Earlier this year, Starz announced that they would be producing an American live-action television series adaptation of the classic Noir anime series. Now they have confirmed that the live-action adaptation also titled Noir, shall air during the summer of 2012.
Noir tells the story of two female assassins trying to uncover their past connections to one another whilst working on various missions along the way. Together they form the assasination duo “Noir”. Will they discover what connects them together? Or will the past remain shrouded in black.
Funimation holds the American license for the anime series and Madman Entertainment handles the series on Australian shores. Please leave a comment below letting us know your thoughts on the live-action Noir series.
Building a hood, creating a mafia, and sharing a whole bunch of shady dealings with friends and loved ones has never been easier thanks to the release of Crime City on Google+. Already available on Facebook and iOS, this game was just launched today on Google’s social network. Developed by Funzio, it includes hundreds of collectible items, and you can fight others to prove your strength.
“We’re excited to partner with Google to bring Crime City to Google+ users so they too can experience the action in high quality and immersive graphics not available in other crime games,” said Ken Chiu, CEO of Funzio. “We can’t wait to release more great games on Google+ in the future.”
One of SNK’s classic games is set to return this year to the Playstation 3 and Playstation Portable via the Minis service on the Playstation Store. Part of “NeoGeo Station,” it is set to hit Japan on August 25, and the top down shooter is most likely releasing everywhere else as well.
One of eight squad troopers is under your control as you fight through the jungle to rescue a scientist and his granddaughter. You can watch the trailer for the game below. Are you excited about returning to the rough and tumble world of retro games? Or should old games be left where they lie?
Publisher/Developer: SNK Games
Consoles: Playstation 3 (Reviewed), PSP
Genre: Shooter/Retro
Price: $2.99
Vanguard is one of eight games recently released by SNK onto the Playstation 3 and Playstation Portable. Available on the Minis section of the Playstation Store, if you buy one copy of the game, it can be played on either system for no extra charge.
The first trait you’ll notice about the game is that it is completely retro. It appears that this game is a direct port from the original game released in the 1980s. Therefore, you should expect frequent deaths, different controls and some gameplay elements that are based on getting the most quarters into a machine as possible.
Game: Vanguard
You pilot a spaceship through a variety of side scrolling and top down shooter levels. As you fly by brightly colored geometric shapes, enemies try to impede your progress by shooting at you, or by attempting to manipulate you into smashing into the walls. Like many older games, there are no health bars. One hit or mistake, and your toast. Luckily, in this game, you can insert up to 50 virtual quarters at a time and you can have up to 5 lives, so it eases the pain of death.
Of course, you also have guns to fight back with to reach your objective. The guns are actually the most unique part of Vanguard. It is possible to shoot in all cardinal directions (Up/North, Right/East, Down/South, and Left/West). Interestingly, the controls for the guns are mapped to the face buttons of the controller. This approach to controls for shooting is novel and is a great mechanic, allowing for different strategies. It also adds one more thing to keep track of, which can a positive or negative feature depending your thinking. Although this game is over 20 years old, the face button control system could easily be introduced into a modern game and it would be an innovative and nice change of pace from the endless parade of twin stick shooters.
The most frustrating part of the game is that although I expected the game to be tough, this game is more difficult than most because of cheap deaths. Oftentimes, a ship would spawn in the middle of the screen right off the bow of my ship and kill me immediately. This issue was compounded by some hit detection problems. For example, in the above situation when a ship would appear by magic, I would be firing like a madman, trying to anticipate it. Yet, most of the time, I would still die instantly.
Overall, Vanguard is an addictive, entertaining and good experience. It is easily one of the best of the recent releases from SNK Playmore. The lack of HD graphics and annoying deaths do make playing it a chore sometimes, but most of the time, it is highly enjoyable. There is a variety of enemy types, solid level design and lots of action. In addition, it is truly amusing to see how the shooter genre has evolved, and to see how it could be improved. I would love to see a remake of this game or have another developer expand on the control system. All in all, for $2.99, this game is a blast. Try it.
