At TGS 2011, Turn 10 has said that they are bringing some Japanese racing tracks to the next game in their series. Forza 4 will include “four legendary Japanese tracks – Motegi, Fujimi Kaido, Tsukuba and Suzuka.” Which track is your favorite?
Forza 4, which continues the critically acclaimed realistic racing series, will launch exclusively on the Xbox 360 on October 11 for the USA, October 14 for Europe and October 20 for the rest of the world. Considering that the previous games in this franchise have been silky smooth and awesome, we expect nothing less from Forza 4.
Today at Tokyo Game Show, I had the opportunity to speak to Jonny Plumb, producer over at Microsoft Studios and got some one on one time with both Kinect Disney Adventures and also Kinet Star Wars.
Both titles were announced at this years E3 for the Xbox 360 Kinect and I was eager to try out the updated builds.
With Disney Adventure I got to experience first hand two Disney attractions out of the possible 30, Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan. Along with being able to navigate through an amazing looking recreation of Disneyland filled with all the Disney mascots, like Donald Duck, Mickey, Peter Pan and Alice just to name a few. The park is also filled with people walking around making it look and feel even more authentic and real.
Using the Kinect once you find a special character such as Donald you can greet him and perform all sorts of gestures, such as hugs, dances, posing for a picture with the Kinect camera and even perform a high five. It’s an absolute ball for the younger kids.
The two attractions I tested out was Peter Pan, here you fly through obstacles along-side Peter Pan whilst collecting coins and collectibles along the way. In Alice in Wonderland you’re thrown into the Croquet scene from the movie, but this time you’re not hitting the ball, you are the ball. Alice will whack you with her pink flamingo and you’ll have to navigate through obstacles once again and collect more coins. Both mode’s control systems reminded me of Kinect Adventures with its maneuvering, which works really well as players and younger children who have already played that game should feel right at home here.
Next we jumped in to Kinect Star Wars and tested out two new modes. Pod Racer and Rancor mode. Testing out Ranco mode honestly reminded me of the old classic RAMPAGE. You move the Rancor by walking on the spot, then with your arms you can pick up enemies and throw them, smash the ground and even destroy buildings by walking into or punching them. It’s good old fashioned clobbering time that I think we all need once in a while. Also in Rancor mode you get given objectives to do like destroy 10 enemies or plow through set amount of buildings, if you do you get bigger bonuses if you complete them. But you don’t have to if you don’t want to, and just walk around and cause all sorts of mayhem my destroying everything in your path.
Next we tested out the Pod Racer mode, and was instantly impressed with how it worked. Using both hands you maneuver the pod left and right depending on what hand you’re leaning towards. Pulling back together breaks, and pulling forward thrusts you forward very quickly. Jonny advised that Pod Racer has a huge amount of gameplay and will take up to 10 hours to go through and complete, very impressive for a game with in another game.
All in all both titles were great fun to play and should keep you and the children busy for hours on end.
Along with the great announcement of the Razer Arcade Stick mentioned at this years TGS 2011, Razer have also been working together with DICE to bring us the Battlefield 3 Keyboard and Xbox 360 controller.
Hilmar Hahn, product Evangelist runs us through our hands on preview on the Battlefield 3 Blackwidow Ultimate keyboard and Xbox Onza Controller. No major differences or tweaks in terms of functionalty have been made to either products apart from the lights on the Blackwidow are now changed to Orange to suite Battlefield 3 and of course the Battlefield 3 skins which look great on both the products.
Enjoy the video preview and the pics, leave a comment below and let us know what you think.
Welcome to Capsule Computers’ first ever Monthly Member Rewards Giveaway!
On the 15th of every month we will announce a member and send them a PRIZE from our lucky dip draw! Just think of it as our own way of saying thank you for making us your #1 stop for video games and pop culture news and reviews. We love to reward members by giving away games and other cool prizes to those who stick by us! This month’s WINNER is:
ITz Jok3R
Congratulations! Our Editor-In-Cheif MasterAbbott will be contacting you shortly. Be sure to check your E-mail, we hope you enjoy your prize! 🙂
WANT TO WIN COOL GAMES AND STUFF LIKE ITz Jok3R?
We’re giving away various X-Box 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, P.C., iPhone, X-Box Live Arcade and PlayStation Network games as well Amazon Vouchers and we can’t wait to give them away!
All you got to do is register as a member of Capsule Computers to be in the running for a chance to WIN! For hints, tips and the rules go here for more info.
BONUS AWESOME GIVEAWAY!
