General gaming

General gaming

Tokyo Game Show 2011: The Famitsu Reader Survey

Posted: 12 Oct 2011 06:53 AM PDT

The 2011 Tokyo Game Show may be over, but for the 222,668 attendees that stormed the Makuhari Messe expo center across four days last month, it was a memorable (if kind of crowded and sweaty) event). The PS Vita made its large-scale playable debut at the con, as did the new 3DS Monster Hunter, and that in itself was enough to make this the biggest TGS ever in terms of attendance, more than double the number that came around to the very first show back in 1996.

Famitsu magazine was polling showgoers on the con floor about their top picks, as they do every year, and the results were published in this week's issue. Some of the highlights:

Time Travelers, Now Multiplatform, Detailed

Posted: 12 Oct 2011 06:21 AM PDT

It's been a while since Level-5 let the public have a peek at Time Travelers, the 3DS adventure game penned by Jiro Ishii of 428 fame. Famitsu magazine let out some more details this week, and the biggest news for net-forum console warriors may be that the game's no longer a 3DS exclusive -- instead, it'll be coming out sometime in 2012 for the 3DS, PSP, and Vita.

Time Travelers is set in Tokyo circa 2031, a place where a lot seems to be happening all at once. 18 years previous, a massive explosion -- whether it was a natural phenomenon or a terror act was never determined -- literally ripped a hole in the skyline which still exists today. A space elevator shoots into the sky from the harbor, and holographic advertising lines the streets. The story is centered around Mikoto Shindo, a girl with natural time-travel skills that gets involved with thwarting the plans of Skeleton, a new terrorist group that kicks off the game by hijacking a downtown bus.

The New Wii Fatal Frame Still Exists

Posted: 11 Oct 2011 08:02 PM PDT

You may remember, a month and a half ago, when Tecmo and Nintendo introduced a new game in the Fatal Frame series...sort of. Shinrei Camera, a 3DS title that uses the system's AR hardware and a pack-in notebook to simulate real-life horror, is due out sometime in the future in Japan...but what about the new Wii Fatal Frame project, first announced way back last year?

According to Famitsu, the game -- which was last mentioned at a Nintendo shareholder conference last summer -- isn't dead yet. The magazine added the as-yet-unnamed Wii Fatal Frame to its release calendar in this week's issue, and to many people's surprise, it's still a Wii project. (This may be because the game is far along enough that moving it over to WiiU would be counterproductive. Then again, it may just be because Tecmo is feeling a bit lazy. Who knows?)

Level-5 Releasing 3DS Indie-Game Bundle of Sorts

Posted: 11 Oct 2011 06:56 PM PDT

Akihiro Hino, founder and president of Japanese game developer Level-5, is currently juggling multiple game and anime projects (including the latest incarnation of Mobile Suit Gundam...and yet he's still found the time to experiment a bit. In the pages of this week's Famitsu magazine, Level-5 took the wraps off GUILD01, a Nintendo 3DS title that, in a way, sounds like a Japanese console-biz take on the Humble Indie Bundle.

A collection of four distinct games set to be sold in a single package, GUILD01 features the following titles:

Poor Valkyria Chronicles II Sales Mean No VCIII for the West

Posted: 11 Oct 2011 04:06 PM PDT

Valkyria Chronicles III

Don't expect to see a localized version of Valkyria Chronicles III: Unrecorded Chronicles in North America or Europe anytime soon.

Sega's Hiroshi Seno has revealed to GameSpot that the publisher has no plans to create an English version of the RPG for western markets. That's thanks to the overall lack of popularity of the PlayStation Portable (which the second and third VC games were made for) in those regions and the poor sales of the second game.

Valkyria Chronicles II was released last August to fairly strong reviews. Its predecessor wasn't a huge seller on PlayStation 3 in North America but was much beloved by those who did play it. A fan campaign did manage to lead to a sizable jump in sales, though not enough to convince Sega to create another console title.

Today's Xbox 360 Update isn't the Big One, But a Beta is on the Way

Posted: 11 Oct 2011 03:33 PM PDT


A lot of new features are on the way to Xbox Live later this year: a redesigned dashboard, enhanced Kinect support, Bing voice search, and a UFC app are just some of the new features you can expect. An Xbox 360 update released earlier today doesn't provide any of those new features. In fact, as far as you're concerned as an end-user, it doesn't do anything -- though that doesn't mean you won't get an earlier look at those new features than expected.

