DAVESWORLD

NEWS: PAGE 1

Welcome to the news section, which will be updated on a daily basis or when something interesting is available to write about.

A lot of the news will be text only.  This is because most news are usually rumours and inaccurate.

If I take any news from any other site, I will mention where it came from.

Archives

10th of March 2010

	imageepoch’s Arc Rise Fantasia, will be dubbed in English when it's released in North America.  More
	Famitsu covered Atlus's new game called Blaze Union: Story to Reach the Future.  It's made for PSP and will be released on May the 27th, 2010.  More
	Yoichi Wada, President and CEO of Square Enix, explains why Final Fantasy XIII was released on Xbox 360.  "The Xbox team has been asking us to have a [Final Fantasy] game developed on our platform,”  More
	Lunar: Silver Star Harmony is the forth game in the series for PSP but is it worth buying or not?  More
	Namco Bandai will be remaking Tales of Phantasia and will also include Tales of Phantasia: Narikiri Dungeon for PSP.  More

Zeno Clash: Ultimate Edition trailer

Senko no Ronde Duo

First Spelunky XBLA Screenshots Released

Granted that these screenshots are still a work in progress and may look different at a later date, but the new images posted up on Spelunky World today does show what kind of art direction that Derek is going for in the upcoming XBLA version of Spelunky.

The game is still scheduled for a release on the Xbox Live Arcade service sometime in 2010. Derek will also be participating in an hour-long IGS panel on the subject of art this year together with Edmund McMillen (Super Meat Boy), David Hellman (Braid) and Ben Ruiz (Aztez), so if you're attending GDC don't miss the session which happens on Wednesday, March 10th.

8th of March 2010

	Cing Inc, developers of Hotel Dusk, are filing for bankruptcy.  The company started bankruptcy proceedings on March the 1st, 2010.  Considering the high praise these games have been receiving, it is disappointing to find out that their finance wasn't doing so well.  More
	According to the LA Times, Warner Bros are in negotiations with Taito to acquire the rights of Space Invaders to make a movie.  Why?  More
	D3 will be releasing their first batch of Playstation one games.  - Simple Series Vol. 14 The Block Buster - Simple Series Vol. 15 The Pachinko - Simple Series Vol. 18 The Bowling - Simple Series Vol. 31 The Sound Novel.  More
	Mega Man 3 will be arriving on the Playstation Network in Japan sometime in April.  That should please Commander Tim.  More
	Hironobu Sakaguchi, has said that Last Story will have real-time battles.  He refers to it as "Realtime system."  More

Nier Replicant trailer, focuses on Nier

Standalone Demo for Hazard: The Journey of Life Now Available

A standalone demo for Alexander Bruce's Hazard: The Journey of Life is now available for download. This UT3 mod was selected as one of the finalists for the Sense of Wonder Night 2009 event, and it even won a couple of prizes in the Make Something Unreal contest.

You won't need Unreal Tournament 3 installed on your PC to play the UDK build of Hazard. The full version will be available sometime in 2010.

Trailer: JoyJoy (Radiangames)

JoyJoy is a beautiful-looking twin-stick shooter coming to Xbox Live Indie Games in the next couple of months. Apparently this is the first game in a series of releases by Radiangames. There's an interview with Luke Schneider, the one-man band behind it all, over on Gamasutra.

Freeware Game Pick: Fish Face (Beau Blyth)

Fish Face is a one-button arcade game with three levels to play, each taking roughly five to ten minutes to complete. Here you play as a fish that uses its buoyancy to move in and out of the water, avoiding walls or enemies that will hurt our aquatic friend on impact.

Red loops can be collected for points, while the blue ones act as checkpoint locations that you can return to when your fish crashes into a solid object. Fish Face was originally created by Beau Blyth for submission into the Gamma IV competition, though the game eventually lost out and didn't make it through the final cut. (Windows, 3.36MB)

Indie Game Pick: Siromaru (Abaruzu)

Shiromaru is a 2D action game in which you attack enemies by committing suicide and causing a chain of explosions. The longer the chain reaction, the more extra life items appear for you to collect. Certain enemies glow brighter than the rest, indicating that you should aim for them for a larger explosion and a better chance to create longer chains.

This demo features three levels to play and an extra hard mode with just the first stage to sample. The game isn't particularly difficult to beat, but one cool thing about it is that you can die even at the title screen. Download it here or here. (Windows, 21.0MB)

Gear box has sent this list of codes to Kotaku for their Playstation 3 version of Borderlands expansion pack.  I don't know how many have been used but give it a try.  Try from the bottom upwards.

