If you thought the voice of demonic The Darkness was created through a whole heap of electronic feedback loops and filters well think again. You may be in for a surprise to find out that the voice of The Darkness is in fact Mike Patton, leader singer of alternative metal band Faith No More. Reprising his role as the voice of The Darkness from 2007’s The Darkness, you can check out Mike Patton as he takes on voicing The Darkness below.
Or while you’re at it – check out Mike Patton’s incredible vocal range during a Faith No More concert in 2009, and yes he is pretty insane.
EA Games have released their official launch trailer for what is undoubtedly one of the biggest games of the year, the hotly anticipated third instalment into the massively popular Mass Effect franchise, Mass Effect 3.
The launch trailer for Mass Effect 3 can be seen below. We got a chance to go hands on with the game in Sydney which you can see here. We also got to interview Robyn Théberge the Associate Project Manager which you can see here.
Mass Effect 3 will be released across Australia and New Zealand on the 8th and 9th of March respectively. Will you be picking up a copy and fighting the good fight? Let us know in the shoutbox and comments section.
“Charlie, Chaarrrlliieeeee, we’re on a bridge, Charlie.” Yes, we’re on a bridge on our way to candy-mountain here at Capsule Computers in that we have been absolutely hooked on Charlie The Unicorn. So it goes without reason that in this weeks installment of the rather infrequent column, Capsule Theatre of Vision, that we showcase this amazing work of art.
So lets all follow the directions given to us by the magical Leoplurodon, it’s going to guide the way. The Leoplurodon is pointing us below, down below this article to the embedded video box, where your kidneys may reside.
Binary Domain Developer: Yakuza Studio Publisher: SEGA Platforms: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 (Reviewed) Release Date: February 28, 2012 Price: $59.99 – Available Here
Overview:
One of the most obvious signs of a technologically advanced culture is the presence of robots that actually can perform various tasks that help their masters in everyday life. However there is another belief that goes side by side with advanced robotic technology… where does society draw the line between what is human and what is robot? Where does the line between human and machine lie? Sega’s Binary Domain tackles this difficult action while also offering a third person shooting experience. Does Binary Domain offer an enlightening experience or are there a few bugs in this machine?
Story:
In 2080 AD the entire world has suffered quite a few problems, however the key issue that occurred around the world was a global flooding of disastrous proportions. This flood killed much of the world’s population and also destroyed a large amount of the large cities around the world. This worldwide disaster could only be rectified by one thing, and that is to create robots capable of performing everyday tasks, including providing a tireless workforce tasked with re-building society. As the years passed robots began filling in practically every aspect of normal life with it not being uncommon to find a robot performing tasks in nearly every building.
With the robotics industry on the rise, the various countries around the world signed the New Geneva Convention, which created many new laws for the world but the most important of these was Clause 21, a clause that would make it illegal to create any robot that could be considered human by any means. Anyone who violates such a law will be set upon by a “Rust Crew,” an international team of special agents tasked with enforcing Clause 21.
You play as Dan Marshall, an ex-soldier who has been sent to Japan with his partner Bo to meet up with other agents from various countries to investigate one man, Amada and his company Amada Corporation. This happens shortly after the realization that not only could this company be in complete violation of Clause 21, but they have done so by creating robots known as “Hollow Children.” Hollow Children could be practically anyone, as their appearances are completely human and even their memories are human. In fact, the creation and programming of the Hollow Children is so advanced that not even the Hollow Children realize that they are robots, even when they are staring right at their robotic parts once their skin has been removed.
While the storyline for Binary Domain is one that we have seen on a few other pieces of media, it is also the first game of its kind that brings up the question as to where the line between humanity and machine is drawn. Binary Domain takes this premise and creates a fascinating story that grabs a hold of your attention and doesn’t let go until the credits role. With unexpected plot twists and an enjoyable cast of characters which are given a decent amount of humanization throughout the story with most of the focus paid towards protagonist Dan Marshall and his past dealings with robots, Binary Domain will present a storyline more than capable of supporting such a philosophical premise.
Audio & Visuals:
Binary Domain is given a full voice cast with plenty of different accents to fit with their countries of origin, which fits perfectly when you first hear Cain, a French developed robot, talk with a French robotic accent. The rest of the game is given decent voice acting with side characters given plenty of variety with their voice work. The game’s background music is unfortunately forgettable and doesn’t do too much to stand out.
One of the best parts of Binary Domain is how visually impressive the entire game makes itself. As you battle through a variety of environments each area looks absolutely amazing. However this doesn’t even hold a candle to the designs of the enemy robots you will be facing off against. You will usually be facing off against standard enemy types more often than not, but there are plenty of different robot types scattered throughout the game that always keep things interesting, especially the amazing boss robots you have to face off against.
