If you thought the bosses you would be fighting against in Shadows of the Damned would be your standard run of the mill monsters then you better go back and check out the rest of the game because you must know nothing about Shadows of the Damned. In a recently released gameplay video we see Garcia Hotspur take on a giant demon bird without blinking an eye.
Also before he happens to start shooting it he calls it a pendejo and says that he will carve his name into the creatures hide. Shadows of the Damned is coming out next week on both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 so you better make sure to have at least a little bit of money left over from all of the other games released this month already.
If you have finished L.A. Noire and need something else to do, fear not: Rockstar have announced the new DLC trailer for the arson case, “Nicholson Electroplating” is being released tomorrow.
The story behind the case is simple: an explosion occurs at the Nicholson Electroplating plant, and it’s up to Phelps and Biggs to investigate whether this was a tragic accident or if something more sinister is afoot. While some DLC cases are available for L.A. Noire already (“The Naked City” vice case and “A Slip of the Tongue” traffic case) this one looks far more intriguing and puzzling. From the screens, it seems like a great new piece of DLC that will keep the magic of L.A. Noire alive after the game has finished.
August is shaping up to be a great month for DVDs, and Madman has added yet another one to the list: the award-winning film, How I Ended This Summer, is coming to DVD on the 10th of August, 2011.
Directed by Alexei Popogrebsky and starring Grigory Dobrygin, this Russian film is set in the Arctic Circle and follows the life of a graduate, Pavel, as he is posted at a remote station in Russia. Pavel is isolated with Sergei (Sergei Puskepalis), his co-worker who harbours a great amount of distrust for Pavel’s youthful nature. However, one day when Pavel receives a radio message and does not pass it on to his co-worker, a whole new level of events arises and the situation begins spiralling out of control.
The film has won the Silver Bear for Best Actor and for Best Artistic Achievement at the 2010 Berlin International Film Festival, and was named Best Film at the 2010 BFI London Film Festival – from that, it’s pretty obvious that it’s a film worth checking out. You can find out more on Madman’s site here.
During E3, President of Nintendo America Reggie Fils-Aime told GameTrailers that the Wii U would not use Blu Ray discs for its games but rather a similar disc of their own design. It’s now confirmed by company president Satoru Iwata that the Wii U will not be able to play DVDs or Blu-ray discs. “Wii U does not have DVD or Blu-ray playback capabilities,” he said said at a Q&A with investors. “The reason for that is that we feel that enough people already have devices that are capable of playing DVDs and Blu-ray, such that it didn’t warrant the cost involved to build that functionality into the Wii U console because of the patents related to those technologies.”
A lot of people are complaining about this, because this system that runs faster than the PS3 and Xbox360 can’t run DVDs which the last two generations had as a standard. It’s become expected of video game consoles these days. To people who feel this way I say the following:
1. Chances are, many of you guys also will already own a computer, or a laptop, DVD player, Blu Ray, PS3, PS2, Xbox, Xbox 360, portable DVD player, etc… Do you REALLY need another system that can do that? Chances are your Wii U will sit right next to one of these devices already, and Im sure many of us own at least 2 of those devices!
2. Not including a Blu Ray/DVD player will lower the price of the console. That’s a good thing! Start cheering!
3. Oh come on, are you really surprised? This is Nintendo! They’ve always refused to add that kind of stuff in, remember? Thats why you same guys got annoyed about the Gamecube and the Wii, and many still went out and bought it.
But who cares what I think, what do you guys think? Tell us your opinion in the comment section below! Will not including a Blu Ray/DVD player make you NOT want to by a Wii U?
A high-ranking industry source at Crytek (the developer behind Crysis 2) has said to videogamer.com that Microsoft will announce the new Xbox sometime within the 12 months, suggesting that E3 2012 could see the revealing of the console. They say the new Playstation is also in the works, and that Crytek is currently in development of TimeSplitters 4 and will appear on both consoles. The source also mentioned that Crytek suspects that Microsoft will launch their next console before Sony launches the next Playstation.
