Glory
of Heracles features a protagonist with a murky past and a bunch of
immortals as friends. I wonder why he isn't immortal as well?
More
Suikoden Tierkreis is being re-released on Konami's Best collection,
for the Nintendo DS. It will cost 8,540 yen, ($91) which does
seem expensive for a DS game.
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Lupin
the Third: The Greatest Brain Battle in History is influenced by Metal
Gear Solid and not in a good way.
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Konami
is now publishing Ninety-Nine Nights II and is scheduled for released
sometime in spring, 2010, in Japan.
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Pac-Mac has turned thirty. A convenience store is selling
something called a manju, for 120 Yen. It looks strange.
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A
bunch of Taiwanese people dress up as Final Fantasy XIII characters.
Their lives must be really boring.
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Konami
is releasing Vandal Hearts: Flames of Judgment on the Xbox 360 and the
Playstation 3, this month.
More
Cogs iPhone Gameplay Video
TouchArcade have
bagged themselves a hands-on with the iPhone version of IGF-nominated
Cogs. Landing in the App Store sometime later this month, it appears the
transition to iThing has worked pretty smoothly. Excellent stuff.
Trailer: Darwinia+ (Introversion Software)
According
to IGN, a release date is coming very soon for Introversion's XBLA
outing of the little Darwinians. Viruses beware!
Now this is a spicy meatball. It's a 152"
plasma TV
Panasonic marks out the future of memory cards
7th of January 2010
In the
Ar Tonelico III trailer, (see below) the costumes aren't just cosmetic,
they may affect the battle performance of Reyvateils (whatever they're
meant to be)
More.
The
ESRB has let slip some details for Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of
the Moon. According to the ESRB, "In the post-apocalyptic ruins
of Japan, players control Seto, a young survivor who sets out to save
a friend and prevent a villain from destroying the last remnants of
the human
race. With the aid of a
flashlight and a ghost named Sai—she wears an open jacket with a
"flesh"-toned bra—players explore dark passages, city ruins, dungeons,
and ominous amusement parks and hotels."
More
Atlus
has confirmed they will be releasing Hexyz Force in North America.
In Hexyz Force, you play two sides of an intertwining story. As
Cecilia, players explore the world as a young cleric. Levant’s tale is
a story of politics and conspiracy. Check out the trailer below.
More
If you
have a Valkyria Chronicles save file on your PlayStation 3, you will
be able to unlock Isara immediately when you play Valkyria Chronicles
2, for the PSP.
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Microsoft has announced Scrap Metal, which is is a demolition derby
style game and it will be coming to Xbox Live Arcade. Not date
has be given yet.
More
Sony
Computer Entertainment Japan, sent out a list of the Best budget games
on the PlayStation. The games included in this list are Samurai
Warriors: State of War, Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce, Tenchu: Shadow
Assassins and
Shadow of the Colossus.
More
Microsoft will be including The Game Room on XBLA. You will be
able to purchase Virtual arcade cabinets, complete with their original
cover art and it costs 240 Microsoft Points ($3) a piece for one
platform; 400 Microsoft Points ($5) if you want to play them on your
Xbox 360 and PC.
More
An
American company has filed a $2.2bn (£1.4bn) lawsuit in the US,
accusing Beijing of stealing lines of code from its internet filtering
software.
Cybersitter is suing the
Chinese government, two Chinese firms and seven PC makers over
distribution of China's Green Dam Youth Escort programme. This
program prevents the user from access websites with probative
material.
More
Ar Tonelico III trailer
Hexyz Force
Valkyria Chronicles 2
Freeware Game Pick: Squid and Let Die (Robert D.
Fearon)
Squid and Let Die is a fast-paced arcade
game in which players have to collect all dots on screen to progress to
the next level. Cannons will try to home in on your position and fire a
shot at you, but you can dodge them with ease if you move quickly enough.
The key to advancing in this game is to trick those cannons into shooting,
since the cannons are immobilized while their shots still remain on the
grid. The controls will take some getting used to, but players with a
fondness for classic gaming will certainly want to add Oddbob's latest to
their collection. (Windows, 14.4MB)
6th of January 2010
Gran Turismo 5 has youTube video replays as
one of its functions, along with PSP connectivity as well. That
might be interesting to see.
