(Official website) There ain't really any interesting news these few days, hence I haven't been posting much. There are a couple of awesome retails PC games coming and coming "soon" with the likes of Battlefield 3, Diablo III and more. So, in order not to stay stagnant, I have uploaded a few game footage for Bioware's latest Free to Play title, Warhammer Online: Wrath of Heroes.
The videos are from Closed Beta by the way, and I was kind of disappointed it wasn't more action-based. I mean, point-and-click in such a nice PvP game with normal attack as one of the unchangeable skills as well? Sigh... But well, you might love it!
By now, you've likely heard the big news out of the Nintendo 3DS Conference 2011, the company's pre-TGS event: Monster Hunter 4 and a new Fire Emblem are coming to 3DS, the eShop and other aspects of the system are to be improved, and a pink system will be out in Japan next month. The lone bit of non-3DS news was Shigeru Miyamoto showing off The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword at the show's beginning, mentioning that the game could provide 50-100 hours of gameplay. As for 3DS, there was no news about the second circle pad attachment or the rumored 3DS redesign; instead, Nintendo answered one oft-heard criticism -- that 3DS doesn't have enough games -- by showing more than two dozen titles, many of which were new. (And many of which won't make it outside of Japan.)
As far as first-party content goes, there were the usual suspects of Super Mario 3D Land (dated for November 3) and Mario Kart 7 (December 7). Keep in mind those and every other release date mentioned are intended only for Japan, so don't get your heart set on any dates -- although both of those games are expected out in November and December, respectively, in the United States.
Kid Icarus: Uprising had been planned to be out this holiday; it's now scheduled for release in January, so it won't be out this year as expected. Satoru Iwata talked about a Kid Icarus anime of some sort that will be produced and released on 3DS worldwide through the Nintendo Video app.
Games both new and previously-announced constituted the majority of Nintendo's pre-TGS event. It did have some news about the system itself, though there were no major announcements regarding a redesign or anything quite so dramatic.
Several pieces of software on the system are going to be improved. In addition to the existing ability to take 3D photos, an update will allow for 3D videos to be captured with the system's cameras. The StreetPass Mii Plaza will be getting upgraded to provide additional things to do for those who (unlike me) have already managed to conquer what it has to offer. The eShop, too, will be getting some sort of improvements, but Satoru Iwata wasn't specific in saying what changes might be introduced.
In hardware news, just days after Nintendo of America announced a pink DSi XL and the flame red 3DS went on sale in the United States, Iwata revealed a pink 3DS for Japan. It'll be available on October 20.
After going on about Monster Hunter Tri-G (or 3G), a gameplay trailer was shown for something that began with just the words "Monster Hunter" running over it. It wasn't additional gameplay from Tri-G, but instead an announcement trailer for Monster Hunter 4.
Monster Hunter may not be that big of a deal in the United States, but it's huge in Japan, so this is a major announcement in the Japanese market. No release date was provided and it wasn't discussed at all, as the trailer closed out the event. But we know it's coming to 3DS; whether it'll also land on Vita or any other system, we don't yet know.
MH4 was easily the biggest news of the show, though Satoru Iwata also shared some information about Tri-G. There wasn't much new about it, but a release date of December 10 in Japan was announced along with a price of 5,800 yen (about $75).
Nintendo showed off a great deal of 3DS games during its pre-TGS event in Japan, and perhaps the biggest first-party surprise was a new Fire Emblem game.
There were rumblings of a new entry in the series coming to 3DS, and that was confirmed by CEO Satoru Iwata during the event. A brief bit of gameplay was shown -- a screenshot of that is above -- and it looks like it retains the same style of turn-based strategy gameplay as previous games, though we'll have to wait to learn more before we can say anything definitively.
A release date of spring in Japan was listed after the brief showing. There's no guarantee that it'll come to North America, where the series has never been a big deal, but one would hope Nintendo won't hold back on quality content for a platform starved for it. Then again, look at Xenoblade Chronicles and Wii.
Hirokazu "Hip" Tanaka's career has spanned from making sound effects for forgotten arcade games like Space Firebird as a junior engineer at Nintendo to co-managing the development of the unstoppably pervasive Pokémon as the president of Creatures, Inc. But the hardest of hardcore Nintendo fans also recognize him as the composer of some of gaming's most innovative soundtracks, including the ethereal sci-fi dirges of Metroid and the surreal soundscapes of EarthBound.