The next Xbox, rumoured for a while to be called the Xbox 720 (which I doubt will be it’s name) hasn’t finalised it’s specifications, but Crytek is heavily investing in Microsoft’s DirectX 11 as the current basis for next-generation development, and with the upcoming DX11 patch for the PC version coming soon, they are using their title Crysis 2 as a benchmark of the anticipated hardware trends. DirectX 11 features include Tessellation, multithreaded rendering and compute shaders, and the source claims that TimeSplitters 4’s graphics are quite superior to current generation technology, with DX11 tessellation effects’ having a massive impact on the visuals.
TimeSplitters 4 is being built also with CryEngine 3, allegedly is being demonstrated internally, even going so far to say that video footage of it was being shown in private at E3 2011. The CryEngine 3 will also support Nintendo’s Wii U hardware. CEO Cevat Yerli has commented saying “Crytek’s support for Wii U is definitely going to happen” With this in mind, it’s not unthinkable that TS4 may also appear on the Wii U, as it was rumored to be a Wii exclusive back in 2009. TimeSplitters 4 apparently will focus on the exploration element of the franchise, with sandbox-styled gameplay being a major factor of the game. That each level will feature multiple routes that lead to the same overall conclusion.
And yeah, you guessed it. Both Microsoft and Crytek have refused to confirm or comment on any of this, so for now it’s just speculation and rumours. Still, its kind of exciting, don’t you agree?
Us fine folk here at Capsule Computers have a very nice treat for all of you out there. That treat? How about all of Sony’s conference presentation videos from E3 this year, all in one place? Yes that’s right, should you ever need to refer to a specific video from the presentation, you should check back on this link, as it will be much easier to locate on a singular page dedicated to the videos.
Videos
Sony E3 Conference Opening Presentation Video E3 2011
Strike Witches Season 1 Producer: Gonzo Localized by: FUNimation, Madman Entertainment Genre: Ecchi, Action, Sci-Fi and Military Price: $44.99 US ,$59.95 AUS
Overview:
Ah… Strike Witches. The cover art itself would usually be enough to put off some of the more casual anime viewer. Strike Witches is an anime that some people would usually look at and dismiss simply because of the fact that the anime focuses entirely on a female cast that mostly wear no pants. And those that do wear any form of pants are simply stockings. If you’ve caught wind of any rumors about Strike Witches they will most likely be true. At its core you will see loli type characters in military format that fly around with no pants on. However there is much more than meets the eye in an anime like Strike Witches. What these are exactly you’ll have to keep reading to find out.
Story:
Strike Witches takes place in an alternative styled Earth around the middle of the twentieth century. This is an Earth where magic exists and young women who possess this magical talent are recruited into a special military unit known as the Strike Witches. The reason that the Strike Witches have been assembled is because of alien life forms known as the Neuroi have invaded the Earth and normal weapons are ineffective against their ships.
On the other hand, the 501st Joint Fighter Wing, better known as the Strike Witches, equipped with specialty Striker Units on each of their legs are able to damage and destroy the Neuroi ships. These Striker Units have propellers on each leg which allows the wearer a limited amount of time to fly around and in most cases, fight against the Neuroi.
The main focus of Strike witches revolves around Yoshika Miyafuji. Yoshika is a new recruit to the Strike Witches and joins the force primarily to find information and search for her father who she previously thought was dead. Instead he is the man who invented the Striker Unit, providing her all the motivation she needs to join the Joint Fighter Wing.
Now with an anime like Strike Witches, which features plenty of fan service moments you would think that the balance between actual plot driven episodes and episodes that are focused more around the fact that none of the girls wear pants would be something difficult to swallow but Strike Witches actually manages to avoid this quite well.
Whenever a battle occurs, they are usually well thought out and can help develop the characters further than just showing them running around in their panties would. This is heightened more by the fact that all of the girls in the Strike Witches force are there for a purpose. As I will talk about in the character section, many of the characters in Strike Witches hold a deep friendship with one another and care about each other. Each of these girls has lost something precious to them; some have even lost their homelands and their only hope of regaining what they have lost or find a new place in the world is to fight together as a unit in the 501st.
