Gallery: Tales of Xillia 2

Posted on April 26, 2014 by geelw

The past year plus has been quite good for fans of Namco’s Tales series here in North America as we’ve been getting some nice games and more on the way in a relatively “speedy” manner. Granted, not ALL of the games in the long running franchise have made it stateside, but Hideo Baba did promise last year at the Namco event I attended that fans would see some nice surprises over time from the eternally busy Tales Studio.

Tales of Heart R is one big surprise for Vita owners and here, Tales of Xillia 2 is the other, as it coming this August exclusively for the PlayStation 3. Screens below the jump and that $129.99 Collector’s Edition is below. Yes, pre-ordering this or the plain vanilla standard edition is probably a good idea as some retail locations will only stock what their customers have actually put down some money for and Tales games have the tendency to sell out rather quickly.

August isn’t really that far away, you know…

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PlayStation Plus Brings May Showers Of FREE Games!

Posted on April 25, 2014 by geelw

Yeah, the pay for online multiplayer access thing is still here and silly, but PlayStation Plus is still the best deals in console gaming in terms of what you’re getting otherwise for that $50 a year. Next month’s pile of stuff you’ll need a working time machine to play is quite awesome (as you’ll see above) and overall, you make that cost back each month and then some if you also own a Vita in addition to your PS3 and/or PS4. I keep wondering what will happen when Sony runs out of stuff to give away, but given the large library of old first and third party titles people are clamoring for from the PS1 and PS2 era plus the amount of indie titles currently on PSN, I’m gathering this won’t be an issue they’ll need to deal with for quite some time…

Telltale’s The Walking Dead Is Nearly Everywhere You Look. Go Get Caught Up In This One, I Say…

Posted on April 25, 2014 by geelw

Between the Complete First season being released on Google Play and Season Two dropping onto the Vita, Telltale Games’ stellar The Walking Dead series is taking over just about everything that can play this multiple award winning series and letting an even wider audience experience the horror. Telltale’s games are more accessible than your typical action-heavy PC or console games thanks to a simpler to use interface, story-focused dialog trees that require reasonably fast (but not insane) timing and choices that truly affect the outcome of each chapter. This also makes TWD highly replayable because of how your decisions stack up as the chapters flow onward.

So, your interest is piqued, no? Well, go whip out that favorite device and go get some Walkers into your now more entertaining life, I say.

Watch_Dogs on PS3: Solo or Online, It’s Looking Like A Winner For Ubisoft…

Posted on April 23, 2014 by geelw

Hey, I may not have a decent gaming PC (yeah, I’m not all that willing to blow food and bill money on 3D card upgrades, a new monitor and all sorts of stuff just to say I can play a game for graphics first), but my PS3 still gets the job done just fine. Anyway, Watch_Dogs may have been delayed for a bit, but I don’t mind (or care) at all if it means the end results will be even more finely tuned. Now, I’m not at all interested in this as an online experience because I’m a story first kind of guy. So, I’m most likely going in with no intentions of spending a second playing with or against others when this finally hits stores.

Granted, given that Verizon is forcing everyone in this area to update their service to whatever higher speed connection they’re going to replace all the land lines with (and you should read their lame-ass excuse for doing this), I’ll be finally able to get on PSN with my old fat model PS3 (I’ve been using my Vita at a few wi-fi hotspots to get games and updates for that system). I can’t even imagine all the game patches and updates waiting for my poor hard drive, so I’m probably going to need an external drive before that big communication change occurs. Oh well, enforced evolution… do your stuff, I guess…

GRID Autosport Trailer: Probably The ONLY Time You’ll See These Cars Moving Slowly…

Posted on April 23, 2014 by geelw

Codemasters’ Racing Studio certainly hasn’t been sleeping at all, getting this new GRID game out in less than a year since the last one. While this PC footage looks incredible, I’m gathering the game will also look quite lovely on whichever consoles it appears on. Namco Bandai rolled this one out as one of many upcoming surprises and with a June 24 release date in the US (June 27 in Europe), it’s sure to be one of those games of summer that keeps a few folks indoors sweeping around turns and playing passing games with that pesky AI and/or peskier live players.

