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…
Well, this was an interesting surprise to see popping up in the inbox yesterday: An all-new Strider game on the way from busy developer Double Helix headed to PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One and PC. Of course (throwing my two cents down here)… it would be better to get this out on the Wii U and Vita as well, but we seem to be in the age of publishers only wanting to get games out on platforms where there’s guaranteed interest and bigger initial full-price sales from a larger dedicated install base rather than trying a title out on a platform that may only rack up less than stellar sales figures or just have users saying they’ll wait for a price drop. Which, by the way is dumb on a game that’s no doubt going to be budget-priced. Hopefully.
Of course, for someone like me who’d rather have MORE choice than less and can clearly see this doing decently enough on some systems it’s not (currently) coming to, the news is great but a tad annoying. Sure, development costs no doubt factor into the decision to not bring this to the Wii U or Vita, but I say Capcom should do some sort of outreach into both of those communities and see if there’s interest in buying this one on either platform (I think there is) and perhaps getting those versions out at some point. With a classic like this making a comeback (that actually looks quite good and seems to be quite challenging based on that video above) as a digital-only release, it’s not as if there will be a ton of unsold retail boxes clogging up an inventory somewhere, right?
Oh… and if this doesn’t toss in the original arcade game as an extra, that would be really silly. Make it happen, Capcom.
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:
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.
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.
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…
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!
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…
OK, 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?
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…
"DESTROY ALL FANBOYS!" 