Com2uS has great news for all its fans worldwide !!
As a part of their amazing line-up of iPhone/iPod Touch games coming in 2011, BETA testing will begin very soon for ‘Inotia3 : Children of Carnia’.
‘Inotia3 : Children of Carnia’ is the third sequel of Inotia series. ‘Inotia’ Series has been one of the most popular RPG games on the Apple iPhone.
For the all of those who missed out on applying for Com2us’ previous beta testings or previews, here’s your chance once again to get in on a sneak preview of what Com2uS has to offer.
To be eligible to enter, follow the steps in the image below.
A little over two years ago, de Blob showed up on the Nintendo Wii, bringing a bit of color and innovative gameplay to gamers across the world. Blue Tongue Entertainment and THQ have now released a new trailer a bit of info on what to expect for the sequel, de Blob 2.
First up is for the Playstation 3 version, the title will fully support the Playstation Move as well as supporting 3D televisions for both the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions. The game will also be making it’s debut on the Nintendo DS and returning to it’s original platform of the Nintendo Wii.
Here is a bit of information from the new launched website which can be found at this link about the story:
Blob’s origins are mysterious, but he rolled up at the right place and the right time to be the hero that the Color Underground was looking for. Music surrounds him and color energy flows through him; with his touch Blob can literally make the world a better place.
Blob represents individuality and determination. Blob is good hearted but lazy. He is often late, but he always comes through.
de Blob 2 puts you in a colorless world thanks to the evil Comrade Black, and it is up to you to gain the color back in the city by sapping it off Paintbots and Paint Pools, restoring the color as you move through the very visually stimulating game. Everything is looking great in this game from the more polished look of the gameplay to the newly enhanced graphics for the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions. de Blob 2 rolls out to consoles on February 22nd in the U.S. and February. You can check out the new screenshots and trailer below.
It’s an answer to a lot of small problems, that Microsoft hopes will keep their controller in the market, for years to come. While they go about phasing out old model XBOXs for the new (new) ‘slim’ model, the new controller was also revealed this week, in a design decision that was apparently rooted in ‘covert operations’, the military and all round functionality for core players.
With what is apparently a transforming DPAD (it can be flipped over or rotated to the back), Microsoft hopes this puts to rest the issues between the “plus” design and the current shallow platter. Since day one, many gamers have complained that the design of the concave platter is not specific enough over the up,down,left,right of a literal cross or ‘plus’ design. It may seem like a mute point for some, but now Microsofts’ Industrial Designer John Ikeda says they are offering both options at once:
“Those two d-pads, all things under the hood being equal, they’re still not equal because what you’re touching, what you’re holding, what you’re pressing – that’s different,” Ikeda says. “Depending on the content you play, you’re going to want one or the other. There’s no ‘This d-pad is right for all things.’ Depending on how you use the d-pad, there might be a different d-pad for you.”
“We had several other ideas of how we could accomplish this, but we had some pretty tough metrics that we were measuring ourselves against,” Ikeda says. “One, it had to be simple. You can do removable parts and junk like that, but we really wanted this to be something that the user could do really simply that would never ever interfere with gameplay. We also wanted it to be very robust. It had to last a long time.”
Ikeda goes on to defend that thumb sticks, even though reportadly people will cut off the little grip nubs or wear them down completely. By keeping them as well as deepening the pressure point, Microsoft hopes it sticks to your thumb for maximum effect. As for the lack of colour and muted, grey over-tones, Microsoft may be finally phasing out the colour coded cuteness as well:
“The attitude we had with this was the ABXY buttons are [labeled] and color-coded. That’s for usability. That’s something that we do on all our products,” he continues. “But this new gamepad isn’t for people learning how to play games. This is for the person who’s already customized their controller. They already know that thing forward and backward, left and right. So we want to keep that looking professional and part of that is taking the colors off of the ABXY buttons. They’re still clearly marked, but if you really need to look down to know which color A is then you’re probably not a core gamer.”