The robots you face off against are great looking, but the cast of human characters have a wide range of emotions and plenty of facial detail that look outstanding in cutscenes, only heightening the visual pleasure that Binary Domain provides.
Gameplay:
Binary Domain focuses nearly entirely on squad based combat as you battle against hundreds of robotic enemies and progress through various levels. Combat is extremely enjoyable, though perhaps a bit simplistic in the end, as the game makes heavy use of the tried and true cover formula. This means that players can easily slide in and out of cover through he push of a button and hide behind a wall or piece of cover to avoid taking damage from incoming enemy fire.
You will have a variety of different weapons to take on the robotic horde with characters able to carry a standard pistol, an assault rifle that can also fire stunning energy blasts, as second slot to carry a variety of other weapons such as sniper rifles, LMGs, Rocket Launchers and more and finally a large variety of grenades such as your standard fragmentation to EMP and KISS (Sticky) grenades that all provide plenty of different ways to take on the enemies you will be facing.
Oh and you will be facing a large amount of enemies. Now whenever you face off against an enemy in a standard shooter, a headshot or something similar would put an end to the confrontation. In Binary Domain however you are facing a foe that does not feel pain, does not feel fear and is only tasked with killing any intruder. As such you will be facing off against enemies of all different sizes and types with a large amount of ways to put an end to you and your crew. Against most standard enemies players will be able to aim their shots and take out the robots legs to force it to crawl on the ground or even blast off its head and make it attack everything within blasting radius, including other robots.
This goes even further with the amount of various boss enemies you will be facing off against. Most boss enemies are stylized to be similar to animals and each one has their own unique battle style and weak points. Most of these boss battles do well to break up the pace of your standard cover shooting with many of the large bosses needing special tactics to take down. This usually involves frantic shooting with plenty of running around to avoid the wide-ranging and powerful attacks most of the bosses deliver. These fights provide a satisfying amount of variety to the game as well as a few quick-time events that are scattered throughout the game alongside various rail shooter areas.
Also serving to expand combat is a method to upgrade your weaponry as well as your teammates weaponry to boost their damage, accuracy, reload speed etc. These upgrades can be very useful, though there are a few times where, rather than be able to pick which teammates you want on your squad, you are forced to take specific members, which means your upgraded characters can easily be left behind for multiple levels. Another inclusion to help boost the Rust Squad’s abilities are through nanomachines which can be applied via a small grid system that allows for various upgrades that do everything from raising your health, to offering higher damage output or even allow you to gain “Trust” faster.
One of Binary Domain’s biggest selling points is the Consequence System, which basically translates into how well each of your teammates trust you. This trust meter can be affected through a number of things; such as your answers to various in-game questions from characters and also by your performance in battle. If you are doing very well in battle, earning various bonuses, getting elaborate kills or reviving your teammates the trust meter will rise, while performing poorly in battle, shooting or hitting your teammates or needing too much help can lower the trust meter.
Also included in the game is a way to provide voice commands to your characters via a headset. This can be done with the Xbox 360 headset or the Kinect, though the game is not optimized for Kinect use in any way, and simply makes use of the peripheral as a microphone that will be prone to picking up TV noise. The headset itself isn’t much better as the voice recognition in Binary Domain is hit and miss at best, with there being a few occasions where the game thought I was speaking when I was not. Thankfully, the player can still provide commands in combat or answer questions via a few button presses and receive accurate results with the same result as voice commands.
Besides the enjoyable single player campaign a number of multiplayer modes have been included in Binary Domain as well. This includes a standard competitive multiplayer mode where players will face off against one another in a variety of gameplay modes with your standard matchtypes that include team deathmatch, capture the flag, and area control. These multiplayer modes don’t really do anything to special to stand out and could be seen as a simple diversion to the main game.
Besides competitive multiplayer there is also a wave-based survival mode that allows you to face off against an endless stream of robotic opponents. These waves can get extremely difficult very quickly as the enemies unleash strong firepower early on so prepare for a challenge if you wish to survive long.
Overall:
Binary Domain offers an intriguing storyline with enjoyable gameplay that pits you against a foe unlike what most gamers are used to. This unique setting and tight combat creates an enjoyable experience that only helps drive home how great the story telling is for the single player campaign. While the advertised Consequence System is far too easy to manage the level of quality found in the single player campaign provides an amazing and visually impressive experience that will be hard to put down once those credits roll.
