As I noted earlier, if there was any doubt that From Software was making Dark Souls II “easier”, all one had to do was play the demo build that’s making the rounds (it was a huge hit at this year’s E3 as well as the more recent San Diego Comic-Con) to be shown the error of misreading that quote from one of the game’s directors a few months back. The game isn’t “easy” at all, but more accessible in terms of getting you into the action quicker, getting rid of backtracking yet upping the scale of the maps to an impressive degree. As to the demo, it’s brutal but beatable and although I didn’t make it to the gigantic knight boss, I did stick around for a bit to watch a few fellow editor types step up to the plate, swing and miss wildly, their chosen characters dying in a few not so pretty ways…
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…
OK, I’m still getting ready to reboot the engines here, so here’s a little old post from Digital Press to tide you fine folks over: Yeah, it’s long as hell (well, for the short attention span crowd) and no pictures means a bit of a wall to climb, but it’s a mere 11 paragraphs and not a bad read if I do say so myself. That and if you have a stack of disc-based games from a few console generations ago (or even some old PC games), it’s worth popping them into a CD player to see what you can unearth.
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…
If you’re a fan of horror but not a gamer, you might not initially be interested in Amnesia: The Dark Descent because it’s a video game and you’ll probably have preconceived notions of running around with a gun and shooting up zombies or whatever until your brain walks out of your left ear in protest. On the other hand, all you need to do is watch that trailer above, smile (and perhaps shiver a little) before boogieing over to gog.com to check if your computer can indeed run this supremely scary gem from the fine folks at Frictional Games. System requirements are pretty low, so I think some of you folks without beefy gaming rigs but a recent to decent 3D card can get this going and spend the next few days under the bed after you’ve played. Or tried to play but got too damn freaked out and couldn’t take another step.
Yeah, the game is THAT creepy. To me, at least… I think it will scare the crap out of you as well – give it a go and let me know what you think…
While a small but vocal bunch of PlayStation 3 owners have been ranting away for Rising Star Games to contract Access Games to stop working on their upcoming Xbox One exclusive D4 to do some fixes for Deadly Premonition: The Director’s Cut, that’s not going to happen any time soon. On the other, stranger hand… the game was recently surprised-dropped onto Steam Greenlight for a potential PC release with even MORE content and wonder of wonders… it was approved in what seems to be record time. Wow. Now, I’ll be the first to say I’m shocked and thrilled at this news, but I’m not expecting the PC version to be “perfect” by any stretch of the imagination. Even higher resolutions and tweaked controls aside, the game will still look intentionally cheesy and probably have the same driving setup for the cars as the PS3 version did (which is much better than the original Xbox 360 game from a few years back). Anyway, this is indeed great news and soon, you horror game fans looking for something TRULY weird and memorable will all get a little FK in your own coffee when DP:TDC is finally let loose for PC. Once I get an actual release date, I’ll let you know…
While I’m happy as hell that Earthbound has FINALLY been deemed worthy of a re-release, I’m not at all pleased that Nintendo has given it the cheapest treatment possible, tossing it onto the eShop as a digital-only download and missing the cool strategy guide and scratch & sniff cards packed in with the original boxed Super Nintendo version. Actually, the major beef I have is how Nintendo passed up the opportunity to do this up right as a combination physical/digital product that would have made them MORE money at the end of the day had the company merely polled its rather large user base with the following idea for a premium-priced retail Earthbound collection:
A fully localized Mother (the first game in the series) updated for the Wii U Gamepad
Earthbound (Mother 2)
A fully localized Game Boy Advance version of Mother 3 also updated for the Wii U Gamepad
voucher codes for eShop versions of all three titles for the 3DS
An art gallery, soundtrack download and perhaps unlockable images and movies from the cancelled Nintendo 64 version Mother 3
Perhaps even an interview or three with staff members from the development team about the making of the games for good measure.
Hell, I’d pay fifty bucks for that and I’d bet YOU would too. I could also see Nintendo making all of the games available as separate digital download titles for the 3DS and/or Wii U at about $10 each and raking in a profit on those with no problem. By treating the SNES game as a disposable commodity instead of giving it the respect it’s earned over time from folks who’ve either held on to the original cart, paid rent money for a vintage or used copy or (yuck) even illegally downloaded a ROM (and yes, that includes you folks playing those fan translations of the first and third game who don’t own and never intend to own the original carts because you’re too lazy to learn Japanese).
Granted, it’s hard to say if this set of games on a disc as noted above would even drive stagnant Wii U sales at all, but I’d bet if Nintendo announced my stupid idea as a project and asked the fans if they’d buy in, they’d see a great deal more interest in that new console they’re having a very hard time getting more of you out there to buy.
Well, let’s see now: coming home from a funeral: gloomy! Coming home TO a nice surprise in the mail (thank you, Play-Asia!) and a double surprise (I’d forgotten to cancel a big Namco Bandai press event for tomorrow morning, which is actually a great thing as it gets me out of the house and not sitting around moping) plus tax (another event on Wednesday and I think one more this week) mean life goes onwards, bumps in the road aside. OK, off to squash some bugs – I may post one more thing before midnight if I haven’t collapsed from being a wee bit too tired. It’s been a really long day…
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…
Only in Japan do you get these goofball game videos that manage to be informative and amusing (well, if you understand the language, that is). I’m still waiting for my copy of the game to arrive, but others who ordered their copies at the same time I did seem to be finally getting them this week. No worries of course – it just means I’ll have a LOT of catching up to.
Meanwhile, the fine folks over at Game Empire HD are STILL uploading some great gameplay videos and as you can see above and below, things get quite chaotic in these later missions. Well, I did say that I needed some distractions this summer, so this will indeed count as one of them.
OK, I’m shutting up now. It’s too hot (again, as in 103 or so with the heat index) and I need to go do stuff that requires less effort. Sleep? Not yet… but maybe I’ll do something really nuts like cook something in the oven just to generate sweat and make me drink more water then fall into the shower for the third time today. We shall see…
"DESTROY ALL FANBOYS!" 