Famitsu is reporting that on January 29th there will be a special edition DSi to go along with the release of the new game titled Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time.

This nicely designed DSi will come with the game in which it’s themed. There isn’t a price listed yet, but I’m sure it won’t be cheap. The new DS game will link with the Wii title of the same name. The selling point for me on this game is the online playability. You can link up to four players either locally or online over the world. The game itself is coming with a system similar to the translator found in Final Fantasy XI that can help with simple phrases, but just like in FFXI I’m sure people will create new phrases that everyone understands.

I like the look of this special edition DSi, but I really don’t go in for things like this nor do I have the money, but if someone would like to buy me one I would be more than willing to use it.

Source: Famitsu

Every morning I go over to Famitsu to see if there is anything in Japanese that you guys may or may not be interested in. Today I found out more information for you guys about the upcoming Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom game. Inside is video and information on one of the “bigger” characters going to fisticuffs in game.

Far be it for me to be the one to judge what characters get put into fighting games.  I enjoyed playing Juggernaut in the Marvel fighting game.  I like playing Rogue in the X-men Vs. Street Fighter game.  This guy in Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom, though, it just doesn’t seem fair.

Gold Lightan was the main robot character in a popular children’s anime in Japan from 1981 to 1982.  Okay, maybe it wasn’t that popular, but there are a lot of cartoons in Japan — not all of them can be a big hit.  I had no idea about the story of this Gold Lightan character so I dug up some info on Wikipedia about him.

The story is about a little boy named Hiro who accidentally found a gold lighter which turned out to be the giant Golden Warrior Gold Lightan with the mission to save the earth from every invasion of King Ibalda. Gold Lightan joined forces with his robot teammates to ruin the plots of King Ibalda and destroyed invading alien robots by using his surpassing hands and leg strikes. Hiro, the boy, also founded a group called the “One Pack Rangers” with his friends.

Yeah the kid fights a lighter and hes a magical giant robot that helps save the day.  Oh and this is my favorite part.  “Usually the robot ends a battle with a trademark golden hand stab move which drives a hand strike cutting the enemy robots body, pulling out and smashing the heartbox energy device.” – Wikipedia

Yep, he rips the heartbox from the chest of the evil robots. It doesn’t say if he eats it or shows it to them while it still mechanically beats before they die or explode, but he’s brutal to say the least.  Now, Gold Lightan can be seen giving a beat down to Morrigan and Chun-li.  For balance issues he isn’t allowed to have a teammate, but when you watch the video it still doesn’t seem fair.

Also, the Wii release is getting a lot of extra mini games to enjoy when you are tired of being beat up by a giant golden lighter.  One of the new mini games you can see at Famitsu stars Gold Lightan himself as you make his body shiny and gold, the more you clean him the more points you get.  The next one involves Morrigan carrying off a poor soul higher and higher for more points before she, I assume, drops him.  The last one looks like a button mashing mini game.  You have to get Chun-li to kick as fast as she can to carve Ryu in a giant stone — what talent!

This comes out on Wii in Japan December 11th and I may have to buy a Wii just for this.

Source: Famitsu Wikipedia

So I’ve discussed the game and the cards. Today I want to focus on PvP and my final thoughts on the game. I haven’t put near the amount of time some people have put into this game, so my theories may have some flaw to them, and I am far from a master at this game. This is really just a listing of what I’ve learned to do by being beat by the people I have played and using some of those tactics to beat other people.

Crystal Strategy

The first and simplest idea to winning is to just take out the other team’s arcane crystals. There are three of them on a PvP map and they are always in the same place. It seems simple enough but if their team enters the area of the crystal you are attacking, then you stop attacking it to focus on fighting them. This can, of course, slow you down, but if you have a stronger team it isn’t anything to worry about.

When I first started playing PvP, this is the only thought that came to my mind. My cards weren’t strong enough to be effective in battle, so I ran from crystal to crystal trying to lower their life bar before the enemy could take out my whole team. Now PvP match-ups are usually about four levels apart max, so at times I was playing people I had no chance of beating. This is how you can start to annoy the high level people.

As I stated last time, there are some monster cards that lower the power of arcane crystals much faster than any other cards. These are great to have on a team, and also terrible to have. They make your team slower than you could possibly imagine or want. Once you do get to a crystal, though, you’re set. There is a side strategy to using these cards and that is to take out the opponents search eye or shield generator which will give you some speed boosts, letting those slow but dangerous monsters get to the crystals much faster.

