Yesterday the first piece of game play footage was released for the new Nintendo 3DS Harvest Moon game being developed by Marvelous AQL. Harvest Moon Hajimari no Daichi also known as Harvest Moon: The Land of Origin is the first Harvest Moon title that is being developed specifically for the 3D handheld.
The video footage can be seen below and it was revealed during the Nintendo Direct presentation earlier today and is available for Japanese 3DS owners to view on their 3DS through the e-Shop today. Unfortunately for everyone else, you will need to see it normally below and watch a ride-able panda, some animals and of course some harvesting.
Recently, Nintendo announced both Hulu Plus and a boat load of new features that the 3DS will be receiving in a future firmware update. If you kind of shrugged off this news, you may want to pay closer attention as Reggie Fils-Aime himself has now made a new video to share these exciting updates and detail just how they will fit into the 3DS as a whole.
Even though most of the information Reggie talks about is already known, he still has such a “way with words” that I almost feel like running out and buying a second unit. It’s rare when you see such a comforting marketing quality, but then again it’s easy to see why Reggie is Nintendo of America’s president. Watch the clip below and get excited about the new features and holiday line-up, as it seems the 3DS is just starting to clutch onto it’s true potential.
Viz Media, have officially announced that they will be taking the plunge into territory most thought they would never plunge to, that being the entire Yaoi/Boys-Love genre.
Now while this may seem a little confusing for most who know about Viz Media, considering that their Shojo Beat line-up was rather stagnant in comparison to their far more popular Shonen Jump range. It seems that Viz Media will be trying to grab back the teen-female market who seem to be obsessed with guy on guy romance (seemingly even more so than gay men themselves).
The current plan is to launch the line-up mostly in digital format under the title SuBLime (the capitalised B and L stand for Boys-Love). THey will be kicking off the digital launch with the popular Yaoi manga series Sex Pistols which Viz will be renaming Love Pistols. The SuBLime range will be launched this December.
What do you think of Viz Media’s new Yaoi manga range? Let us know in the shoutbox and comments section.
Don’t you love the iOS platforms? You buy a game and then the next few months free updates occasionally stroll in and surprise you, refreshening the games you’d stopped playing.
The Halloween update for MoboTap’s Piggy Adventure adds a new Halloween-themed Island, complete with 12 new levels to play through. These new levels also add fresh, new physics-based objects to interact with in an attempt to liven up the formula.
If you read my original review of Piggy Adventure, you’d see that I rated it rather highly for using the three unique characters in ways which added creativity to what would otherwise been a pretty standard 2-D platformer. And as much as this is a free content update, you can’t help but feel like MoboTap tried too hard to get creative with the platforming elements, rather than the characters.
There are magic anti-gravity platforms and flying broomsticks which the characters can control from certain points on a map and even portals through which they can teleport, but it feels like the physics engine the game runs on hasn’t caught up to the interesting design ideas. Too often did I find myself doing everything right, only to be let down because the game decided a vital box should roll a certain way off of an anti-gravity platform into a bottomless pit or into a portal from which I couldn’t retrieve it.
The idea of a puzzle game is to make a person think and find a solution. Once I’ve found the solution, I shouldn’t have to run through a level 5 times because the execution of teleportation, anti-gravity, and the physics engine don’t work too well in tandem.
Honestly, MoboTap could have gotten away with just portals or just controlled anti-gravity, and simply polished it a little more. Instead there’s now a strange abberation to the great gameplay found in the main Piggy Adventure islands.
Piggy Adventure is still worth your 99 cents, but this update isn’t really adding any particular value to the formula which worked so well in the original game. But hey, at least it’s free.
Oh Backflow, it was love at first sight wasn’t it? Maybe it was your charming little rainbow app icon, maybe it was the lesson you teach people about recycling, but I’m pretty sure it’s the way your name makes me giggle a little. So does the actual game give me the same enjoyment that it’s name alone does?
Gameplay
Backflow (hehe) runs on the concept of sorting rubbish into it’s destination, there are four different types, cans, bottles, paper and sewage. Before you also get giggly, the sewage is actually fish bones. Which I’m not sure is where they’re actually meant to go, so I don’t know what that does to the recycling and waste disposal knowledge of the game.
You sort the waste by changing the direction of the switches (any direction but back where it’s come from), while the waste comes down the pipes. At first it crawls down incredibly slowly, and I got frustrated with the sluggish pace so I spammed tapping the top of the screen where the rubbish was coming from so that it would come down quicker.
You have five lives in the game, represented by the colour of the sky, which gets darker and way more unnatural as you lose lives. Because when you sort a glass bottle into a can recycling plant everyone knows that the city takes a massive health hit. There are also items that give you an instant multiplier, replenish your lives, slow down the speed, and shield you from your next mistake. These need to be sorted into the glowing bins in order to get the bonuses.
Now all of this information came in a giant clump during the tutorial, I know it isn’t too big of an issue but personally I think that tutorials are usually better when they’re spread out so that you can absorb it more instead of just feeling bombarded by it.
