Cyberdimension Neptunia: 4 Goddesses Online – Time Eater For The Always Hungry

Posted on October 14, 2017 by geelw

I’m a bit behind in my Neptunia backlog, but I really do enjoy the games when I find time to play them. There’s a certain earnest goofiness to them that’s consistent and cute looks aside, there’s often a bit of profound wisdom mixed with the offbeat humor that sneaks into the writing and English localization that can be surprisingly refreshing for a JRPG. Anyway, here we go again, but with a few twists to the formula in Cyberdimension Neptunia: 4 Goddesses Online (which is out NOW for PS4 and coming soon to PC).

There’s a ton of stuff to cover in a game this big, but let’s just send you all right on over to the handy Newcomer’s Guide so you can see what you’re up against. Me, I’m just a busy bee here to post a gallery you get to peruse and maybe pick up the game at your earliest convenience. Also as usual, Idea Factory and Compile Heart are on the case and ever-busy developer Tamsoft is doing some of its best work on the visuals as you can see here and below the jump.

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The Evil Within 2: Perfect For Your Fright-day the 13th

Posted on October 13, 2017 by geelw

Confession time, again: other than dabbling with a friend’s copy for about 20 minutes or so back when it was launched, I didn’t play the original The Evil Within. Between my ridiculous backlog and other busyness, I never got around to getting to that game and its assorted freakish frights. Well, here we are some time later and guess what? The Evil Within 2 didn’t wait for me to even think about playing the first game before it popped up to say “Hi!” and it looks as if I might need grab this at some point or it’ll come to get me. Help!

Of course, if I don’t get the game, no one will notice, right (he said, looking around and then checking all the closets and under furniture for something that might come get him at some point)?. And here I was, saving up my pennies for Wolfenstein: The New Colossus (which has “Timeliest Game of the Year!” flashing over it in bright neon lights for some reason). Oh, Bethesda, you keep it up with this stuff and I’ll need to start carving holes in my schedule like a pumpkin. Still, I wouldn’t have it any other way (and neither should you).

-GW

8-Bit Adventure Anthology (Volume One): The Throwback With Bounce Ability

Posted on October 12, 2017 by geelw

Adventure game fans of old will really appreciate this one, a triple threat of classics set to be re-released by Absolution Games in the form of 8-Bit Adventure Anthology (Volume One), coming October 31 to Steam, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. No fancy updated visuals here (other than what looks like sharper cover art) for the three titles included.

So, what’s in that set, you’re asking? Well, let’s WALK up to the DOOR and take a PEEK inside:

The 8-Bit Adventure Anthology (Volume One) includes these classic games:

Shadowgate™: The wind whistles through the silent halls as you step through the stone threshold. You’ve just entered Shadowgate, a once shining castle, now an evil, dark moldering ruin. Swallow your fear and take up your torch. You are the ‘Seed of Prophecy’ and in your hands lies the fate of the world itself.

The Uninvited™: The last thing you remember was a figure appearing in the middle of the road and the sound of your sister’s screams over the screeching tires. When you come to, you discover two horrifying things: your sister is missing and the mansion that now looms before you seems to be calling your name…

Déjà Vu™: It’s 1942 and you wake up in a seedy bathroom with no idea how you got here or, for that matter, who you are. You grab a .38 hanging on the door, stumble up the stairs and find some stiff slumped over a desk with three bullet holes in him. You check your gun. Three bullets are missing. This is gonna be a bad day.

Yep, I can hear your brains all clicking into place now (well, those of you who recall playing these on PC or the NES back in the day). How about some screenshots to get you grinning? Okay, LOOK:

Pricing hasn’t been set yet, but I’m betting a few of you will be ignoring those Trick or Treaters just so you can camp out at home with the lights down low as you click away at solving and surviving the mysteries and assorted deathtraps that await. Well, that’s my plan and I’m sticking to it. While it won’t be a HIT with the kids ringing my doorbell, I’ll feel better knowing I’m not responsible for any cavities in the not to distant future.

