Xenome Episode 1 is an original rpg developed by Nine Pound Studios. The game looks like a nice alternative for anyone looking for an action/adventure rpg on their portable systems.
The game’s story happens in Silica Flats. A wasteland ripe for exploration. That is, if you manage to stay alive long enough. The land looks different from what you remember, but that’s bound to happen to anyone who’s been in cryo-stasis for the last 250 years. You’ve been reactivated during the advent of the Union-Prime war. Both factions want your allegiance. More importantly, either faction would rather see you back on ice (in one way or another) than to be aligned with their enemy.
Features:
Fully immersive, open 3D environment using cutting edge technology, ready to be explored.
Intense gameplay with realtime combat and powerful abilities.
Enormous game world – over 5 square miles of seamless, immersive territory teeming with mutated creatures and other dangerous aberrations of nature.
Gain experience and wealth while performing missions and killing monsters.
Customize your character with abilities, stats and over 500 items that best suit your play style.
Stylized, intuitive user interface.
An engaging storyline that will take hours to unravel as you make your way through the wastelands.
Loaded with secrets for the adventurous. Enough creatures, missions and areas to keep you playing long after the main plot has unfolded.
Xenome Episode 1 is already out, you can see more about the game from it’s page on the appstore.
*note* The game requires the iPhone 3gs, iPhone 4, 3rd gen iPod Touch with 32 or 64 gb storage, or the iPad. They are currently working to bring support for 2nd gend devices in the near future.
Ever wanted to play Little Big Planet on Xbox360 or Wii? Well, don’t get your hopes up, because LBP will remain PS3 exclusive, but you will have something similar…EA announced today their new upcoming title, Create. A game for the whole family, which will let you create your own environment and experiment with it.
“We wanted to design a game where the entire family can explore, decorate, and solve challenges where no solution is wrong and the only limit is the imagination,” – Harvey Elliott, VP and General Manager at EA Bright Light.
Create will have the player’s solve different puzzles and levels by using their imagination…the more creative you are, the bigger the reward will be. So it’s not an actual “create-anything-then-play-it” game, but rather a puzzle game. How this turns out…we’ll have to wait and see.
Create will be released “this holiday” on PC, Mac, Wii, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Regarding peripherals, the Playstation Move will be supported, though no info on Microfts’s Kinekt just yet.
Lionhead Studios announced today a new feature on their site: Create a Villager
With this little tool, you can design you very own unique villager, with over 2000 different variations, including personality traits, clothing, accents, hairstyles etc. You’re also able to compose a backstory for the character to give it even more uniqueness .
But, unfortunately, there IS a “catch”: in order to upload the created villager in your Fable3 universe, you must first preorder the game, thus receiving a unique code which is used on the Villager Creator Page.
But you can still do this for fun, so if you want to check it out, here’s the Character Creator.
On the 30th of July Joseph Tung, an Executive Producer at Bungie Studios who has been working on Halo: Reach, has stated through the Reach Developer Blog that Halo: Reach has been completed:
A few days ago we released Halo: Reach to Xbox Certification. Assuming things go well in certification, that means the only things standing between you all and Reach are the manufacturing process and shipping the discs to stores. It’s been a long haul getting the game to this point but the team is incredibly proud of the game and can’t wait to play with everyone on September 14th.
A few folks from Bungie will be travelling all over the world in the next few weeks to demo the game: Brian Jarrard and Niles Sankey are currently touring Europe, Joe will be headed to Oceania soon, and Chris Opdahl and David Allen will be taking Asia by storm in August.
Yes that right .. Kick in the HEAD is 2K Games latest Mafia II trailer which I must say is absolutely smokin’ hot… No love songs here, no That’s Amore, no pizza pie, just all out mayhem, shooting, kicking and in true Mafia fashion burying 😉 I must say that Mafia II is looking very nice, lot of hard work and detail has gone into this game. See for youself, click on the play button below and enjoy.
As you can see, Europe already has it’s own Edition, with the zombie figurine. But Capcom seems to be spoiling the european consumers (including me! =) ), because, according to some online retailers, the “pill-popping” edition will be coming to Europe, also, but it will be dubbed down, and will contain only the Zombrex syringe-pen, “Making of” bonus disc and the shiny steel case.
At UK retailers, this Limited Edition costs £59.99, and will be available on October 1st, 2010.
Got an iPAD ? Don’t have much games on it ? Well nows your chance to grab some Ultra cool titles from Gameloft for only $1.19 AUD (.99c US) each. Details links and description for both Iron Man 2 and Brothers In Arms 2: Global Front HD.