“We’ve got a lot of mixed receptions on our current thumbstick. Some people really like those little nubs that we have, those little bumps on them. Those aren’t really for direction. Those are really just for grip,” Ikeda says. “For some people those bumps are really annoying…We’ve heard other people say that they cut them off. We’ve found that other people rub them off on purpose. And we have other people say that when you lose them and you don’t have any grip it kind of sucks, too.”
“So what we tried to do with the new thumb stick is give you that little lip, that little edge, and that little concave, so it still sucks your thumb down a little better,” he says. “You get a little more ‘sticktion.’ That’s kind of a word we use for not stickiness, but friction.”
Microsoft has a habit of continually updating their product in an ever expanding market, which is good, but can also leave the customer confused as to which product is actually the best:
“What I’m really interested to see is once this gets out there and a lot of people have them then, yeah, if it’s something that users are really finding helps improve their gamepad experience, yeah, I would hope to see it in other devices,” Ikeda says. “And along the same tracks we’re always looking at stuff on the gamepad. As long as we make games that need gamepads we will always be looking at improving the gamepad. The day the game studios say, ‘Look, we’re not going to make those kinds of games anymore.’ Then okay, that’s the day I’ll stop looking at this.”
With the release of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood less than a week away Ubisoft is already ready to get us excited about their next project in the world of Assassin’s Creed. A small trailer was released today for a game called Assassin’s Creed: Ascendance on UbiWorkshop’s website.
Ubiworkshop is in charge of everything that doesn’t count as a videogame, instead focusing on comic books and short films. What this means is that while the teaser could have simply been an animated cutscene for the sake of having one, actually could turn out to be part of the film. You heard me right, film. This is just idle speculation so far due to the fact that little else is known about Ascendance, but it appears that it will be an animated short film that will fill out parts of the story that have been left open between Assassin’s Creed 1 and 2. What do you think?
Keep your eyes peeled for this game over the next 6 months, with the latest video showcasing the history of everyones favorite Sub Zero. Find out how this un-dead ninja assassin became the cold blooded killer and why Scorpion and Reptile, better watch out!
Mortal Kombat (2011) sports the tag line “Brutal things come to those who wait” but if you can’t go here to see Scorpions back story and other great information. The game is being developed by Warner Brothers Interactive and is due early 2011.
Arcania: Gothic 4 Platforms: Xbox 360 (Reviewed), PC, Playstation 3 (Future release) Publishers: Dreamcatcher Interactive, JoWood Entertainment Developer: Spellbound Entertainment Genre: Fantasy RPG Release Date: October 19th, 2010
Overview:
Over the past decade Gothic has always had a distinct crowd of PC gamers that were die-hard fans. Piranha Bytes had been keeping together these RPGs that, while not always very popular, always had plenty of fans. Now however the fourth game is in the hands of Spellbound and JoWood and does it keep together the hardcore experience fans always loved when it arrives on the Xbox 360?
Story:
Gothic 4 places the player ten years after the events of Gothic3 in the land of Myrtana. King Rhobar III who used to rule the kingdom fairly has become ill with a type of madness that transforms him from a standard ruler into a bloodthirsty tyrant. This all begins before the player even has a chance to step into their role as a peasant sheep herder.
The player takes on this role as a simple man who occasionally dreams of adventure but is all set to settle down and have a wife and child. Everything is peaceful in the isle of Feshyr, the player goes through the standard tasks done by a working village man, lasting just long enough to make players wonder when the action will begin. That is until Rhobar’s troops show up and spoil everything by burning down the village and killing his fiancée. Thus begins the tale of revenge for your village and loves ones, and maybe on the way free the kingdom from Rhobar’s rule.