Of course outside of the battles, there is fan service galore. There is a bit of explanation to why none of the girls in the Strike Witches wear pants however. Apparently the Strike Units work best when they are in complete contact with the user’s skin to work properly and with the constant threat of being attacked by the Neuroi the girls are always on standby, meaning they never wear pants. Because of this there will be plenty of times you will see a lot of skin on these girls.
There are scenes in the bath where you will see uncensored breasts but none of the actual nudity in the title is exaggerated or enforced, instead it is simply commonplace rather than filled with unnatural beams of light or excessive steam. Outside of the bath there will be plenty of panty shots from all different angles, especially while the girls are flying around in the sky. The best example of this is an episode on the second disc which involves stolen panties and girls running around with no panties on.
As a whole the plot is well done, there is enough drama and character interaction to help balance out the fan service side of the anime nicely. The balance between these episodes is tipped slightly more towards plot than fan service mostly due to the fact that, barring a few, most episodes involve at least a little plot development or action with a mix of fan service thrown in.
Artwork:
The animation for Strike Witches is very impressive and is exactly what you would be looking for in a Gonzo animation. The animation and drawing quality does not suffer during combat and stays at a steady pace regardless of what is actually happening on the screen at the time. The mixture of CG and standard animation also blends together flawlessly when the two are combined on screen.
The character’s themselves are surprisingly well drawn as well as diverse in appearance. You will find that most of the characters are rather distinct from one another, except for those from the same country. Yes, the girls do sprout animal ears and tails when they use their magic power but this is more for the moe aspect than anything else and the animal ears don’t appear out of place. Also a nice touch is the fact that most of the Striker Units that the girl’s wear will have a rough resemblance to famous fighter planes from World War II such as the Spitfire and other planes.
Audio:
The opening song for Strike Witches, “Strike Witches: To Do What I Can”, is very catchy and is fast paced to keep up with the action. There is plenty of battle shown off in the opening to go along with the music which means that you will most likely find yourself not skipping the opening each episode despite seeing it many times already. The ending song “Bookmark a Head” is always the same music but actually is sung by different voice actors from the series from episode to episode which is a very nice touch.
The background music during the anime itself does a superb job of providing extra emotional support for the scenes. The actual sound effects from the series work well enough with gunfire and explosions sounding good enough to be realistic but obviously these weren’t the focus and have not had as much attention paid to them as the rest of the audiowork.
Strike Witches is fully dubbed which means it comes with both an English and Japanese voice track. The English cast does a well enough job for many of the characters in the series, but one of the main characters voice actress, Mio, does a poor job of actually making her character sound as good as the original Japanese voice actress. Besides Mio, the rest of the characters are well voiced and I found myself happier listening to the English voice-cast than the Japanese one.
Characters:
Now Strike Witches deals with plenty of different characters, with the focus being primarily on Yoshiko Miyafuji. Some of these characters aren’t really fleshed out as well as they should be, but that could be accredited to the twelve episode limit. The large amount of characters does provide a good balance to the series and helps show that the Strike Witches really consists of a diverse group of girls from all across the globe.
Yoshika Miyafuji is the star of our show who initially starts out very meek with her abilities. She is the newest recruit to the 501st unit and, possibly due to the fact that she was recruited by Mio, she develops a strong bond with Mio. Yoshika is searching for information about her missing father and also seeks to help out anyone she can and protect those who cannot protect themselves. She initially begins as a pacifist but realizes that she must also fight to protect those close to her.
Mio Sakamoto is perhaps one of the strictest and toughest member of the Strike Witches. After recruiting Yoshika in the beginning of the series she takes her under her wing and helps teach her the knowledge she needs to be a proper witch. Mio is not the highest ranking member of the unit but can be seen taking the lead more often than not. Many of the characters in the series look up to her in one way or another due to her diligence and commitment to the battle ahead of them.