Opponent Destruction Strategy

This is the next simple-but-not-as-easy way to win the battle: if you fight and take out the other team completely, their life bar will go down a decent amount. You have to defeat the whole team, though, or this doesn’t do as much good. This really works well for people who have leveled up their cards a bit and have a team that is strong against that particular opponent. I have tried using this strat a few times but always seem to lose out in the end. There is something about this I’m doing wrong and I need to spend a bit more time figuring out how to perfect it.

What really gets me about this method of winning is the monster card’s strength and weakness to certain attacks. If, say, you do dark damage, you are usually weak to light damage. So obviously, if you’re team is solely dark damage monsters and the other is light, it could be a draw, but if they aren’t light then you’re damage won’t be as effective and theirs will work better. There are also cards that can either change your strength, damage, or your weakness thus causing you serious headaches.

“Lock Out” Strategy

This is something new I’m working on. It has not been used on me to its fullest yet in a match, but I used it on someone to achieve a sneaky victory. In the PvP field, there are three gates your team can come through if you lose all teammates or need a quick health recharge. If one is broken by the other team, it can’t be used until you spend time standing in front of it to fix it.

The idea is if you break all three gates down, and then proceed to either attack the other team or work on crystals, they will have no choice than to hurry and fix their gates, or try and take you out to get some time to repair their gates. The gates do repair themselves but very, very slowly. I have taken out all three gates on someone before and then went to the furthest crystal from them and cleaned house. This strat doesn’t work well if their team moves faster than yours, though, so it’s a bit tricky.

Conclusion

Well, that is about all there is to Lord of Vermilion so far. It’s a fun card game with some great card art. You don’t have to get every card in the whole game to have fun, and you don’t have to have many cards to start. If you are in Japan for a length of time and feel like trying it out, go for it — you really don’t need too high a Japanese language skill to play it, and even if you have trouble, the person sitting next to you may give you some simple tips for playing. I recently upgraded from the weak plastic card holders to stronger stuff because some of the more serious players rock their cards pretty hard while combating, and I think I’m almost at their level. We’ll see, though.

Welcome to the second part of my write up on the currently Japan only Lord of Vermilion. In the last piece I discussed the basic overview of how the game worked and what’s involved. Today I plan on going a bit more in depth with the cards that are the focus of the game. Just like any other card game there are factions, interesting artwork, rarity, and a few surprises. So sit back, relax and enjoy the ride.

Factions

There are currently seven factions found in Lord of Vermilion. These aren’t direct translations but basically they are: The Beasts, The Demons, The Angels, The Devils, The Undead, The Underwater, and Mechanical. Each of course have their own upsides and downsides, creating balance in the game. You are also allowed to use any combination of each faction you like, you don’t have to stick to a certain one unless you want to. Your character can also wear gear and choose an affiliation with a certain faction to boost it’s power but that is always up to you, and a choice you get to make for each match.

The Beasts

The cards in this category are pretty simple to understand they are animals, or people like animals, or animal like people. If they made joke cards I think this is where you would find Man-Bear-Pig. Japan likes to use the names of mystic characters from other lore and the first one I’ll mention is in this set. Grendel is a rather powerful monster card in here and more than likely one of the bosses in game (though I haven’t gotten that far). Though his art work doesn’t seem to make him to be anything near the same as in the story of Beowulf. He is listed as a super rare so I doubt I’ll be running across him anytime soon when I play.

The Demons

Dark magic includes well witches, orcs, trolls, and goblins. The name that really sticks out to me is Mephisto. Sometimes this guy is known as the lord of the underworld or what not. These cards are designed after monsters that cause problems for people, but so far it’s all really just in the name. Yes I know I’ve listed Demons and Devils as two seperate groups, which they are but you could probably merge these two groups of cards together and no one would really notice.

The Angels

The holy cards. All creatures in this set are based of mystic holy people or assumed “good guys.” I say assumed here because Zeus is listed in this set and while he was the god of the gods, he wasn’t really a good guy like most of the angels that are thrown in here. Odin also makes an appearance for good measure.

The Devils

We talked about demons, now time for devils. These guys are a step up from their demon couterparts causing a bit more damage as far as I can remember. Ifrit is in this group as well as Beelzebub. Now if you are some what up on your reading you know that Beelz is literately translated as lord of the things that fly, or lord of the flies. But if hes/she/it is in this group we’re calling it a devil.