While it won’t win any awards for story, Gothic 4 sets itself up beautifully for what players have come to expect from the series. A bleak beginning with nothing to turn back to, only the grim future that awaits the main character. This would have at least been a bit more striking if the player could name their character in any way, or customize them but I digress. The story is exactly what RPG fans are looking for in their fantasy RPGs, especially when it comes to the Gothic series.
Graphics:
Vast open world seeming RPGs require a great looking world to explore otherwise it defeats the purpose of giving players the drive to venture around. Thankfully Gothic 4 delivers in this category. The areas that the player explores are very large and intricate. With large castles in scenic settings, to forests that just scream danger Gothic 4 at least knows how to set the feeling at a distance and at times is quite breathtaking; bordering on realistic.
This changes however after the player begins to actually explore said forest. This is because the frame rate constantly flakes off during combat or even more complicated looking areas. When seen close up the character models only end up looking strange and unbelievable and in some cases can confuse the player with what the gender is of the NPC that they are actually talking to. Plus remember that forest I mentioned before? Well as you get closer to that forest you will notice the more intricate details disappearing for better performance. Meaning instead of objects popping in, or texture draw; we have objects completely popping out and vanishing.
Sound:
The soundtrack is limited at best and the majority of what you will be hearing as far as background music goes is when you enter into the menu screens. These orchestral tracks are enjoyable for those who like that type of music (such as myself), but otherwise don’t step too far outside the box when it comes to normal music during combat and simple exploration. Even with music abruptly halting for no reason at times.
To its defense though, Gothic 4 has quite a large array of voice over work that would end up being played over the background music. This voiceover work though is inconsistent at best. There are times that you will go from one extreme to another. A very serious scene, wherein the entirety of the plot is branched from contains dialogue that is very cliché at best, but performed well enough to not seem as bad. Then a few minutes later with another character, the voice work becomes over-the-top and completely unbelievable. It also doesn’t help when the subtitled text reads completely different than what is being said aloud.
Beyond the voice work however the game sounds just fine, bow shots twang like the best of them, swords clash and pierce flesh and magic soars through the air. All in all as long as you stay away from the characters it sounds well enough, but alas much of the game requires involvement with different NPCs whose voice work shifts from believable to questionable between a few phrases.
Gameplay:
Gothic 4 is a third person hack and slash RPG. Combat is controlled via the face buttons on the controller in real time. The D-pad contains four different items, weapons, and spells that you can hotkey for quick use if you decide that you will need them for your fight. There is also your standard lock on LT and spell casting and selection on the RB button.
Everything is handled in real time except for when the player enters the menu screen. This menu screen pauses all action on the field and allows the player to use any healing items or buffing items that they choose to use, which sometimes makes fights one sided with the numerous amount of consumable items within the game itself.
There is little to no customization within the game outside of the level up system. Players will be able to customize their hero with skill points received from level ups, which can be attributed to things such as increasing your combo ability, your magic, ranged ability, and a handful of other statistics that are quite strange to see and will be confusing to even the most battle tested RPG fans. The actual skill points themselves are broken down into skill trees but are thankfully non-restrictive. Meaning you can choose to specialize your character to become any variation you want, or a combination of the two.
Outside of killing everything that happens to be breathing and in your path there is also the ability to craft items and perform alchemy. These are great ways to kill time within the game and create some powerful items with combinations of what you can accumulate from dead enemies and the world itself. These skill trees, while not combat oriented, are great to explore and sometimes practically unavoidable due to simply wanting to explore the amount of options that they provide.
This only becomes more apparent when you realize that the world is full of different ingredients and materials that can be alchemized and crafted to make your character stronger, or give yourself an edge. This is doubly true as far as enemy loot is concerned. Enemies will drop plenty of items that seem to level as you do. You won’t be finding too many items that are out of your reach from the enemies that you kill; instead you may be eagerly waiting to see what type of bonuses you will get out of your next confrontation.
