Tales of Hearts R: Your Vita Will Want You To Get This (Or Else)…

 
Now, I haven’t yet heard of any cases where someone’s Vita attempted to do them bodily harm, but I’d gather if anyone who does own one of Sony’s handhelds who considers him or herself a JRPG fan somehow doesn’t pick Tales of Hearts R up, there’s going to be trouble on the home front. If you don’t pre-order this or snap it up on launch day (or within the first week or so), you’ll be in the bath or shower and hear a noise close by… it’ll be your Vita trying to leap into the tub to literally give you the shock of your life. Hey, it COULD happen, you know.

Hearts_R_logo_RGB Animation1_OP_en Animation2_Kor obtains Soma_en Animation3_Kor meets Kohaku_en Battle2_Cross Chase Charge_en Battle3_Mystic Arte Cut-in_en Battle4_Mystic Arte executed_en Battle5_Spiria Drive_en Event1_Kor Obtains Soma_en Event2_Kor meets Kohaku_en Event4_Spiria Nexus_en

Kohaku Hearts Kor Meteor

Granted, Hideo Baba and Tales Studio wouldn’t make a game that’s deliberately going to harm someone, but you know your Vita has a mind of its own sometimes. That would explain the games you buy on a few occasions, I’d gather… anyway, this winter, you’d best remember to get some Tales action up in the house or else…

WIN FREE STUFF! Grab The Conquest Bundle Gratis, Thanks To Bundle Stars!

Hey, have you got an active Steam account and a decent gaming PC? Good for you! Want a code for a completely FREE bundle of a dozen games valued at $115? Um-hmmmm… I knew you would. Anyway, I have TWO codes here for the latest deal from Bundle Stars:

Conquest Bundle Bannerand all you need to do is reply to this post and the first two score BIG! Of course, you WILL check to see if your machine can run all these games first, right? Click on the banner above to go zipping to the site if you need to. And, no… you can’t have BOTH Steam keys, you – that would be unfair to the other winner.

Anyway, I’d imagine Steam keys work anywhere in the world you can get Valve’s game download service, so I’d say this giveaway is open to one and all. So, clear out some hard drive space or be prepared to fill UP a hard drive with a ton of gaming goodness without spending a cent. Yes, it’s because I just love giving stuff away, folks (really, I do!), so take advantage of my (and Bundle Stars’) generosity while you still can.

Demon Gaze Out Now: My Vita Is Glaring At My Wallet (And It Has A Studded Club)…

Demon Gaze Out Now Hokay, let’s keep this SIMPLE. Got a Vita? GOOD. Go click on that picture and BUY THIS GAME. I’m keeping this short because you need as much time to play Demon Gaze as possible and less of me telly you why. Get it? Got it? GOOD. Now, go dive in for a spell and pop back in to thank me later…

Bundle Stars’ Latest Deal Is The Conquest Of Your Free Time!

Conquest Bundle Banner 
Holy cats. AGAIN. A dozen Steam digital games in a bunch of genres for a mere five bucks with part of the proceeds going to charity? Crazy! My own backlog and need to clear out some hard drive space means I’m eyeballing a few games in my backlog and considering deleting them temporarily just to snap up this set of titles. Granted, I’m not a big RTS fan, so those historical sims may not be touched unless I have a LOT of free time and want to do some supplemental reading. On the other hand, most everything else here floats my boat to some extent and saving $110 is always a good thing. Hmmm… time for a coin flip (again!)…

Anyway, if your own eyeballs have grown to saucer size when you clicked on that link above you know what to do, right? Also check out the other bundles on the site PLUS those awesome store deals for up to 80% off a really nice bunch of games in a few genres. I may have a nice surprise for two lucky readers later this week, so stick around for an update…

Dragon Age: Inquisition Gameplay Trailer: October Will Be A Nice Month To Take Off, I’d Say…

DA_I_posterWell, now. BioWare and EA want you to know that you probably should take October off. Well, not ALL of October nor ALL of you reading this post, mind you. However, if you own a decent gaming PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 Xbox 360 or Xbox One and happen to also be a fan of epic-length role-playing games… yeah, start making plans, people. Dragon Age Inquisition rolls out in North America on October 7 and in Europe on October 10, meaning you have a week during the beginning of the month to get your things in order and prepare yourself for whatever script you’re going to run on your boss to get out of that job for as long as possible (while still collecting a paycheck, of course). Or you could just move whatever vacation time to October in order to spend that time (and a lot less money) buried in all that wonderful hard work on your system of choice.

