In a recent update to their official site, President/CEO Shinichi Suzuki had a few calming words for Atlus faithful:
“We want to assure our fans and affiliates that Atlus remains in operation and will continue, as always, to support our beloved community with the finest quality gaming experiences possible.”
Whew. Sounds like the so-called dissolution was more of a merger with parent company Index Holdings that left Atlus fully intact. I’d hate to think what would happen were they to actually close down, as I’ve heard some people took it rather badly.
Can’t wait for the chance to be a Jedi Knight in a massively-multiplayer online world—saving the world from the Empire one lightsaber battle at a time? Or perhaps you’ve always wanted the chance to crush the Republic and its pawns with the might of the Force all the while scoffing at the ways of the Jedi Order.
Whether you tend toward the light or dark side of the Force, BioWare’s Knights of the Old Republic II probably left you with questions. And, if you’ve been anxiously awaiting Star Wars: The Old Republic, you’ve probably been hoping the 300 year jump would shed light on some of those mysteries.
Lucky for us, the latest trailer for The Old Republic provides a little insight into some of our unanswered questions. Check the out the video past the break, I don’t want to spoil it for you.
Read the rest of this entry
The gaming industry is alive and well, as those of us who eagerly away the next installment of our favorite games know. It’s thriving, prosperous, and quite the money-maker. Sure it has its issues—game publishers that fail to fully compensate their developers and plunge beloved game franchises to their doom, zealous parents who say we’re bringing up a violent generation, flaming trolls you have to put on ignore or mute to enjoy a game.
But, I love it as a whole. I’m sure I’m not the only one who dropped an extra $40 for the Starcraft II collector’s edition—money that I could have spent on a new pair of jeans or a used game (even if that would have unleashed the anti-piracy wrath of Jerry Holkins on me).
Like every form of entertainment, our pastime of choice has its quirks. Gamers and industry professionals alike take their stand on certain issues—a sign of a healthy industry if you ask me. But just how well is the video and computer game industry doing? As usual, I turned to the ESA to find out. Curious to see what I learned? Join me past the break for more.
Read the rest of this entry
That’s right: It took yours truly a full ten minutes to realize that the door in front of her in Amnesia was not, in fact, a puzzle, but rather a thing on hinges that opened when pushed. Which apparently does make it a puzzle of sorts. To be fair, my sanity meter was, at the time, on its slide from crystal clear to “slight headache” to “hands shaking.” Literally.
My point is, it’s time for you all to go play the recently released demo for Frictional’s Amnesia: The Dark Descent, because so far I’m loving it. A new game from the makers of Penumbra, Amnesia promises a piece of survival horror where light is scarce and every second is a battle against madness. In less dramatic terms, it’s a puzzle- and stealth-based adventure game with scarce resources and clever physics, making copious use of fog and shadows to unsettle both your character and you.
You’ll be taking the role of Daniel, a self-made amnesiac trapped in a maze-like castle and haunted by a malicious shadow. The enemies themselves stay mostly out of sight (because remember, if you can see them, they can see you), so you’ll spend the demo fighting a much more insidious enemy: Your own psyche. Daniel’s sanity is depleted both by staying in the dark and by witnessing unsettling events, like the fleshy mass that has begun to grow on the castle walls, and his mental state determines how well you’ll be able to control him, so you’ll be looking out not only for monsters but for candles, tinderboxes, and lantern oil. It’s very much like the opposite of Thief. Too little sanity, and Daniel lays down like an exhausted child, refusing to go any further until you’ve given him some light.
Amnesia will be released on September 8, and the demo is available for all operating systems (including Linux!) either through Steam or directly from their site at AmnesiaGame.com.
Fans of PC digital downloads might want to head over to Direct2Drive for some great looking deals. For those of you who aren’t die-hard steam fanboys, over the next 4 weeks you might find something previously missed. So, what’s on offer? Check it out:
Use the coupon code PAX to save $5 on a $15 or more order.
End of Summer Sale – 2 games on sale every day for 30 days.
D2D Turns 6! – A weekly offer every Wednesday of titles available for $6. This weeks the games on offer are:
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Jedi Knight Bundle
Achtung Panzer
Titan Quest Bundle
Defense Grid: The Awakening
Tropico 3
Tropico Reloaded
Football Manager 2010
Penumbra Collection
My personal picks would be KOTOR, Tropico 3 and Football Manager 2010. The same deals apply to the UK and EU site at £6 and €6.