The Undead

Zombies, skulls, dead monsters, Oh my! Anything thats dead or undead is in this group. Nothing of noteable popularity is named, there is a generic vampire lady as a rare card. One that seems awkward for me and perhaps I should research some more is a card called Rich or Ricchi in romaji. The art on the card is clearly the grim reaper and there is a very well known Japanese word for grim reaper, but I guess they just didn’t want to go in that direction. Other cards in this set are pretty generic with specters, ghosts, and sprits.

The Underwater

There really isn’t much to say about these cards. They are all creatures from the water, big fish, mermaids, mermen, and the Kraken! I haven’t seen many of these cards myself so maybe they aren’t making it to my arcade. I also haven’t seen many people use this area’s cards in PvP. This creates the assumption they aren’t popular, but I’ll ask around.

Using the Cards

So now that we know the factions what types of cards are there, we need to know how to use them on our team to achieve ultimate victory! The first thing to know is that each card has score. Your team can spend 90 points in cards for each match. For best results you want to of course get to the 90 point mark without going over, but you also can’t stockpile 10 point cards, well you can, but you can only have a team of four out at one time anyway so that is sort of a crazy idea. Cards range from 10 points up to 30 points in increments of five and ten. This allows you to balance your playstyle and card type you want. Cards also come with special abilities, some come with two other cheaper point cards come with one.

The ability that all cards come with is a battle ability, something they can use during the fight to help either boost your time, weaken the other team, or hurt the other team. This ability has a range and can only be used when they are “charged up”. For instance one of my favorite cards has a really nice damage ability attack. When she is charged up she shoots magic at any enemy in her range which is shaped like a T, now the damage will go through other monsters into any in range as opposed to one target, and if there is a target at the top of the T they get an extra hit on them. Pretty useful, but somewhat slow.

Higher point cards come with another ability listed as Gate, Search, or Arcana. These are all abilities that affect the strategy side of the game. The Gate ability allows them to destory enemy gates and repair your gates at accelerated speed. The Search ability (from what I understand) allows you to see stats of your enemy better, and allows you to take out their search eye and repair your own at a quicker pace. Finally and my favorite, the Arcana ability allows you to destory the enemy stone sheilds really fast. The downside to this ability usually is that the monsters are slow, which slows down the rest of your team so if you want to go this route be prepared to get attacked easily by the other team.

Lastly all monsters can fight, they have an attack power, a defense power, and hit points. As you use the cards over and over they level up and these stats get stronger you see before pvp matches what level the opponents cards are and this usually is a pretty good sign of how the battle is going to go. After every battle win or lose your cards gain XP which allows them to do a little bit better in the next match. In another part I will get more into fighting with your cards.

Attaining the Cards

So now you know about all these awesome cards and you wanna go buy some? Sorry. You can’t go out and buy booster packs of the cards like other trading card games, you have to earn them. Every time you play the game win or lose you get a card. I am both for and against this system. I like it in that it doesn’t allow people to spend a ton of money before they even learn the game and let them stockpile every card in the game. The con is that this makes the cards somewhat more expensive. The game costs around three dollars US to play that will net you your first card, then you can contiune for two dollars more. To be smart you always want to play to get two cards, if you don’t you’re spending three bucks for one card. After each game or set of games is over a single card is dispensed in its packaging and you get the thrill of seeing if you got a super rare or another Mandrake…..

Popularity

Some big name artists were brought in on this project to really make it shine. The one that stuck out to me at first was Todd McFarlane. The spawn creator himself drew one of the monster cards for the game. Another name you might know is 天野 喜孝 or Yoshitaka Amano. For those of you who don’t know he’s the guy that does all that interesting art for the final fantasy games. It makes sense for Squre Enix to get him to do artwork since he has done such great artwork before. The link to a listing of many of the cards is here there is English so it’s somewhat easy to follow, you might notice an artist I didn’t, let me know in your comments who is worth mentioning and why.

Check back soon for part 3!

While the Playstation was once home to all the greatest Japanese RPGs, the Xbox 360 has recently been stealing some of that star power.

Microsoft held an RPG conference in Japan today where Square-Enix announced Star Ocean 4 for the Xbox 360.

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Subtitled “The Last Hope”, the game is a prequel, taking place hundreds of years before the first Star Ocean. The game will also contain more science fiction elements this time around, feature a brand new battle system, and the ability to travel across different planets.

Star Ocean: The Last Hope is scheduled to arrive in 2009 for the Xbox 360. A PS3 version has yet to be confirmed, but is expected to be announced for the console.