There are twenty-five puzzle levels with three different difficulty levels, which affect the speed that the game starts at. The time difference between each level isn’t a huge step up, but you do get higher points for harder difficulties. Some of the levels and pipe designs are a bit odd and you have to remember that for cross pipes that don’t have directional switches you have to be careful with what switch you use earlier on in the piece of waste’s journey. These five lives are meant to take you through the entire game, though you get an achievement for making it through all the levels without losing a life.
There is also Survival mode, which involves you trying to survive through each level without losing your lives. Surprisingly you also get five lives for survival mode, and you have to try and make it to a certain number of points. You unlock each level as you finish it in normal mode, using whichever difficulty level you like.
The thing about normal mode that kind of annoyed me was that there was no menu showing which levels you’ve unlocked, so you can’t jump to the unlocked levels. Instead of being given a new slate for each level in terms of points and lives, you play through from beginning to as far as you can get. I honestly would prefer to get fewer lives and have them replenished with each new level.
Another issue in the same vein as the whack-it-in-your-face tutorial, there is only four types of waste for the entire game. It starts off the same as it ends, and the only learning curve is when the speed increases, and to be honest that isn’t a very challenging curve at all.
Instead of having OpenFeint and Game Center capabilities, Backflow just has an achievements section where it lists your achievements to date whether they be finishing all the levels, finishing a survival, or whatever else you may have done in the game.
Visual
Visually Backflow isn’t anything special, you’ve got the city above, which changes colour from blue all the way to danger pollution red. The visual style is very simple, like the rest of the game. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, given the simple gameplay. If the graphics had been anything wonderful they would have probably looked out of place.
Audio
The soundtrack is really odd in the way that it has absolutely nothing to do with the tone or content of the game. It’s this kind of odd sweeping orchestral music, and doesn’t help you get in the mood for fast paced waste sorting.
Conclusion
Backflow is an interesting little puzzle game, with an interesting concept. However, the way the game goes about introducing itself isn’t the best and the game’s learning curve isn’t any where near challenging enough to make you completely invested in it. However, if you’re just after some quick plays in a simple game then this could work well for you.
On October 26th, 2011, the world will go to war when The War of the Worlds hits Xbox Live Arcade and Playstation Network. In anticipation of it’s release, Other Ocean Interactive have uploaded a launch trailer for the cinematic ation adventure title.
The War of the Worlds as you may have guessed is based off of the infamous H.G Wells’ novel of the same name. From the trailer you can see the unique atmosphere of the game as well as the interesting narration that is comparable to that of another Xbox Live Arcade title, Bastion.
You can check out the incredible launch trailer below. Be sure to let us know what you think in the shoutbox and comments section.
If the recent of Kirby’s Adventure wasn’t enough to get you excited about the 3DS’ Virtual Console, you can now rest easy knowing that Kid Icarus will also be seeing new life in the 3D Classics section of the Virtual Console. This is quite a smart move by Nintendo, as this re-release is sure to help hype the 2012 release of Kid Icarus: Uprising.
Yeah, it seems Nintendo are really pushing the eShop before the holidays, which is great for all of us who have been waiting for some worthy items to fill up those memory cards. No price or date has been given to Kid Icarus’ re-release of yet, but once Nintendo detail this release even more, we will be sure to bring you an update.
Nintendo have been re-releasing several NES titles this year, but we finally have a AAA title coming to the Virtual Console that is worth those Nintendo points (sorry Urban Champion). On November 17th, Kirby’s Adventure will be released on the virtual console in 3D. This title was Kirby’s first full color adventure and was originally released for the Nintendo Entertainment system back in 1993.
As of now, we still don’t have a date for the rest of the world, but there is no doubt that everybody’s favorite pink ball of fluff will see life again eventually in all regions. Not a bad move at all Nintendo and hopefully, we will be seeing other heavy hitters hit the service within the next few months as well.
Earlier today Namco Bandai confirmed that Ezio from Assassin’s Creed fame will be showing up in the roster, and they have now a detailed what fans can expect in their fancy collector’s edition of the title as well. You can see everything that will be available in the package below to provide a better view for what you will be obtaining with purchase.
The collector edition will come in one fancy collectible case in the shape of a book. Inside this collectible case there will be the game itself of course, an art book, an original soundtrack CD, a making of DVD, a piece of artwork and a letter from the team that has been signed. Plus players will have access to the Black Knight and Paladin armor set in the character. No price has been announced at this time, though expect a pricing announcement sometime before the game is released next year.
It’s just a few short days until Battlefield 3 releases on October 27 (on Xbox 360, Playstation3, and PC) and mayhem, explosions, and gorgeous graphics bombard console users around the world. With two million pre-orders in the bag, a marketing campaign that’s directly confronted Call of Duty, and a steady release of trailers and gameplay, could the hype possibly get any bigger?
Yes. Unquestionably yes.
Throwing all illusion of objectivity aside, this is probably one of the more impressive trailers I’ve seen all year for any game. I’ll stop talking about it now, but I warn you; you may be blown away.