EarthBound has one of the most unconventional soundtracks ever heard in a game. It was technically inventive, making extensive use of sampling before that technique had become commonplace in mainstream popular music. And it was often unsettling, with discordant melodies, eerily isolated tunes, and frequently distorted instruments lending the entire game a sense of strangeness and unease. This fits the iconoclastic style of EarthBound itself, but when Matt Leone and I interviewed Tanaka yesterday, we were curious to know why the game's sound stylings turned out so radically different from the norm of 16-bit video games.
The rhythm game that allows you re-experience Final Fantasy games past (from the first through XIII) has gotten a gameplay trailer showing off what it's like to fight FF monsters within the confines of the rhythm genre.
Theatrhythm Final Fantasy was announced for 3DS back in July, much to the surprise of everyone (probably including those who conceived of the idea as an April Fools' joke in 2001). The strange name had been heard of previously thanks to trademark filings, and we did get a few screenshots and details in July, though they were hardly enough to provide a good feeling for what the game is all about.
The video above shows off a full minute and a half of gameplay, demonstrating the different way gameplay works. Battle sequences have your four characters lined up on the right side, each with a slot to tap (or hold or slide) as an indicator scrolls by. This causes the corresponding character to attack. Walking through a field shows just one character and cues fly in through the middle of the screen from left to right. The trailer also shows off how the style changes to match the many different FF games it features.
If, like me, you enjoy keeping an eye on Twitter during NFL games and you follow any NFL Sunday Ticket subscribers, you saw some complaints yesterday from users experiencing issues. It was the first Sunday of the season and the first time subscribers -- after agreeing to pay $339.95 to get every Sunday game this season -- were able to watch NFL games on their PlayStation 3, and unfortunately DirecTV ran into some problems.
It was just last month that we learned that Sunday NFL Ticket would be made available to non-DirecTV customers through the PlayStation Network. Aside from shocking those who were unaware of how much it costs (the $340 works out to $20 per week), it was exciting news for those who are otherwise unable to watch their favorite team's games from home.
So you can only imagine the frustration users experienced when they were unable to watch the early slate of games, which included quite a few excellent match-ups. Some people were unable to log in while others were subjected to the same looping video over and over. (IGN's Greg Miller was among those who were unable to watch, as he demonstrates in the video above.) And it wasn't just PS3 users who were having trouble -- NFL Sunday Ticket To-Go (which allows you to watch on certain mobile devices, computers, and tablets) was also experiencing technical difficulties.
"It's not you, it's me." That's the message the Japanese gaming industry is telling the world this week at TGS. "Our games are as good as ever, they're just not for you anymore."
Critics in the west have been crowing about the supposed death of the Japanese industry for years. And while their critiques have a certain degree of truth to them, they're missing the point. Japanese game development did run into trouble during this console generation, but their issues are so removed from the average gamer's experience (workforce and labor management) as to be meaningless. The games themselves are as good as they've ever been, but they're just not made for the entire world anymore. Japanese games are now by and large made to appeal almost exclusively to Japanese gamers. Rather than this being another piece that focuses on the alleged downfall of the Japanese industry, we thought we should focus on why Japanese games and western tastes have diverged so much in recent years. There's no single cause that can explain the phenomena -- the possible reasons range from the social and economic, to the practical and mundane. Regardless, the fact remains that Japanese gamers are now seeking different experiences from North Americans and Europeans.
After acquiring Impulse and Spawn Labs earlier this year, GameStop indicated it was looking into the possibility of launching its own gaming-focused tablet. Beginning next year, it'll do just that.
"If we can work with our partners and the OEMs and they come up with a great table that is enabled with a great gaming experience and coupled with a bluetooth controller, then there's no need to go out and develop our own," GameStop president Tony Bartel said back in April. "But if we can't find one that's great for gaming, then we will create our own."
The videogame retailer has now decided to go with a third-party tablet running Android. Claiming that there are already about 300 on the market, Bartel told GamesIndustry.biz he didn't "see any need to create a new one."