Sources: StarOceanLastHope.com, Gamersyde

Yes, I’m British. I spell “rumour” with two u’s. What U going to do about it? Well hopefully you’ll have no time to do anything, because either you’ll be embedded in Snake’s final mission on the Playstation 3, or engrossed in one of Snake’s first on the Xbox 360.

Yes, with knowledge comes…well, snappy Ripten headings, and this time it could read; “Metal Gear Solid Coming to the Xbox 360.” At least, not in the form you might expect. As we all know MGS4 couldn’t possibly fit on a measley DVD, but Metal Gear Solid 1 might fit into 350mb (though even that’s questionable.)

Indeedy do, MGS may be following its tactical steps onto the Japan PSN Store by infiltrating Xbox Live Arcade. This is not too surprising, since the series has made its way onto non-Playstation consoles a number of times, and Microsoft even published MGS for the PC release.

I expect you’re asking how we know, or who our source is. Lets just say a reliable individual tapped into our codec frequency after spying the game on a certain pre-release network. We shall say no more – nudge nudge, wink wink – except this; there are problems in bringing Kojima’s masterpiece to this new playing field.

Naturally, rumours can turn out to be false, so we’ll bring you more information as it becomes available.

*Update* – Some have responded rather violently to this story, so I must mention a few words of solace. This was posted as rumour, not fact. Nor is the rumour itself any challenge to PlayStation fans. I am not talking of Metal Gear Solid 4 being ported to the Xbox 360, but a 10 year old classic that has found its way onto a number of platforms, with Microsoft themselves publishing the PC conversion.

Of course, it’s hard to understand how MGS1 could fit into 350mb due to the lengthy dialogue, but it wouldn’t be surprising for Microsoft to make an exception.

I originally withheld our evidence due to possible difficulties, but after the response I will spell it out. MGS was spied by our contact on PartnerNet, the developers-only Xbox Live network used to beta-test unreleased downloadable Xbox 360 games.

Moreover, we’ve reported on rumours in the past and have mostly been proved correct. One notable example was our article on MGS4 using a 50GB Blu-ray, which was subsequently sourced around the web and on the infamous Neogaf forums. The news was finally confirmed by Ryan Payton in the following week’s Kojima Productions Report.

Of course rumours may offend you, for which this story is not of interest, but if they do interest you, we’re pretty confident in our sources this time.

Capcom’s first Resident Evil 5 trailer caused a minor uproar over its supposed racist imagery, showing a glorified white male American killing black African zombies. It’s understandable that such imagery might prompt a backlash, and so Capcom have rectified this in their new politically correct (yes, PC stands for politically correct and not Personal Computer in this instance ) “Captivate 2008″ trailer.

Notice how there are Caucasian zombies in almost every shot? This suggests Capcom either concentrated on showing these zombies in the trailer, or actually added multiracial enemies into the game itself after all the negative publicity.

When we first got our hands on Haze, we were intrigued by the concept of Nectar and its use on the battlefield. Still, we were worried whether this was all Haze had to offer; a game exploiting the concept of exploiting drugs in war. With that confusing thought just escaping our little heads, our mits were on the final version of the game.

I’ve had a lot of Haze play time, giving the game a shot in the fun filled Wembley stadiums of Play.com Live, the technology festooned pad at Sony’s Three Rooms, and finally in the excitable offices of Free Radical outside Nottingham.

It was easy to see the potential of Haze each time: the four player co-op, the creative and addictive Nectar abilities (that shouldn’t be confused with Nectar points), the asymmetric multiplayer combat, and the unusually deep storyline. But it was not until the game was in the comfort of my home that Haze’s failings were more apparent.

It can become easy for the game’s positives to be clouded by a thick haze that some might get lost in, but when you do clear the smoke you’ll still find sizeable nuggets of gaming goodness to enjoy.

Yes, vehicles are in Online Multiplayer.

Upon entering the disc you’ll first be met with a considerable 3.8GB install to the PS3’s HDD. Yes, the worrying trend continues. In the future, we hope Sony will lower their current 5GB allowance to 2GB or lower, because watching a blank screen for 10 minutes (not near the 22minutes of Devil may Cry 4) is incredibly tedious. Pictures, Mantel documentation, or even a controller layout would have made this journey more pleasant. Then again, the install is somewhat justified since there will be no loading in Haze, something which makes playtime fly by.