After the announcement of the North American release date for Gravity Rush, Sony Europe have revealed that the Playstation Vita game will head to European and PAL territories June 13th, the day after the North American release. Accompanying the announcement came the revelation that the game will be released on the Playstation Store and at retail. This reversal in Sony’s initial decision to release a digital only copy in Europe and PAL territories has been met with sighs of relief from European customers, who now don’t have to import a physical copy of the game from North America.
Gravity Rush has already seen a release in Japan on February 9. The game includes a female lead named Kat who has the uncanny ability to control gravity, yet she has lost any memory of herself. She wakes in a futuristic world under attack from unknown forces. Various gravity storms appear in the sky out of no-where and wreak havoc while strange creatures terrorise the population. It is up to Kat to defeat these creatures and save the world.
The Radnet Edition of Prototype 2 is only getting bigger if a cryptic message from Activision is led to be believed. With a human figure hidden in its own shadow, the above picture states that, included in the 55 pieces of the extra content included in the Radnet Edition of the game, the ultimate playable reward will be given to players. However, the reward in question is unknown. Whatever it is, there is a belief that it could be worth the wait.
Prototype 2 follows Sgt. James Heller’s desire for revenge against Prototype’s protagonist Alex Mercer after the death of his wife and daughter due to the second outbreak of the virus. After their first meeting, Mercer infects Heller with the virus, turning Heller into his own personal prototype. If you want to cause chaos all over the red zone of New York, you will have to wait until April 24 and own a Playstation 3, Xbox 360 or PC.
We have a quite a few codes to give away for the new Angry Drums & Angry Drums HD on iOS courtesy of SoWanna. To win simply leave a comment on MasterAbbott’s iOS Suggestions #9 and we’ll pick a few lucky winners – Please let us know in your comments which version of the game you would like to win, regular (iPhone version) or HD (iPad version). (Click link below)
We’ll pick the lucky winners once we have a few entries. Make sure you leave a valid email when you post your comment so we can send you your code via email if you win.
Pokemon the Movie: Black & Pokemon the Movie: White Studio: OLM Inc. Publisher:Magna Pacific Format: DVD Release Date: March 7, 2012 Price: $16.99 – Available Here
Overview: For the first time ever, two Pokemon films were released simultaneously in a similar vein as the video-games themselves. Both movies bare similar plot-lines however with their differences and as such we will be reviewing both films together comparatively.
These films mark a landmark in Pokemon animation history, but down at the nitty gritty core, was two films necessary and were both films of good enough quality to warrant it’s existence? That all comes down to truth and ideals actually, which oddly enough are the main themes of these movies.
Ideally these films were both great and the double release of similar yet different films was an ingenious concept. But in truth what we have here is something that ultimately falls short of expectations and loses focus of both itself and the story it’s trying to tell. What we have here is definitely not the Pokemon series finest hour, but is there still some good underneath it all?
Story:
Like many films before them, Pokemon the Movie: Black and Pokemon the Movie: White, follow the same general plot line which ultimately culminates with the series’ hero Ash Ketchem squaring off with a legendary Pokemon or two. These movies both feature legendary Pokemon; Victini, Zekrom and Reshiram.
In Pokemon the Movie: Black, Zekrom is the antagonist and Reshiram assists Ash, were as the opposite occurs in Pokemon the Movie: White. Both films do generally follow the same plot which involves an ancient Pokemon war which involved Zekrom and Reshiram and two warring clans of humans. It is ultimately a weak plot and worst of all it messes with the continuity set up by the anime series (specifically in regards to Zekrom). In the anime series Zekrom appears before Ash in the first episode of Black and White, yet in these movies his back story completely makes it impossible for him to have been there in the first episode.
This is not going to be a problem for the kids that it is aimed towards but it is still a major inconsistency that leaves these two films feeling non canonical to the series and disconnected in more ways than one. For example one of the main characters, Iris, acts strangely out of character at times, leaving behind her childish naivety of the anime series and suddenly becoming a more mature figure.
When it comes down to the differences between the two films, they are very minor and do not have any real substantial value to exist as separate entities. This could have easily been one film and the fact that it is two, doesn’t make a lot of sense. But it’s sure to please the kids who just can’t get enough of Pokemon.
The movies both focus on the concepts of truth and ideals, but both never really fully explore those tenets leaving a lack of resolution to each films main themes. It is never resolved as to why truth and ideals are important all that we are told is that they are. That is unfortunately as close to a resolution of themes as these films gets.
It’s hard to analyse Pokemon movies from the same viewpoint as you would most other films as they are at the end of the day, kids movies. Do they succeed as kids movies? Yes they do. There is enough playful fun and bright colours to entertain and for that alone, these films do their job. They sadly don’t accomplish much more though.