The debate about whether or not used games are good for the industry continues. Heavy Rain developer Quantic Dream's co-founder, Guillaume de Fondaumiere, is decidedly on the side of them not being good for business. In fact, he blames the secondhand market for a loss of between $6.8 and $13.6 million in royalties.
"I would say that the impact that the recession had, that the most important impact especially on AAA games on console, was the rise of second hand gaming," he told GamesIndustry.biz. "And I think this is one of the number one problems right now in the industry.
"I can take just one example of Heavy Rain. We basically sold to date approximately two million units, we know from the trophy system that probably more than three million people bought this game and played it. On my small level it's a million people playing my game without giving me one cent. And my calculation is, as Quantic Dream, I lost between 5 and 10 million [Euros] worth of royalties because of second hand gaming."
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As of this writing, the Warhammer Online servers are offline as the team deploys the 1.4.4 update to the game. The new patch brings several key changes to existing systems as well as new packs of vanity pets, personality packs and more.
Wargaming.net has announced that the official site for World of Battleships has launched. The site is a bit thin at the moment but does have some nice screenshots, a video and a bit about the game.
Welcome to the next installment of our continuing series, TERA Tuesdays. MMORPG.com has partnered with TERA devs and En Masse to bring you the best TERA screens on the Net. This week we feature three new screens with tons of sharply turned corners and wicked weapons. Check them out in our TERA Tuesdays: All Sharp Angles & Pointy Things feature.
Recently, SOE's John Smedley opined that SWTOR would be one of the last big budget MMOs with a subscription model. In The Free Zone today, MMORPG.com's Richard Aihoshi takes a look at Smedley's opinion and offers a few thoughts about its viability. Keep reading and then let us know what you think in the comments.
During PAX, the Star Wars: The Old Republic team was excited to show off the latest PvP area, The Alderaan Warzone. MMORPG.com Managing Editor Bill Murphy had the opportunity to check it out and has a firsthand report. Keep reading and then let us know your thoughts.
Most MMO players have spent years looking for the 'right' MMO in which to spend their time. Along the way, the myriad problems with attaining that ideal have been voiced by the gaming community. In today's Guild Wars 2 column, MMORPG.com's David North discusses how Arena.Net is breaking the MMO mold on many fronts, most notably the one where developers actually look at player concerns and listen to the voices of their fan base. Keep reading!
A lore piece has cropped up on the official Guild Wars 2 blog that spotlights a story written three years ago as the team began exploring what an Asura would be like. Meet Mr. Sparkles. While the story is from 2008, we are assured that it has import to Guild Wars 2.
Sister site, FPSGuru.com is running a new give away for players and/or guilds that utilize in game chat servers. Up to five winners will be selected and will win free Hypernia server hosting for either three or six months.
Face of Mankind devs have sent word that they are hard at work on a forthcoming patch that will feature a complete mission system overhaul. Mission systems is a more "free form" questing system and one that the team has been actively working on for the last several weeks.
Turbine has called Dungeons & Dragons Online Update 11 the biggest update so far. Called "Secrets of the Artificer", Update 11 brings the Artificer class to the game as well as a high-level quest hub, crafting alterations and more.
The Mortal Online dev team has sent out a new video featuring a showcase look at changes coming to the Territory Control system in a future update. The video highlights some of the major alterations coming in the update.
In a new article on the Guild Wars 2 site to begin Asura Week, Arena.Net's Matt Barrett talks about designing the Asura to capture exactly what the race is without making it to creepy or too cute.
During PAX, MMORPG.com's Carolyn Koh had the opportunity to check out the just-announced Warhammer Online: Wrath of Heroes, a new MOBA based on the Warhammer IP. Carolyn's got the full report on Wrath of Heroes that you won't want to miss. Read on!
Today marks the official launch of Petroglyph's Rise of Immortals, a new entry into the wildly popular MOBA field. Sister site RTSGuru.com has a launch day review of the game in which Joseph Sanicky says, "Your mileage may vary, you might not find the game challenging or competitive enough but Petroglyph has brought in a social aspect like no other MOBA."
GamesCampus will be taking over service for 9Dragons. Current players have until September 15th to "opt in" to have their existing accounts transferred to GamesCampus.