When you do eventually get to start the game, you’ll enter Haze’s futuristic world. This is a time where governments outsource their militaristic needs to private, media savvy companies like Mantel. Mantel can’t afford mistakes or bad press, so their army must be strong, invincible and their battles morally right.

To meet these goals, Mantel has developed a new tool of war – Nectar. A soldier enhancing drug that not only makes Mantel’s army more efficient in the physical acts on the battlefield, but also turns the horrors of war into a bright and jolly haze. There is no blood. There are no bodies. There’s only you and your comrades fighting on the right side and for the right reasons.

As Shane Carpenter, a new Mantel recruit (though he appears to be a Sergeant), you’re going to face some tough decisions in your fight against a new threat: The Promise Hand rebels.

The Promise Hand. For more information on Haze’s story, characters, weapons and vehicles, please follow this link.

At the beginning of his mission Shane is dropped into a lush jungle, where he’s to grapple with Nectar’s abilities. What’s first apparent is how intuitive the controls are. You won’t find fire-power relegated to R2 and L2 like the FPS games inspired by the Xbox 360’s control scheme. Instead these triggers are lavished with administrating Nectar, or if you’re a Rebel, playing dead.

The message of modern warfare being like a videogame, and war games being devoid of moral responsibility is met with the concept of Nectar, since your foes stand out like Time Crisis enemies jumping into guns sights. When you zoom in on the orange aura of your foes, it’s easy to pop them off one by one.

Since enemies are well hidden in either foliage or against similar coloured backgrounds, injecting yourself with the drug is necessary to succeed. Being dosed up on Nectar feeds the notion that videogames have the ability to bring adrenaline and addictive killing into the living room – a sentiment that might be familiar to Jack Thompson – Nectar makes you feel invincible. But be careful on the trigger. Go too far and you’ll overdose, losing control over your bullet spray, resulting in injuries to your allies. When your AI compatriots do the same it’s not quite as funny, so your best bet is to euthanise.

In truth, Haze’s AI isn’t as clever as we hoped. Friendly AI are generally useless, running around like headless chickens, getting in the way of your fire and not killing that one guy you can’t get to. Sure, you don’t want them to help too much, but you at least want them to be useful, rather than a burden. Enemy AI does fair slightly better, with Rebels diving into cover and Mantel troopers storming their way towards you.

Watch your back.

However, these certainly aren’t the most intelligent enemies. There are points where they’ll stomp straight past you to your ally, allowing you to simply turn around and pump bullets into them. Worryingly, much of the AI’s activity appears to be triggered by passing a certain predefined line, so until you do so they’ll be camping behind barriers, allowing you to shoot them with no reaction if you haven’t passed that point.

Before long, with Nectar dripping from your veins, you’re out of Mantel’s shoes and you’ve joined the Promise Hand. This plot twist was never a secret, but it is surprising how early in the game this happens. Just as you’re starting to enjoy Nectar abilities, the drug is thrust from your hands and left leaking in the jungle scrub. Haze’s most original innovation won’t be used again.

That’s not to say being a Rebel doesn’t have its own innovations. Without Nectar you’ll have to be a bit more cunning and agile. Abilities include a handy dive to get behind cover and the ability to strap Nectar packs to your grenades. These can either be thrown or set as a trap and result in an eruption of yellow gas that causes troopers to overdose. Your knife can also be dipped in the drug, for you to splice the stuff straight into a trooper’s back.

The most creative Rebel ability is playing dead. Nectar sensors dead bodies, so if you act like one you’ll become invisible. Sounds like it could make the game a cake walk? Don’t fear – it’s tougher than you think. You can only play dead when you’re nearing death by tapping L2. Once your enemy turns his back, press X to start coming up and again to jump to your feet quickly. It takes some getting used to, but once mastered, can save your life.

However, for all the Rebel innovations, Nectar was always Haze’s king. Even if Free Radical intended a reluctant and premature withdrawal from the drug, exploiting your enemies is common to all shooters and so spending most of your time as a Rebel makes Haze’s originality sparse.

Moreover, during Rebel play it’s noticeable Mantel troopers aren’t nearly as effective as you were on Nectar. They aren’t incredibly good at getting head shots and they don’t destroy you with a powerful melee attack. In fact, they are mostly dumb brutes. Free Radical may argue this is a conscious balancing decision, but it does almost destroy the Nectar advantage Mantel troopers are meant to have in both story and gameplay.

Boosh!

