Major Nelson has hinted at a huge Activision sale coming soon on the Xbox Live Marketplace, and it has now arrived. With half off a mixture of DLC and standalone games, there should be something for everyone.
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment are teaming up with TT Games to release another family friendly LEGO adventure called LEGO Ninjago: The Videogame for Nintendo DS. Lego: Ninjago: The Videogame follows on from the successful LEGO Battles game, releasing sometime this Spring to complement the steady stream of Lego Ninjago products in shops from today and continuing throughout 2011.
In LEGO Ninjago: The Videogame, players adopt the art discipline of Spinjitzu, where your characters spin and become tornadoes to defeat their foes, all in the name of restoring harmony to the world. The game also features a wide variety of game modes to choose from. Single-player has both “good” and “evil” campaigns, then there’s Battle Mode challenges, and the option to particpate in multiplayer showdowns with friends and family.~
In true LEGO fashion, players can build and customize their own army of Spinjitzu heroes or Skulkin villains as they see fit, then can deploy these armies on missions. Missions offer varying structures from hoarding Ninja weapons to clashing with dragons in sizeable battles.
Tom Stone, Managing Director of TT Games Publishing said “LEGO Ninjago: The Videogame offers players a humorous way to immerse themselves further in the LEGO Ninjago toy line with action packed battles”; adding “It is great to build upon the success of the first LEGO Battles game and expand the LEGO Ninjago world with new and classic LEGO characters.”
Primarily a kids game, LEGO Ninjago: The Videogame looks set to be good fun for all the family. Expect the traditional LEGO brand of humour cropping up, as well as cameo appearances and nods to other titles.
UTV True Games have recently announced new information on their latest MMORPG offering, Faxion Online.
In Faxion Online players partake in an epic war between the forces of Heaven and the forces of Hell. The battles of this war take place within the Seven Deadly Zones, each named after a particular sin – Greed, Lust, Envy, Pride, Wrath, Gluttony and Sloth.
Faxion online differs from the typical MMORPG in that players will be spending little to no time grinding and the majority of their time in persistent battles between players of the opposing faction. These battles, waged across the Seven Deadly Sins, typically shape the material world of beyond. The mechanics of this game hope to emphasize guild involvement and player co-operation to achieve a satisfactory victory over the opposing forces.
Like most MMO’s you will be required to select a class during the character creation stage, however you are free to multi-class at any point during the game should you have sufficient points to buy a rank in a different tree. Faxion Online offers 3 classes (each changing their title based on the faction you choose) which are –
Fighter (Crusader, Reaver): These appear to be your typical in-your-face fighting class, with their heavy armour and typical weaponry, and should be placed at the front of the line during a battle.
Mage (Diviner, Occultist): Magi would be the main damage dealer of your party, being able to cast spells from a distance to devastate the opposing faction. They’d probably be best played from a distance to the opponent so as to not get disrupted and killed.
Healer (Guardian, Zealot): Healing class, keeps the team alive during battle. Probably the most important unit, so try and keep it alive.
With this game, should you want to, you can also multi-task to one other class plus your main class or even all three. This is likely to have plenty of benefits to players, imagine a Mage in heavy armour or a Fighter with healing abilities. What if you wanted all three? You can do it! Provided you have enough points to purchase a rank in that class. Of course there are drawbacks to doing this as a point in a second class costs more than a point in a first class and a point in a third class will cost more than a point in a second. So it all comes down to the build you want to play as, as well as your own preferred playing style.
It is crazy to think that it has been a year since Bayonetta graced consoles, but one thing we didn’t see for the game was an official strategy guide. A guide was supposed to be released and FuturePress did have a very small print of a hardcover version, but sadly the U.S. was left out of that print as well as many other parts of the world leaving gamers to import the guide at a hefty price if they wanted a full run down on the game itself.