K382-24BB-DL38
MPDB-E4BA-K2EJ
8595-3MBP-M83F
AEQM-5BB2-4KAG
B6LT-A8BR-7F64
QF78-25B5-BA6J
D7BN-LNBJ-935B
3PN2-N8B7-3425
EE5E-2EBP-C5N3
47HF-GABR-B28N
BCAC-D6BT-LF9M
ADEK-6RB5-3CFC
G46D-59BQ-QEQE
K2P5-J5BC-K57M
9R3D-DMBR-FEPH
ELQJ-27B2-EBPP
48FM-FMBP-27QH
46PC-2MB6-MLMK
B3C6-E4BB-6H72
FCMG-LMBG-RL42
2B78-4HBD-ARR3
PN77-N5BH-HJTM
GBLK-EPBB-DHCH
K6NE-F6BB-72MG
RP7F-B4BG-LTTH

6th of March 2010

I have finally put together my new PC and hopefully should improve the sound quality as well.

	Project E:st, uses the Crytek 3 engine and was rumoured to be an mmorpg.  Check out the trailer below.  More
	Disgaea Infinite has bee given a date sometime in June.  More
	If you are a fan of 'Amine,' you will be interested to know that Amazon has a sale on at the moment.  More
	Capcom are producing 'Megaman' themed sweets.  More
	Valhalla Game Studios, founded by Tomonobu Itagaki and Satoshi Kanematsu, are working on a large scale project that's a “big project for high definition game consoles.” More

Project E:st trailer

Metal Max 3 trailer

4th of March 2010

	I wish companies in the west were this generous.  Square Enix will be giving away iPod touches to members of their program.  The site hasn't got much up yet but here's the link anyway.  More (source More)
	WTF! Square Enix will be disbanding their in-house music department.  Final Fantasy XIII composer, Masashi Hamauzu, will be leaving the company and I would guess, will be starting up his own company to sell the same work back to Square Enix.  The fools!  More
	If you live in Japan, you might want to look out for this months Famitsu, It will be covering a brand new RPG never mentioned before.  More
	Aksys are releasing a title called Mimana Iyar Chronicles, for PSP.  If you want terrible porn like conversations. E.g. 'My body feels . . . excited . . . I suspect the release of numerous bodily fluids is . . . Imminent,' then this RPG will be right up you street!  More
	Platinum Games has added more screenshots to their website, for their new game Vanquish.  More
	If you understand Japanese, you will love this website.  It's called the Microsoft Mission Department and looks like a parody of 'Mission Impossible.'  More
	A long time ago in a galaxy far, far, far way; lived a company called Data East and they release a few games called Metal Max.  Apparently, after so many years, this series will be  getting a third game for the Nintendo DS.  More

Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey

Browser Game Pick: Steambirds (Andy Moore and Dan Cook)

Steambirds is a turn-based aerial dogfight game that is viewed from a top-down perspective, where players are given command of a squadron of planes with their own unique abilities to deploy. Anyone familiar with strategy games like the Advance Wars series would feel right at home here, with the only differences being that combat takes place in the skies and rigid tile-based movement has been done away with.

A tutorial is provided to teach you the basics of issuing orders to your planes, and as the years advance newer weapons and harder enemies will be introduced at a steady pace to vary the proceedings a little bit. There are also bonus levels to attempt for anyone who has completed the main campaign mode, although only one mission is actually playable at the moment with more content to come in the coming weeks.

The Japanese do love looking a women's/girl's backsides

Rumours of a script about 'Ghost in the Shell' has started to circulate but it may be directed by Steven Spielberg.  More

Ubisoft has changed the way Assassins Creed 2 saves player's game.  It will return the player back to the exact point that they were removed from when their internet connection dropped.  It's still awful but it's better than what was on offer before.  More

2nd of March 2010

	The producer of Final Fantasy XIII, talks about the monster missions in the game.  “I can assure you that the mission monsters were designed first and foremost to present players with a real challenge,” said Inoue.
“So much so, in fact, that our producer Mr. Kitase even came to us complaining he could not beat some of them and had no idea what to do, despite fighting with none of the handicaps mentioned above.”  More
	A brand new Gradius game is a reason to celebrate.  Konami has trademarked Gradius Arc.  More
	The bug that was found on older Playstation 3 systems may be fixed.  More
	Is Ragnarok a place in Norse mythology?  Anyway; Ragnatok DS will be released soon.  More
	Christian Svensson is VP of Strategic Planning & Business Development at Capcom U.S.  He gives Gamasutra an interview and talks about the items that players will be able to purchase in Super Street Fighter IV.  More

Browser Game Pick: Gravity Hook HD (Adam Atomic)

Adam Atomic's original Gravity Hook game has now been updated to HD, featuring higher-definition artwork, gameplay rebalancing, new elements, Twitter support, and remixes of the original soundtrack plus new songs by his collaborative brother Danny B.

