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?
Shortly after it was revealed that Nintendo would be releasing their first ever direct sequels to a Pokemon game, Nintendo of America announced today that they are planning on releasing Pokemon Black Version 2 and Pokemon White Version 2 this fall season in North America.
Unfortunately Nintendo of America did not go into detail about either title, besides that they will be released on the Nintendo DS, not the Nintendo 3DS despite fans wanting such an updated version. It looks like Nintendo is already preparing to have a hit holiday season in 2012, as all the people who’ve played the original Pokemon White and Black will likely be looking to pick these up to complete their collection. Gotta catch them all right?
Project Draco has been a title that has been in development for quite some time. Despite being very anticipated by Kinect owners everywhere, the Japanese developed Kinect game hasn’t seen much progress over the years, but it seems that the release of said title is growing closer. Famitsu reports that Project Draco is now named “Crimson Dragon” and is still set to be launched sometime this year.
The game itself will allow players to control their dragon through the use of the Kinect as they play through an on-rails shooter that will be similar to Panzer Dragoon in many ways. Maybe this will be the title to finally dust off your Kinect and give it some use again.