Well, those who are still trying to aim for perfection are in luck as BradyGames have released a digital version of what I am guessing is the canceled paperback titled “The Perfect Witch Guide” and are offering it at the low low price of FREE on their website. I know, many of you probably use Youtube or random FAQs out there to get a guide fix, but I have a strange obsession with getting the so called “official” strategies for certain games, and for certain parts of Bayonetta, a guide can really come in handy. Honestly, as in depth as this version is, it is a shame we didn’t see a physical version, but I am thrilled that a digital version has been made available. You can see the official page preview of the guide by clicking HERE, or simply download and enjoy the whole package from the two links below. I have no clue on how long this will be available, so even if you are just planning on purchasing Bayonetta down the road, you might as well grab this download while the getting is good.
Inotia 3: Children Of Carnia
Platform: iPhone
Publisher: Com2us
Developer: Com2us
Genre: RPG
Release Date: January 6th, 2010
Price Buy NOW: $1.19
THE WILDS HAVE COME TO A STILL AS DARKNESS APPROACHES
Com2uS have once again awarded us with yet another fine RPG game. Inotia 3 : Children of Carnia encompasses the RPG realm with greatness and finesse. The series has been exciting people ever since it was first released and is available on the iPhone/iTouch and the illustrious sized iPad.
Starting the game there are many classes to choose from, those six different character classes are as follows:
The Barbarian – The mighty, the tough, the ultimate fighting machine – of Rage. The Templar – A holy warrior, that embeds his magical energy into his trusty weapons to strike fear into his opponents. The Rogue – Stealthy,Fast but Dangerous – in the wrong hands the rouge can be devastating. The Shadow Hunter – With bow in hand the Shadow Hunter serves Death from a Distance with quiet accuracy. The Priest – The Hand of the Divine, a kindred spirit that helps those that are in need. The Arch Mage – The Lord of the Magic and the Elements, all know to fear the Golem master.
With these types of characters you can create your main character and later in the game even create your party members that will suit your taste, pallet and maybe even your playing style. Every time you play Inotia 3 you will find that your story will feel different based on the characters you choose.
In the games settings menu you will find the tab for customizing your game screen. You can customize how you want your icon layout to look aswell as the adjust the opacity,stretch and re-size your icons or grab hold check the maneuverability of all onscreen icons. In essence you can even move the character icons and even the d-pad if you are a south-paw. Being able to move the icons onscreen into any position you want fully customizes your play style.
As your adventure begins the story unfolds into a classic role-playing game where darkness envelopes the land and the hero is young and stupid, but like with all games he quickly wises up and jumps to the task. The story first starts in a world that seems to be a flash back situation shrouded in a sepia outlook, where you play as an unknown character searching for his dear sister until he finds out that she and all his friends have been kidnapped by evildoers as he charges to rescue them all through the charred and crumbling buildings of your village. After the battles and cut scenes you are brought back to the real world, full of color and realism, as a much younger lad, seemingly the reincarnation of the former warrior. And so your journey begins.
Like in the previous sequel Inotia 2 – Inotia 3 features a three cell party based system where you are in control of various characters as your companions. In addition to the party system is that you can switch between playing the hero and your two party members at any time. Additionally you can play with any of your multiple party members that join your cause along your journey making your experience different every time you play the game.
Having access to each party members skill tree you will find yourself able to customize your party members abilities separately aswell as their equipment. You will be able to allocate the characters skill points to further increase their combat skills, ranged attacks or their magic spells to your liking. When your have acquired an Awakening Talisman you will then be able to unlock skill that your party members have had no previous access to, making them grow stronger and dare i say meaner.
This game is massively larger than its fore-bearers, enticing the player with well over 200 quests that will take you searching the wilderness while hack’n’slashing your way over and around 130 beautifully rendered maps to explore and conquer the lands and hideouts of the denizens of the dark and extinguish their evil flame.
Com2uS have given us a game of epic proportions. Along with the dazzling special effects and sound effects that you see and hear will enhance your gaming experience, is a storyline that will have any player immersed in a world that will leave them unable to put down their iDevice. The story takes the player back and forth in time showing the main hero’s lives on several occasions (the world of SEPIA), until finally being zapped back to the reality to continue on his crusade against the hordes of darkness.
