Klei Entertainment, the indie developer behind the gory beat em up Shank 2 (XBLA, PC, PSN) have announced their next project. In a move that is quite a surprise Klei Entertainment announced that their next game will be a text based adventure game (Or is it?).
Their latest game will be titled Mark of the Ninja. Is it really a text based adventure game? Or are these ninjas disguising themselves? You can find out for yourself here.
What do you think of Mark of the Ninja? Let us know what you think of this ‘text based adventure’ game in the shoutbox and comment section.
Little Deviants Developer: Bigbig Studios Publisher: Sony Platform: PlayStation Vita Release Date: February 23, 2012 Price: $32.99 (available here)
Overview
Little Deviants is one of the PS Vita’s numerous launch titles, coming to the handheld alongside big names and big games like Wipeout and Uncharted. Whilst Little Deviants is a fantastic demonstration of all the Vita’s flashy new control schemes, it really is just a collection of mini games that only the high score obsessed will find any great joy with.
Story
Are you really expecting anything? The set up for Little Deviants is kept to a cutesy minimum. A space ship full of the titular Deviants is shot down by some nasty robots and crash lands on a cubist planet of cubist humans. The robots follow shortly after and decide for some random reason to raise the dead to help them crush the amorphous blobs that are the Deviants. Players must take control of the Deviants and guide them through a series of mini games to win back their space ship parts and escape the planet.
That’s it.
Gameplay
As mentioned above, Little Deviants is primarily a demonstration of all the new wizardry that is packed within Sony’s latest handheld. Think of it as the Wii Sports for the Vita, except it’s not free and it’s not half as friendly to non gaming relatives and Christmas parties. Every mini game is controlled using the gyroscope, touch screen, microphone or touch pad, and old school buttons only get involved in one type of mini game. Score enough points for a bronze medal and another game will be unlocked, with each success netting the Deviant’s a space ship part with which to rebuild their craft. Games are primarily touch screen and gyroscope based, with these motion controls used to roll Deviant’s around mazes, tilt them through caves and steer them through race courses. There’s a touch screen variant of whack-a-mole that utilises both touch screens, and even one game that requires a bit of singing.
Now everything is technically sound, and the game truly shows off just how accurate and sensitive the alternate control options on the Vita are. Unfortunately none of the games are particularly addictive or fun, and there are even a couple that are a complete turn off – using the back touch screen to generate a hill to roll around the Deviants is a nice twist of an idea, but in execution it feels clumsy and based on luck rather than skill. There’s nothing that leaps out of the collection and grabs you, nor anything particularly surprising or creative. The augmented reality game (move the Vita around to shoot down some robots that fly around your house) is good for some gimmicky fun, but will quickly bring some hurt to your world,either when your arms get tired of holding up the Vita or someone on the train whacks you for being an idiot.
Portability is a concern, and not only with the above example. The singing mini game (you can hum or whistle if you want) will induce even more wrath from members of the public, and unless you’ve got nice big man hands, it can be a bit difficult to get decent control over the whack-a-mole style game without assuming some strange yoga position to allow both hands access to the Vita. If the handheld is charging you can write off the augmented reality games, and things will become a lot more difficult on the tilt based sessions too.
There is some fun to be had with the games, but only in short and sweet sessions. Although there are thirty on offer there are an awful lot of reskinned repeats that simply dial the difficulty up a notch. Apart from unlocking more games, the bronze, silver and gold trophies serve little purpose, and leaderboards are tucked away in a separate menu rather than updated live at the end of every game. If you do take to a game enough to bash away at it repeatedly, then a silver medal earns you a gallery item, and a gold a bit of glory. Another completely bizarre feature has you collecting a ‘Mogger’ from every game – that’s a cat to you and me – that does nothing but sit in a house – is Little Deviant’s trying to turn us all into cat ladies? Perhaps there’s some sort of reward for collecting all the cats, but I honestly can’t bring myself to play through every game again in search of them.
Audio & Visual:
Much like the gameplay in Little Deviants the audio and visual properties of the game are good but not in any way unique. Everything has a vibrant coat of cartoon paint, and the Deviants themselves always have their mouths hanging open and bounce around like the insane googly eyed blobs that they are. They and the zombie style enemies have some amusing details, and the backgrounds are simplistic but bright. There’s nothing overly flash on offer here – the Vita can certainly do better – but everything is bright and bubbly enough to make Little Deviants a pleasant enough experience for the senses. Sound effects and music follow a similar pattern, with upbeat tunes and a light hearted, goofy feel.
