Any reveals of Bungie’s next big project will just have to wait it seems as the developer posted on their official blog that they will not be attending E3 this year. The internet has been buzzing since the release of Halo: Reach of what the next big step is for Bungie, but it appears that for now we must twiddle our thumbs and wait until this veil of secrecy is lifted sometime until the near future.
While I did have hope that Bungie would be attending the event, there is no doubt this year’s E3 will still be one to watch closely as Nintendo reveal the Wii Successor and it will be also interesting to see just what Sony will have to present after this very difficult year. As for Microsoft, I am expecting something Halo-ish in the works, but for now it is just a wait and see.
Mother’s Day is about to end here in Australia but it’s just starting in other parts of the world, and I hope you all put your controllers down and told your mum “Happy Mother’s Day” at least once. If you did celebrate it, what did everyone do for their mother on mother’s day? Let us know what you did, the best entry will be picked and we’ll send you over a random video game we have here in the office. Maybe you can give it to your mum if she’s into video games.
I’ll start the ball rolling: I bought my mum some flowers, and got her a card as well, we had a family lunch which was nice and relaxing, I ate a lot by the way. After lunch I checked my emails and played some iPhone and 3DS games. Showed mum how to play Street Fighter IV 3D but she just couldnt get the hang of the control system and got beat by Dan 🙁 Oh well at least she gave it a try 😉
Happy Mothers Day to all from the Capsule Computers Crew !! Good Luck and let the best comment win 🙂
Talk about getting something done early. While Sonic Generations doesn’t even release until “Holiday” of this year, the Australian Classifications Board have already rated the demo for the game many months in advance. Of course a “G” rating was given for the new Sonic title, but the rating really isn’t the story here. Demos for any title usually do not start to pop up until maybe a month or two before the said game typically releases, making this early and quite public rating raise quite a bit of speculation.
With E3 right around the corner, this could mean that Sega are ready to unveil a playable demo at the event or just simply launch the game’s demo on the XBLA and PSN alongside the inevitable trailers and footage that will be used to hype the game at the event. Judging by the early approach taken here by Sega to get this demo rated, all gamers anticipating the hedgehog’s return should no doubt keep their eyes peeled for a demo of some sort hitting consoles this summer (unless this is just a simple case of getting the whole process of ratings out of the way).
With the new hack and slash Action RPG Dungeon Siege III now just a little over a month away from release, Obsidian have now released a new trailer to shed a little light on how co-op will work. For the multi-player mode, robust AI will join alongside the player as they control either Lucas, Katarina, Reinhart or Anjali to save the Kingdom of Ehb. This allows for other players to jump in or out at will and makes the whole mode come together, creating a seamless experience with little to no interruption as players come together and do battle.
You can watch the new trailer below which shows off a lot of the actual gameplay as each hero uses their own special techniques to team up and take down foes in the game. Dungeon Siege III is scheduled to release June 17th for Europe and June 21st for the U.S. for the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC.
I love Capcom, from Street Fighter 2 to my favourite franchise in gaming; Resident Evil, the Japanese publisher has always been there, delivering quality games to their fans. So its really nice to hear (especially with so many other companies posting massive losses), that all the hard work they put into their products is paying off. Driven by the massive success of Monster Hunter portable (PSP), which sold over 4.6 million copies, as well as a diverse array of titles across many different platforms, Capcom are proud to announce a 258% rise in income for the last fiscal period.
Console sales of Marvel V Capcom 3, Dead Rising 2, Lost planet 2 and Super Street Fighter IV were all in excess of 1 million copies which is an oustanding achievement in itself. Their online game Monster Hunter has also recently hit 1 million subscribers. Branching out into smartphone gaming has also added to the success of the company with IPhone titles Ghost Trick and Street Fighter IV being met with much enthusiasm from users of the device. Capcoms emergence into the social gaming market has even exceeded their own expectations with VERY popular Lil’ Pirates, Zombie Cafe and Smurfs village perfoming exceptionally well. Combine all of this with PC and XBox 360 online games like Monster Hunter and its clear the strategic direction they have chosen is paying dividends.
Capcom see a fall in sales for the coming year but a rise in profits. As social and phone gaming become more popular, profit margins will increase due to lower production costs. Capcoms attribute much of their success to their experimental style in relation to game style and distribution methods in a diverse and ever changing games market.