More
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A’s Portable: The
Battle of the Aces will be released soon on the PSP. Check out
the trailer below.
More
Satoru Iwata, President of Nintendo, has talked
about the next iteration of the DS being able to display High
Definition content.
More
Atlus has announced Shiren the Wanderer 3 Portable
for the PSP and you will be able to import the game on January the
28th. The game contains a rescue system and an on-line ranking system
as well.
More
Tenchu: Kurenai Portable is a PSP port of Tenchu:
Fatal Shadows and will have some new costumes for Ayane and Rin.
More
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A’s Portable: The Battle
of the Aces
God Eater PSP trailer
Trailer: Vessel (Strange Loops Games)
Strange Loop Games have released a trailer of
Vessel so you guys can see why we're all
a flutter. Apparently they "intend to ship on both PC and console" which
is definitely good news!
Browser Game Pick: Defend Your Honor (Armor Games)
I don't think we've posted about any tower defence
games recently, so take this as long overdue.
Defend Your Hono(u)r is such a game, and
probably one of the more enjoyable games in the genre that I've played.
Created by the guy behind the brilliant
Upgrade Complete (who is apparently from
the same place as me - clearly Manchester is full of win), it follows the
story of one loser's dream to be somebody and claim some pride.
This, of course, involves finding the Golden Statue for the Walrus King
via a series of tower defence levels, each a little more difficult than
the next. Beginning with a single unit, your army grows over the course of
the game, until there is chaos all over the screen. Lovely stuff.
Final
Fantasy Xiii the collector’s edition, will cost €71.99, ($103) which
isn't bad for Europe but would I buy it? No!
More
gnewplus has Gran Turismo 5's release date down as March the 25th in
Japan.
More
Harvest Moon: Sunshine Islands has just been released for the Nintendo
DS. Check out the review on Siliconera.
More
Hudson
will be releasing expansion packs for Karaoke Joysound, on the Nintendo
Wii. Sometime this year they will be releasing Karaoke Joysound
Wii: Duet Songs and Karaoke Joysound Wii: Enka/Ballad. (see the
trailer
below)
More
Atlus
and SNK will be releasing Metal Slug XX in North America, on February
the 23rd, on the PSP.
More
Madcatz has released a Tatsunoko vs. Capcom themed joystick for the
Nintendo Wii and it works with other
Wii fighting games, and virtual console titles as
well.
More
Joysound DX trailer
Freeware Game Pick: Sunshine (Kyle Gabler)
Sunshine
is a project created by Kyle Gabler (one half of 2D Boy) for the
Experimental Gameplay's art game theme, where players are tasked with
guiding a plant towards the skies while growing flowers and avoiding
rocks. Looping around people causes them to turn into flowers, which gives
off more energy for your plant to grow taller. It is necessary to trap as
many people as you can for combos, since doing that rewards more energy
compared to going for one of them at a time. (Windows, 10.6MB)
Freeware Game Pick: Quick as Thieves (Gents of
Fortune)
Quick as
Thieves is a third-person action game in which you play as a thief out
to steal an item called 'MacGuffin' from a museum. Though driven by a
single objective that has to be completed in under ten minutes, there is
plenty of room in your sack for just about every item you can get your
grubby hands on. Guards will try to stop you on sight, but the combat is a
simple affair of tapping the button rapidly until you counter their
collective attacks.
The game plays like a variation of the Katamari series, and the loot that
you acquire actually serves the purpose of upgrading the thief's skill
sets. There are a couple of easter eggs to be found (the gallery near the
staircase is one), and if you happen to get lost inside the museum all you
have to do is follow the red carpet to find your way to the treasure
vault.
An Xbox360 controller is required to play the game, and visitors can only
download from the
Dare to be Digital site after creating a user account and logging in
with it (or you can use this, username: indygamer, password: password).
