Games of Summer: Dragon’s Crown

Posted on July 30, 2013 by geelw

Atlus may be struggling with its recent financial woes in Japan, but the company is still swinging for the fences hard and knocking it out of the park with some great titles on assorted platforms. Case in point, Dragon’s Crown, already a hit in Japan and headed to the PS3 and Vita in North America on August 6. George Kamitani and his team at Vanillaware have created an absolutely, outrageously gorgeous game that’s a throwback to classic side-scrolling arcade hits as well as a mighty challenging solo and online play experience. I know a few folks with the import and yes indeed, they’re very pleased with the game (and the AMAZING deluxe art book that came with it). Anyway, I’m looking forward to getting my hands on both versions, as I hear they’re different in a few key ways. Of course, I still want a proper Princess Crown remake or sequel one of these days, but at this point, Kamitani and company can make paper bag puppets and I’ll throw money their way…

Rise of the Triad Remake Pokes Fun At A Certain Long-Toothed FPS Franchise

Posted on July 27, 2013 by geelw

Woof! Yes, gog.com, Interceptor Entertainment and Apogee Software (wow, they’re STILL around?) all want you to pre-order Rise of The Triad (and get a bunch of other games for free in the process) and they’re not above (or is it below?) sticking a fork in the butt of a certain super-high profile game series that pops up in yearly installments. I’m sort of tired of this genre, but at least RoTT is supposed to be as funny as it is violent and isn’t trying at all to be the “best” looking game out there. I’m tempted… but we’ll see what a few friends who’ve pre-ordered this one say…

Elysium Clips: Blomkamp’s Blockbuster, Bit By Bit…

Posted on July 26, 2013 by geelw

I’m not the biggest fan of these clip job teases, but they sure didn’t spoil District 9 for me by the time I got around to seeing it. Neill Blomkamp and his effects team certainly have a way with mixing CG and practical effects that doesn’t look fake or too overblown at all and yeah, Matt Damon as a cobbled together cyborg is making for a pretty interesting character.

As long as the ending feels right (and doesn’t necessarily set up a sequel), I think this might do well and yes, we may see someone at Microsoft kicking themselves in the ass for not letting Mr. B. do that Halo movie. Of course, those folks are still in desperation mode, so I can see them throwing money his way to get on board that Xbox One’s content machine for a super exclusive.

As usual (repeat after me, class)… We shall see.

Gravity “I’ve Got You” Trailer: Well, You Did Just Now…

Posted on July 25, 2013 by geelw

OK, I’ve been not paying much attention to the upcoming film Gravity thanks to me not being much of a Sandra Bullock fan (yeah, yeah, she’s America’s Sweetheart #181 and blah-blah) and doing a coin toss with Clooney’s films because they can be great or not so great depending on the director. Granted, this isn’t the first time on the sci-fi carousel for either actor, what with Sandra earning her cred in Demolition Man (dumb flick, but the opening sequence was and is still amazing) and George doing a solid job in that Solaris remake from a while back (it’s a decent flick, but the book is still the best way to go). Of course, everything is really riding on the shoulders of director Alfonso Cuarón (“Children of Men”), as I’m betting a handful of pennies that some going in to see this will be expecting something of equal depth and design on a few fronts. Well, this trailer sure piqued my interest, that’s for sure… et tu?

Things to Do When the Real World Stinks (One)…

Posted on July 24, 2013 by geelw

(thanks, Game Empire HD!)

OK, I actually didn’t do anything TOO productive today other than blow through 34 missions in Earth Defense Force 4 and take a bunch of notes for my review. Ive got a long way to go, as the game has got 94 missions total (eek), four character classes and five difficulty levels. I most likely won’t solo the entire game through ALL the difficulty levels before starting my review, as EDF games are made for seriously long play time. I’m probably going to complete Easy and Normal, but I’ve already played some missions on Hard and Hardest just to see how tough they are (they’re tough, but beatable), but haven’t gone near any Inferno maps yet because I need my sanity for the rest of the week. Which so far consists of a meeting to see a new game tomorrow, a screening I may or may not attend (it’s a bit last minute) and a bunch of stuff I need to write up from this week and last.

Er, that’s about it… I guess. Oh, right – I’ll add a few Random Film reviews in a bit. I haven’t watched anything in a few days, so I’m thinking I need a decent old comedy or really bad “B” movie to get back on track. My brain is still packed with mud a little from reality and I made the silly mistake of watching the news this evening (blech… too much crap going on in that real world and too many crazies at the wheel all driving off different cliffs). I’d go bake a pie or something, but I haven’t done that in oh, maybe a dozen years or so, I have no ingredients and I’d probably end up eating the whole thing once it cooled. Who doesn’t like pie?

