not planning for the future. They seem to be taking the specs of today to run the games of today and not really thinking ahead. This is all rhetoric by me though, but I don’t see the hardware ever beating down a PC or the games ever looking as good. If console devs keep lagging behind, there will be no drive towards better looking games. It’s no fun when my PC outperforms 90% of titles even with 2-3year old hardware.
I comfortably predict that the “next-gen” (nothing next or gen about them) of consoles will show their age much more quickly than the consoles of old, with games looking dated at around two years into their life-cycle. I’m just going to sit over here and enjoy the console war that’s beginning to brew, I’ve given solid insight into the direction of the consoles and their power, now I’m just going to laugh.
Do you hate reading? Still trying to wrap your head around the super-complicated concepts of New Super Mario Bros 2? Well, Nintendo have you covered! They’ve released a video that explains the features that put the “new” in New Super Mario Bros 2, and it looks like the same sorta stuff you’d expect, with a few added twists.
With so little time for plumbing these days, Mario’s income seems to be largely dependent on whatever he can find during his perpetual quest to save the princess. This time the bling is an even bigger focus, and from the looks of it, by the end of New SMB2 he should finally be able to afford a locking door, to keep Bowser out.
Most of the new features revolve around new ways to collect coins, like Gold Rings, Gold Blocks and the much-hyped Coin Rush mode.
This info video is a little unneccesary, but it still provides a bit more detail on the game. Especially if you hate reading, and have missed all the info released via the medium of text so far.
Honey and Clover Complete Collection Studio: JC Staff Publisher:Madman Format: DvD Release Date: May 23, 2012 Price: DvD $59.95 (Buy Here)
Overview
Honey and Clover is described as a series that involves a rather confusing love triangle and a strange sense of humour. Fortunately, the series is not as confusing as any and all media will portray it as being, unless of course, you have the intelligence of a plank of wood. The complete series is 36 episodes and two bonus episodes in length, making this a pretty decent looking package for the Anime aficionado. A plethora of extras and a decent art-style are only bonuses at this point.
Story
The story in Honey and Clover Complete Collection follows a small group of guys and girls who are connected to each other through their tenure at an art school. However, what puts the story into motion is this one new student named Hagumi, who enrols at the school and immediately gains the attraction of one of the male main characters named Shinobu. Hinobu isn’t the only one with attractions to the opposite sex though, it seems that almost everyone in this series is attracted to someone else of the opposing gender. However, the attractions are never really mutual and are all connected in a kind of love-triangle, which can make for some interesting drama.
My most favourite part of the story though, would have to be the characters themselves. What I mean by most favourite isn’t so much that the characters themselves are good, but it’s more that they fit some kind of archetype designed to attract certain viewers. For instance, we have the aloof guy that everyone tries to appease, the shy, yet prodigious girl that nobody should have any reason to swoon over yet they do, that one plain guy and a few others. I liked this because it was completely rediculous to have these kinds of characters in the first place. No one person is one type of behaviour their entire lives, but for some reason these guys and girls are just that.
The series is meant to be a comedy series, but really, aside from a few laughs, the show just seemed pretty flat. I suppose one must first understand the source material or something, but really, the comedy didn’t work for me. Maybe someone with a much better sense of humour will appreciate the comedy, but I wasn’t too impressed.
Visuals
Visually speaking, Honey and Clover Complete Collection was a step back into the days between hand-drawn animation and CGI. The early 2000s era of astonishingly great animation, just before the rise of CGI found today.
What I really liked about this series was it’s character designs. Each character has a kind of plain look, while still retaining an air of mystery, or even a little style that separates them from most Anime characters. The best way to explain it is that these characters look plain, while most other anime go for grandiose designs that sometimes fail to deliver.
Another thing that I really liked about this series was that all the backgrounds and the like had that hand-drawn and detailed look that seems to have dropped off in modern times. I don’t know why, but in one of the opening scenes we see the complex that the main characters are residing within and it immediately filled me with nostalgia because of the way it was drawn.
My one major gripe with the art is the character Hagumi. She is played up to be this cute character and is supposed to be of an adult age. However, she looks like she is, at the most, 12 and all the “cute” things that she is seen doing throughout the show annoyed me like hell.