I initially noticed that no console news popped up in that video, but I can’t imagine this series skipping home systems at all. Aha- poking about on the press site I see it’s also coming to PS3 and Xbox 360, so no worries at all about the series leaving out a rather hefty chunk of its fans. Anyway, updates to come, of course. Color me grinning and imagining gliding around a bend at 100MPH or so…

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

Posted on April 22, 2014 by geelw

Well, 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!)…

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

Posted on April 21, 2014 by geelw

FEH. 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…

Posted on April 19, 2014 by geelw

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.

Big PSN Flash Sale! 34 Games, 99 Cents Each! Stock Up NOW Or Miss Out!

Posted on April 19, 2014 by geelw

Yeah, I’ve gone and used a few too many exclamation points above, but this is a super deal no one with a PSN account should pass up. Sony is letting loose some more great deals in this PSN Flash Sale and you don’t even need a PlayStation Plus account to take advantage of this offer. However, the catch is this sale ends on Monday at 7am Pacific time so you’ll need to snap up what you want FAST. My bet is PSN takes a hit on its servers thanks to these deals, but we’ll see.

Anyway, here’s the complete lineup of titles with their original prices (if you’re too tired to click that link):

Back to the Future: The Game – Full Series $0.99 ~~$19.99~~
Blast Factor $0.99 ~~$9.99~~
Braid $0.99 ~~$14.99~~
Crash Bandicoot $0.99 ~~$5.99~~
Crash Bandicoot 2 $0.99 ~~$5.99~~
Crash Bandicoot 3: WARPED $0.99 ~~$5.99~~
Crash Commando $0.99 ~~$9.99~~
CTR: Crash Team Racing $0.99 ~~$5.99~~
echochrome ii $0.99 ~~$9.99~~
Everyday Shooter (PS3) $0.99 ~~$9.99~~
Everyday Shooter (PSP | PS Vita) $0.99 ~~$7.99~~
Gex: Enter the Gecko $0.99 ~~$5.99~~
Gotham City Impostors $0.99 ~~$14.99~~
Jurassic Park: The Game – Full Season $0.99 ~~$19.99~~
Plants vs Zombies $0.99 ~~$10.49~~
Red Faction 2 PS2 Classic $0.99 ~~$9.99~~
Red Faction PS2 Classic $0.99 ~~$9.99~~
Red Faction: Battlegrounds $0.99 ~~$9.99~~
Retro City Rampage (PS Vita) $0.99 ~~$9.99~~
Retro City Rampage (PS3) $0.99 ~~$9.99~~
Retro/Grade $0.99 ~~$9.99~~
“Sam & Max” The Devil’s Playhouse $0.99 ~~$19.99~~
Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage! $0.99 ~~$5.99~~
Spyro: The Dragon $0.99 ~~$5.99~~
Spyro: Year of the Dragon $0.99 ~~$5.99~~
Stuntman: Ignition PS2 Classic $0.99 ~~$9.99~~
Super Stardust HD $0.99 ~~$9.99~~
Tales of Monkey Island $0.99 ~~$19.99~~
Tokyo Jungle $0.99 ~~$14.99~~
Urban Trial Freestyle (PS Vita) $0.99 ~~$9.99~~
Urban Trial Freestyle (PS3) $0.99 ~~$14.99~~
When Vikings Attack (PS Vita) $0.99 ~~$9.99~~
When Vikings Attack (PS3) $0.99 ~~$9.99~~
World Gone Sour $0.99 ~~$4.99~~

Uh-huh. PS1 and PS2 Classics, PSP, Vita and PS3 games all up for grabs in a crazy deal that even if you despise digital, is very tough to pass up. I have a bunch of these already as physical copies, but a few of the games I don’t are tempting me a buck at a time.

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel? Wait, What? GEARBOOOOOOOOOOX!

Posted on April 9, 2014 by geelw

Well, actually, this is 2K Australia’s fault, but still, I blame Gearbox for creating the unstoppable juggernaut that is the Borderlands franchise (one of the only shooters I’ll still play because of the wild, stupid fun to be had and SO many millions of weapons to discover and collect). Wow. Okay, I ignored this news earlier at first because I’d just woken up and thought it was either a late April Fool’s joke or just a joke, period. Ah ha ha… the joke was on me. So, this is happening and it’s coming SOON. As in this Fall 2014 to Xbox 360, PS3, and PC. Yeah, THAT’S RIGHT, dammit – the “OLD” consoles are getting this BEFORE the new ones because 2K Games is SMART and knows there are still more millions of you (and me) out there who haven’t committed to one of the new systems just yet. They’re getting my money (again!) for sure…