And what a confrontation it can be. There are times in Gothic 4 where the player is accosted by countless enemies to beat back and destroy. These enemies don’t believe in Gentlemen’s Rules either, they are more than happy to rush in all at once to bring you down. This can lead to being mobbed by enemies quite often, but only gives the player a chance to test out their new weapons and spells on.
Players are also given two choices to venture around the world of Myrtana; by either walking around or teleporting using the point teleportation system. While teleportation is the fastest and most efficient way to travel, it does not help as far as quests are usually concerned. This is because quests are not marked always where they should be, or none at all, meaning that players must venture across the landscape simply to finish the quest. Though this is a benefit most of the time due to the fact that teleporting around can cause the player to miss items that they otherwise would have passed over blindly.
The game itself performs quite well, but the story progression and quests is where players will become extremely frustrated. That is because there is a more than usual amount of quests that are simply fetch quests or delivery quests. These are so numerous it will feel that the player is more of a mailman than a hero bent on revenge. When quests do venture outside of the delivery aspect there isn’t much variety there either, with most objectives being solved with a sharp blade and a powerful spell.
One aspect of these more story driven quests however, is that there are certain choices to be made as you venture along. Should you support one side or the other and how will it affect your quest in the long run turn out to be quite popular. These quests can vary from being extremely convincing by giving the player a decent amount of backstory and information about what they should do, or can squander into deliver this letter to the other side of town.
It is quite sad that there isn’t more quest variety as Gothic 4 is quite long. There is plenty to do in the world of Gothic 4, but unfortunately a lot of it revolves around said fetch quests and it quickly becomes tiresome. Though on the bright side the main storyline itself reaches upwards of 15+ hours on its own, and if you have the patience to handle the side quests then it can almost double your play value.
Overall:
Arcania: Gothic 4 does plenty of things well, but unfortunately sticks true to its standard looting and quest grinding methods which have become tedious over the years. While it is a more than suitable Medieval Fantasy RPG with lots of gameplay to offer, Arcania: Gothic 4 does little to step outside of the box and expand upon the standard formula.
Fresh and hot off the press, there is a new trailer for Rockstar’s latest upcoming game. It gives a spring 2011 date so it is expected sometime next year. Not too far away. All the footage in the video is pulled straight from gameplay. Enjoy.
Developed by Team Bondi in conjunction with Rockstar Games, L.A. Noire is a dark and violent detective thriller set against the backdrop of Los Angeles in the post-war years of the late 1940s, the most corrupt and violent period in the city’s history.
Based on groundbreaking performance capture technology that goes beyond traditional methods to render every subtlety and nuance of an actor’s facial expressions and emotions,L.A. Noire is the first game to truly explore what it means to be a detective, offering players the opportunity to solve crimes through a blend of classic action, clue-finding and interrogation, allowing players to analyze every subtle nuance of an actor’s performance in order to get to the truth.
Pan Vision, a leading independent Nordic publisher and distributor has worked together with Tactile Entertainment to bring you their latest game, Pirates vs Ninjas vs Zombies vs Pandas! (I’m having lots of crazy images floating in my brain as I type its name…) ANYWAY! It’s a game, and it has its story, the story of how it all begans…
Rampaging through a deep bamboo forest in their endless hunt for buried treasure, Captain Ashbeard’s rum-soaked pirate crew hacked unwittingly through the den of the pandas, until they disturbed the “Fat Panda” leader from his tree high in the sky. With one swipe of the Pirate’s blade the Fat Panda fell and tumbled like an out of control juggernaut towards the sacred land of the Ninja Masters and their ancient lotus grove. Furious and silently outraged the Ninjas watched as the Fat Panda barreled through their spiritual garden destroying all in his path. Eventually, the Fat Panda came to rest crashing into the cursed graveyard, the domain of the Zombie King and his army of the undead. Disturbed from a 1000 year slumber the zombie army rose to face those who would dare awake them from their deathly rest. It was at this tense moment that the Pirates, Ninjas, Zombies and Pandas faced off against one another. The Pirates vs Ninjas vs Zombies vs Pandas war had begun!