DuckTales Remastered: Himalayas, Here We Come (Woo-Ooo!)…

Posted on July 20, 2013 by geelw

Capcom shows off their upcoming revisit to the retro days reboot with this nice long look at the redesigned Himalayas stage. By the way, no stupidly cute cartoon bunnies were hurt in this video, the already angry goats got what they deserved and that big and annoying Yeti boss? Well, he was trying to make duck cutlets out of Uncle Scrooge, so he had to go down hard. MORAL: Don’t mess with a rich canard and his fancy cane bouncing skills, folks. All that swimming around in that huge money pool bank vault of his has given him some MEGA strength in that feathered old body. Tough bird, indeed…

Strider Gets An Extra Life Courtesy of Capcom & Double Helix…

Posted on July 19, 2013 by geelw

Well, this was an interesting surprise to see popping up in the inbox yesterday: An all-new Strider game on the way from busy developer Double Helix headed to PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One and PC. Of course (throwing my two cents down here)… it would be better to get this out on the Wii U and Vita as well, but we seem to be in the age of publishers only wanting to get games out on platforms where there’s guaranteed interest and bigger initial full-price sales from a larger dedicated install base rather than trying a title out on a platform that may only rack up less than stellar sales figures or just have users saying they’ll wait for a price drop. Which, by the way is dumb on a game that’s no doubt going to be budget-priced. Hopefully.

Of course, for someone like me who’d rather have MORE choice than less and can clearly see this doing decently enough on some systems it’s not (currently) coming to, the news is great but a tad annoying. Sure, development costs no doubt factor into the decision to not bring this to the Wii U or Vita, but I say Capcom should do some sort of outreach into both of those communities and see if there’s interest in buying this one on either platform (I think there is) and perhaps getting those versions out at some point. With a classic like this making a comeback (that actually looks quite good and seems to be quite challenging based on that video above) as a digital-only release, it’s not as if there will be a ton of unsold retail boxes clogging up an inventory somewhere, right?

Oh… and if this doesn’t toss in the original arcade game as an extra, that would be really silly. Make it happen, Capcom.

The Great (and Not-So-Great) RPG Sale Is Temporarily Postponed (Obviously)…

Posted on July 17, 2013 by geelw

I’d been planning this sale of some fun stuff from the collection for a while and had initially wanted to kick it off this week, but as you can imagine, it’s being pushed back for the time being. Update to follow in a bit…

Payday 2: Everyone Wins With That Upgrade to Collector’s Edition Status…

Posted on July 15, 2013 by geelw

Overkill and Starbreeze’s upcoming co-op centric crime game sequel, Payday 2 has gone from a digital download to a physical package to a nice $59.99 retail game that’s packed to the rafters with goodies and content. Usually, these Limited or Collector’s Editions manage to tick me off for a few reasons, but I actually like this set of goodies in the package:

505 Games looks as if they have a huge sleeper hit here, as the original was very well received and this sequel adds a RPG-like element to the gameplay and customization that should boost its sales even further among veteran players as well as new potential virtual robber types. As long as you’re locked in at home playing this, you can’t be on the street pulling off any real crimes, right?

Of course, that’s a little joke there, but I know some will watch that trailer above and have a mild to moderate seizure over the cops ‘n robbers stuff going on. Breathe, I say… breeeeeaaaaaathe. No, that’s hyperventilating, and doesn’t count – you can keep that up, though… you’ll pass out in a few seconds.

Shantae Virtual Console Trailer: WayForward’s Classic Finally Gets Rereleased

Posted on July 15, 2013 by geelw

If you’ve never played Shantae previously, that’s because you missed out on buying a copy when it was on the GameBoy Color (or you didn’t pirate it, you scallywag!), thus not having the pleasure of playing one of the best 2D platformers on the handheld. Well, as of this Thursday she’s baaaaaack, and this time it’s on the eShop for the 3DS. I actually like that the dev team didn’t gussy their girl up in a shiny HD coating, as the game was so well animated and colored for the GBC that it still holds up today as a prime example of a platformer at its finest. The best thing is you can now snap this one up for a song and NOT have to pay something like $100 or more for a copy of the game (it got one production run, but was VERY hard to find even back when it was initially released). Or maybe you can buy up $100 worth of codes and give them out to lucky friends who happen to own a 3DS or 3DS XL, you nice person, you…