Reaching the 500m goal to unlock the first Gravity Hook build is easily attainable, but the game does get pretty hard past that point as just about every mine is placed even more sporadically than in the lower levels. Time to get hooked right away, and if you have an iPhone there are even greater news as Adam has promised to release a mobile version for your choice of Apple device very soon.

Play Gravity Hook HD here.

Freecol v0.9.1 is a Colonization style game but is completely free.  If you are interested, you can get the Windows, Linux and Mac versions of the game here.

Can anyone tell me what these pictures have to do with a robot game? Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier EXCEED was co-developed by Banpresto and Monolith Soft.  More

 Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier EXCEED  trailer

1st of March 2010

	In a strange twist of fate, SNK will be resuming repairs to their Neo Geo machines to celebrate its twentieth anniversary.  Weird or what?  More
	Namco Networks, Namco Bandai’s mobile games division, will be handling the cell phone version of Final Fantasy in the USA.  More
	Neo Geo games like Alpha Mission II, Baseball Stars Professional, League Bowling and Super Sidekicks will be soon released on the Playstation Network.  More
	Patrick Seybold, Senior Director of Corporate Communications in Sony, commented on the date rollback and 8001050F bug.  More

Trailer: Guerrilla Gardening (Spooky Squid Games)

Continuing the gardening theme for today, Guerrilla Gardening: Seeds of Revolution is a 'sneak and plant' pixel art game. Taking control of gardener Molly Greenthumb, the task is to turn a grey, boring city green by covering it in foliage.

Guards are plodding around everywhere, so stealth is the key to a successful mission. Flowers make the citizens happy, and special plants can be used to lure guards away from particular spots, scare them or simply put them to sleep. No word on a release date yet.

Jonathan Blow's The Witness Dev Blog

A development blog for Jonathan Blow's latest game The Witness has popped up on the official site, with some concept art adorning its pages.

While real details concerning the game have yet to be released, there are a nice bunch of images to feast your eyes on. From what is on show, I'd take a stab at it being some kind of adventure exploration game. I'm usually wrong though, so don't hold me to that.

Indie Game Pick: Flotilla (Blendo Games)

Brendon Chung's turn-based strategy game Flotilla is now available to download from the official site. There's a 60MB demo that you can try, while the full game costs $10. The trial version also includes an option to test out the two-player mode for both adventure and skirmish battles, although one of the players has to to plug in an Xbox 360 controller to play.

Windows only currently, but Brendon will also be releasing the game for the Xbox360 Live Indie Games channel soon.

27th of February 2010

	Shiren the Wanderer on Wii is one game I would love to play, if I owned the console; the trouble is I don't but is it any good or not?  More
	Siliconera has screen shots for Dragon Quest Monsters Joker 2.  It is starting to looking pretty, considering that it's on the Nintendo DS.  More
	Square Enix has trademarked Heroes of Abyssea, Scars of Abyssea and Vision of Abyssea in Europe.  Are these just more add-ons for Final Fantasy XI, or new franchises?  More
	Siliconera has a guide to Valkyria Chronicles 2 Password Content.  More
	Capcom has delayed the release of  Mega Man Zero Collection on DS.  More

Trailer: Shoot 1UP (Mommy's Best Games)

And another rather agreeable trailer to feast your eyes on, this time of the just-released Shoot 1UP - an Xbox Live Indie Games shooter.

It's got multi-ship control, 2 player co-op, weapon upgrades, something called a 'Plasma Auger' and ladies who fire missiles from their bits. All for 80 MS Points! That's a dollar!

More details here, Xbox Marketplace page here.

Trailer: Joe Danger (Hello Games)

Dangeeeer! Days after Hello Games didn't announce their bike-em-up is coming to the PSN store, we now have a lovely trailer to contend with.

Freeware Game Pick: Houkaimura (Peposoft)

Houkaimura (Breaking Town) is an action platformer that plays similarly to the Ghosts 'n Goblins series, where you have to guide an eggplant-headed character through eight levels packed with enemies, traps and boss encounters.

There are a large selection of weapons that you can find and collect, although players are limited to the use of just one type of weapon at any time. Not an easy game, but completely beatable in under an hour or less with repeated tries. You can also switch between windowed and full screen mode by pressing the Left Alt and Enter key. Download the game here. (Windows, 20.9MB)

Browser Game Pick: Home Sheep Home (Aardman Studios)

Home Sheep Home is a physics-based puzzler that features characters from Shaun the Sheep, a stop-motion animation series produced by the creators of Wallace and Gromit. The objective of the game is to get all three sheep to reach the signpost safely. This means players will have to switch between Shaun, Timmy and Shirley as needed to overcome the obstacles they come across.

There are only fifteen stages to play through, but you can also turn the hint system off for a bit of extra challenge. (official site, Kongregate mirror)