-GW

Raiden V: Director’s Cut Blasts Onto PS4, PC

Posted on October 10, 2017 by geelw

Holy Cats – bullet hell pioneer Raiden is a quarter of a century old. Actually, it’s 27 if you go by purely chronological order, but I believe the series took a tiny bit of time off between installments and developer changes. Anyway, UFO Interactive and developer MOSS are finally jetting out the PS4 and Steam versions with added content (it seems Xbox One owners who got this last year are missing out) as Raiden V: Director’s Cut .

If you’re a longtime fan, well you know the drill in this arcade shmup: earth gets invaded by a fleet of alien ships and it’s up to you (solo play) and a partner (if you go co-op) to take out the trash before it blows all over the globe. Actually, those aliens end up invading a few global spaces, so it’s up to your fast reflexes and non-blinking eyes to get the job done.

Game Modes:

•Story Mode – All new story full of twists and turns! The story alters depending on your performance!
•Boss Mission – Defeat bosses under special conditions and compete in the leaderboards!
•Gallery – Dozens of character, concept, and game art waiting to be unearthed!

Features:

Tag in a friend and unleash devastation on your enemies!

Extreme Graphics – Full 1080P support to bring every explosion, missile attack, and Boss Kills to earth-shattering realism on HDTVs and monitors!

Tri-View HUD – New levels of frenetic, heart pounding, pulsing action as real-time game status changes, command center data and gameplay simultaneously update you on the action and your performance!

Fully narrated storyline for the first time in the series!

Fight your own path through a branching storyline!

Choose between three different ships to pilot, each with their own strengths and weaknesses and outfit them with nine different weapon types!

In addition to the game currently available on PSN, gog.com and Steam, you can also download some really nice free themed wallpapers for your PC here. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to get some eyeball exercise with a side of reflex action testing (or, I’m downloading this as we speak, folks).

-GW

ECHO on PS4: To Die For (Over and Over Again)

Posted on October 9, 2017 by geelw

ECHO_Keyart_Cube_Logo

ECHO_Keyart (Custom)

Well, any previous thoughts I had about the PS4 version of ECHO being “lesser” in visual quality from the PC version got a nice kick in the head with those lovely screenshots below arriving in my inbox. The console version drops on October 11 for a very reasonable $24.99 via PSN, but I’m betting collectors out there would snap this up as a limited edition physical version. Eh, we’ll see how this does, but friends I know who bought the PC version seem really pleased with their purchase.

“So, what’s the game about?” you ask? Well, I’ll let talented indie developer Ultra Ultra’s Game Director Martin Emborg tell you himself here. Me, I’ve got bigger fish to poach. No, seriously – I’m poaching fish for dinner tonight and I just stopped to post this before I got to my cooking. Back in a bit.

-GW

Symphony of Eternity VS My Old Eyes

Posted on October 6, 2017 by geelw

Grrr. I like a few of Kemco’s old-school style JRPGs, but I avoid the mobile versions because I hate playing games on a phone and having ads pop up every five minutes because I’m a complete cheapskate who doesn’t like buying additional content if a game says it’s free to play or has a budget price point.

Amusingly enough, I’ve picked up a few of their PSP, Vita and Nintendo 3DS releases over the years and for the most part, like what I’ve played. That said, their latest Nintendo 3DS/2DS game, Symphony of Eternity, ($7.99, Nintendo eShop) is making me go cuckoo because while I like it so far, warts and all… it’s hard to see the darn game thanks to a kooky design choice.

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Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen – The 4th Time’s The Charm (Hopefully!)

Posted on October 3, 2017 by geelw

With the PS4 and Xbox One versions of Capcom’s Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen now available (go buy it, I say), I’m trying to figure out how to get the most out of this version of the game before something else weird happens in terms of stuff going haywire on the tech front here. It seems my luck is pretty damned rotten when it comes to seeing everything the land of Gransys has to offer despite my spending something around 200+ hours with the game across every platform it’s previously been released on.