Lynette Bishop is a native to the Britannian Commonwealth and becomes one of Yoshika’s first friends in the series and the two quickly become best friends. Lynette fills in the clumsy girl role of the series, though she tries to do her best whenever she can despite her clumsiness.
The true ranking officer of the 501st is Minna-Dietlinde Wilcke. Minna is one of the oldest girls in the Strike Witches and often puts the safety of her comrades at the highest priority. Outside of battle she is gentle and caring to the other members of the unit which makes her a stark contrast from Mio’s disciplinarian-like personality. Because of their contrast in character Minna usually tries to protect Mio as well as command the unit in combat.
Clostermann Perrine is one of the more interesting characters in Strike Witches. This is mostly because she carries an air around her that makes you believe that she is spoiled at first and she holds herself above the rest of the witches on the team. Perrine holds a deep love for Mio and usually stalks her and fantasizes about being together with her. Because of Mio taking Yoshika under her wing, Perrine develops an intense jealousy for the girl and often will try to compete for Mio’s attention which leads to plenty of comedic moments.
Erica Hartmann is one of the most effective members of the team. She has ranked more confirmed kills and victories than any of the other members of the Strike Witches. This is the complete opposite of her usual behavior however. While in combat she is deadly efficient, outside of the fight she is very sloppy and often will leave her room a huge mess. This leads to a few moments where her laziness causes problems for the rest of the team outside of combat, though her stark contrast is hilarious to witness because most of the other characters will usually make a remark about her odd personality trait.
Another older girl of the unit, Gertrud Barkhorn is the quiet member of the team. She has been around just as long as Minna which means she also supports her with a number of her leadership tasks around the unit. Her quiet nature lends itself well to the battlefield as she is usually the calmest member of the team while in the air. The only time she isn’t quiet is when it involves Hartmann as she usually is seen complaining to her about her sloppiness and reminding her of her importance to the team.
Eila Ilmatar Juutilainen is another of the best fighters in the Strike Witches and her ability to see into the future slightly allows her to use effective strategies in battles. Eila also is very protective and affectionate towards the youngest member of the team Sanya, allowing the young girl to get away with things she would usually punish other members of the team for.
Sanya V. Litvyak is the second youngest team member being only thirteen years of age. Sanya has a habit of sleeping in strange places at times and occasionally even ends up sleeping in Elia’s bed. Sanya often sleeps during the day and this usually places her on the night watch which means she doesn’t interact with the other characters as much, though this also can be seen due to Eila’s protectiveness.
Charlotte E. Yeager is the only member of the team who comes from the United States of Liberion and is relatively high ranked among the witches. Her impressive figure often leads to her mocking other, lesser developed characters. Charlotte is one of the fastest members of the witches and also has a close relationship with Lucchini thanks to their casual attitudes matching up perfectly.
Finally we have Francesca Lucchini. Francesca is only twelve years of age which makes her the youngest member of the unit and this also shows in her personality. She is usually quite childish and often avoids training and her duties to spend time around the base or nap. Her favorite napping place is usually somewhere off the ground, usually a tree branch. Because of her easy going personality she is great friends with Charlotte and the two often work alongside one another in battle and are seen together outside of the fight.
Overall:
Strike Witches is an anime that should not be overlooked. Sure at first glance it may be something you wouldn’t even think about watching if you do not like overly ecchi anime. However besides the fan service and lots of panty shots, the series does a great job telling its story.
The different girls’ backgrounds and personalities meld well with one another and their emotional bonds are the highlight of the series outside of the action. If you came for the animal tailed girls flying around in their panties then you should certainly stick around for the story itself. For those who may pass it up for those exact reasons, take a second look because Strike Witches certainly deserves it.
Us here at Capsule Computers have a nice treat for all of the gaming internet. That gift? How about all of Microsofts conference presentation videos from E3 this year, all in one place? Yes that’s right, should you ever need to refer to a specific video from the presentation, you should check back on this link, as it will be much easier to locate on a singular page dedicated to the videos.
