During a Pre TGS event which we had the pleasure of attending, Namco Bandai announced a few new games for the PS Vita. The titles have been rumoured, however this was the official announcement with some minor details revealed:
Ridge Racer
First Screenshot:
We were shown a trailer, which was quite impressive graphically and looked like standard Ridge Racer. Namco Bandai felt like the series should continue it’s traditional launch release window, which isn’t exactly a bad thing. The trailer also had the tagline “You will get a new “machine”, whatever that means, it’s pretty generic.
Shinobido 2: Tales of the Ninja
This looked like a port in the original trailer, however the trailer we saw seemed like the game has been beefed up abit, which can only be a good thing. This is the sequel to the PSP game, little details were revealed.
Katamari Damacy
Katamari will use the front and back touch screen controls of the PS Vita, Namco Bandai promised to fully utilize the motion control capabilities of the console. It might have to do with the fact that Namco Bandai merged with a mobile gaming company called DeNA, it will be called BDNA. They’re looking to grow their mobile space, along with motion controls.
They’re all scheduled to release in the launch window of the PS Vita, which isn’t an exact date, but you get the drift. More updates as they’re revealed…
If for some reason stepping across the threshold into Namco Bandai Headquarters in Tokyo doesn’t put me into the category of extraordinarily lucky, then being one of the first in the world to play the upcoming Tekken 3D Prime Edition certainly does.
While the game may have been rather limited in terms of playability and characters, the two limitations worked in favour of each other. The lack of levels meant that I could easily get through the game, in a matter of minutes. This meant that during the small amount of time to try out the game, I was able to test out a few characters. Rest assured the final product will in fact have a wide range of characters; it’s only for this build the majority of them were locked. Those who were available have some rather impressive combination manoeuvrers and special attacks.
Thanks to the limited levels I could focus purely on understanding the controls of the game. The problem with playing a fighting game on the 3DS is that combos are slightly more difficult to pull off, compared to a console based fighting game. Namco Bandai have us covered, and have utilised the 3DS touch screen, adding four touch buttons that are short cuts to special attacks.
Features not present in this build were street pass, 3DS to 3DS multi-player, and a 3D Tekken movie. Namco Bandai have stated that there will be online multi-player options for the title, and that the final product will have both the game and full length film, Tekken Blood Vengeance, on the one cartridge. Due to the image quality needed for 3D films, Tekken 3D Prime Edition will run at 60 frames per second. Due to this Tekken 3D Prime Edition has some of the best 3D I have seen on the 3DS to date.
Needless to say, Tekken 3D Prime Edition will have a strong marketing campaign behind it. In the welcome speech and announcement Namco Bandai aired a really funny trailer for the game. In the trailer, a sinister Yoshinori Ono, the producer of Street Fighter, mocks Namco Bandai for their attempt to bring their fighting franchise to the 3DS. The end result is a super powered Tekken producer, Katsuhiro Harada bursts through Capcom’s window, head butting Yoshinori Ono, getting a hit on his street pass, and casually leaving the building. Tekken 3D Prime Edition is due to be released February 2012.
At Namco Bandai’s pre-Tokyo Game Show event, a couple of the Capsule Computers team members were lucky enough to have a play through of the soon to be released title for Xbox 360, Ace Combat Assault Horizon. Despite having some impressive graphics, from what we played the game didn’t seem to be the most user friendly. After a few deaths we learned that you are able to select a number of different planes before returning to the game. The aircrafts were all visually impressive, and the ability to swap between multiple views was pretty cool, especially the in cockpit view point.
Players are also given the option to play between five different maps, with us having a hands on preview of both Paris and Dubai. There is also the option of playing in Miami or Washington DC. Namco Bandai also stated their intention to release two more downloadable maps later on down the track.
While the controls are a little fast, they are also equally responsive. Perhaps this might work in favour for players with a little more expertise; however new comers to the game or even genre as a whole might feel a little daunted by the steep learning curve. Luckily missions can be played co-operatively, with up to sixteen players being able to play at one time. Ace Combat Assault Horizon will be available for both Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 in October 2011.