Miss out and STILL want to win? We’ve got ANOTHER give away going on RIGHT NOW! We’ve got 20 copies of the IOS game Little Dreamer to give away! Go here for more details! The competition ends in 3 days on the 18th of September, 11:59PM EST, so be quick!
Today we spoke to Hilmar Hahn, Product Evangelist for Razer at this years Tokyo Game Show 2011. Hilmar walks us through the Razer Ultimate Arcade Stick for the XBOX 360 and PC. The Ultimate Arcade Stick is co-developed by Razer and the arcade stick community. The Arcade stick is being developed with real pro-gamer feedback from over 200+ specially selected top-seed Street Fighter IV pro-gamers, influential modders and members of the arcade enthusaist community. Currently in prototype stage the Razer Arcade Stick, even in its early stages is looking very impressive.
Check out the video preview below with Hilmar and let us know what you think of it. Will it have what it takes to take down the other great arcade sticks out there.
Competitive gaming in the UK has never been more popular – that’s the news to emerge from the recent insomnia43 event, as organiser Multiplay unveils the show audit.
Insomnia43 took place over the August Bank Holiday weekend (26th-29th August) at the Telford International Centre. Organisers have revealed that over 5,060 gamers passed through the doors to compete for a total prize pot worth in excess of £50,000.
insomnia43 broke the world records for biggest ever Team Fortress 2 tournament (in terms of prize fund and total number of players) and the event also set a new UK record for the highest number of gamers on one network, as over 2,500 players were connected at one time.
The UK representatives for the World Cyber Games were picked for Star Craft II and League of Legends. Samayan ‘Bling’ Kay triumphed at Blizzard Entertainment’s real-time strategy game, whilst Joe ‘Moojuic3’ Hill, Mark ‘Kaution’ Dennett, Scott ‘Terrroronyou’ Musgrove, Iain ‘mrunhappy’ Sully and Ben ‘Tempestra’ Farrimond won League of Legends – all bagging-expenses-paid trips to represent their country in the European final in Poland, and the world final in South Korea.
“insomnia43 exceeded our expectations,” says Craig Fletcher, MD, Multiplay. “With over 5,000 through the door, over a quarter of a million viewers watching the live streams online and some real spikes in all-round activity, we’ve shown again there is a real hunger for a large-scale competitive gaming event. In the last 30 days alone, the insomnia43 site has had close to five million pages views, and over 1.1 million visitors. The videos from the event have already been viewed over 100,000 times.
“We’ve already announced insomnia44, which we expect to be the largest winter event of its kind.”
Insomnia43 also boasted the first ever UK consumer appearance of Battlefield 3 on PC as part of an exhibition space which included stands from Currys, PC World, Samsung, Medion, liyama, ASUS, Riot Games, Aquatuning, ESET UK, Sapphire, Anthony Nolan, Kingston, Pro Class TV, Quiet PC, Razer, Ttesports, Kustom PC and Antec, to name but a few, making it the biggest insomnia exhibition space yet.
Codemasters gave gamers their first hands on with the PlayStation Vita edition of F1 2011 at Tokyo Games Show today. It’s the first time the public has got a glimpse at the handheld build of the game, despite being told of its existence and plans to release the game sometime after the console version.
To accompany their showcase of the game, Codemasters revealed the first video for F1 2011 on PlayStation Vita entitled ‘Compete on the Go’. The first gameplay video is captured from work-in-progress footage and reveals some of F1 2011’s key features including a two vs. two co-op mode and four player competitive racing, presumably trying to focus on the fact that, although the graphics have taken a hit, the gameplay should remain as solid as ever and it is playing to the system’s strengths with multiplayer play.
A new update has been released today for Street Fighter IV: Volt Battle Protocol, and this ones a good one! Not only does it include two new characters FeiLong and Yun, but the update also includes a whopping 60 new icons and titles and a ‘GoodFight’ button to thank and congratulate rivals after fights. Best of all, a friend request button has been added and communication is no longer cut off by receiving text messages or friend requests! This is especially great news to hear as the online multiplayer has been sadly lacking, hopefully this will help improve it!
As always this update is completely FREE! Thanks Capcom! If you havn’t picked it up already, you can buy it here, or read our review here!
Soul Cailbur V is set to release Q1 2012 for the Xbox 360 and PS3, we recently sat down for a hands on experience with the game. The story and art direction are set for an overhaul, Namco Bandai for the first time collabarted with outside companies to produce the game. The developers promised a deep, diverse world, more so than the previous entries. Online mutli-player will also be available, including exclusive costumes, which are TBA.
