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Bleach: Soul Resurrección reaches North America this August

Travis Bruno
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Not only has NIS America announced that they will be localizing Atelier Totori: The Adventurer of Arland but they will also be localizing the next Bleach game to be arriving in North America. Originally titled Bleach: Soul Ignition the name has been changed to Bleach: Soul Resurrección. The game takes its contents from the manga/anime series Bleach from Viz Media and Shōnen Jump.

This is the first time that a Bleach game has graced the PlayStation 3 platform and it will also be a change to your standard fighting game that Bleach usually has been presented as. Instead Bleach: Soul Resurrección will be an action adventure styled game with players fighting against multiple enemies at a time and wiping out large numbers of hollows with ease, similar to the Dynasty Warriors series.

As for who will be represented from the Anime/Manga, there are 21 different characters to choose from in Bleach outside of Story Mode. Jack Niida, producer at NIS America stated that the “game follows the battle against the evil Arrancars, but there are times when you will be able to play as the enemy. This is especially exciting if you follow the manga closely, since you can be characters in the manga that are normally forgotten after being defeated.”

When mentioning enemy players only one name comes to mind and she was forgotten shortly after she assisted our heroes in battle, that is Nel of course. But it will be interesting to see what characters will be playable and which won’t. From the information given now it is clear that the game will be following the character’s journey into Hueco Mundo and even the Arrancar battles in the real world. Released alongside this announcement was also a trailer and a whole slew of screenshots for the title which you can catch below.

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Harvest Moon: Grand Bazaar is coming to PAL in 2011

Jorel Alvarez
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Harvest Moon: Grand Bazaar is coming to PAL in 2011

Rising Star Games has just announced that Harvest Moon: Grand Bazaar will be released in PAL this year. This latest game in the Harvest Moon series will feature a new bazaar system, improved farming and relationship mechanics, windmills to combine ingredients to make unique goods, and more! Along with the classic gaming features of the Harvest Moon franchise, Grand Bazaar will include the return of the horse race festival!

Set in Zephyr Town, its once world famous bazaar has sadly succumbed to an economic low, and you, as a Harvest Moon standard, are the new farmer in town! Your positive and ambitious attitude is just what Zephyr Town’s bazaar needs to get back on its feet! With your success (hopefully!) in farming, management, retail and life (don’t forget to be kind to your neighbours!), you can revitalize this fading market and transform it to the glorious and prosperous world famous bazaar that it used to be!

New releases to expect in 2012

Kellie Wallace
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With the recent announcement of God of War’s fourth instalment comes an impressive year of releases in 2012.

EA Boss John Riccitiello recently speculated Dead Space 3 was in current pre-production after he stated he believed a trilogy would push the series to a “five million unit cadence”.

Next year showcases an extraordinary range of titles that will surely provide a new benchmark in the industry. The highly popular Rockstar series Grand Theft Auto will see its fifth instalment next year.

Game industry analyst Michael Pachter says, “I actually think they already have a story in mind. GTA5 is already in the planning stage and my guess is you’ll see [the next GTA] in two and a half years. In fall of 2012, there’ll be Grand Theft Auto 5.”

With the huge success of Bioshock 1 and 2, Irrational Games will release their highly anticipated Bioshock Infinite next year. Despite speculations, the game will not follow on from the Rapture saga but will feature as the city Colombia in the sky in 1912.

This month, BioWare announced the cult favourite Mass Effect 3 was pushed back until early 2012, leaving a lot of fans disappointed and slightly bemused. However the developers insist the third instalment would impress and definitely make up for the lost time.

Flying under the radar in 2009 was Prototype. This title held amazing appeal and slowly earned a following among fans. The developer Radical Entertainment baited fans with an impressive teaser trailer and screenshots for the sequel this year, giving the game huge press despite its release until early Q1.

With a new character design already slotted in, Devil May Cry’s fifth instalment will hopefully help an ailing series. Dante will return, not as a snow white haired assassin but as an emo inspired fighter, hoping to accommodate for new fans of the games. DMC: Devil May Cry is expected in the first half of 2012.

South Korean Gamers Get Midnight Curfew

Matthew Vella
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In case you haven’t heard, video game addiction is a big problem in South Korea, and now a new law might kick in order to address this issue. According to Korea Herald a new policy will “attempt to block underage access to online computer games after midnight in light of the risking problem of video game addiction among youth.” Yeah that’s right, if your ages 16 or younger and live in South Korea, it may soon have a curfew on video games. Another policy spoken of is one called “the slowdown policy” where gamers who play for too long will find their internet speed dropping to 56k levels. What a buzz kill!