Videos
Kinect Fun Labs Presentation Microsoft Conference E3 2011
The excellent To-Fu: Trials of Chi has been given a bite-sized taster, available now on the AppStore. To-Fu: Trials of Chi Lite is a free download from the App Store, acting much like a demo by providing people with some gameplay before they commit to purchasing it. There’s six levels from the full game to tease fingers with some stretch and ping action.
Alternatively, you could pick up the full game, which comes with a recommendation from us at a fairly minimal asking price. The game is accessible for all with the simple touch-screen controls in place, requiring you to stretch and ping the heroic To-Fu across 100 treacherous booby-trapped levels of the infamous ‘Trials of Chi’.
There has been some confusion and some controversy over the last few weeks since the Wii U’s reveal, and now it seems some are unsure what exactly they’re looking forward to due to some confusion over announcement details and rumours. Well don’t you worry, your buddies here at Capsule Computers have you all sorted out! Here’s everything that happened so far, and everything we’ve learnt about the Wii U since it’s E3 debut, in simple, easy to understand, plain English!
The Console Confusion: Controller or Console?
While most gamers already knew Nintendo would release a new console at E3, the debut of the Wii U confused some people. Some believed it was just an accessory or an add on to the current Wii. The mentions of graphical updates and such made it quite clear it was a new console they were introducing, but its understandable since Nintendo was so focused on showing the controller off at E3 they pretty much forgot to even mention the console itself. They didn’t even show a clear picture of the Wii U or mention the specs. Instead they just threw a bunch of pictures of the console and its specs on their website. Nintendo President Satoru Iwata did acknowledge this in hindsight though, saying they “should have shown a single picture of the new console, then started talking about the controller.”
In Plain English: Wii U is a Next Gen console, NOT an accessory for the Wii. Dummies!
The Controller, The Confusion: How Many?
Since the debut of Wii U and it’s revolutionary touch-screen controller at E3, gamers worldwide have been Wii-ing their pants with excitement. Yes, that Wii-ing joke was terrible, but not as terrible as the letdown we all felt when Shigeru Miyamoto told news.com.au that the Wii U will only support one touch screen controller. However, apparently what he meant to say was that the Wii U will only come with one touch screen controller, and the console will actually be able to support two of them. Apparently the President of Nintendo America Reggie Fils-Aime spoke to high-profile research analyst Michael Pachter, who then went to tell IGN.com that the Wii may be able to support two. Here’s Pachter’s statement that is currently floating around various gaming websites:
“They were particularly unclear about whether the console would support more than one of their tablet-like controllers; Mr. Miyamoto said no, but Reggie said yes (to me in a meeting)… Obviously, they intend to ship the console with only one of these controllers, so it is unlikely that anyone will develop games that require two, but they were not clear whether the capability exists.” –Michael Pachter, Research Analyst
So now while it’s known the Wii U will support one touch screen controller and four wiimotes, it’s now currently rumoured it may support two touch screen controllers. However, keep in mind Miyamoto has also said that while the “basic premise is that you can use one with a system”, Nintendo is also “doing research about if someone brings their controller to their friend’s house and they want to play together on Wii U to whether or not something like that would be possible.”
While many are confused over this, I think its safe to say that while the current Wii U can only support one touch screen controller, the eventual console we’ll all receive will be able to support two, if not three or four controllers. The words of Pachter are quite believable too. With details about the Radeon GPU surfacing, being quite similar to our current generation of processor the R770. The word going round is that the machine is capable of supporting multiple video streams, hinting it may be able to have multiple touch screen controllers, although if it did the touch screens would not be in HD. In fact a Japanese gaming website called Game Watch, translated by Nintendo World Report claims it’s hardware has two output modes, and one of them can support up to four 4 “SD images”. The only reason according to Game Watch Nintendo hasn’t taken advantage of this yet, is due to cost concerns.
