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

Posted on April 23, 2014 by geelw

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.

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…

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

Posted on April 21, 2014 by geelw

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!

Dungeon of the Endless Update: Your Multi-Almost Everything Game is Almost Ready!

Posted on April 3, 2014 by geelw

Amplitude Studios’ upcoming multi-hybrid game is looking quite spectacular in this new trailer and updated screens combo plus the mix of genres (just watch the trailer, as the very thought of writing all that out is making my fingers hurt. Here, go ogle some new screens and make sure to read some of the amusing descriptions in the pics that have them:

Okay, let me get back to work, because I got caught up in reading some of those screens as well. You can get more info on Dungeon of the Endless HERE (official site!) and HERE (the game’s Steam page where you can sign up for early access and more!)

Dungeon of the Endless Trailer: The Final Frontier Is Only About FOREVER Long…

Posted on December 13, 2013 by geelw

Endless Space was (and still is) a pretty amazing 4X strategy game that still draws in players thanks to a ton of depth and replay value plus a very healthy modding community. So, as one of a few follow up titles, developer Amplitude Studios is making… a dungeon crawler set in the same universe? Yes, this is Dungeon of the Endless, currently in development and coming soon to PC via Steam.

Well, that actually works very well for me, as I love that genre more than poking about amount the stars and hoping all my ships aren’t blown into space dust because I got lazy and forgot to do something twenty hours before that’s coming back to bite me in the butt. As you can see above in that teaser trailer, the game will feature randomly generated maps, loads of space beasties to dispatch or be dispatched by and is pretty much guaranteed to suck many, many hours of free time away from stuff you SHOULD be getting done except you were too busy being up too late at night not doing things like sleeping and dreaming of more productive endeavors…

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Dark Souls II Update: 18 New Screens, Same Old Waiting For That Release Date To Roll Around…

Posted on December 5, 2013 by geelw

Behold, adventurers! Or something like that. Okay, I got lazy and didn’t convert the LAST set of Dark Souls II screens from bitmap to JPEG (WordPress HATES bitmaps, it seems!), but thankfully, Denny Chiu at Namco Bandai still likes me (Hi, Denny!). Thanks to him, my inbox was blessed with these new screens I will more than verily happily share with you below:

There, that was simple enough, right? I’ll get those other screens up soon as well with an appropriately goofy post about why it took so damn long. I blame a faulty TARDIS circuit, a rogue dinosaur and a bag of shrimp chips past its sell date, but that excuse may change…

BandFuse: Rock Legends Updates: The Clips Just Keep On Comin’…

Posted on November 16, 2013 by geelw

Just a few more days before it drops into retail and it looks as if BandFuse: Rock Legends has a few more surprises up its sleeves. Check out the third “Fused Thoughts” above and that cool upright bass clip below for some quick fun you can have with the game when it lands on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 November 19, 2013.

YES, I said PS3 and Xbox 360 – it may be “next-gen” time in some circles, but there are MORE of those older consoles STILL in use than both of the new ones (yeah, yeah, that Xbox One isn’t out ’til the 22nd, but it’s still going to be outnumbered by Xbox 360’s for a while yet). And yes indeed, that launch Party at the House of Blues was (wait for it)… rockin’ pretty hard with Slash and Bootsy playing like there’s no tomorrow.

Thankfully, there WILL be a tomorrow (and a few more after that!) or else this game wouldn’t even come out, right? Yeah, I knew you’d agree…

BandFuse Rock Legends Update: Here’s Twofer For Your Thursday (Plus One)…

Posted on November 14, 2013 by geelw

Four days to go and the video fun is rolling out of Realta. Here are two quick and funny “Fused Thoughts” clips plus as a bonus track, it’s none other than Slash talking about his start playing guitar. All this leads up to what could be the most innovative real guitar learning experience on a console when BandFuse: Rock Legends hits PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on November 19. I’ve been working on my finger exercises, but just the lifting food to face part – I think the game will be teaching me much more useful skills, that’s for sure.

Jimmy and Ice-T Put The PS4 On The Hot Spot…

Posted on November 14, 2013 by geelw

Alright, it’s a given: CUTE ROBOTS SELL CONSOLES. And SUPER-cute virtual robots you can play with and/or kick around the room? When the audience goes “D’aaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!” more than five times a minute? Yeah, there’s Christmas in a box for Sony right there.

Okay, despite my occasional cranky side acting up from time to time, I’ll have to admit that Jimmy Fallon always gets me excited about gaming despite me having a longer history with them than he has. Granted, it’s his great enthusiasm for the medium and NOT his play style (that tends to lean towards the “Boy, do I suck at these games but I’m having FUN!” although he did beat Ice-T at that Pong variant) that’s hard to fake. And yep, game companies love him, Conan and anyone else they can get a console and controller to. Of course, none of them love ME, but that’s more my fault than theirs at the end of the day. Oh well, we’re workin’ on it… we’re workin’ on it. I’m thinking of writing a fake e-book (not really) called “How To Get The Respect You Deserve Without Being A Total Ass or Total Suck-Up” but we’ll say no more about that unless we want to be called a total ass. Or a total suck-up. Not too good at either of those, but I can swing both ways once I take some lessons. Is the Learning Annex still open here in NYC?

BandFuse: Rock Legends Update: Say Hi-yo To Laiho!

Posted on November 11, 2013 by geelw

With only a week left before the game hits retail, I’ve been seeing some music game fans suddenly perk up the discussion about BandFuse: Rock Legends in a few spots. Realta Entertainment’s innovative guitar school on a disc is an open book of a music “game” experience that lets you hop in anywhere you choose and learn like a beginner or jam like a pro, something a certain other guitar game doesn’t. Between that, the legends on board to show you the ropes, the no-lag gameplay which should please every player and more, this one could be the music game of the year when all is said and done. Granted, some still want millions of TV ads to drop left and right just so they have an idea of how popular the game is or something. But expensive TV spots and building-sized billboards don’t mean anything other than a game’s PR department has a lot of money to work with and the game being advertised so heavily might or might not be any good at all. BandFuse doesn’t need some multimillion dollar ads running endlessly to sell it at all – it needs YOU to pick it up and learn you some killer guitar. THAT will help sell copies more than anything, I say…

BandFuse: Rock Legends Updates: On Wires, Amps and Pedals…

Posted on November 5, 2013 by geelw

Well, “Wires” as in the song by Portland’s popular band, Red Fang and “Amps and Pedals” (Edit: Tubes? What was I thinking? OK, I was listening to The Tubes while typing – “Talk To You Later” as a matter of fact!) as in the different and excellent digital types (that all sound like their physical counterparts) will be available to players when they crack this wonderful game open. The vibe I got from BandFuse: Rock Legends was (and will be) of walking into the best guitar school in the world and having the chance to hang out as long as you like, provided you get off your ass, pick up an axe and learn to play at some point. As noted earlier, the amount of content here is outrageous and defies the music game standard by unlocking everything on the disc and letting YOU decide your pace. Yeah, shocking that a game does that in this day and age, but one session talking to Marcus Henderson reveals his absolute love for many types of music and his desire for anyone who picks up BandFuse to KNOW it’s NOT your average music “game” at all, but a teaching tool you’ll want to keep around even after you’ve mastered everything it has to offer.