Inotia was good, Inotia 2 was better, but Inotia 3 leaves its predecessors in its dust. History has proven its worth time and time again along the sands of time. Can you prove your worth and save the world from the destruction of the darkness once more..?!
Scarlet And The Spark Of Life: Episode One
Platform:iPhone (Reviewed), iPad, iPod Touch
Publisher: Launching Pad Games
Developer: Launching Pad Games
Genre:Point-And-Click Adventure
Release Date:December 2, 2010
Price Buy NOW: $1.19
Whilst playing Scarlett And The Spark Of Life something came to my attention: iPhones are the perfect console for point and click adventure games, and there should be a million more titles like this for the app store. While many developers fight to squeeze millions of virtual buttons and control sticks onto a screen, utilise 3D graphics, and attempt making games up to the standard of home console titles, some of the most successful and enjoyable games on the device have always been the simple touch games like Angry Birds and Bejewled. I wouldn’t go ahead and say Scarlett And The Spark Of Life is the greatest game out there for iPhone, but Launching Pad Game’s latest title is bursting with character, and is a must-have for fans of the point and click adventure genre, as it is a lot of fun to play.
Honestly cannot think of the last game that made me laugh, smile and giggle as much as Scarlet And The Spark Of Life: Episode One.
Scarlett And The Spark Of Life (or ‘Furious Princess Builds a Horse’ as the game was originally called-thank god it didn’t stick!) is a bright, fun, quirky and very funny adventure game where players take control of Princess Scarlett and her trusty crowbar as she’s on the run from her kidnappers, and attempts to stop them from kidnapping her sister as well. In order to escape, she builds a mechanical horse she names ‘Gherkin’ to escape on, with an evil personality and bent on cause destruction and fear. Gherkin works as a great sidekick to Scarlett, as they are bipolar opposites with her being optimistic and cheery, even if she does have an odd fetish for punching people. Its really nice to see a strong independent female protagonist for a video game that isn’t a damsel in distress, that doesn’t have ridiculously huge breasts, isn’t sexually promiscuous and has likeable personality. Its very rare in video games to see characters like this, so its really refreshing to take control of Scarlett. With the theme of horses, bright colours, easy difficulty and the female princess lead I feel this game is more targeted to a younger, female audience, but it doesn’t really matter because this game is really enjoyable for everyone, and will most likely make you laugh a few times.
Scarlet will encounter alot of interesting characters along her journey, some more bizarre than others.
Like all point and click adventures, controls are simplistic: all you have to do is touch where you’d like to go, and that’s it. You will need to occasionally drag items from your backpack to interact with things, but that’s it. It’s disappointing to see that there is next to no options for this game at all. Items would’ve been nice to collect for extra points, or a image gallery for the commentary or a time trial or any other modes or options would’ve been nice rather than just the game by itself. The only thing other than the game itself is a really interesting commentary. If players select to turn it on, they will see a ‘!’ symbol in certain places, and can click it to hear trivia about the making of the game, and if your not keen, its always optional to turn it off. After reading them you gain an even bigger appreciation and understanding of the effort that went into making this title. These are really interesting reads, more games should do things like this more often!
Above: A few examples of the very interesting commentary found throughout the game after turning it on in the options menu. A smart and interesting option to have!
A lot of thought seems to have gone into the plot, as it is very intriguing. It’s just so disappointing that it is such a short game. I finished it within about an hour and half. To make things worse, most puzzles are ridiculously easy to solve, with not much of a challenge at all. They get a little harder near the end, but not by much. Also, its impossible to loose the game, so if it wasn’t for such an engaging script keeping the characters interesting, I would’ve been more apathetic about what would happen. It would’ve been much more engaging if this title was a much longer game, rather than just the first, short part of an on-going series. If all these short titles were together as one big one, it’d probably be much more rewarding. That way there would have more room to get harder as it went along, with more puzzles and hopefully mini-games.
It would’ve been nice to see more interesting puzzles like this one, but unfortunately the game can be finished really quickly and there isn’t much to see and do. But everything it does have is wonderful and fun, with more quality content rather than quantity.