While this may seem crazy and extreme to us here in the western world, and horrid thoughts of Starcraft freaks freaking out over their net speed race to our mind, video game addiction is a serious problem in South Korea. A particular popular example is of the death of a South Korean newborn child, who died from starvation because it’s parents were so addicted to online gaming, it led to the neglect of their child. However it should be noted that this example involves adults rather than children, yet it’s the young who suffer. Never the less, this has obviously outraged  many in South Korea.

I can’t help but wonder, is this a good solution to gaming addiction or a bad one? I’m honestly not sure. Should we be treating video games like a bad habit like drugs, alcohol or cigarettes? Do games like Counter Strike, World of Warcraft and Call of Duty make us junkies? If so, Im hooked! What do you guys think?

Atelier Totori: The Adventurer of Arland arriving in North America this Fall

Travis Bruno
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Last year NIS America brought Atelier Rorona: The Alchemist of Arland over to the United States much to the pleasure of JRPG fans all over the country and the world. Now NIS America is going to continue to bring the Atelier series over from Japan. Placed on their website today was a link to Atelier Totori: The Adventurer of Arland which is the next game in the series.

Slated for a Fall release this year on the PlayStation 3 Atelier Totori takes place five years after Atelier Rorona. Players will take the roll of Totori as she sets out for adventure. She leaves to make a journey towards Arland and leave her hometown. Developed by Gust the game will contain many of the same elements of gameplay that Atelier Rorona had, including item synthesis and multiple endings. We’ll be able to access the latest in the Atelier series in the Fall for the PlayStation 3.

inFamous 2 opening video fills in the plot

Travis Bruno
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Sucker Punch and Sony have released the opening cutscene that will play when you begin your inFamous 2 game when it releases on June 7th. Now this cutscene is designed to fill in the blanks of what happened between the end of inFamous 1 and 2 but it also serves to be major spoilers for anyone who has yet to play the first game.

Be that as it may, this is also a good way to allow players who never played the first title to still be able to easily access the second without losing much in translation. Fair warning though if you do plan to play inFamous 1 before playing the second then it’d be best for you not to watch the trailer. For the rest of us, the trailer itself is below and provides a sneak peek into what you will be focusing on, at least to begin with, when inFamous 2 starts.

Hatsune Miku to perform at 2011 Anime Expo

Travis Bruno
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While E3 can be seen as one of the biggest gaming conventions in the United States, the Anime Expo can be seen as the largest convention for Anime in the U.S. Now there hasn’t been a whole lot revealed for the Anime Expo so far this year but it seems that it will have a brand new attraction that has yet to be seen in the U.S. outside of a very recent Toyota Corolla commercial.

Hatsune Miku will be performing with a concert at the Anime Expo. Alongside Hatsune Miku those in attendance will also be treated to performances by Megurine Luka and Kagamine Rin and Kagamine Len which will be the first major showing of these vocaloids in the United States. Crypton Future Media, the original company behind the Vocaloid project has begun organizing the event and has established a website for further information on each of the “performers.” This is a huge event and for those who are interested in how exactly it will work, there are videos below from each performer at a similar concert in Japan.

[pro-player width=’530′ height=’253′ type=’video’]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmSoLpzhqUk[/pro-player]

[pro-player width=’530′ height=’253′ type=’video’]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_gBSWE_KYE[/pro-player]

Sony sent letter to publishers about PSN outage

Travis Bruno
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Consumers have rightfully been very upset with the PSN outage, with some trading in their consoles completely for the Xbox 360. But what about video game companies themselves? Publishers and developers have lost plenty of money due to this outage, with Capcom claiming to have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars already with the downtime and companies such as Aksys who released Arcana Heart 3 which is only available digitally in the US the same time the PSN went down, effectively cutting any sales immediately to nothing.

Now Sony has talked to its user base and apologized, but apparently developers and publishers haven’t been given the same liberty. A letter was sent out yesterday to Sony’s various publishing partners and was leaked to Industry Gamers. The letter addresses some of the actions that Sony has been making to bring the PSN back up and restore services but is all a bunch of pretty words when it comes down to it. Many companies have developed games for the PlayStation Network only, and not all of these publishers or developers are rich.

