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

great and not so great rpg sale

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…

Mystic Chronicles on PSN Today: It’s Your Blast of Retro JRPG Goodness for July

mystic chronicles art

Well, it SHOULD be up and ready to buy shortly, as I’m getting error messages when I try to download my review code, bleh. This seems to always happen with PSN, as it seems that SCEA updates it during the day with content as opposed to at a fixed time, so one has to keep trying until that code is accepted. Oh well, I guess I can try again in the next few hours while I have access to a decent connection. Otherwise, it’ll be a case of “Tomorrow is another day!” Which reminds me: memo to Scarlett O’Hara, you’re pretty and all… but man are you a dope sometimes! “Fiddle dee dee!” indeed…

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

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:

Payday 2_CE

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.

Mad Max Gameplay Reveal Trailer: No Mel, No Problems – Keep it Coming, Avalanche!

It looks as if Avalanche Studios is indeed on point with this upcoming game and NO, you’re not getting a character who’s going to look EXACTLY like Mel Gibson for a few good reasons (if you don’t know, use Google for some of those reasons). Although this is still sort of early work in progress footage, it looks like the game will be something action fans can groove on in driving, shooting and melee combat sequences. Of course, an actual gameplay video showing a few minutes of someone wiggling sticks and pressing buttons will be even better, so I’m holding out for that as well as some press preview hands-on time before I make any final judgments.

Earth Defense Force 4 Gameplay: More Pest Control With Wing Diver

(thanks again, GameEmpireHD!) 

The fine folks over at Game Empire HD are really going crazy with the EDF 4 gameplay videos. My own copy of the game is still on the way, so I’ve been keeping an eyeball on their YouTube page and taking notes galore on some of the tougher stages. Everyone has their own play style and in fact, EDF games encourage you to experiment with those random weapon drops until you get comfortable blasting bugs to bits with different gear you’ve collected. Of the four classes, the Wing Diver (or Pale Wing, or Pale Wing Diver if you really want to get formal) is the most agile thanks to her ability to fly and some of her really powerful close and ranged weapons. The tradeoffs are a very low starting armor and many weapons relying on the same energy source as her flight pack, so managing your energy is key in making sure you live to the end of a mission.

While this is my favorite class, I may not play the game through the first time with the lady. In the previous EDF games she’s appeared in (EDF 2/EDF 2 Portable and EDF 3 Portable), once you get some of her better to best weapons, she’s pretty untouchable save for confined spaces such as caves and tunnels where she can be damaged more easily by some of her own ordinance. I have the feeling I’ll go for the old reliable EDF Trooper for a bit until I get one of the Bound Shot weapons (which fire “bouncing” rounds – great for clearing out tunnels packed with giant spiders and ants and does double duty outdoors against large robots) than perhaps poke around with the new Fencer class before going with the winged one. That Air Raider I’ll save for last, as he seems to be the most challenging to use (although there are already a few exploits for the character). OK, back to playing vulture near my mailbox. I may be scaring the postman away, but he knows I get a lot of stuff sent this way so he can take the glaring and third degree when I don’t get a package I’m expecting…

Incoming! Sony Pictures Classics to Distribute Jordowosky’s Dune in the US

(thanks DuneInfo!) 

J_DuneWell, now… this is something I’ve been wondering about since I heard about the project a long time ago and it looks as if we’ll all get to see just what happened with Alejandro Jodorowsky’s attempt to adapt and film Frank Herbert’s classic science fiction novel Dune back in the 1970’s. Sony Pictures classics will be distributing the recent documentary hopefully to theaters and most likely onto home video at some point and I say, sight unseen (well, other than the clip above) that it’s well worth a buy, rent or ticket price.

While Jordorowsky’s sprawling more than epic length version of the film was never completed, many of the artistic talent involved in the massive pre-production process went on to bigger and better things spurred on by their great deal of hard work on this long project. Can you imagine ALIEN without the amazing visuals contributions of H.R. Giger, Moebius, Chris Foss and of course, writer Dan O’Bannon? I’d imagine that film wouldn’t have been made at all or worse, would have ended up as yet another low-budget 70’s sci-fi film all but forgotten today. Anyway,

DuckTales Remastered Duckumentary: WayForward Gets Me Looking Backward…

OK, now I need to unearth my NES and that copy of DuckTales I have buried in a bin somewhere so I can do some comparing. I’d been meaning to do so for a while, but I keep putting it off for assorted reasons. This “duckumentary” did help me decide to finally get off my butt and sit back on my butt once I find everything, so that’s a good thing, right? Alright, I’m not THAT lazy, people! I walked over a mile today already!

Lego Marvel Super Heroes Box Art: Heroes for Sale (Soon Enough)!

LM KeyArt HR RGB 1c Preview Thank you, WB Games and TT Games! So, now you kids know exactly what to bug the parents about and you adults who know you’re buying this for yourselves (raises hand) have something to copy and stick to your wall and moon over while you’re waiting for the game to hit retail this fall. It’s going to be on every console (except the Wii) and handheld (except the Nintendo DS), so it’ll be really hard to avoid.

How hard? Well, dear reader, if you wait until the release date and throw a boomerang with a cat hanging on for dear life into any game emporium, it’ll most likely come back with a copy of this game (and a very dizzy, pissed off cat). You DID remember to stick some money in the cat’s mouth or at least wrap your wallet around it, I hope. That game won’t be free, you know…

Rambo: The Videogame Reveal Trailer: Gore Patrol, Reporting For Duty!

Rambo_KeyImageOK, I wasn’t expecting this game to be anything close to “great”, but I did get a chuckle that Reef Entertainment and developer Teyon have basically taken the extreme violence from 2008’s Rambo and transplanted it into the older films. Of course, if you go back and watch First Blood, you’ll see that John Rambo didn’t actually kill a single person during the film.

The one death he “caused” was actually the fault of the idiot in that helicopter who didn’t think for a second that hanging too far out from that chopper trying to put a bullet into our harried hero was a good idea. Yeah, a lot of people get themselves hurt in that film, but they did pretty much ask for it. Granted, the rest of the series did amp up the body count considerably, so I’ll have to see where this game takes those chapters.

Yeah, I stuck the trailer below the jump, as it’s a bit icky with some gory neck stabbery and an exploding body. Nothing like a little of the old ultra-violence to get your eyeballs wide awake, huh?

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BEYOND Two Souls – The Origins: Well-Told Tales Come From Many Sources…

Beyond_banner

Beyond_Two_Souls_CoverOnce again, David Cage shows why he’s one of the best and most important game creators working today. Turning a personal tragedy inside out and creating a wholly unique game experience loosely based on it with the dev team at Quantic Dream is going to send PlayStation 3 owners into stores by the millions to buy and play BEYOND: Two Souls when it hits retail and PSN on October 18, 2013. As with Heavy Rain, expect gameplay innovation and impressive visuals (quite possibly the best looking game on the PS3 this late in its life cycle) to go with that story you’ll be playing through.

And hey, look! It’s a way too brief PlayStation 4 Killzone: Shadow Fall teaser just because I can pull this stuff off and get away with it…