Overall:
Little Deviants is difficult to recommend. The games within it are by no means bad, but there’s just not enough here to make the package stand out. It shows off the Vita’s control capabilities very well, but anyone who’s booted up the handheld will have had a similar experience with Welcome Park. If you’re a fan of mini game compilations or like chasing high scores purely for the sake of it then you may find more joy here than most. Ultimately there are bigger fish to fry when it comes to the Vita launch line up, and with Lumines and Super Star Dust Delta among them, this arcade compilation doesn’t stand much of a chance.
Didn’t the Playstation Network go down for maintenance just a few weeks ago? Regardless, Sony is once again shutting down the service to spruce it up, or whatever they do when they pull it down.
Starting March 1 at 11am ET, the PlayStation Store, account management and PlayStation Home will be unavailable. The service is scheduled to come back online at 2am ET the next day. The maintenance will affect the PC Playstation Store as well. For more details, check out the Playstation community blog post.
WB Games and CD Projekt Red have released a new trailer in preparation for the launch of the Xbox 360 version of The Witcher 2.
The video focuses on the game’s antagonist, the Kingslayer. But are all villains truly as they seem? While the trailer ploughs up a whole load of mystery, one thing is clear: whoever the Kingslayer is, you (as Geralt, the title Witcher) are standing in his way. And he doesn’t like that. Not at all.
Check out the trailer below! The Witcher 2 hits store shelves on April 17th.
Although Gearbox has already released a few pieces of media that detail Borderlands 2, sometimes its nice to see where something started. If you want to take a peek at some concept skteches that Gearbox made of the characters that will be making an appearance in the upcoming sequel, all you need to do is point your mouse at their Facebook page, or take a look at the gallery below. There you can gaze upon Maya, of the Siren Class. The Commando’s concept sketches were also revealed. As you can see in the concept pictures, Axton the Commando looks more like a punk than the soldier you see pictured above. Which character designs do you like best?
Naruto Shippuden The Movie 2: Bonds Studio:Studio Pierrot Publisher: Madman Format: DVD (Reviewed), Blu-Ray Release Date: February 15, 2012 Price: $24.99 – Available Here
Overview: There is a common problem that plagues cinematic adaptations of long running anime series such as Naruto. That problem lies in the fact that the majority of these films are inconsequential to the series itself and exists outside of the canon of the franchise. That means that from the get go the viewer knows that everything will return to the status quo by the films end and that all the events that conspired effectively did not ‘really’ happen.
Unfortunately there is no real way around this, so all viewers can do is cross their fingers and hope that this film that ultimately equates to filler material for fans interested in the canon of the series is actually enjoyable enough to warrant it’s existence. So that raises the question, does Naruto Shippuden The Movie 2: Bonds do enough to push it beyond the conceptions placed against it?
Story: Naruto Shippuden The Movie 2: Bonds features an original story that focuses on an invading group of ninja known as the ‘Sky Ninja’ from the Land of the Sky. This group of ninja have a grudge against the Hidden Leaf Village whom they claim destroyed there Land of the Sky in the past.
It is all very convenient and is not really anything we have not seen before from Naruto. The film’s plot is rather ill conceived and features some questionable scenes that go against the mythology of the Naruto universe. For example the ‘Sky Ninja’ use technology that seems entirely out of place within the world of Naruto (Jetpack like gliding devices). This creates a major inconsistency with this movie and the already preconceived mythos and history of the Naruto universe.
Fans may find this to be a major mistake and will undoubtedly be reminded of the original Naruto film that did the same thing. However for casual viewers this will come across as nothing significant.
As for the structure of the plot, it is haphazard at best. Amongst the chaos that is the ‘Sky Ninja’ plot, Studio Pierrot managed to shoe-horn Sasuke into the film. Now as many would know Sasuke is a character motivated largely be vengeance and hatred. I’ll say this right now and get it out of the way, he had no place in this film and it feels very evident as to the way in which he is forced into the plot which he should not have anything to do with.