With all the front page news lately regarding Sony and their network breaches its not suprising that other major online providers that hold sensitive information are doing some risk assessment and changes of their own. Recently Nintendo Japan sent out an email to all their Club Nintendo members informing them of new privacy policies to be put in place and their requirement to agree to the terms and conditions. Part of the new argreement will allow players personal data to be collected by Nintendo Japan.
On its website Nintendo explains “The amendment of the Club Nintendo privacy policy was necessary due to the launch of the new Nintendo 3DS system which offers a broad variety of network services. As you can link your Club Nintendo account to your Nintendo 3DS system, we adjusted the existing privacy policy to reflect and explain this. Under the new Club Nintendo Privacy Policy we ask for your consent to share your data with our parent company Nintendo Co Ltd in Japan. The Nintendo 3DS system offers many new and exciting features and applications which we cannot provide to you without involving our parent company. As you can link your Club Nintendo account to your Nintendo 3DS system, the involvement of our parent company also affects Club Nintendo.”
Users who do not agree to the new policy can still use the service until May 31st at which time their stars will be unavailable for use to purchase from the store and their membership to Club Nintendo will be cancelled. While it does seem a bit harsh to cancel memberships from non-compliance to updates i really cant see any backlash from users and it seems a minor inconvenience for getting a better, safer service and product.
Japanese Vocaloids, better known as virtual idols, have always been a staple of Japan since they were created by Crypton Future Media. Of course they haven’t seen much exposure in the Western world however due to the original builds being created only with Japanese voice work (although latest versions include English compatibility).
The most famous of these Vocaloids is Hatsune Miku and Japanese car maker Toyota has decided that her program and image would be great to sell their cars apparently. Toyota has launched a website together with Crypton that names the Corolla “the official car of Hatsune Miku.” They have launched a website for this collaboration and have also placed two commercials on the website and these commercials may even end up on television. If they do I wonder how your standard car owner will react to seeing Miku, even though it is only for a short moment.
We’ve seen games rated by different ratings boards before they have been actually announced but usually the announcement for the title will follow within a week at most. Not so with EA and Burnout Crash because it has been a month since the title was rated by the Australian ratings board. Now a month later the title has been given a full ESRB rating; including a description which you can read below:
This is an action game in which players earn points for creating traffic pileups. From a top-down perspective, players initiate crashes by driving ‘cartoony’ vehicles (e.g., cars, trucks, vans, buses) into busy intersections; multiple crashes trigger score multipliers and rack up large ‘bills’ of property damage.
Each level is accompanied by crashing sounds, small explosions, and vocal encouragement (e.g., ‘Cool,’ ‘Maximum Carnage!’). In some levels, players are instructed to crash into police cars (e.g., ‘Crash them before they bust you!’); in other sequences, oversized airplanes, tornados, lobster monsters, and UFOs slide across the screen, destroying any vehicles in their path.
As mentioned before you can see that the game will be coming out for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, but something is a bit interesting about this description. Of course besides the lobster monsters that is. The game describes itself as a top-down playing title which is something we have yet to see from the Burnout series, this description sounds like something a XBLA game or PSN game would be, instead of a retail title. Perhaps that is why there hasn’t been an announcement yet.
If for some reason you have an aversion for going outside and buying your games in public then you don’t have to worry if you are a PC gamer. Deus Ex: Human Revolution will be getting a Steam release alongside the normal retail boxed release. Of course with the widespread adoration of Steam by the PC gaming world then this is a really good move for Square Enix as far as marketing is concerned.
Eidos Montreal chose Steam they say because it provides boosted functionality and easy access for the gaming world, which is exactly what Steam is all about. With Steam inclusion also comes Steamworks’ features of auto-updating with patches, Steam Cloud support for both the standard and Augmented editions of the game and then everyone’s favorite thing… achievements. It looks like PC gamers will find it easier than ever to get their hands on Deus Ex: Human Revolution when it releases on August 23rd in the US and August 26th in the UK. Oh yeah and don’t forget that the PS3 version and Xbox 360 version also release the same day.
Saints Row: The Third is a game that is being hotly anticipated by THQ’s fanbase, so much so that Volition has implemented a character sharing system that will allow players to upload their own character creations directly to the Saints Row community website as well as download any characters they want directly from the console or the PC depending on which one they prefer to use.
Called the Initiation Station players will be able to create their own character ahead of time before the game is even released this holiday season. It is supposed to be released some time before the release for free but you can get your hands on the Initiation Station early if you end up pre-ordering Volition’s other upcoming game, Red Faction: Armageddon. Doing so will give you access to the Initiation Station a week before everyone else can access it for free if you can’t wait a little extra.