The soundtrack goes for a less is more approach, which works in most places, but the scenes with music are the most intriguing. The graphical style is beautiful and fun, and the character design is superb. What keeps the story interesting is its comedic value, its very humours and will more than likely make you giggle a few times, as it has a couple of great one liners.
This show down ended with me being told that my answers were “mostly cleaver, but with a sprinkle of stupidity”
Scarlett and the Spark of Life is a great game, however it is the lack of content and length that lets it down. It has great characters and script, its really funny and its guaranteed to give you some enjoyment, but within a few hours, you will have experienced all it has to offer. If it was longer and had more to do it would be an easily must-have. If you do pick up this game though, you will probably be looking forward to episode 2 and the looking really forward to the next instalments as much as I am: a lot. It just sucks we’ll probably have to pay another 1.90 cents for just two hours of game play and no replay value just to see what will happen to our beloved princess.
This screenshot sums up Scarlet: And The Spark Of Life: Episode One perfectly.
Hydroventure
Platform:Nintendo WiiWare (Reviewed)
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Curve Studios
Genre:Puzzle/Action
Release Date:December 24, 2010
Price: 1200 Nintendo Points
Before we start, lets make one thing clear: the word is true, this is easily one of the best games available on Wiiware, right up there with World of Goo. Curve Studios should be really proud of themselves, for they’ve done a great job with Hydroventure. Nintendo has always had a huge passion for publishing original and innovative games that seem amazingly weird at first which can often throw people off, but once players experience the game itself, the gamer will always fall in love with them. Just look in recent years: a cell-shaded Zelda. Samus with dialogue and an in-depth story. Mario made out of Paper. Kirby made out of Yarn. Who the heck comes up with ideas like Warioware and Nintendogs? Yes, I just compared this title to a bunch of Nintendo’s A-listers, and while I wouldn’t say its on the same level, it comes really close in terms of its innovative magic. Hydroventure is a game that will constantly fascinate you by just how creative it is, and you’ll easily be lost in its beauty.
Water you looking at?
Hydroventure (or Fluidity as its called in the states) is a unique 2d puzzle/adventure game with a lot of metroidvanna elements. The game has the players as themselves holding a magical, talking book called the Aquaticus using the wii remote held on the side. The book has been infected with a dark evil substance known as the influence, and the only uninfected lifeform within the book is a simple puddle of water, and you must clean up the evil goo in a ‘Super Mario Sunshine’ kind of way. By tilting the book with the wii remote left and right, water will slide to the designated side of the book allowing movement of the puddle, and by shaking the wii remote, players can shake the book’s inner world and making the water jump. Yes that’s right folks, in this game the character you control is a puddle of water, and the imaginative puzzles will leave you dumbfounded every time making you solve puzzles with water and its various forms.
After entering ‘state-changers’ players can heat up their water to form a cloud, or freeze it to create a block of Ice.
Hydroventure’s imaginative theme has led to some amazing level design within the game. Players will be solving a variety of puzzles ranging from helping a fireman put out a fire, transporting water through water wheels, getting ducks into a bathtub, watering flowers, playing pinball, traveling through water pumps and windmills, playing basketball and escorting stranded goldfish to fishbowls. Fans of games like oldschool Metroid and Kid Icarus would more than likely appreciate these vast and creative worlds, with various areas being unreachable at first, and requiring you to return later with a new power up in order to achieve a certain task or to access a place. Power ups found range from the ‘gather’ technique that makes your water come together which makes platform jumping much easier, and skills like ‘Stick’ which makes the ice format stick to surfaces.
Shooting hoops in the ghetto is just one of the few random things thrown in which came Hydroventure fresh and intriguing.
One of the biggest highlights of the game is its physics. The water feels like real water, as if you’ve got a tray and your just tilting it back and forth through obstacles. Its slides and separates gracefully and falls with gentle elegance. Ice feels heavy as a frozen solid matter should as you slide it along, and the cloud formation feels light, misty and transparent. Having this feel right really contributes to the controls and makes everything feel great.
Cute character design and graphics, alot of the bad guys could even passas Pokémon Awesomemuch?
