It seems the soon to be present months of March and April are to be rather exciting for iOS developer and publisher DotEmu, who specialise in the reformatting of classic gaming experiences into new devices.
On March 15th, DotEmu will be releasing a major update for the Sega Master System classic RPG, Golvellius, The Valley Of Doom, which includes a brand new interface and game center functions with thirty new unlockable achievements.
If that isn’t enough for retro iPhone gamers in one day, DotEmu have also scheduled to release 64th Street: A Detective Story. This is the third game from the Jaleco Arcade series originally published on the Super Nintendo. Players are given the option to choose to be one of the two heroes from the original game: Rick Anderson or Allen Tombs and try to rescue a young girl from her kidnappers.
March 24th sees the release of Goblins 2, the squeal to the point and click game Goblins, which is to be edited for iOS by BulkyPix. With two goblins at your command, your goal is to rescue the King’s son in a delirious fantasy world.
If these big March releases aren’t enough then surely April will tie you over, with the release of P-47 The Phantom Fighter (P47 Thunderbolt), a classic World War Two warplane shooter, on the 11th and The Astyanax, (The Lord of King), a fantasy RPG that takes you across six levels to free the world from the evil wizard Algos, due to be released on the 25th.
For those that love classic gaming, from Commodore 64 to Super Nintendo, March and April are looking to be a pixel-packed couple of months thanks to DotEmu.
Today, the 24th February 2011, welcomes Sony Computer Entertainment Australia’s latest addition to the war between the ISA (Interplenetary Strategic Alliance) and the Helghast forces in the latest edition of the Killzone series, Killzone 3.
The game features an improved visual framework, which makes it an immersive thrill to observe and with the addition of Move controls, can feel like you’re actually in the field of battle. Coming out next month is the Move peripheral ‘Sharpshooter’ which puts the gun in your hands to add further depth to the gameplay experience. Killzone 3 also features the voice work of notable Hollywood actors – ‘Malcolm McDowell’ (of ‘A Clockwork Orange’ fame) as one of the main antagonists ‘Stahl’, and ‘Ray Winstone’ (As seen in ‘The Departed‘) who plays as ‘Admiral Orlock’. Also supporting Glasses-on 3D, this game looks to be one of the best titles of 2011.
Gemini Rue, latest point-and-click adventure from developer ‘Wadjet Eye Games’, is a rather well made adventure game for the PC. The story is interesting, the characters follow the Noir theme well and the setting is perfect for this type of story. Like any good adventure game, it is both puzzling and rewarding and does a good job at gaining your interest. You’re likely to think about solutions to puzzles while you’re away from the keyboard simply because some puzzles can be quite a puzzler.
Story:
You play as Azriel Odin, an ex-Boryokudan (intergalactic mafia), looking for a certain person on a planet called ‘Barracus’. Barracus is a world covered in constant rainfall and is governed by the deadly Boryokudan gang who were able to overthrow the previous Government many years earlier. In order for Azriel to locate the person he is after, he must enlist the aid of a fellow ex-Boryokudan by the name of Matthius. With Matthius’ help he learns the location of the person that he is searching for and begins a quest to find them.
The story branches itself early on as players are introduced to a second main-protagonist – ‘Delta-Six’. Delta-Six awakens at an unknown location with his memories removed and is lead around a secret facility, called ‘Center 7’, that is lead by ‘The Overseer’. He is required to complete a series of tests that seem more like a personality reconstruction than a rehabilitation scheme. What kind of civilian needs to undergo weapons training? It is quite clear that things are not as they seem as players adventure through Delta-Sixes time in the secret facility.
Gameplay:
The way Gemini Rue is played is fairly standard of point-and-click adventure games. That is, you point at a location you want to move to, an object you want to be using or a character you want to interact with; then you click on them and then you’ll usually do that thing. In Gemini Rue, your last used action becomes your default action for when you click on something to use but can be manually switched using a right-click menu over the top of any usable object or character.
Center 7 – Delta-Six’s home.
Quite often you’ll find that you’ve come to a point where you need to use a specific skill or item on a particular object or character and have no idea what it is. Combining the wrong combination can be either disasterous, funny or even sometimes indifferent. I can think of at least one part with a fairly puzzling action (not like explosions, but things you have to do) sequence that was actually took a fair bit of thought power and trial and error. Once you get these puzzles down they’re quite rewarding mentally.
