The Witcher 2 Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition hit store shelves for its Xbox 360 release a couple of days ago, and to get it off the ground with a bang, CDProjekt, the developers of the epic fantasy RPG, have released a launch trailer full of stirring vocals and dramatic cutscenes.
The Enhanced Edition of The Witcher 2 features new cutscenes throughout the game to better explain the story, four hours of new gameplay content, and various gameplay tweaks and bug fixes. The update is free to all PC owners of the game (and Xbox owners get it right out of the box).
Check out our review of The Witcher 2 and be sure to watch the launch trailer below!
Indie Royale is kicking off Spring with their Spring Bundle. Indie Royale bundlees are a pay what you want with a moving minimum price. The more you pay for your bundle, the lower minimum price drops, pay the minimum and it will go up for everyone else. All games are available through Desura, while a few come with redeemable Steam keys too.
The Spring bundle features the tower defense game Unstoppable Gorg, action RPG Depths of Peril, 2D platformer Tobe’s Vertical Adventure, twin stick shooter Inferno+, block based puzzler Slydris, and twin stick shooter Geometry rounds the bundle out. Pay a minimum of five dollars and get one of 2011’s biggest chiptune albums, Danimal Cannon’s album “Roots”.
Black Butler: Complete First Season Studio: A-1 Pictures Publisher: FUNimation Format: DVD & Blu-Ray Release Date: April 3, 2012 Price: $69.98 – Available Here
Overview:
The late 1800’s in England is an interesting time in history. There was Jack the Ripper, Queen Victoria had lost her husband, World’s Fair was happening across the channel in France, and apparently supernatural beings were very prevalent. Okay, maybe that last one isn’t much of a historical fact, but it was one of the main aspects of the Black Butler anime series.
So, how is this first season of Black Butler as a whole? Does it provide an adequate story with characters you want to know more about? Does it provide more than just a unique take on a historical period most only know a little bit about?
Story: Black Butler is the story of a young British noble named Ciel Phantomhive, who has offered his soul into contract with a demon in exchange for one wish. The wish Ciel choices is to get revenge on those that had humiliated him and killed his parents, with the demon acting as his butler in order to aid him however he needs. The overarching plot of the series builds across the 24 episodes with a few several side stories that don’t directly forward the plot.
Several of the plot arcs told throughout the series are multi-parted, having two or sometimes even three episodes in the arc, which works much better in the disc format than it may have as the series aired. The non-plot stories aren’t distracting either, nested between the different plot related arcs. They provide good character development and/or background on the other characters, which is very welcome just to know more about them. The series covers a wide variety of ground from Jack the Ripper, to opium smuggling, to Ciel’s wish of revenge.
The characters are almost all deeper than originally expected. There are only a few secondary characters that only really maintain their initial appearances. Sebastian, the Black Butler himself and the master of understatement, is an amazing title character that while lacking a character arc, surprises the audience with how faceted his character is. Ciel on the other hand is an almost single-faceted character whose arc takes him from seeking revenge to questioning if he has thrown his life away for it. The other servants of the House of Phantomhive gain their own arc, from comic relief to true pawns in their masters game in a single episode that will be touched on more later.
The show also gives a perfect ending to the season, that is in no way forced or contrived. The ending works so well that without knowing about a second season it leaves an impression of finality, so it really depends on the quality of the second for how much of a story is left to tell.
Visuals: Black Butler is an amazingly beautiful anime that has an large amount of detail packed into almost every frame. Because of this, almost any frame could be taken out and used a picture by itself. There are a few moments of chibi style artwork that persists for the sake of some of the comedic scenes, but every dramatic and serious scene is golden in a way that A-1 Pictures really lives up to their name.
With the subject matter though, it hopefully goes without saying that it does get dramatically dark. The show doesn’t shy away from violence and there are plenty of times when it gets a bit graphic. They even make it a special point to warn away younger views in the preview for the next episode. So, it is probably a good idea to keep the viewership of the series to at least teens.
Audio:
The music of the series is very fitting for the subject matter as a whole. There is only one opening theme, “Monochrome Kiss” by Sid, simply getting new title sequence about halfway through, but it fits the premise to the point of not needing to be changed. There are two different ending themes, the first being “I’m Alive!” by Becca that fits Ciel’s living and building towards his revenge and the second “Lacrimosa” by Kalafina that fits the bittersweet realization of his throwing his life away. The music through the actual show however better fits the period and mood, with sorrowful strings and piano.
The voice acting is also impeccable, even the dub, which even a lot of other good series tend to miss on. With the England setting, the focus on dialects is done well enough that I would suggest giving the dub a try. Some voices at first seem creepily out of place, but then you realize it is the point of the character. Though the Elizabeth voice can be too accurately shrill for an English Lady of the time demanding her wants.