Capsule Computers joined other Namco Bandai enthusiasts at the pre-Tokyo Game Show event held at Namco Bandai headquarters in Tokyo on the 14th of September. One game we had the privilege to play was the soon to be released Armored Core V for Xbox 360. After 30 minutes of game play between us, getting to grips with the controls, and blasting away at some robotic enemies and bullet trains in a visually stunning single-player mission, we were allowed time for some questions and answers with the game’s software producer, Toshifumi Nabeshima. Please note, the following questions and answers have been paraphrased from translations.
Q: Will the game feature any multi-player options?
A: The game has been designed to focus mainly on multi-player gaming, which will be based online. While story based missions are designed to for single-player gaming, you can also do these missions in multi-player. W e have developed multi-player elements such as voice chat for players to communicate in game.
Q: How many players can play at one time
A: When playing online, teams can include up to as many as twenty members. Within the teams of twenty, up to five players can play co-operatively to complete a mission.
Q: Do you plan to bring it to PC?
A: There are currently no plans to bring the game to PC, but it will be available for both Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.
Q: When is Armored Core V due to be released?
A: Armored Core V is set to be released in 2012 in both North America and Europe.
Q: Armored Core V seems to be designed to appeal to hardcore players, how are you catering to newer players?
A: We want to bring the Armored Core franchise to a higher level. The reason that development is taking so long, is that we are trying to make the game as accessible as possible. Rather than make the game less difficult than other Armored Core games, we want to keep the standard of difficulty to please hardcore fans, but also bring in new elements to attract new comers.
Q: What specific elements are being developed to attract new comers?
A: Because the main focus of the game is multi-player, team members can help out the new comers. As well as co-operatively completing missions, team members can also share money and items to help the new comers ease into the game. We have also worked to improve the control system to be a little simpler, allowing everyone to understand it.
Q: Are there any plans to release downloadable content?
A: There are no plans as of yet, but there is a possibility for it in the future.
Last night at an event at the Sydney Opera House, id Software had shown off their upcoming shooter RAGE. Leading the event was the games lead designer Tim Willits, who had come prepared with a slideshow and the Xbox 360 build of the game.
Tim talked for around twenty minutes on the background of id, their philosophy, the influence that he’s had over games internal to the company, how he got his start from being a simple modder and about the certain generations of games. Very briefly, the generations are as follows (in a non all-encompassing manner) – the Grandfather of FPS’ is Wolfenstein 3D, the Father of FPS’ is DOOM, the Grandfather of Awesome was Quake, the first actual 3D shooter was Quake II, Quake III Arena was [is] Awesome; and so on.
Sadly, nobody cheered for the QuakeLive shoutout. :'(
After the slideshow presentation, we were shown a trailer (trailer 2) of the game while he got the Xbox 360 set up on stage. The event was about RAGE, and RAGE left me raging for reasons that will be discussed below.
The first thing that I noticed, and said out loud, was that RAGE was a very pretty title. I don’t mean it in a way that the forest in AVATAR was pretty for the first half of the movie with all glowy stuff and exotic animal life, I mean it in more of a graphical sense. Like, those rocky cliffs felt real, we could have been actually walking through a valley, it was only that it was accompanied by a HUD that we knew it wasn’t real.
While the background textures in RAGE were amazing, sadly, on the XBOX 360 version at least, the character models were not of the same quality. Yes they worked, yes they looked cool, but they were not as realistic as the background world. I’m hoping that for the PC version this isn’t the case, it could just be a limitation on the Xbox 360’s architecture.
RAGE is a 60hz game, which means that it designed to run at 60FPS at all times. I’m assuming that this is in regards to the consoles, as different PC hardware configuration would yield different results. As Tim suggested, anyone who has played Quake III Arena, or QuakeLive will know exactly what this means. Fluidity, nice, easy fluidity. And from what we had seen of the game, this was definitely the case.
This game is in many ways a throwback to the classic id formula and Anyone who has played a past id game will know what I’m talking about. Basically, you get a bunch of cool guns, you stick a player into this world and get him to kill lots of cool stuff. RAGE takes this formula further with the addition of a bunch of cool gadgets that players get to use, such as sentry guns, robot sentry guns, other awesome gadgets and the like. Players will also get a variety of different ammunition to use over the course of the game, such as a crossbow bolt that allows to to take control of enemy units and, of course, BFG ammunition.