Your actions can be selected through a right-click menu and are limited to what ever items you have in your inventory and four actions that your character can undertake. Each action is as follows – Hands, Mouth, Eyes and Foot. It doesn’t take much to work out what each thing does on a particular object, like if you use hands on a box – you’ll be able to push it around. Or if you use foot on a door, you’ll be able to kick it in… sometimes. Other actions are unlocked or used later, like when you have another character in your party, you can double click them to activate them and then click on something else for them to use that object. Another action that is unlocked later is the ability to switch your main player character, this *spoiler alert* switches between Azriel and Delta-Six, and is conducted through clicking the other player characters portrait on the top right corner of the play space. This not only changes your playable character but also to the location of that character. For example if Azriel is on Barracus and Delta-Six is on Center 7 and you switch from Azriel to Delta-Six, then you will change from Barracus, where Azriel is, to Center 7, where Delta-Six is located. Though it should be noted that the character you just switched from will remain wherever it was that you left them.
Where the game differs from most point and click adventures is in the combat. In combat players must gun-fight their way to survival. You’re given limited ammunition and usually a few enemies to dispatch. The gunplay differs from not only point-and click games but also shooters in that you do not get point click to shoot enemies. You’re basically stuck behind cover and are given three options – A and D – which are to pop out left or return to cover/pop out right. Once you are out of cover you can hit control to gather accuracy for your shot and/or press spacebar to fire a round at the enemy that you’re facing. One of the good things I found is that if you hit control while out of cover and pop back in, you can still gather accuracy to get a decent shot when you pop back out to shoot the enemy. Against multiple targets a kind of rhythm/puzzle aspect comes into the gunplay where you must time your actions against both opponents to avoid being shot at or wasting all of your ammo. Once you’re out of ammo or bullets, it’s pretty much game over. Sure, you can sit behind cover forever if you’re out of bullets, but that’s all you can do really. But if you run out of health, you’re dead and must reload the game.
Like most classic PC games, the Fx keys actually do stuff, like F1 shows you a key map of the Fx keys. Escape brings up a menu for players who can’t be bothered with the Function keys. In the menu/function keys you have the usual options, Exit, Resume, Save, Load, Options, etc. though it should be noted that exit is shortcutted to alt+x; just like those classic games.
Graphics:
Gemini Rue not only follows classic adventure games gameplay wise, but also in terms of graphics. The game is built on sprites and pre-drawn backgrounds which give the game a retro look and feel. The art of the game is quite gloomy and gritty, which is very fitting of the Noir theme represented within the game.
In the game there isn’t much in the way of graphical gimmicks as everything looks pretty much how you would expect it to. People look like people, streets look like streets and guns look like guns. Other ingame items, like the communicator or the stick that you acquire early on look just as you expect them to also.
The environment on Barracus is a dark and gloomy one, with it’s perpetual rain and constant low light, whereas, Center 7 is a cleaner looking place which makes it feel more like a hospital or a Spacecraft from Star Trek. Speaking of Spacecraft, Azriels ship is something that you would expect Han Solo or Malcolm Reynolds to fly in as opposed to the clean and bright Enterprise that Kirk or Picard would command. It is this direction that gives the ship itself a personality, as any Noir story piece should, and gives it a life of it’s own. The same can be said for Barracus and Center 7, that the art direction is what makes them unique and gives them their own personality.
Azriels Spacecrafts interior.
Audio:
Gemini Rue is a fully voice overed game, with every piece of dialogue having a voiced component to it. One of the things that I liked about the voice acting is that some of the characters do not sound as you expect that they would given their position. Like for example with The Overseer on Center 7. You’d probably expect a sinister voice given the obviously shady stuff that they do at the center, but you are instead treated to this friendly sounding guy which I thought to be quite a good direction. Another nuance that I also enjoyed with The Overseers voice acting is that you can hear him clearly getting more and more annoyed and Delta-Six while still trying to keep a friendly sounding voice. It’s this type of conflict in the voice work that gives you a sense of character towards The Overseer that you probably wouldn’t get a sense of otherwise.