If your young daughter owns a Mattel brand Girltech IMME and constantly asks you for extra pocket money to spend at the local hobby store, it might be time to worry. According to a team of research developers from Pennsylvania University, the childrens device can be used to disrupt the signals of radio communications of every major American law enforcement agency.
Matt Blaze, who co-authored the security paper, notes that although it is at the moment beyond the expertise of most common crims, it wouldn’t last long in todays free flow of information. “It’s going to be someone somewhere creating the Project 25 jamming kit and it’ll be something that you download from the net, “ he goes on to add. When referring to Project 25, he is referring to the codename for the wireless standard used in federal, state and local radios. These things don’t come cheap with a handheld P25 selling for just over $3000 and a scanner around the $500 mark.
One of the most alarming findings that came from the study is that officers and Federal agents frequently don’t bother to even turn the encryption on. Here is a section of one of the papers that has now been made public and was first obtained by cnet.
The traffic we monitored routinely disclosed some of the most sensitive law enforcement information that the government holds, including: Names and locations of criminal investigative targets, including those involved in organized crime… Information relayed by Title III wiretap plants…Plans for forthcoming arrests, raids and other confidential operations…
On some days, particularly weekends and holidays, we would capture less than one minute, while on others, we captured several hours. We monitored sensitive transmissions about operations by agents in every Federal law enforcement agency in the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security. Most traffic was apparently related to criminal law enforcement, but some of the traffic was clearly related to other sensitive operations, including counter- terrorism investigations and executive protection of high ranking officials…
While not getting into the finer details, the researchers used a $1000 high quality receiver but Blaze says it can be done cheaply with hobby grade materials. The department of justice has been made aware of the issue as has the defence department both of which use P25 radios. Either way the general consensus from the team was that it is “strikingly vulnerable to a wide range of attacks”. Not a good sign for radios that are used by every agency across a countries law enforcement team.
Overview
Death… is pretty. Two words that should not be in the same sentence but accurately describes Deadliest Warrior: Legends. Prepare for BATTLE and hilarious death scenes!
A culmination of legends from different eras come together to see who is the deadliest warrior. Other than individual stories of fame, this game is strictly about decapitating your opponent. You wanted a storyline? Here is the legendary William Wallace in-game voice response: “Piss off!”
Gameplay
With nine playable characters the arcade version consists of nine battles where you battle every legend including the character you chose. You encounter a few challenges in between the nine stages. At this point you are to fight a trainer in hopes of winning new weapons and armor. Once these side missions are completed successfully, the prize weapons are available at the character selection screen.
Generals plays out like a limited game of “Risk”. Each player distributes their army to take over surrounding lands. The first general to clear all enemy castles becomes the winner. The chance of victory increases by distributing a high amount of soldiers in a specific region. Once a player has decimated an army at a castle, a duel will commence. The duel consists of one round which the winner acquires the castle. Even if you face an army of 100 – though unlikely – the fight comes down to a single duel.
Similar to arcade mode, skirmish allows each player to choose four characters. The surviving champion fights the next in line. The most intriguing aspect of this mode is that characters do not heal at the end of each turn. If Shaka Zulu is bloody after defeating Attila the Hun, you bet your arse he’s going to be bloody the next round. The skirmish ensues until a player runs out of characters to sacrifice.
The multiplayer for Deadliest Warrior: Legends can described several ways. For local matches against friends this game can be a total blast to play. Button mash your way to a hilarious time by decapitating heads and other body parts. On the other hand, online battle suffers from long waits and limited player variance. So if by chance you find someone online, you will be playing with the same person for awhile.
Graphics/Audio
One aspect I truly love about a battle is that you can be completed covered in blood and none of it will be your own. The developers had a lot of fun with the blood and gore as it clearly can be seen in every battle.
Some of the audio should have been given more thought. Character voice-overs had its ups and downs. While being hilarious like Wallace’s comment above, the facial animations were not synced fluidly. And have you ever gone to bed watching a movie to wake up and find the annoying intro playing over and over? That is how I felt if I stayed on the main menu for several minutes. Even though the entrance was exciting and boisterous, it easily became repetitive.