Graphics are cute and adorable, full of bright colours and very appealing to the eye. While it may appear to be aimed at a younger audience visually, the gameplay is definitely not as some puzzles can get frustratingly hard, but the developers were most likely aiming for this as the difficulty actually motivates you to think of new ways of tackling puzzles. The soundtrack mostly consists of very angelic and calm tracks, fitting well with the water theme. These don’t really stand out, and won’t have you humming along all the time, but they do the job.
Hydroventure is so cool, it’s Ice cold! *crickets chirping* What? That was funny!
While Hydroventure is an amazing game, filled with originality and character, it isn’t perfect. Constant tipping of the screen back and forth can occasionally make one feel a little dizzy. While this is most likely normal for a game like this, it can take away a bit of appeal on seldom occasions. On some rare occasions players may suffer from occasional lag between movements with the controller and the game itself, but its subtle and never too bad that it completely ruins the experience. Revisiting areas can sometimes be an annoyance and feel like your back tracking rather than enjoying a familiar scene in a new perspective, and even by accidently bumping into a previously collected rainbow drop can take you back to the start of the level, even when you don’t want it too. It’s also hard to sympathize and fall in love with a protagonist with no eyeballs or heartbeat. It’s the point of the game, but it can make you feel slightly apathetic to what will happen next.
In cloud formation, you can unlock a technique called ‘gust’, which you can use to blow your enemies.No wait, that came out wrong!
In conclusion however, Hydroventure is still a very unique and fun game, and the pros heavily out weigh the cons. It’s a rewarding experience to play something different than what your usually used too, and an experimental game that is entertaining in the end is always great. However Hydroventure isn’t a fun game in the sense that titles like Black Ops is fun to play, or Street Fighter or Final Fantasy is. Its more fun in the same way Tetris, Bejewled and Frogger are fun. Its awesome if you want a game to make you think and really exercise your mind, but if you just want to rack up points, achievements and just simply blow stuff up, this game is most likely not for you. But if your into games that will make you think, have an open mind and want to play something a little different, pick up Hydroventure. ASAP!
Splash on to WiiWare and pick up this title, its by far one of the best it has to offer!
Mobile games publisher/developer GAMEVIL have now published its first ever social network game TrainCity for Facebook, developed by LIFO Interactive. TrainCity offers players a full city builder simulation game, completely with trains, buildings and roads. The publishing agreement marks GAMEVIL’s entry into the social network space. “We’re proud to launch Train City as our first title to launch on Facebook, and LIFO Interactive has done a great job on creating this beautiful game and making the experience as enjoyable as possible” said Kyu Lee of GAMEVIL USA.
The game puts players in the role of the mayor with the goal of making your city bigger and better. As the name suggests, trains play a vital role in the game as they earn player coins that can be spent on in game items. TrainCity should offer fun to both train lovers and city builder fans.
Tecmo Koei is going to be bringing their classic fighter series to the 3DS and it is definitely looking to raise the bar on portable fighters. In the latest trailer released for Dead or Alive Dimensions we see some of the first gameplay footage of Team Ninja’s newest iteration in the Dead or Alive series. You can catch the video below.
The gameplay shows off some of the 3D effects that we can see as the characters appear slightly ghost like and jump out of the simulated screen in the video. If it looks like that in the palm of my hand then you can say that I am sold already. We are also treated to something they are calling a digital command list, which means rather than performing extravagant button combination to pull off attacks, you can do them with a touch of the stylus from what it looks like. A variety of other features are shown off such as Street Fight and the online fighting mode.
Sony isn’t going to be pulling any punches when it comes to 2011. They are already listing off the exclusive titles that they know will be released some point in the year and are more than ready to show them all off. They have put together a list of twenty different titles on the Playstation Blog to show off their exclusives. A few of these titles are JRPGs and may not appeal to everyone but I can count at least ten titles that everyone will be interested in. Catch the full list below. What game has you most excited for 2011?
Ar tonelico Qoga: Knell of Ar Ciel (March)
Hyperdimension Neptunia (February)
The ICO and Shadow of the Colossus Collection (Spring)