PLAY WITH IRON MAN OR WAR MACHINE
Play as Iron Man for speed and agility or suit up as War Machine for maximum firepower. Both suits offer easy-to-learn controls and the ability to run, hover and fly at will. You’ll also have the chance to jump into the Mark IV, Mark VI, Stealth and underwater suits. Whether you prefer to pound your foes in melee combat with your fists or to lay down the destruction from a far with your weapons, you can upgrade your suit after each stage with improved weaponry and abilities to devastate your foes.
A FIGHT ACROSS THE GLOBE
Experience every front of the war with battles raging across 5 locations and 13 levels: Pacific, Normandy, North Africa, Germany, Sicily.
WAR MACHINES
Take control of 3 different vehicles including a tank, 4×4 or glider to overrun your opponents – or to make a daring escape. You can even jump behind the vehicle turret to lay waste to foes with the machine gun.
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Both titles games for only $2.38 (AUD) or $1.98 (US) is a complete bargain especially for iPAD titles. Grab them now as they are only on special for a limited time.
For all you Dirt fans out there Codemasters has released the Colin McRae: DiRT 3 2010 trailer via ESPN America Live.
The trailer doesn’t show actual gameplay but, geeze it looks nice especially the truck explosion part 😉 (image shown above). Looks like Codemasters are on a real winner here.
Colin McRae: DiRT 3 will be coming out on the following : Playstation 3 , Xbox 360 and also PC. There is no release date yet, but it shouldn’t be too far away.
Let us know what you think of the trailer, leave a comment below 🙂
Game Name: Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies Platforms: Nintendo DS Publisher(s):Nintendo Developer(s):Square-Enix Genre(s): Role-Playing Release Date: July 11, 2010 (U.S.) July 13, 2010 (EU) August 19th, 2010 (AU) Price: $34.99 (USD)
After being a huge phenomenon in Japan, Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies has finally crossed seas. Dragon Quest IX is also apart of one of the most successful and most loved RPG franchises from Nintendo and Square-Enix which some may also know as the “Dragon Warrior” series.
Story
Dragon Quest games are known for their compelling story and classic RPG feel. This title sticks with that formula and delivers all the way through. The story is like most classic RPGs out there, except you must create your own hero from the start. After you finish with customizing of your new hero, you then take control of the silent protagonist and dive straight into the heavens. The story starts you out as an apprentice to Aquila, and your job is to watch over the town of Angel Falls and gaining Benevolessence. What is Benevolessence you may ask? Gratitude from the humans for offering protection and help creates Benevolessence which is needed to make the Yggdrasil tree blossom for Yggdrasil’s blossoms are essential to take the Celestrians to the realm of the Almighty. Soon trouble erupts and your character is thrown from the heavens to Earth and stripped of his or her halo and wings and now must set out on a journey to find the reasoning behind this and how to stop the being that was behind it.
The story is told through cut-scenes and text-dialogue throughout the game, which really played out well and gave it an old school feel during my playthrough which should be nice to any fan of the older games of the series. You of course have your main quest, but you also have many sub-quests that you can do to earn nice rewards to better yourself and your journey. The heart of this game lies in customization though. After you reach the second town, you can create your own party. By create I mean literally mold the gender, height, looks and the vocation of each team member. 1-3 members at a time can go with you at once. The only downside is your party really doesn’t play a big role besides following you and battling alongside you as you journey throughout the game but the story is so strong it really didn’t effect anything in the game and anyone with an imagination should be able to kind of create their own personality for each created character like I did.
Gameplay
Dragon Quest IX like I mentioned is standard fare for most turn based RPGs out there. You must battle to gain experience and level yourself and your party up to earn new abilities. The thing is while it plays like most like the other games of the genre, it doesn’t quite stay true to the formula which does not hurt it, but puts it above others for the many added features.
First thing I should mention, NO RANDOM BATTLES! Every enemy on the screen can be easily seen right off the bat and you can easily avoid danger by just quickly moving out of the way. This doesn’t mean that the enemies are stupid as some will chase you down until a battle is engaged. Moving from town to town following the story, you must keep battling to grow stronger or else battles will quickly end badly. When a party member dies, the game has a funny way of letting you know. Instead of the character still following you around instead you will get a nice casket to take their place. Irony at it’s best to motivate you to get to a church and resurrect any downed team members for sure.
Leveling is simple and quite easy but you really must grind a lot at times to get strong enough to face bosses and harder enemies as the story moves on. Each party member can get new clothes and weaponry at just about any town. The additions show on their sprites as well so you can always change the appearance and your character while making them stronger, which brings me to the next topic of gameplay, Vocations.