During the playthrough of the game, I was unable to determine if RAGE had regenerating health or not. I certainly didn’t see any medpacks during the first mission, but there were bandages which could be applied during combat. Though, there is a cool dynamic during combat in regards to death. Basically there’s a defibrillator mechanic, where, upon being killed, you can get a chance to resurrect yourself using the defibrillator. If you complete this challenge, you will be brought back to life. Depending on how well you did during the challenge, you can come back in different levels of health. For instance, it if you did badly, you’d be low on health, the opposite is true for doing well. The defibrillator can also kill all enemies around you upon awakening.
The last thing that I’m going to talk about is that, in RAGE, there are numerous amounts of fun areas and easter eggs to be found. From what we were told, there was a hidden area for each of id’s franchises, as well as a few areas/ nods to the TV show Breaking Bad. So be sure to keep an eye out for those.
Good news for the modding community, RAGE will have an SDK available for players and professional designers to play with and design additional content for the game. As explained on the night, id have always had a large modding community, and it looks like this will continue that lineage. The SDK is coming in two flavours, 32bit and 64bit.
While RAGE certainly looks like it has all the ingredients of the next big FPS, we will still have to see a final product to make that decision. Overall though, it is definitely a must have game and will certainly entertain for hours on end.
It’s a beautiful day in Sydney, we’re just getting into spring and it’s a wonderful day to spend going to the Sydney Opera House. What a startling contrast to go from beautiful scenery and weather to see id’s new FPS set in a bleak post-apocolyptic future, RAGE. Admittedly RAGE is beautiful in it’s own right. The world is wonderfully realised and idTech 5 is one hell of an engine to see in action, but I think you get the idea.
After being ushered into the hall, we were treated to a trailer showcasing id’s considerable carrier. Starting with Commander Keen and going through the chronology covering games like Doom and Wolfenstein, most of which made the crowd erupt in cheers until we eventually landed on RAGE. I at first thought this would be just a RAGE event, and while that was the primary focus we certainly spent a long time learning about id and RAGE’s Creative Director Tim Willits.
The first thing Willits states is what he was instructed not to talk about. Namely, Doom 4, Skyrim and why games are so expensive in Australia. His timing was perfect and everyone in the audience laughed. Tim Willits is a charming guy. It’s interesting to state that he got his start in the industry by creating levels in Doom with the level editor. This is something that Willits championed during the session as a great way of getting your foot in the door, however he stressed that you should finish projects before presenting them. Nobody hires someone with half done ideas. While talking about his carrier with id before he eventually became the Creative Director for RAGE, Willits gave lots of insightful information like, “the real reason you couldn’t use the flashlight as well as a gun [in Doom 3] was because it ran too damn slow” or continually referencing how id could have trademarked the term “deathmatch” as they coined it for Doom.
After his intro and presentation he jumped into the real meat, which was a live demo of RAGE. It’s interesting to note that he was running the game off of a 360 and not a PC. RAGE looked and ran beautifully. The idTech 5 engine obviously can hold it’s own with the big boys and ran buttery smooth. We were treated to the first mission to the game, but with more weapons and ammo then what will be available at the outset. You have different ammo types for every weapon. Most notable that was shown off was the mind control bolt (for the crossbow) where you can take control of a character and when you’re done you can blow them up. Lots of things blow up in RAGE and it’s certainly better for it. It wouldn’t be an id game if it wasn’t over the top. In addition to the mind control, there was also an electro and dynamite bolts as well as grenade ammo for a shotgun which looked a little bit like liquid death. The mission required you to drive to a location using an ATV, and the driving physics looked quite good, going into a 3rd person perspective. Willits noted that there are only 2 races that you’re required to participate in during the single player campaign and neither of them are extraordinarily difficulty to accomplish, so if it’s not your thing you don’t have to spend too much time on it.