By the time the film had reached it’s conclusion I was left wondering whether I had just watched an overly long and more prettier looking filler episode. There was very little redeeming qualities about the film in general and the Sasuke appearance was little more than unnecessary fan service.
Bonds has many inconsistencies and ultimately the film didn’t amount to much, leaving nothing but a bad taste in the mouth. Casual viewers would find the events of the film mostly confusing as it relies largely on a preconceived notion that they viewer knows who these characters are and their relationships with one another. This one is definitely best left to the most hardcore of hardcore fans, if only to see Naruto and Sasuke interact again.
Visuals and Audio:
Studio Pierrot make up for the weak plot of the film with some remarkable animation and art work that clearly reflects the cinematic production of the movie. It is undoubtedly the best Naruto has ever looked and the fight scenes were incredibly fluid and lively.
As for the audio, the soundtrack was overall quite good. However, I found Viz Media’s dub track to be grating and at times distracting from what was occurring on screen as the dialogue was incredibly stilted and monotonous. The Japanese dub was also available thankfully which was pretty good in it’s own right. All in all, the audio section could’ve been better.
Extras:
Bonds thankfully features some pretty decent special features, which elevate an overall poor film to being purchase worthy (at least for hardcore fans). On disc is a special music video featuring the films theme song and some production art that would entice many fans wanting to see more about the stages of production on the movie. There is enough on disc to give viewers a little more to check out once they have watched through the movie itself, but it could’ve done with a little more.
Overall: Naruto Shippuden The Movie 2: Bonds, is little more than a glorified filler episode. The Naruto franchise has had better films spawned from it than Bonds. It is hard to recommend this to anyone other than hardcore Naruto fans as there is simply a lot they will not understand due to the films decision to not give basic information to first time viewers on the world of Naruto and the characters that inhabit it.
If you do not mind an inconsistent mess, that is ultimately inconsequential then by all means check this movie out. If you rather something more sound and better structured, then there is better Naruto movies out there for you to peruse. Naruto has done much better in the past and as such I recommend avoiding this film like the plague, that is unless your really into the plague.
EA have announced that Australia will once again be one of 11 countries to stage a FIFA Interactive World Cup Live Qualifying Event for 2012.
Pre-qualifying events will be staged at EB Games stores across Australia in Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Newcastle, Gold Coast and Rockhampton from 6 pm on Thursday March 22.
Players from all over the country will be able to compete in the tournament for the first time. The winner from each of the pre-qualifiers will be flown to Sydney on April 4th for the final event, where they will face off on the pitch to discover who is Australia’s best FIFA gamer.
Do you think your skills as a video game programmer could tackle the next generation? Well if so then perhaps this news may be more than just interesting for you. For everyone else however, it seems that Bethesda Game Studios is looking to the future as they are now hiring for “Future Generation Console Programmer” positions.
These jobs are described as something that will have workers working on “an unannounced game on future-generation consoles.” Unfortunately the listing didn’t go into any more detail than that, besides listing a number of requirements such as the fact that need experience programming for PS3 and Xbox, and DirectX 11 experience is “a plus.” Seems Bethesda is ready for a PS4 and Xbox 720 already.
Despite Square Enix being very quiet about their upcoming 3DS RPG Bravely Default: Flying Fairy, so quiet in fact they have yet to say whether or not they will be bringing the title to North America, a new Japanese trailer has surfaced for the game.
This trailer focuses heavily on showing off the exquisite artwork that players will see in the game as they explore many unique locations. Besides that there are also a few tidbits of gameplay footage sprinkled throughout the video as well so best keep your eye out for that. A demo will be available on the Japanese e-Shop on February 29th, but unless you have a Japanese Nintendo 3DS this is unfortunately unreachable for you. Perhaps we can expect an announcement from Square Enix in North America sometime soon?
European PlayStation Vita owners will find that they have a little freebie available to them on the PlayStation Network. In an effort to perhaps test out the system’s video capabilities, the company is providing a free episode of South Park.
The episode is Season 12’s premier episode, Tonsil Trouble featuring all of the cast you know and love. The offer is currently only available for those in Europe, or with European PSN accounts and the version of the episode is only the SD version as the HD version still costs £1.99. Still a very nice bonus… perhaps North American Vita owners will see something similar to this shortly?