Extras:
Packed on the DVD are a handful full of special features. There are a few commentary tracks on select episodes, all being side stories, non plot. There are also the different openings and closings sans titles for those interested in just seeing the art. There is also the OVA on the final disc that fits in somewhere between episodes 15 & 19, that includes a preview for Black Sushi Chef, a fake sequel series, simply for a laugh.
The most unique special feature however is the commentary track for episode 21, “His Butler, Engaging Servants”, what I had earlier mentioned I would touch on. This is the episode focused on the servants back stories and what makes this commentary track so unique is that the commentary is done by Finny, Mey-Rin, and Bardroy (seen below).
Yes, the commentary is done by the characters, more specifically the English ones. It is the most interesting, perplexing, and hilarious commentary, I’ve ever enjoyed, where they comment on everything from the opening titles, to “Ding!”, to how Sebastian wont let them out until they’re done. If you don’t generally listen to commentary, do so for this one.
Overall: Black Butler is an amazing series that plays host to a lot of awesome characters and suspense through the show. This is a show for people that love dark and comedy mixed together, with meaning sprinkled upon the top. It is also now one of my favorite animes and really only begs where it can go with a second season. But, I can assure that Black Butler Season One is definitely worth a look.
Don’t have an iOS device? Don’t fear or at least for too long, Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land is coming out for PC through Intel’s AppUp marketplace. After lots of coding,chanting, and sacrificing goats, the team at Red Wasp Design are prepared to launch come May 5th. Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted is a strategy RPG set in the gritty trenches of World War I.
Players will lead their team of British Army soldiers and occult investigators against the Cult of the Awakening and their German Army protectors. Here the dangers that they are not only to their bodies, but their sanity as well.
Namco Bandai officially announced Tekken Tag Tournament 2 for home consoles last week and yesterday they released a brand new trailer which summarizes a multitude of details for the game. In fact, the trailer, which can be seen below, states that there will be over 50 fighters to choose from.
Also shown off in the trailer is a Pair Play mode that allows four fighters at one time to battle against each other. The title will feature the standard 2 on 2 and 1 on 1 modes, as well as some handicap fights featuring 1 on 2 battles. Currently Tekken Tag Tournament 2 is set to be released in September on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
Over the past few months things have been bad for THQ, but it seems that there is at least a little bit of good news on the horizon. While the company initially expected terrible fourth quarter sales, which ended on March 31, 2012, it seems that they made at least a bit more than they expected.
Originally the company was expected to report only $130-$150 million in sales, but now they are expected to report net sales of $160 million to $170 million. THQ has pointed to the success of Saints Row: The Third and DLC for the title performing better than predicted. Can THQ stay alive? YES!
Nippon Ichi has been around for almost twenty years, in fact they will be turning twenty on July 12th. To commemorate this event the company will be holding a full years worth of celebrations all with the logo seen above branded on them. Also revealed was a new piece of artwork for a currently nameless title that will feature Noizi Ito’s artwork. The artwork can be seen below and fans of Nippon Ichi’s games can expect a number of original titles to be released over the course of the year, though no hints were given as to what gamers should expect.
Cave has revealed what the name of their next Dodonpachi game will be. Titled Dodonpachi Saidaioujou, the game will be released to Japanese arcades on April 20th with a possible console release later on. It is worth noting that Cave recently self-released Deathsmiles 2X onto Games on Demand for the Xbox 360, so the chance of a Western release is quite high. To coincide with this announcement they released the below trailer which shows off different features of this title.
One new addition to the Dodonpachi franchise is a “Dress System” which allows players to dress up the three female characters seen above with different outfits that affect their abilities. Anyone recognize the character design of these girls? Perhaps from a certain Ar Tonelico series?
Rather than be boring and announce the game through a simple press release, a Japanese publisher has chosen to take out a massive six page ad in the upcoming issue of Famitsu to tease their upcoming PlayStation Vita title called Soul Sacrifice. Two of the pages can be seen above with the other pages teasing four characters fighting against a large monster. The game will supposedly feature “evolved battle” concepts as well as “”real fantasy shown in high spec.”
No other information, not even who is developing or publishing the title was revealed in the teaser, though it is worth noting that a Tokyo event will be happening early next month for Sony which means we may see an official reveal then.
Everyone loves something for free and today PlayStation Vita owners can pick up a free painting app. The app itself is called Paint Park and anyone who uses it can draw by themselves or even draw with friends. The app itself is extremely basic, even more so than your basic Paint app on a computer but one unique feature is the ability to take pictures and draw on them.
You can even share your artwork with friends, though if you aren’t a budding artist perhaps most of your doodles are better kept to yourself. It is worth noting that two more apps will be coming in the Summer free of charge. These apps are Treasure Park which lets you share puzzles with friends and a Wake-up Club app that is basically an alarm clock.