I initially started the game on the Xbox 360 and got about 3/4 through, but both the systems here died (Red Ring of Death!). Then I snapped up the PS3 version of the original and later, the Dark Arisen expansion and got through most of the game on the PS3 (acquiring one of the not so good endings) until that system expired (Yellow Light of Death!) and was stolen by the guy I sent it to for repair. After it launched, I ended up buying the enhanced Steam version only to have my laptop die before I got much time into that one and now I have a copy of the PS4 version on the way, so “what the heck is going to happen now?” has been a mantra of sorts whenever I’ve watched a trailer or other video content Capcom has posted about it.

If I didn’t have a few medical appointments coming up this month, I’d stay at home quietly holed up with the game until I completed it. But yeah, that stuff needs to be tackled so I can indeed get to work enjoying my purchase without worrying so much. Not that I’m prone to paranoia or anything, but it does make me walk a lot more carefully when I’m out and about.

Back in a bit.

-GW

Red Dead Redemption II Trailer II: Old West’s Newest Best Bet Yet

Posted on September 28, 2017 by geelw

Ooh, look what I found! I’ll just leave this here:

RDRII_ps4 There’s not too much to say other than Rockstar Games has got it all covered, no worries. I get a big hearty chuckle out of those sites that over-analyze every second of these reveals when all you really need to know is the all excuses you’ll be using to get off work so you can spend a week or more playing through as much of Red Dead Redemption II as humanly possible.

If you’re in school and begging for this as a gift, suck it up, kids – your pops will see this in the store and want it all for himself, so expect your system to be “temporarily confiscated” so you can “concentrate on your schoolwork” which really means Daddy-O will be playing cowboy on his own TV when he should be at work. Yee-haw!

That’s pretty much all I have to say, as a mere minute and twenty eight seconds is very hard to judge a game trailer by. Well, other than how fantastic it looks running on the PS4 hardware. Anyway, as I said earlier, Rockstar has got this. I’m not worried in the slightest. Nope, not at all.

RDRII_6-1080p

Spring 2018, huh? Well, I’ll just need to clear out a whole month or two of backlogged games in anticipation, then.

ECHO: Death Becomes Her (Multiple Times)

Posted on September 26, 2017 by geelw

ECHO logo

ECHO_Tall

While ECHO is out now on PC, I’m really more interested in developer Ultra Ultra‘s upcoming PlayStation 4 version set to be released in October. Partially because I hate the constant upgrading of PC hardware and mostly because I’m really curious to see how the Unreal 4-powered game looks on Sony’s hardware.

Granted, looks aren’t everything in my book. Great gameplay is always going to be far more important than pretty visuals at the end of the day. But it seems the dev team here is striving for both and if that trailers above and screenshot gallery below are any indication, succeeding in their mission.

The game’s story also makes me want to dive in feet first, so I’m avoiding reading anything else about the game until I get to take it for a spin myself. That said, if everything falls into place with this one, En’s big, deadly adventure could be one of the better original IP this year

-GW

Review: The Coma: Recut (PS4)

Posted on September 25, 2017 by geelw

Ah, high school days. The loads of homework, Salisbury “steak” and canned veggies for lunch, getting shoved into lockers by bullies, and that curvy teacher you’ve got a secret crush on transforming into a hideous axe-wielding demon-thing who will try really hard to chop you to pieces after hours…

Wait, what?

Okay, that last bit is why you’ll be way up too late on a school (or work) night and all bleary-eyed and freaked out in the morning if you’re playing The Coma: Recut. This remastered version of the Korean survival-horror cult classic, The Coma: Cutting Class manages to be pretty scary stuff from developer Devespresso Games and publisher Digerati. If you’re a fan of games such as Clock Tower (both the Super Famicom original and its first sequel on the original PlayStation), this one’s well worth snapping up.