The open environments were beautiful in detail but lacked the depth of a interactive setting. Objects like wagons and burning crates made the game seem very realistic. The only problem was the execution of collisions and lack of collision interaction. If you are thrown into a crate, you are probably going to break the darn thing. Considering collisions, a player can be easily pushed off a ledge to their death. But a player cannot run off a ledge – more realism. (I would at least try it once!)
Overall
In the end, Deadliest Warrior: Legends delivers a gory mess that can be sorted out is several limbs and other mangled parts. The graphics are beautiful and yet leave the player with unfulfilled environmental interactions. With blood spurting everywhere, the fun factor remains and extends the game’s life.
After releasing a teaser trailer a few days ago, EA Sports have released an extended trailer revealing some of the legends that will be available in the game. The game will include 9 of the greatest NHL players, including the likes of Hall of Famers Wayne Gretzky, Ray Bourque and Chris Chellios.
The legends will be apparently available in all modes in the game, and most importantly in the all new “Be a Legend” mode. Essentially this is a revamped version of the Be a Pro mode except using one of the legends, attempting to break records and earn the player the legendary status which they enjoy in the real world. Additionally, players will be able to unlock footage which will feature Wayne Gretzky presenting some historic record-breaking moments in the sport.
We have the new video for you guys down the page, presumably there will be more videos shortly revealing the remaining 6 legends which we will get to you as soon as we can. Enjoy!
Japanese analysts are having quite a week. On the back of one telling Sony to drop the price of the Vita to compete with the 3DS, another one is telling Nintendo to expand their IPs to Apple’s line of iPhones, iPod Touches and iPads.
Stats Investment Management Co. fund manager Masamitsu Ohki has told Bloomberg that Nintendo should be looking at the jump after the weal launch of the Nintendo 3DS and the slump in the Wii market. Here is what he had to say:
“Smartphones are the new battlefield for the gaming industry. Nintendo should try to either buy its way into this platform or develop something totally new.”
He isn’t alone on this front. The Pokemon Company, who manages the Pokemon franchise in Japan, the US and UK, announced in July that they were developing a game for Apple’s iOS. Investors reacted positively to the news with share jumping considerably the most after the four months it proceeded. However, the shares tumbled after Iwata told investors that no Nintendo franchise will ever run on non-Nintendo hardware.
But, after reading the report, it does show that, even though the market moves toward smartphones, that these investors seem to be out of touch with Nintendo’s core market.
A trailer has hit the web for the upcoming Brave10 anime series, which is to be an adaptation of the manga of the same name. Brave10 is a spin on the classic Ten Heroes of Sanada story for modern audiences.
The upcoming anime has yet to recieve an airing date, however alongside this trailer the cast was announced.
Daisuke Ono as Kirigakure Saizo
Tetsuya Kakihara as Sarutobi Sasuke
Motoki Takagi as Yuri Kamanosuke
Hiroshi Kamiya as Unno Rokuro
Toshiyuki Morikawa as Sanada Yukimura
You can check out the trailer for the Brave10 anime series below. Leave a comment with your thoughts.
SMBC Nikko Securities analyst Kazuharu Miura believes that Sony will sell 2.5 million Playstation Vitas in Japan by the end of this fiscal year, which ends in March 2012.
Miura was interviewed by Bloomberg Japan about the forecast of the Playstation Vita launch. He also told Bloomberg that his figure can fluctuate on the basis of software. He believes that the figure may go up if the software being released perks the interest of prospective consumers. The opposite can happen if there is a repeat of the 3DS.
A second analyst, Ace Securities’ Hideki Yasuda, revealed that the system’s ability to provide the software will determine whether it will sell. Yasuda notes that the development time is being chewed up due to the higher resolution. Yasuda added that software may be slim if the system doesn’t sell.
Since Sony announced that each unit will be sold at a loss, the figure wasn’t revealed. Miura revealed that, at first, the system will sell at a loss of 5,000yen per unit before falling to 2,500yen by the end of the fiscal year ending March 2013. Miura also believes that the system will sell 8.5 million units in Japan by the end of said fiscal year.
Earlier this year, Starz announced that they would be producing an American live-action television series adaptation of the classic Noir anime series. Now they have confirmed that the live-action adaptation also titled Noir, shall air during the summer of 2012.