Naturally, there will be standard and collector’s editions of this one and of course, the inescapable pre-order bonuses and DLC that add to the experience (and help beef up the games sales figures early on for some guaranteed big numbers). I still prefer walking into a game shop to buy physical product, so I wish there were a way to get that DLC, as I happen to have a crappy online connection and other than the Wii U (which has a screen on its GamePad), no home console is built to lug around to a wi-fi hotspot to get games, game content and updates, which is too bad. Of course, this game isn’t appearing on Nintendo’s beleaguered console at all, which is also too bad. Anyway, if this gameplay trailer is any indication, DA:I will be a pretty spectacular experience (to put it mildly!)…

Child of Light On Wii U: Same Game, Different Console (Get It And/Or Get Over It!)…

 
*Sigh* Ah, the internet… home to fools with busted soapboxes and lousy opinions, all in the name of… something. Anyway, YES, the Wii U version of Child of Light is going to look exactly the same as the other versions, yeesh. That UbiArt Framework and the lovely hand-drawn art in the game will run on any modern console as well as anything next-gen and any decent PC. But try telling that to the trolls out there and all you get is under-bridge bile drippings from people who haven’t touched Nintendo’s console and don’t intend to.

 
Frankly speaking, screw those dolts, I say. As a multi-system owner and longtime gamer, I’m still trying to decide which system to get this one for, but I’ll play and review it on the Wii U if I have to just to have another game for that system that needs to get MORE of them this year. Anyway, April 30th is the big day and hopefully, this version won’t get slapped with a last-minute delay or anything else that will get the skeptics babbling from their stinky toll-haunts under every local bridge. I don’t normally wast my space on people like this, but after overhearing some inane anti-Wii U drivel today, I had to put my foot down before I put it up someone’s read end.

 
That and the last living thing I actually kicked was a REALLY slow pigeon a bunch of years ago. Hey, I was in a hurry, it was in front of me trundling along like an over-sized inchworm with wings and it wasn’t a “kick” at all… it was more of a foot-lift and bird shift to my right as I zipped past.

Surprise! Tales of Heart R Vita-Bound This Winter!

 
Well, now. This is great news for Vita owners, fans of Namco Bandai’s long-running Tales series and anyone who just wants a great JRPG to take on the go. Having met Hideo Baba, Producer on the Tales series a few times over the years, I can safely report that he’s just as happy, proud and easygoing about his work as he is in that video above. It’s cool to see a guy who knows his fans and wants to get them the games he makes whenever possible (and it’s certainly not easy to do at all in terms of “just translate and ship it!” like some fans think). So anyway, yeah – a new Tales game and the first one exclusively for the Vita in North America coming this winter and that’s one more reason for my cold-hating butt to stay the heck indoors!

Random Art: Making Your Monday Better Since, Oh About 3:37pm…

the right angle 

Hiding Place IIFEH. So, I log onto PSN to download the games I bought this weekend (two bucks well spent) and WHAMMO! Yep, PSN is down for maintenance. In the middle of the afternoon. On a Monday. Bleah. I did get some good news in the mail in the form of my FruitChia bar shipment arriving, but as there’s a replacement mail carrier while my regular guy is on vacation, the package was shoved and squeezed into my mailbox instead of hand delivered to my hot little hands. I didn’t see her woman-handling my goods, but I happened to drop downstairs as she finished up and was closing the mailboxes so I know who to give a glare to the next time I have to perform surgery on something packed into my mailbox in order to get the darn thing out. Anyway, whee- more trees to ogle, this time more or less complete. Hey, someone has to have a good day on this otherwise goofball Monday, right?

Raiden IV: OverKill Coming To PSN April 26: Itchy Trigger Fingers Will Get You Nowhere…

 
Why? Because you’ll stop to scratch them and *BOOM!*, your little spaceship gets blasted to powder and you’re screaming at the TV that the game “cheats” while jumping up and down on that expensive controller. Anyway, UFO Interactive is bringing this arcade gem to PSN in its complete form featuring the brand new OverKill Mode with new mission stages and a revamped scoring system along with all the previously released DLC items. If all that makes some kind of sense, you’re grinning uncontrollably right about now. If it doesn’t, well, hmmmm… I offer Video Gamespeak to English translation services at the low rate of a dollar a word.

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing II Update: New Screens, Beta Gets a Big Boost!

 
Nice. Neocore Games has released four new screens from The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing II and added some new areas to the closed beta (which is automatically updating via Steam as I type). Excellent.

VanHelsingII_SteamPreOrder_001I was wondering what that other game was Steam was adding content to as I knew The Wolf Among Us was going to drop in Chapter Three as soon as I logged on. Of course, by the time I got to the email from Neocore announcing the beta update, it was about 70% done and I realized that’s what was up. Yeah, I think sideways from time to time, what of it? Anyway, May 22, 2014 is the new release date for VHII. Remember, you can pre-order the game directly from the developer or through Steam. I’ll have an updated hands-on shortly (most likely after the weekend)…

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