In Plain English: The Wii U prototype at E3 could only support one touch screen controller, but the final product released in 2012 may be able to have two, maybe even four.
The Graphical Controversy: The Specs and The Use of 360 and Ps3 Footage.
As previously mentioned, Nintendo made very little reference to the specs of the Wii U. However, they were released on their website which reveal it will be within the samesought of capabilities of the Xbox 360. While this is an improvement over the Wii, one can’t help but think of how the Wii’s graphics wern’t much of a leap from it’s predecessor the Gamecube, and how it was greatly outmatched by it’s competitors the Xbox 360 and PS3. Since Sony and Microsoft often put a heavy focus on graphics, its assumed by many their next Next Gen consoles will most likely outrank the Wii U in the graphical field since it’s graphical capacity is quite similar to the standards of it’s competition’s predecessors. It also will run faster than the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.
In fact while everyone was amazed by the massive 3rd-party support Nintendo will be receiving and the amazing controller, the graphics didn’t really sweep anybody away. In fact, many of the games were coming soon to the PS3 and Xbox 360, and the graphics didn’t look any better at all. After the presentation Fils-Aime admitted to gametrailers.com that the Wii U demo video of third party games was actually footage of the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 versions of the titles. This may of disheartened fans that the footage they were excited over was actually on consoles many of them already own. However, Fils-Aime stated that the Wii U’s graphics would look even better. Fils-Aime stated that:
“In terms of how good it looks it’s going to be driven by what the individual developers do. It’s going to be 1080p, it’s going to be high definition. You’re going to see games that take full advantage of a system that has the latest technology and can push out some incredible graphics.” -Reggie Fils-Aime, President of Nintendo America
In Plain English: The Wii U’s graphics will be better than Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 graphics, but most likely not by much. It will run faster than the 360 and PS3 though.
The Price: How Many Rupees?
Many speculated that the Wii U would be highly expensive at first glance. You can’t blame them either, the new controler is revolutionary and unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. It looks like an iPad, which costs about $500, but on top of that it it plays games on your TV and has various amazing features. However, Nintendo seems to be very confident that the price will be very competitive. Fils-Aime claimed that it will be “a fantastic value” to GameTrailers, while Satoru Iwata told Nikkei, a Japanese Newspaper that the Wii U “likely be priced at more than 20,000 yen ($250) in Japan when it goes on sale next year.” Awesome.
In Plain English: The Wii U will cost probably around $250.
The Wii U: U Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet!
So what do we know about the Wii U so far? In reality, all we know is that the Wii U is the next Nintendo console, set for a 2012 release that has a cool touch-screen controller that we’ve seen in action. We know there will be more third party support and we know it’s specs. That’s pretty much it. We don’t know much about the console, mostly we know what it CAN do, but not it WILL do. The only footage we’ve seen is of 360 & PS3 games, as well as Tec demos. Hopefully the console will be able to support 2-4 touch screen controllers, because without the new controller, the system is really just a glorified Wii with online play and slightly better graphics than consoles we already own. Perhaps Wii U has been unveiled to the public too early. The majority of the statements we’ve heard so far has been pretty much “we plan to do this” or “imagine this”. The controller is amazing but whats the point of it if we have to keep it all to ourselves and have to fight with our friends and family over ‘the good controller’? Also, why be excited about over the controller if we have no clue what games we can play with it or how we will be playing with them?
In Plain English: Don’t make your Judgements about the Wii U yet, we don’t know enough. Its just too early! But be excited as it has the potential and innovation to do massive things if Nintendo can pull through.
Disclaimer: The information presented in this article has been taken from a variety of sources. For the exception of quotes from Nintendo representatives, we cannot guarantee that all statements are 100% accurate or truthful, unless confirmed by Nintendo themselves. However, everything does seem legitimate, but keep in mind the Wii U system isn’t complete and still a work in progress. All we know about the console may be subject to change.
Nintendo’s next few announcements about the Wii U are sure to be both massive and interesting. Stay tuned to Capsule Computers for the latest goss and info!