Dear Partner:

As you know, certain PlayStation Network, Qriocity and Sony Online Entertainment service user account information was compromised in criminal attacks against our networks. I want to assure you, as a PlayStation partner, that it is Sony’s top priority to restore our network operations and see that business is returned to usual as soon as possible. We are working around the clock to restore service, but will do so only when we can ensure that the network can operate safely and securely. In the meantime, we greatly appreciate your patience, understanding and goodwill.

What Happened?

• On Tuesday, April 19, 2011, Sony discovered that several PlayStation Network servers unexpectedly rebooted themselves and that unplanned and unusual activity was taking place on the network. This activity triggered an immediate response.
• Sony mobilized a larger internal team to assist the investigation of the four suspect servers. That team discovered the first credible indications that an intruder had been in the PlayStation Network system, and six more servers were identified as possibly being compromised. Sony immediately decided to shut down all of the PlayStation Network services in order to prevent any additional damage.
• The scope and complexity of the investigation grew substantially as additional evidence about the attack developed.
• The forensic teams were able to confirm that intruders had used very sophisticated and aggressive techniques to obtain unauthorized access, hide their presence from system administrators and escalate privileges inside the servers. Among other things, the intruders deleted log files in order to hide the extent of their work and activity within the network.
• On Sunday May 1, using information uncovered by the forensic teams, engineers at Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) discovered that data had also been taken from their servers. They, too, shut down operations and on Monday, May 2, announced the discovery.

What Data Are Affected?

As you may know, personal data was stolen from approximately 77 million PlayStation network and Qriocity service accounts.

As of this writing, there remains no evidence that the credit card information was stolen and the major credit card companies are still reporting that they have not seen an increase in fraudulent transactions due to this event.

What Steps Are Being Taken?

We have taken aggressive action to give consumers peace of mind, protect them against the abuse of their data, and enhance our security systems moving forward.

We have already advised our consumers in the U.S. that we will offer complimentary identity theft protection services through a leading provider, including an insurance program of up to $1 million. Similar programs are being developed in other markets around the world.

In addition, Sony is taking a series of steps to enhance security of our network infrastructure. They include but are not limited to:

• adding additional automated software monitoring and configuration management to help defend against new attacks;
• enhanced levels of data protection and encryption, as well as additional penetration and vulnerability testing;
• enhanced capabilities to detect software intrusions within the network, unauthorized access and unusual activity patterns;
• implementation of additional firewalls;
• expediting a planned move of the system to a new data center in a different location with enhanced security; and
• appointment of a new Chief Information Security Officer.

Finally, to thank our customers for their patience and loyalty, we are offering them “welcome back” packages as soon as the networks are restored, including free downloads of selected PlayStation entertainment, 30 days of free service as well as service extensions for the number of days PSN and Qriocity services were unavailable, with similar benefits for Music Unlimited subscribers.

Looking Ahead

We of course deeply regret that this incident has occurred. We are working closely with the FBI to identify and apprehend the culprits who committed this crime against our consumers, our partners and our company. I know you can appreciate how widespread the problem of cybercrime is in society today. Although no company is immune, we are confident our consumer data will be protected by some of the best security measures available today.

As a valued partner we aim to keep the lines of communication open so that you are aware of our progress. Our focus has been to confirm the security of the networks, protect customer data and get the services back on line as quickly as possible. We will do our best to respond to all of your inquiries and we will do everything we possibly can to support you.

We are doing everything we can to bring these services back online as soon as possible. We will update you with more information as soon as we can, but please call your account executive if you have further questions. We thank you for your patience and look forward to moving ahead together in the months and years to come.

Very truly yours,

Rob Dyer

SVP, Publisher Relations

PSN may be online for developers

Travis Bruno
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It seems that Sony’s PlayStation Network may just be showing some signs of life, as some word has been given out that developers have been able to test their games online. The status of the online is still sporadic for these companies but the baseline is that the PSN is indeed working at the moment for these developers.

This news comes from a NeoGAF user who has been able to get some confirmation from a number of unnamed developers who have been able to test the network through his contacts. Sony has not let out any word about the status of the system since denying that they had a planned return time of May 31st, and missing the deadline they themselves set nearly two weeks ago. Of course this can be taken as a rumor at the moment but perhaps it is a sign of life that things will return to normal soon.

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