The opening animation for the series was incredibly well done and is a complete change of pace from the usual hand drawn anime opening. A relic opening such as this one can only serve as a reminder to the creativity once shown in a now stagnating industry.
Audio
Honey and over Complete Collection has a rather decent soundtrack attached to it. However I found the first two opening and endings completely annoying, at least on an audio level. This also applies to the second opening and closing.
What made things a little unbearable with the English soundtrack was not that the English actors didn’t do a good job (they fit the roles just fine), its that it had this kind of metallic background ring to the audio which was not present in the Japanese language option.
The one character who’s voice I found most annoying on both audio tracks was the character Hagumi. She has to be the most annoying character in the entire series. I think that they were going for a kind of cute sounding voice, but they completely missed the mark and left her sounding like a long annoyance. To make things worse, she is one of the main characters of the series and so she gets plenty of screen-time as well.
Extras
Now the Extras are really what make this package worth getting. The series boasts an amazing Extras set which are sure to take up the majority of your time that isn’t set aside for watching the series. The following is a list of extras as labelled by the cover –
KABA.chan tries voice acting
Tokyo Anime Fair footage
Making of the Animated Opening
Textless Opening and Closing
English Production Credits
Original Japanese Production Credits
Screening Tea Party
Cultural Notes
Production Art
Trailers
This is probably one of the more extensive Extras list that I have seen and they are sure to add a plethora of value to this series.
Overall
Aside from a few good points and a copious amount of extras, I’d definitely recommend against getting this series if you are not partial to romance anime series. The whole concept, I felt was dealt with in a way that was inferior to other productions in the same genre. However, If you’re looking for a series that has a good value for money, this one would probably be your best bet. The series bolsters a plethora of extras, 36 entire episodes with two bonus episodes and a storyline that will keep you engaged, even if one particular character is annoying as crap.
It’s completely up to you on whether or not to get this series. I personally didn’t enjoy it, but I can see where people who enjoy these kinds of things would.
With the main industry becoming somewhat stagnant, I’ve found myself drawn more to the independent game developers community lately. I’ve stumbled onto some real gems, but unfortunately, a lot of them don’t get the attention they deserve.
This new segment, which I intend to make semi-regular, will highlight an indie game I’ve discovered or have been playing. They won’t be reviews, per se, but simply try to promote some of those lesser known games you should get in on.
The first Indie Pick is Plith, the debut release from Ya2, an indie developer based in Rome. In Plith, players construct chains of cogs, with the aim of transferring the energy from a spinning starter cog to a stationary target one. Sounds simple, and during the tutorial levels it is. But it’s not long before other cog sizes, obstacles and play spaces ramp up the challenge.
Cogs must be placed on pegs, and the arrangement of these on the board usually indicates the path players must take to build their cog chains. A path of pegs may look quite simple, but the relationship between the different cog sizes means the ones you are given in a level may not mesh in the way you expect. The challenge comes from determining how to use the given cog types in the space provided.
Cogs come in three sizes, and the relationships between them vary. Large cogs will mesh together only either directly above, below, left or right of each other, medium cogs will mesh together diagonally, and small cogs are useful for bridging gaps between the others. The elements are simple to understand while you play, yet the complicated ways they work together are difficult to explain in writing. That’s often a sign of a great central mechanic: straight forward enough for players to pick up quickly, but deep enough to allow for many puzzle possibilities. That’s good news, considering the game boasts over 100 levels.
The puzzling gameplay is wrapped up in a story about the end of the world. It’s 2012, the year pop culture and the realm of historic myth tell us Earth is due for a cataclysm, and Plith presents it as the gears driving the universe being damaged. To restore the rotation of the Earth, players must…connect cogs.
The presentation is lacking some polish, however. The visuals and audio are serviceable but not mind-blowing, and the interface can be somewhat cumbersome. Thankfully, the central mechanic is strong enough to keep things interesting.
If you’re a fan of puzzle games, Plith is definitely worth the miniscule asking price of $3.99. It’s available now on Desura,Indie City and on Ya2’s own site. If you’re too tight for that, there’s a free demo to try out.