With every character you create, you can also assign a vocation to. A vocation is like a job class, from a Mage,Thief, Warrior, ect.. This adds a HUGE element of strategy for the way you play as you get to customize yourself how your team will play. The more balanced a team is, the better off the player is in the long-run. Every vocation has 5 different skills that can be leveled up as your character gets stronger. For instance my main character is a Minstrel, Which allows for 3 weapons, a shield and litheness to level up. Each time you put ability points on these skills you level them up and gain new abilities related to that particular skill. I don’t understand why some are saying that grinding is a bore because to me with each level I reach something new always came out of it. This system is extremely rewarding and really is one of the most in depth and easy to use formula I have played in a long time.
Multi-player
I am making a separate section for Multi-Player alone due to all of the features included. Co-op is included in DQ9 and allows for up to 4 DS systems to be linked together. I really didn’t use this feature yet as I have been busy in single player, but I really like the idea and feedback this feature has received so far. Tag-Mode or “canvassing” is also very useful and may be why the game was such a hit in Japan. It allows the player to put their DS in sleep mode and will look for other Dragon Quest IX games and exchanges data with them. A clone of the character will be put into each game and have an item which can be treasure maps, rare items and even new equipment. I have been using the Wi-Fi shop the most, which has unique items and maps. Square has updated this every week since release and I hope it continues for quite some time. This is sure to keep players who have already finished the game coming back to see what’s new online. I do wish co-op over wi-fi was included but hopefully we can see that feature in future titles.
Graphics & Audio
The graphics in Dragon Quest IX are great for the Nintendo DS. Each area usually takes full advantage of the capabilities of the system. The colors pop out and you can easily get lost in the huge world this title has to offer. The key to Dragon Quest games are of course the monsters. There are a huge number of enemies in the game, and it feels so good not having to fight the same design over and over. Nearly every new monster I seen, I fought just because I wanted a closer look. Each have their own unique name and style, many with a bit of humor tied in. Dragon Quest fans will be pleased as many of the monsters will look familiar, but some have gotten complete redesigns and all of the monsters maintain the feel for the game and environments you are located in.
The sound effects were pretty standard but all seemed to work. Entering doors, the sound of the enemies chasing after you, and casting attacks in battle all just kind of fell into the background in the longrun but worked and were not annoying at all which is a good thing. The music however was wonderful. I found myself humming some of the games themes many hours after play later on. When a game can take music from being just cheap tunes for background noises to something you actually remember and relate to that title or series, it is something special and one reason I look for RPG titles to start with.
Overview
Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies is an addicting and fun addition to the series. It took a simple formula of a classic RPG and added so many new elements to keep relevant with the times that the finished product was nearly a masterpiece. Deep customization, fantastic music, and a lot of charm and humor all on top of a solid gameplay engine. Each character and enemy also had personality and a different feel that felt true to the series and added something new to mix things up. If you don’t like old school RPGs, this may not be for you but I still recommend for any gamer out there to at least give it a try. If you are an RPG fan, you know about the staples of the genre: Final Fantasy VII, Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, ect.. Games that all live on for many years as the favorites of generations. In my opinion I will be adding Dragon Quest IX to that list for myself as I went in expecting a standard generic role-playing game and I got a game that is literally customized to the player and one of the best titles on the Nintendo DS.
I give Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies:
Smith’s Chips in Australia is currently running a “make an ad” competition for Doritos which Stars our very own “MasterAbbott” and we need your help and your votes!!
To vote for the AD, click on the following link :http://www.doritos.com.au/#/gallery/week-8/id/3099 watch it (only 29 seconds), and click the “Vote for this Ad” sign. You have to register with yourREAL first and last name,REALe-mail and so on. Then you will receive an activation e-mail, and that should be the last thing to do for the registration process. By voting for the ad, you go into the draw to win a Bloggie camera valued at $271, and aFREE XBOX 360 PAL RETAIL GAME (Capsule Computers will be issuing the free game).
You can vote up to 5 times a dayand you MUST use valid information.False information automatically leads to disqualification of your entry to this Capsule Computers competition and you WILL NOT win anything.
This competition is open to AUSTRALIAN residents onlyas a result of other country residents being not allowed to vote.
On Wednesday 4th of August, Capsule Computers will announce the winner of theFREE XBOX 360 PAL RETAIL GAME!
Remember, the more you vote, the more chance you have of winning aFREE XBOX 360 PAL RETAIL GAME!
Once you vote come back here and leave a comment that you’ve done it, plus tells us from what part of Australia you’re from.
NOW GET VOTING !!! LETS GET MASTERABBOTT and his UGLY MUG on AUSTRALIAN National TV !! 😉