The Microsoft Connect site has an area set up for interested Xbox 360 owners to apply to become a beta tester for the new dashboard update. Earlier today it was accepting users, but as Joystiq reports, the site has been altered to note that registrations are not being accepted at the moment. That's likely because this went public sooner than expected and Microsoft isn't ready to begin soliciting users for testers. The good news is that some 360 users won't have to wait until the update is out to try out some of the new functionality.

We're still without an exact date for when the update is coming. The UFC app has been dated for December 1, ahead of the December 10 PPV that can be ordered through it. Presumably the dashboard update itself will be out before then; November 15 was reportedly a date being eyed, as indicated by an internal PayPal email. More recently, GigaOM reported that the update is based on Microsoft's Silverlight and that a release on Black Friday -- November 25 -- is instead being targeted.

Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer Can Impact Single-Player Story's Outcome

Posted: 11 Oct 2011 02:03 PM PDT

Mass Effect 3

There was quite a negative outcry yesterday when BioWare finally confirmed what was suspected for quite some time: Mass Effect 3 features multiplayer. Not only will a four-player co-op mode be present in the game upon release next March, it can impact the storyline in the single-player game.

Before single-player fans begin panicking, there's an important detail you'll want to hear: it's all completely optional. You'll still be able to complete the game in the most ideal way possible without ever diving into the multiplayer portion; it's merely an option for those who wish to take advantage of it.

This news comes by way of a forum post authored by BioWare staffer Chris Priestly. Many details are being kept under wraps, but enough information was shared that those who complained about the single-player game being negatively impacted should feel better.

How an iOS Shooter Was Almost Pulled Because its Ship Was Too Much Like Asteroids'

Posted: 11 Oct 2011 12:34 PM PDT

Alien Space Retro old look

Shooters are among the most popular videogame genres on iOS. With the system lacking any physical buttons for games to use, they are able to work well enough with touchscreen sticks and a minimal number of buttons. Countless shooters have been launched on the App Store in the hopes of being noticed.

Alien Space Retro is one such game that has managed to grab gamers' attention. Released earlier this year, it has garnered an average rating of four stars (out of five) on iTunes and received an equally favorable response from many reviewers -- with good reason, from what I've played of it. It's the second iOS game from independent developer Owens Rodriguez, who created the game all on his own. His previous game, Alien Space, took over two years to develop while he still had a regular game development job.

After going indie full-time, its sequel was created in about six months and now accounts for more than half of his income. That doesn't mean it generates enough money to sustain himself -- Rodriguez knew this was a path he would eventually take and wisely saved enough to let him get by in the meantime -- and it certainly isn't enough to fight a legal battle against a big company.

Review: Ace Combat Assault Horizon Tries Too Hard to be Call of Duty

Posted: 11 Oct 2011 12:03 PM PDT

It's impossible to deny the influence of Call of Duty. Every game publisher has analysts and consultants whispering in their ear: "Make your game more like COD and your Metascore and sales will shoot through the roof." It's clear that Namco Bandai heeded their advice when making Ace Combat Assault Horizon, and the results are not pretty.

Assault Horizon's story bears some eerie similarity to the Modern Warfare series. Russians? Check. America being attacked? Check. Washington DC? Check. Remember that huge "twist" in the middle of COD 4? They do that one too. All this copying wouldn't be so bad if it was actually done well. Ace Combat's story is dumb. Not COD-style over-the-top dumb either. The narrative is told with an earnestness and lack of self-awareness that only anime-inspired Japanese games can manage. And that's really what the Ace Combat series is: a mecha anime with robots swapped out for planes. It's like they let Snow from Final Fantasy XIII write the script.

Assassin's Creed: Revelations Adds Everything From Hookblades to Tower Defense

Posted: 11 Oct 2011 12:03 PM PDT

Early on in Assassin's Creed: Revelations, a young Turkish man exclaims, "You don't have a hookblade? You Italians really need to join the 16th century!"

That moment of exasperation and bafflement somewhat typifies Revelations. By the time I'm using the hookblade to latch onto buildings for those just-beyond-your-fingertips jumps, or to tumble onto foes, or to vault myself forward from a lantern, I am wondering, "why the heck did this not arrive until the fourth game?" So far, from playing a mix of memory sequences taking place in the early hours of Revelations' campaign, I'm noticing that most of the new elements fall in the "this should have been in the other games," while some still feel a bit odd and extraneous, like the new tower defense mode (more on that in a bit).

Posted by Shri Krishna

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