Visuals and Audio:
Aesthetically both of these movies look great, there are some great action sequences and some stunning CG effects (arguably the best done in the series to date). The animation is fluid throughout and both films are just an absolute visual feast for the eyes.
The audio on these movies is pretty good with the soundtrack doing it’s job efficiently enough and the voice actors are mostly on their mark with a few pieces of awkward dialogue here and there. The audio was used to great effect in the opening montage which featured a full length version of the Black and White theme song as Ash took part in a Pokemon battle tournament. All in all there was some good things at play here in terms of audio and visuals.
Extras:
Unfortunately both movies have no special features to speak of, coming packaged with nothing but the bare essentials (the movies themselves). I can not help but feel that it would’ve been more effective if these movies were packaged together, especially considering they are basically the same movie when it comes down to it (with only slight differences). It is definitely disappointing that Magna have not included any extras on these releases, but it’s not something that will bother the films target audience – children.
Overall: Pokemon the Movie: Black and Pokemon the Movie: White are perhaps the most puzzling entries into the long list of Pokemon films, mostly due to the fact that they did not need to be two films. There was not enough difference in content between films for it to make sense that they would make two movies and in the end it does not matter which one you choose as they both end the same begin and end the same general way.
These films add nothing new or special to the franchise, but get the job done at the end of the day. That job being to provide some fun entertainment for kids and they succeeds at doing so. That’s not to say these movies are good or even amongst the best in the franchise, in fact they may be amongst the worst. There have been better Pokemon movies, without a doubt, but for the sole purpose of entertaining the children whom love the franchise, they do what they need to do. It ain’t pretty and it’s a long fall from the great heights seen in the series past, but they just get the job done and that’s one of the best compliments I can give these films.
Girl Fight is an upcoming 3D fighting game being developed by Kung Fu Factory and produced by Microprose for the Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network. The game will feature an all female cast of fighters who have to fight their way out of an evil organisation called ‘The Foundation’.
Following the teaser announcement a while back, we now get some more solid information about the game as the developers have shared the first female combatant along with her stage. This character is Wrench, a gifted engineer, physicist, and scientist. With noble prizes and ground breaking research, she sounds like a typical nerd but is in fact a ‘Tank’ class character who really packs a powerful punch.
So far this all looks very cool, and hopefully we will get to see some in-game action very soon.
Finally some good news when it comes to Gundam media distribution! After the axeing of Bandai’s North American branch, fans of the various Mobile Suit series’ have been awkwardly wondering how they’ll get their next mecha-anime fix. The answer my friends has come courtesy of a newly launched Gundam anime streaming service, offered by online gaming website OGPlanet. Released to compliment their popular mecha game title: ‘SD Gundam Capsule Fighter Online’, the service offers free streaming of numerous Gundam series including G Gundam, Gundam Wing, Gundam SEED and even the lesser known SD Gundam Sangokuden Brave Battle Warriors. The official release statement made by OGPlanet can be found below.
“OGPlanet, an innovative provider of multiplayer online games and publisher of SD Gundam Capsule Fighter Online in North America, is now providing the Gundam animation series for fans and players. Anyone can visit SD Gundam Capsule Fighter at sdgo.ogplanet.com and click the “VOD Service” banner on the right side of the page to watch five full length Gundam animation series, including Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, Mobile Suit Gundam Seed, Model Suit Gunpla Builders Beginning G, Mobile Fighter G Gundam, and SD Gundam Sangokuden Brave Battle Warriors. The service will launch on March 2, 2012
“By watching these classic Gundam animation series, both Gundam fans and existing players will have more fulfilling gaming experience,” said Eugene Choi, Marketing Manager at OGPlanet. “After releasing S rank units for the first time in early February, we have seen spike in number of players and we are sure this VOD service will cater the growing demand for SD Gundam Capsule Fighter Online.” On top of this, OGPlanet is also hosting the biggest giveaway event through SDGO’s Facebook. Prizes include master grade and SD gunpla models, game currencies, game points, and Wing Gundam Zero, which users can play in the game.
SD Gundam Capsule Fighter is an Online Free-to-Play Third Person Shooter that has over 300 Gundam units to choose from. To sign up for free, please visit the official game page located at http://sdgo.ogplanet.com. For up to the minute news, events, contests and giveaways please visit the official SD Gundam Capsule Fighter Online Facebook page located at http://www.facebook.com/SDGONA
The specific streaming page can be found HERE. I was so impressed by the service that I actually went and signed up to the game myself. The giveaways of free points, Free-to-Play servers and a Wing Zero Gundam for in-game use is certainly most appealing. Even if you don’t want to play the game and just watch some great anime, then it is definitely a service worth of your time. And for those that may get into the SD Gundam game as a result: See you in cyberspace Newtypes!