While in the mission a game mechanic was shown off using a defibrillator when you’re close to death. There’s a mini game to accomplish this and the better you do the more health you receive when revived, not to mention it electrocutes anyone around you if you can pull it off to give you bit of a breather. There was one exclusive bit of info for Australia that was broken during the event and that was the hidden rooms. There is a hidden room for every id franchise in the game and each room mirrors how the game looked when released. The Wolfenstein room was shown off and when the door opened you walk into a small room that could have been set in the original Wolfenstein 3D with giant pixelated tiles. It’s certainly jarring to see but a fantastic bit of fan service. Willits also let it drop that there’s also an easter egg for the popular AMC show Breaking Bad, which featured the character Jesse Pinkman (played by Aaron Paul) playing RAGE during this season.
After the demo finished, Willits did a quick Q&A with the audience and talked about MOD support. Namely yes, RAGE will absolutely release a SDK and will support MODS for the PC version. You can expect the SDK “soonish after we ship”. Willits made a note stating that it will be a little difficult for people to create their own “Megatextures” but will find it much easier to create layers onto existing ones rather easily.
All in all RAGE looks pretty impressive and has come together rather nicely. I’m excited to see id move into a space that’s not just filled with standard FPS’. I like the idea of id branching out and adding RPG elements into their games. The game looks beautiful and runs like butter. RAGE is due for release next month.
The creators of the amazing Steins;Gate and Chaos;Head visual novels, 5pb Games had some big things on show at Tokyo Game Show 2011. The biggest of which was their trailer for their upcoming title, Robotics;Notes!
5pb are known for creating visual novels that focus on science-fiction with a dash of romance thrown on the side. This time with Robotics;Note, as you can imagine, they are focusing in on robotics. You can check out the trailer below to get a look at what to expect from the title.
Robotics;Notes is set to be released on the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 in Spring 2012. It is unknown whether it will make it out of Japan, but with the massive growth in popularity of Steins;Gate and Chaos;Head, it wouldn’t be too far a stretch to guess that 5pb may be looking to branch out.
It seems that a few things will be adjusted if Yakuza: Of the End actually sees a localization for Western release. Daisuke Sato, the director of Yakuza 3 and Binary Domain spoke with Joystiq during Tokyo Game Show and there he responded to a question as to how Binary Domain would compare to Yakuza: Of the End.
He said that “For the western version of Yakuza: Of the End — if that’s going to happen, then we will tweak the controls, to be closer to other western shooting franchises.” Of course the thing to pull out of this statement is that he said “if” not when. So while nearly every Yakuza game has made it to Western shores through some form of localization, Yakuza: Of the End isn’t exactly guaranteed.
Calling all Xbox360 owners, don’t miss your chance to give something back to those who haven’t had the same opportunities or healthy lives as yourself by simply doing what you love, playing games. Get involved and enjoy a free weekend of Xbox Live Gold with Microsoft as they host the Gaming and Giving for Good (G3), Xbox Live charity event on October 1st to aid those less fortunate.
The proceeds of the event are going to the Children’s Miracle Network which raises funds for more than 170 children’s hospitals across the US and Canada; truly a good a cause as any. Microsoft will be providing any participating player with free Gold memberships for the weekend, with participants obtaining donations based on every hour of gameplay they complete.
“We are inspired by the support from the gaming community and how it has rallied around our Extra Life programs to support Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals,” said John Lauck, CEO of the Children’s Miracle Network.
“We’re honored and thrilled that Xbox is helping the Extra Life fundraising effort with its G3 event on Xbox LIVE.”
Other main sponsors of the event include Gamespot, Hulu and 2K games as well as Capcom, Square Enix and EA (so thumbs up to these guys for additional support). It’s really easy to take part so visit this site for more information and all the participating details will be there for you.
Kojima Productions and Konami revealed at Tokyo Game Show that the Metal Gear Solid HD Edition is going to be released on November 23rd in Japan. Both the PlayStation 3 version of the game and the Xbox 360 version of the game will be priced at ¥5,480 ($72 US) which is relatively cheap for a Japanese game release.
Players will be able to choose how they want to view cutscenes and events in the game as well. They can view it either in the old format of 4×3 or in upgrade wide screen. This is useful for people with old televisions or strange viewing habits. The Japanese version of the game on the PlayStation 3 will include a code to download the Game Archives version of Meal Gear Solid, but the Xbox 360 version will not.