Capcom loves to keep gamers in the dark for a while to let speculation build — just look up the numerous threads concerning the roster in the upcoming Marvel vs. Capcom 3. It’s a great technique for building up hype for an upcoming product, but sometimes it can just be plain cruel. A couple months ago, Capcom-Unity posted a trailer for an upcoming Mega Man game, Mega Man: Universe. The trailer was crafty and entertaining, featuring claymation versions of Mega Man, Ryu and Arthur from the Ghosts and Goblins series. But the trailer failed in one aspect for me, since it had no actual game play footage! Fans were hyped but had no idea of how the game would actually play.
Finally, we got our answer in the form of a new trailer with an introduction from Keiji Inafune, the creator of Mega Man. The video features short snippets of classic 2D, side scrolling, platforming action that we all know, love, and expect from the Blue Bomber; he climbs ladders, jumps over pits of spikes and bottomless death, and dispatches familiar enemies with his Mega Buster. Even better, the very end of the trailer confirms that Ryu from Street Fighter will be a playable character! Even though there are no hints as to what the title implies or what the story line could be, the trailer is enough to make me keep a close eye on this project.
Check the trailer after the break!
Read the rest of this entry
As announced at yesterday’s Apple product update, the exploration-based Epic Citadel is now available in the App Store, and looks to be just the first step in a comprehensive plan to bring the Unreal engine to Apple’s mobile products. EC, which takes you through a medieval village and showcases lighting, bump offset mapping, and texture blending, seems designed to take advantage of the larger size of the iPad, but works just fine on smaller screens.
If you have an iProduct, Epic Citadel is definitely worth a download; I’ve played around with it a little, and it’s a trip through a world that would look great even on your PC. The textures especially are dazzling, and the lighting is beautiful, although we have yet to see anything except architecture. As it is, the world EC presents is nice, but a little empty: No NPCs, and there’s no way yet to interact with the world besides walking through it.
We’ve got it on good authority, though, that Unreal has a lot more in store for us, including a fully developed Epic Citadel. Read the rest of this entry
Only a month after the scheduled launch in the United States, Pokémon Ranger: Guardian Signs will hit the shelves in Europe on November 5, 2010. As the third installment in the Ranger series, players will continue to capture and befriend Pokémon—even legendary ones—by circling them with the Capture Styler.
New to the series, you can now call Pokémon to your aid by drawing their Ranger Sign on the Nintendo DS Touch Screen as you investigate the actions of Pokémon Pinchers, who have been chasing and catching Pokémon.
With multiplayer missions and the chance to catch Raikou, Entei and Suicune in just two months, European Pokémon fans can rejoice! Whether you want to protect Pokémon or you can’t help but buy games full of cute little creatures (like me), it may be time to bust out the DS and start circling some legendary Pokémon.
To say I’m a big MMO fan would be a fair assumption and the Guild Wars 2 “Manifesto” trailer released earlier this month got me as excited as a teenage girl queuing up to see the latest Eclipse movie (make sure you check out the GW2 trailer here). Info for Guild Wars 2 has been trickling out in recent months, teasing me at an increasing rate. Among the juicy bits are details about Guild Wars 2’s player professions (conventionally referred to as “classes” in other MMOs). Like any MMO, Guild Wars 2 will boast a wide selection of professions, and ArenaNet recently dropped full details on the fourth playable profession: the Necromancer.
Being the dedicated MMO player-come-blogger I am, I thought it would be nice to give our readers a round up on the professions announced thus far. Hit up the break and take a peek at what to expect from the upcoming Guild Wars 2.
Read the rest of this entry
It appears that EA have put Madden through some rigorous off season training to restore the popular franchise to form. A press release from EA stated that Madden NFL 11 is “delivering a strong performance” in both retail and digital sales during August. This is a positive contrast to last year’s outing that didn’t quite make the full ten yards, suffering from a drop in sales.
As if strong retail and digital sales were not enough, EA are running the Madden brand into the social gaming end zone with Madden NFL Superstars. Madden NFL Superstars is a “dynamic team management game” and will be the second “Superstars” game to be launched on Facebook by EA Sports and EA subsidiary Playfish, the first being FIFA Superstars, released earlier this year.
After a quick play through of the Madden NFL Superstars tutorial with my team “Floppy Trident” (based on the team picture of course), I can so far say it is an extremely well polished looking game. Fans of Madden and American Football may want to check it out here. Hit up the break for the full EA press release.
Read the rest of this entry