Some of these collabarators include Cyberconnect2, Isao Takeshita (Naruto series) on the art direction, John Kurlander (sound/orchestra) whose worked on films such as LOTR and Die Hard 4.0, and a company called Force Wick for the sound effects. It seems the team are really going all out to try and make this the best Soul Calibur so far, they’re also crafting hand-drawn animation with Takeshita, instead of just full motion capture for the final product.
All the favourite characters are back, special guests are unknown and the game is set 17 years after SC4. The main character is going to be Patroklos, son of Sophitia and the central focus on story seems to be revolving around the theme of swords. We were shown a trailer, which was fairly basic production values, but it gave us a general idea of the story.
Unfortunatley single player wasn’t available for play, as the game is in early stages, but that didn’t stop me from trying out some of the new features in versus. There’s two new combo moves called Critical Edge and Quick Move, which are basically the games power up attacks that produce some flashy animation and high damage. It seemed to balance out the multiplayer nicely when we were playing, especially since everyone was learning on the fly, the fact that we were using official arcade sticks probably helped out alot as well. Just like the previous games, the controls were responsive and enjoyable. The costumes were interesting: Voldo was probably the standout (trippy looking fur) along with alot of the ladies as per usual.
An interesting tweet by Soul Calibur designer Daishi Odashima a few days ago didn’t exactly paint the best picture for the developement process, saying “We’d like to take our time to make the game but the company’s always on our back. I’m nothing more than a salaryman :(” but it’s certainly not something that showed in my time with the build I played. Check out the video below of some 1v1 with a Cameo appearance by our Editor Kyle Moore having a fingerbash, he was unbeatable! We even got some photos of the move list.
We recently sat down with Tekken Hyrbid at Namco Bandai’s Pre TGS Event, this release aims to combine a few different entries into the series, it’s a cocktail of button mashing. It’s pure fan service and I played the fan favourite Tekken Tag Tournament 2 “prologue”, multiplayer was on show and after a few rounds of losing I was easily sucked back into the world of Tekken and started winning.
First of all the game I played was in 3D, now this was an early build, so I will say the 3D wasn’t the great. Infact the 3DS version of the game almost put it to shame, which was in the same room and ran at a suprisingly solid 60FPS. Meanwhile the PS3 version was sort of dark and rough around the edges, however the game didn’t slow down. All on one blue ray you’ll get TEKKEN Tag Tournament HD, TEKKEN Tag Tournament 2 Prologue (the one I played) and the feature length 3D CGI movie, TEKKEN Blood Vengeance. As you probably know, TEKKEN doesn’t exactly have a great story, but I’m sure there’s probably a few laughs in the movie. I haven’t seen it myself, but if you’re too tired to play Tekken, I guess the idea is to just watch the movie instead.
Interesingly the soundtrack was abit different, I even heard a few dubstep tracks, yes cause that’s just what ya’ need to hear when you’re kicking someone in the teeth. Dubstep! New features in Tekken Tag Tournmanet 2 Prologue (yes it’s a mouthful) included tag combo moves with your partner, a 3D model viewer for the characters, trophie support and ofcourse the 3D. The combos were basically a grab move where your partner joined in with a random fly in move, but they could be countered by pressing triangle, which meant 4 players appeared on screen once. This was something they were keen to point out to us, probably because it was running in 3D. I’m unsure if 3D runs on the remastered TEKKEN Tag Tournament HD, but you can unlock the infamous Bowl mode, so if it doesn’t I guess they’ve made up for it.
One downside is the lack on online multiplayer for this fun sized package, which would of been great, given the “remastered” nature of the release. TEKKEN Tag Tournament HD is a remade PS2 game, Tekken Tag Tournmanet 2 Prologue is a remade demo with only 4 characters plus 3d and the 3D film came out earlier this year. Basically when I put it like that, it sounds like what Linkin Park does with their albums, the good ol’ re-hashed fingerbash.
The game is set to release during the “2011 holiday period”, that’s all they gave us, which is something we already knew. But overall the game is looking like it’ll please the fans, rather than attracting new players. It played like any other Tekken Game, but with a few new features thrown into the mix, including “phat dubstep beatz”. It seems like more of a tease before the next TEKKEN Tag Tournament comes out, which isn’t really such a bad thing.
Today at Tokyo Game Show, I had the opportunity to speak to Jonny Plumb, producer over at Microsoft Studios and got some one on one time with both Kinect Disney Adventures and also Kinet Star Wars.