Apparently, this game-with-extremely-long-name is a physics-based demolition puzzler made for the Apple iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Looking at the bizarre name, I have zero idea how the developers manage to put pirates, ninjas, zombies and pandas in one single game. I mean, they are all common, but having them all together in one app, it’s crazy. I’m not even sure why the adorable Pandas are involved. Who will win the war? We shall wait and see when this comes out in December… Before that, let’s enjoy some screenshots!
Some gameplay footage of the demo build of beat ’em up Tekken Tag Tournament 2 has made an appearance on the web. While it is still early days where the games development is concerned, you can see that it is shaping up quite nicely, and although it’s only a basic framework of the game, it’s good to see some characters have already been fully rendered in game form, confirming their inclusion in the title.
As it isn’t due for release until late next year, Harada wanted to stress that this is all test footage and it is still early in the game’s life, and is therefore subject to change. As you will find out if you watch the video, some features such as breakable floors have yet to be integrated in this test version, and this sneak peak is by no means a full representation of the final product.
Still, it’s great to see such a robust prototype of the game already. It’s a pleasant surprise that at this early stage in the game’s development, the combo moves using the game’s tag elements are looking as fluid as they are.
Lately, masses of freemium games came to the App Store. Ngmoco, the leading publisher in the freemium scene is no longer the exclusive one as several other reputable publishers have jumped into the bandwagon! These include Amplified Games, Capcom, Chillingo, Glu, IUGO and SGN. Basically, freemium titles are free-to-download games with in app purchases of virtual currencies or premium items, made popular on the iOS devices by games like We Rule, Farmville, etc. These titles are extremely popular on Facebook too! It’s free to try, so why not?
Here’s a small run down of some notable freemium titles which are released in the past few days. (Click on the game titles will bring you directly to the Apple App Store)
Based on the original cartoon and comic art, players begin the game with only a single mushroom house and lone plowed plot of land. It’s basically Farmville with a twist! Enjoy the colourful crops and pretty scenery in the Smurfs’ Village.
Capcom finally brings their classic arcade titles to the Apple portable devices. You are given 3 free tokens each day to play Street Fighter II, 1942, Ghouls’ n Ghosts, or Commando in their entirety. Don’t forget to read our review of the game HERE!
Capcom has work together with IUGO to bring you their latest social game, Lil’ Pirates. As the name suggests, you play as a pirate (One Piece-style or Johnny Depp-style, your choice). You will have your own pirate ship, manage your own crew and go on missions!
It’s a virtual cat game! You can now have your very own cat (or cats) from five popular breeds, namely the Tabby, Persian, Russian Blue, Siamese and Black Shorthair. You will get to design a house for your beloved pet, and play with it as you unlock new decorations, toys and clothes for your pet. If you like, you can also visit your friends’ houses or arrange dates with their cats.
This is a location-based MMORPG as you explore the virtual world with your iPhone. Build and claim settlements, trade goods in the market, and uncover treasures in hope to expand your empire.
A 3D action shooter with waves of T.O.O.L enemies that keep on coming. Form your own brotherhood with your Game Center friends. They will help protect you and destroy the T.O.O.L enemies. Earn experiences when your “brother” is used even when you’re not in game. The game comes with a recent update that gives you Retina Display support, Game Center Leaderboard, new planet, new enemies and several bug fixes.
From a small town casino, you work your way up to build your own empire in MiniTycoon Casino. Design your casino with your favorite slot machines and poker tables while you hire your friends as dealers.
You begin with a small village and you are tasked to expand it into a sprawling city in the world of Trade Nations. Basically what you do is to harvest raw resources, refine them and create goods to earn a fortune. You can also trade goods with your friends and assign up to 14 different jobs to your villagers to improve your village’s productiveness. What set this apart from other similar games is its fantasy-style buildings and environment.
