A couple years ago, Fossil Fighters brought about a new monster battling game to the DS. A sequel had been planned by Nintendo for quite some time now, and now we officially have a date for when this follow-up will hit shelves. Fossil Fighters Champions (formally known as Super Fossil Fighters) will be released on November 14th exclusively for the Nintendo DS.
Along with that date, Ninty also gave us a new trailer for the game to show off how this shiny new sequel will work. One of the biggest problems with Fossil Fighters as some of you know was the lack of polish the game presented. Now judging by this new trailer for Champions, everything seems to be a lot smoother as the battles, monsters, and characters look fantastic. You can check out the new trailer below.
The award-winning real-time nature simulation From Dust will be available on the PlayStation Network on September 15. From Dust is a stunningly realistic and challenging God game, where you create the landscape, control the people, and try to protect themselves against the elements. Your main role is to evolve and develop the nomadic tribe, although some of you may enjoy doing just the opposite.
The game has been available on xBox Live for a few months, so it’s good to see its transfer to the PSN.
There are challenge modes in which you take on all the environment can throw at you including floods, volcano eruption, giant dust storms, and whatever else, while keeping your people alive. The scores are ranked on the PSN leaderboards.
So how about it PSNers? You keen to get a crack at From Dust?
Now, let me start this article by saying this; I am not an RTS or Strategy Gamer by any stretch, the appeal of setting up little windmills and armouries, and commanding an army of tiny little people in a miniature replica of 17th century Britain has never quite been made sense of in that simplistic FPS Gamer brain of mine.
But setting up little windmills and armouries and tiny little people, and then flattening them all with an enormous f*** off boulder? Now you’re talking.
Such is the premise of the aptly titled “Rock of Ages”, a brand new RTS, rock rolling, smash ’em up combination thing from Chilean developer “Ace Team”, creators of Zeno Clash.
Like their previous title, art is a big part of this game, although unlike in Zeno Clash where it was just a rather lovely extra atop the generous helpings of first person punch-out action, art takes center stage, the levels changing dramatically in style as you move from era to era, with famous characters such as “Hades” and “The Plague” opposing you in their traditional appearance.
Assuming the role of Sisyphus, a Greek mythological character doomed to roll a boulder uphill for all eternity, you decide you’ve had enough of this uphill boulder-rolling nonsense, and use the boulder to break free, and escape the underworld. Thus the gameplay structure for Rock of Ages is laid out, plain and simple; roll boulder down hill, break enemy team gate, squash enemy team leader, escape. Alongside this, you must place colourful and interesting units such as elephants and catapults to prevent your opponent from accomplishing the same task, but that said, the best part of the gameplay is definitely the smashy bit, rather than the preventy bit. The game also employs other elements from chess and RTS games, but it’s polished and subtle enough that it never really sticks out.
Humour comes into play a lot too; each battle is foreshadowed with a short cutscene in which 2d Bayeux Tapestry style cut-outs dance around ridiculously, in the sort of way that only 2d Bayeux Tapestry style cut-outs can, and proceedings have a rather fantastically Monty-Python-esque feel to them. These cutscenes are also rife with nerd culture references and jokes, and these are hilarious, particularly the one in which Gandalf is rather comically flattened by your boulder, during which I was reduced to tears of laughter, and almost fell out of my chair.
My only real concern with Rock of Ages is replay-value, but when a game as good as this only cost me a few bob, I really can’t complain.
Be sure to check back later in the week for my interview with Ace Team, the talented bunch behind this game.
Twisted Pixel games are truly synonymous with creativity and originality, even the name of the studio screams chaos and fun. So it should come as no surprise that they would come up with something quirky, innovative and amazingly addictive for Microsoft’s Kinect. Enter “The Gunstringer”, and its main character, the weird and wonderful, fiery gun-toting Marionette, betrayed and buried alive by his former posse and now hell bent on revenge.
Take control of the Marionette, who armed with his faithful pistol has only one focus; to track down his betrayers and bring the swift arm of his own home brand own justice against them, leaving them bullet ridden and lead filled on their own turf. Set across vast landscapes from the high desert to the demonic depths of the undead underworld, let nothing stand in your way on your quest for justice.
To celebrate this major release, Twisted Pixel have a few tricks up their sleeve, also offering a free downloadable add on pack entitled “The Wavy Tubeman Chronicles”. Players take on the role of “the stranger” as they battle side by side Future Buddy and Future Vixen in full live action style of play.
Included within the retail package is also a free code for a full downloadable copy of Fruit Ninja Kinect all for the incredibly low price of $39.99, all readily available in stores.