Note that the download server might be offline during peak hours. Quick as
Thieves was one of the three games shortlisted for a
BAFTA award earlier last year. (Windows, 281MB)
Browser Game Pick: Hoshi Saga Ringo (Nekogames)
Hoshi Saga
Ringo is a collection of twenty-five new puzzles designed by Yoshio
Ishii, in which players must figure out the correct method to reveal a
star that is hidden somewhere in every stage. The difficulty for each
puzzle is indicated by the stars shown just below the preview image for
each level, although most of them are actually pretty easy to solve
compared to previous iterations in the series.
Have you ever wished you could play PC games in
front of your TV, in the front room? Check out the iGUGU Gamecore; it
comes with a track and a keyboard. It's designed to play with PC
games.
More
Duke Nukem fan made trailer
A random picture
4th of January 2010
Famitsu has an update of Red Steel 2 for the Nintendo Wii.
More
PAL
versions of BlazeBlue, will get unlimited versions of every BlazBlue
character, plus extra colours for customization. Maybe the wait
was worth it.
More
Namco
Bandai are releasing Gundam Assault Survive for the PSP. Amazon
Japan has the game down for March the 10th. here's a translation of
the page.
More (source)
Yoichi
Wada, President and Residential Director of Square Enix, has sent out
a New Years greeting.
More
Record of Agarest War: US trailer
Freeware Game Pick: Adrenaline (Adrenaline Team)
Adrenaline is a freeware multiplayer
top-down shooter created with the Game Maker engine, featuring a wide
variety of weapons to use, four different game modes and support for
user-created maps in addition to the official maps that comes with the
download. The latest version of the game (1.0.0, released on January 1st
2010) includes plenty of graphical settings that can be tweaked to
accomodate slower computers, a single-player mode with bots, and even stat
tracking for registered Reflect users.
Besides your standard ranged weapon, you can also swing a knife for melee
attacks or throw grenades to hurt other players. The frequent
disconnections and lags could disrupt your enjoyment of it, but if you are
looking for a multiplayer deathmatch game that is free to play then
Adrenaline might fit the bill nicely. (source,
controls)
3rd of January 2010
Atlus
are now going to be publishing SNK games in North America. Let's
hope they do a better job of advertising them than Play-on.
More
People
are selling the Chocobo code for the avatar on Ebay. Why would
anyone want to buy an avatar for their Xbox 360 is beyond me.
More
Mistwalker are set to produce an iPhone game soon. Nothing is
known about it at the moment, but I have a sneaky suspicion that it
will be a roll playing game.
More
PlatinumGames has a countdown on their website. What it
represents, no one knows.
More
Video: 100 Game Maker Games in 10 Minutes (2009
Edition)
Matt Scorah of the GameMaker Blog spent the last few
weeks putting this video together, and I can confirm that it is awesome.
All of the games featured were either made or completed in 2009, with
every developer allowed to have a maximum of only two games in it.
Wonderfully experimental music maker, this. By
creating note bars, gates and spawners, then fiddling around with a
variety of sounds, noises and effects, Audia allows the user to create
some incredibly brilliant sounding music pieces courtesy of bouncing bloom
balls.
The controls are initially a little difficult to understand, but once
you're going it's beautiful stuff. Holding down the middle mouse button
creates a ball spawner, while holding the right mouse button creates bars
which, when collided with, supply the music. Once you've got these basics
down, there are a ton of special effects you can get on the go - changing
the pitch, tone, volume etc of a note; placing 'gates' which allow for
specific timing of notes; crazy movements for the note bar, like pulsing
and spinning.
Awesome fun to play around with - you can even save your compositions for
others to listen to. Go give your creative mind a workout at
Gamejolt.
Peter Jackson is to be knighted in the year years
honours list and I'm very pleased to hear that.
More
1st of January 2010
All is quiet on New Year's Day.
A world in white gets underway.
I want to be with you, be with you night and day.
Nothing changes on New Year's Day.
On New Year's Day.
5pb,
the publisher behind Ketsui and dating games like Steins;Gate, are
working on a horror game for the Xbox 360, called Corpse Party: Blood
Covered.
More
Natsume have trademarked two new games: Witch’s Wish and Harvest Moon:
Hero of Leaf Valley for the PSP.
More