Lately I’ve found that most games soundtracks have been (literally) putting me to sleep so I usually just throw my own music on in the background to keep me alert. Not so with Gemini Rue. It has this ambiance that fits each scene perfectly while not sounding like the audio engineer or composer was trying too hard to sound epic. They’ve kept it simple and it works really well with the scene. Sometimes you don’t notice it, but you know it’s there, affecting your gameplay, your thinking and when you do notice you think to yourself ‘Man this is good, I love me some ambiance’. This is not sarcasm either, it just fits so well that you believe that it’s a part of the scene and not some epic score tacked on over the top of the game.
In the game, you get use objects that make noises, like terminals and guns. Each object that you use sounds like you would expect it to and adds a certain level of friction to whatever it is that you are doing. It’s like you’re doing something and you know that you’re doing it because of the sound, not that you’re doing it because you can see it with a cheap noise thrown over the top.
Overall:
Gemini Rue is an interesting point-and-click adventure with a sci-fi Noir setting. It looks like a classic adventure game, it plays like a classic adventure game and it sounds great. While the game is probably not for everyone, like people with low attention spans, low problem solving skills and/or low patience, it is a very good game – not only for the PC, but in general. If Wadjet Eye games had released this game in the early 90s they would probably be quite a force in the gaming industry today. This game has the potential to bring back the point-and-click genre to the mainstream and I would advise all point-and-click fans to pick it up ASAP, as well as all gaming enthusiasts. Especially those who loved the point-and-click adventures from the earlier days.
NIS America has shipped out their first batch of Our Home’s Fox Deity Volume 2 to various online retailers which means you can order it now at any of them that you so wish. The contents of the the second volume’s premium edition are a special bonus disc that contains interview footage with the different voice actors who voice the characters from the anime itself. This includes Yukana as Kugen’s female form, Yuichi Nakamura as Kugen’s male form, Saori Hayami as Ko and more. Also included is a family photo art book and the hard collectible case that they all come in.
Volume 2 brings a close to Our Home’s Fox Deity where the Takagami brothers are protected by the fox demon Kugen and the very sheltered priestess Ko. But this time around Kugen meets Gyokuyou, her sibling, for the very first time since she was sealed away and the only thing on Gyokuyou’s mind is revenge. To make matters worse the long lost Oni clan has surfaced and is closing in on the Takagami brothers.
Last week Deep Silver revealed to the world that they would be publishing Techland’s Dead Island and revealed one of the most interesting trailers in recent memory. It wasn’t interesting because of gameplay or features shown, it was interesting because of how dramatic it was and the way that everything was portrayed. In this trailer we see a family on vacation get attacked and bitten by zombies after a mysterious outbreak on the island occurred.
The trailer itself has made its rounds through the internet and is easily one of the must see trailers of this year, making Dead Island itself one of the hottest topics right now on the internet. In under a week it managed to occur 100k fans on Facebook, viewed by 2.7 million people on YouTube, had 3.2 million tweets so far, and even shown up on various news websites that don’t even report gaming news. Considering the large amount of hype currently being placed on Dead Island with only a few screenshots and one CG trailer out so far, hopes are already very high for the open-world zombie survival game.
Normally, you may not expect a goofier looking title like Swarm to be action packed. Â But Hothead Games will prove you wrong in their latest trailer. Â Watch as two of the team members strive to complete a level with the highest score. Â If you weren’t already excited for this game, after this trailer you should be.
Two of the best parts of this game are featured in the trailer.  Number one is that losing a character will not mean instant death.  With so many Swarmites on the screen, you can literally kill over 200 of the creatures and still survive.
Number two is that there are a ton of different ways to maximize your playing styles.  Boost, jump, stack, scatter, swarm or perform a variety of other moves to get past the level.
Swarm will come out on the XBLA and PSN marketplaces this spring.  You control 50 of the adorable blue lads, all while trying to outrun traps and collect DNA.  The catch? All the little dudes will move as one, like a school of fish.  This allows you think about puzzles in a whole new way.  If you are still confused, then I suggest that you watch the awesome video below. đŸ™‚
It sure would be a pity to pick up a shiny Nintendo 3DS and then forget to buy any games for it. Â Here at Capsule Computers, one of our goals is to prevent such atrocities. Â As a result, we have some exciting news. Â Tecmo Koei is releasing Samurai Warriors: Chronicles on the new system and we have handpicked a few select screenshots from the game to share with you.