We have Phil calling in from Japan as we all discuss the upcoming Tokyo Game Show and what we’d like to see happen. Max Payne 3 is getting ready to be released and has everyone excited, we talk about what game franchise we’d like to remove from the face of the planet and what we’ve been playing.
Cast: Alexis Ayala, Philip Federico, Michael Marr, and Joshua Spudic
Yep, you heard correct – EA has released the FIFA 12 demo for Xbox LIVE and Playstation Network.
The Xbox LIVE version was released to fans on Tuesday September 13, with PSN gamers to receive it on September 14. Players will be able to select from a great range of teams, including Barcelona, Arsenal, Manchester City, Marseille, Dortmund, and AC Milan.
To celebrate, EA have also released a great new range of videos. The Career Mode – Form and Morale video will walk gamers through the new features in Career Mode, the Football Club tutorial will showcase the title’s new online feature, and the Action Trailer is yet another trailer to get us all pumped up about the game’s release. Check them out below.
It has been a landslide of news following Nintendo’s pre-TGS 3DS Conference and for those who were unable to watch the event themselves, you may not have seen to reveal trailer for Square Enix’s new RPG IP for the Nintendo 3DS, Bravely Default: Flying Fairy. Well your in luck, for your viewing pleasure, Square Enix have begun streaming the trailer online.
You can check out the Bravely Default trailer at their newly made official website of the game here. Alongside the trailer, the site has several details on the title as well as concept art. Also if you are lucky enough to be in attendance at Tokyo Game Show 2011, you will have a chance to get some hands on time with the title, at Square Enix’s TGS booth. Let us know in the comments section below what you think.
We previously announced that a video game adaptation of the Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan anime series was in production. Until now, we had yet to see much of the game. A trailer has been released for the yokai fighting game, known by it’s mouthful of a title Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan – Great War of a Hundred Gathering Demons or under it’s abreviated title Nura ROYC GWAHG…
Regardless of lengthy names, you can check out the similarly lengthy trailer below. It displays some gameplay and reveals some more of the game’s playable characters. So what are you waiting for? Check it out below and let us know what you think.
Following the epic conclusion to the anime series Steins;Gate earlier today was a mammoth announcement of a Steins;Gate Movie! This came as a huge shock to fans, but an extremely pleasant one at that.
So far, little is known about the Steins;Gate movie other than that it will continue on from the anime series. I personally believe it may be a cinematic adaptation of the second Steins;Gate visual novel game. But that is pure speculation on my part.
The announcement trailer has made it’s way on to the web and you can check it out below for your viewing pleasure. Be sure to let us know what you think of the upcoming Steins;Gate film by leaving a comment.
Dead Island: The Book Author: Mark Morris Publisher: Bantam/Transworld Publishers Platform: Paper Released: 8th September
In our review of the game, Dead Island was criticized for a bland and poorly explained story. With the novelisation telling the same story as the game, can this book put more weight behind the plot? It depicts that same fictional tragedy on the island of Banoi, a notably different setting for a zombie apocalypse, where the spread of the virus quickly reaches pandemic proportions and a group of individuals are thrown together for their abilities and an immunity to the virus that they have in common. They must escape from the island to safety, encountering other survivors along the way, all the while getting to the bottom of how and why the holiday resort was subject to this abomination.
Aside from a few minor alterations, it follows the plot of the game wherein Purna, Sam, Logan and Xian Mei cross paths in brief encounters, before being cast together as a rag-tag quartet of zombie killers soon after. The author wastes no time in getting down to the gory stuff, because it’s not long before detailed descriptions of spurting blood, severed limbs and decapitated heads surface, with the same levels of violence appearing in each chapter thereafter in order to completely capture the scenario. While the stomach-turning result of all this grisly combat shows it does its job, it can get a little heavy-going when Morris runs out gruesome ways for the undead to be killed or in instances where the action becomes particularly repulsive.
Some respite comes in the form of wry humour and the occasional comment bouncing off the other-worldly circumstance the characters find themselves in. A regular use of expletives is also used to convey the seriousness and the raw emotion of such a situation. Disappointingly, while clearly leaving room for a sequel, the abrupt and inconclusive ending comes as a shade unsatisfying, and means that finding out what happens to Purna and co. relies heavily on the commercial performance of the game.
With bloody dispatching of the undead and swearing throughout, Dead Island is most definitely an adult book, and even then, it could prove too strong for some adults, as the subject matter of a zombie apocalypse means it’s certainly not for the squeamish or those faint of heart. It’s a good read for those wishing to flesh out the story of the game, and the unusual setting ensures this isn’t your typical outbreak of an infectious zombie disease. However, this setting also doesn’t make Dead Island: The Book fantastic holiday reading material unless you want to be known by the other holidaymakers as that paranoid guy on the fourth floor who double-locks himself in his room all day.