As you can see, the gameplay will be very deep and may bring about some interesting results. Â One of the coolest options is its utilization of the Street Pass system. Â You can select 4 warriors to take into battle and then put your Nintendo 3DS in your backpack. Â If you pass by someone with the same game, then each system will battle each other. Â Hence, you can unlock unique, new items while just walking down the street without ever taking your DS out of your container! Â This will be especially sweet in larger cities.
Would you still a play a game that was brandished by critics and other players alike as awful and unplayable?
EA recently released their newest shooter, Bulletstorm to huge fanfare, amidst months of game play, trailers and demos. Gamers worldwide have been giving it mixed reviews, amongst the controversial comment by Fox News that it was the ‘worst game in history.’ It is difficult for gamers to receive this type of news on a game they haven’t even played and commented on themselves. It is similar to a film being absolutely trashed by the critics. Would you still see it?
There have been some notable titles over the years that have earned cult followings all because of the negative reactions from fans and critics.
Artoon’s Vampire Rain appeared to fail miserably with gamers, disliking it for its difficulty and sheer stupidity. The concept was well received but gamers felt like they were robbed over the game’s way of punishing the player on certain routes and choices they made.
When Far Cry first made its appearance in 2006, it was deemed as a best seller and fan favorite but flaws began to show and fans didn’t like Jake Carver’s obnoxious attitude and knack for swearing. Fans put up so much of a fuss that Jack was completely dropped and replaced in the sequel Far Cry 2 to a faceless and voiceless protagonist.
When Microsoft released Alan Wake in 2010, it had good intentions to grow and rival other third person thrillers. The plight of author Alan Wake trying to find his missing wife had the likeliness of a Ridley Scott film but it didn’t reach that status, failing to make that emotional connection to players.
Treyarch made history with the release of its seventh installment Call of Duty: Black Ops in November 2010. It broke records on its opening day and impressed millions of awaiting fans and critics. Days into the release, cracks began to show. Gamers couldn’t agree on the bugged multi-player nor the seemingly frustrating single player campaign. The game certainly veered away from its normal and safe trend of a simple war based shooter. Black Ops aimed to be different with its politically themed plot and introducing a playable character that was seen and heard. The game didn’t go as well as initially thought and gamers and critics are hoping that Modern Warfare 3 will redeem the series.
We never do like it when other people brandish a game before they even get a chance to enjoy or play it thoroughly. Even though Bulletstorm might seem like a silly, misunderstood shooter, what’s most important is that we enjoy every second we play it.
I know this week has been quite hectic with releases thanks to the big drops of Killzone 3, Bulletstorm, and even de Blob 2, but one title that deserves some serious love is the Sega Dreamcast Collection which released this past Tuesday. It has been over 10 years now since the console left the gaming world forever, but it may have left a bigger legacy than just about any other disc-based console to date due to the constant fan service from Sega. This compilation features four titles from the console itself, those being Sega Bass Fishing, Sonic Adventure, Crazy Taxi, and the unreleased on the console sequel, Space Channel 5: Part 2.
Though there are MANY more titles I would have liked to seen on the disc, this is still a great buy for only $29.99 (compared to the XBLA versions of the games) and is loaded with pure nostalgia for all of you Dreamcast maniacs out there. You can check out the trailer in all its golden age glory below and let us know which title of the four is your favorite as well.
2K Games are really gearing up for the March 18th due date for Top Spin 4, and have released a new trailer today which takes players through the character creation tool as well as a few more features in the game. To my surprise, there is actually a well made system to customize your future tennis legend with, as the creation tools seems to pack a punch in depth.
The clip explains that each character will be created through the pre-set models in the game, and once you choose one to your liking, you will be able to use an advanced facial morphing controls to fully detail the likeness you want to portray on your new character. After facial features are done, the game’s system will then let you customize your clothes as well as a playing style and nationality. Your character’s attributes can also be leveled up by earning experience points and gather fame from events you take part in.
With the already announced legends such as Agassi, Sampras, and the many other famed players of the sport to play as and compete against, as well as the deep customization, this could very well be a “dream title” for any fans of the sport and one that even casual tennis fans should take notice of. Check out the trailer for yourself below and let us know what you think in the comment section below.