Level design is creative, seeing you traverse a hilltop hotel, travel by cable car, fight on a sinking ship, and shoot your way through the corridors of a moving transport carrier. Nonetheless, apart from the final chapter, levels are lacking a certain grandeur expected in modern shooters. Some levels even feel old fashioned, employing a “pull switch to continue” policy, and peppered with floaty vehicles that are prone to toppling or spontaneous combustion from hidden explosions.

This isn’t helped by the game’s graphics, which sport low texture resolutions and a general soft facade. There’s also a helping of pop-in on Mantel trooper’s armour – a graphical error you wouldn’t expect from a high-profile title. It’s easy to point to excuses, such as no loading and large levels, but when you look at other first-generation PS3 games doing similar feats with much more impressive engines (such as Heavenly Sword and Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune) it’s easy to see Free Radical haven’t really got to grips with Sony’s hardware.

Moreover, levels become visually drab and uninspired; brown barren landscapes compliment empty gray corridors. In truth, Haze’s most stunning visuals can be found in the bright forests of the demo level – saturated blue skies, vibrant foliage, and interactive grass (a feat even Call of Duty 4 couldn’t match). Of course, the world is meant to become more drab after you’ve gone cold turkey, but it makes me wonder whether this order is wrong. That is, the visual progression and even the story would be helped by starting the game as a Rebel, to then be enslaved by Mantel. Thus, Haze’s most innovative feature would be in the second half of the game, the visuals would become more vibrant, and the plot could touch upon how an ordinary man is deranged by the drug.

“Don’t forget your promise to Merino!”

The latter is needed, because the morality of fellow troopers is sorely missing from Haze. Fellow Mantel are stereotypical American jocks obsessed with killing. Though this is meant to show the power of the yellow drug, it’s impossible to relate to characters who say “It’s like taking candy from a crippled baby.” Naturally, this makes it all the easier to change sides and take pleasure in killing the Mantel troopers, but there’s another problem. It’s also very hard to relate with the Rebels, who are obsessed with repeating intense lines like“Don’t forget your promise to Merino”, making you wonder if you’ve really made a promise to Merino (Skin Coat).

Merino does happen to be Haze’s most convincing character, sporting the best voice acting in the game (sadly not matched by facial animation), but when he begins to submit orders you question whether you should follow them. You don’t feel obliged, because you were never really on Mantel’s side and you’ll find it hard to relate to Shane’s guilt, because you’ll never relate to him. Shane shows no strength as a Sergeant and pony’s from one side to the other.

The game does eventually touch upon the moral dilemmas of using enhancing drugs in war and the issue of murdering “people” in videogames. You may even kill remorsefully in the final stages, illustrating that when Haze presents its story well, it does succeed.

The story is engrossing enough to hold its own in co-op, not interfering with what you really want to do – kill the baddies with your buddies. The single-player campaign can be played cooperatively via splitscreen (2 players), LAN or online (up to 4 players). This is where Haze shines.

The ease with which you can join a quartet of friends (or even strangers) is so seamless and simple, even allowing access to your PSN friends list, that you’ll wish all your games had the same ability. This certainly makes the campaign more engaging, with many of the levels owing themselves to cooperative play. Plus, if you’re having trouble in the single-player, why not invite others to help you out?

As seamless as the co-op is, there are some niggling problems. The game cannot be manually saved, saving automatically upon passing checkpoints. This worked perfectly well until my teammates passed a checkpoint while a gun turret had me pinned down. After we all eventually died I was loaded in front of the turret that would kill me in a few shots. I suffered this until I was eventually able to escape and complete the level. A manual save system should be in place, or you shouldn’t be placed in an unreasonable position upon reload.

Co-op can annoy when you’re bumped without warning to join your comrades after lagging behind. This is sometimes helpful, but you’re often thrown into a room of enemies without time to orientate yourself. Moreover, it would be helpful if each player could get their own save game instead of just the host, since as it stands non-hosts have to begin anew when they play alone.

Online multiplayer consists of 16 player Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and Team Assault on 6 maps. The asymmetric gameplay really shines here, since each team can choose to play as either Rebels or Mantel Troopers. Though you might find yourself doing well with only one play style, the more you get used to each of the mechanics in this fast paced multiplayer, the more you’ll recognise how well Free Radical has balanced the teams.

Playing dead is one surprising success in the multiplayer, resulting in invisibility to all troopers. You’d think troopers would just shoot the ground to kill you (which is of course possible) but the fast paced action and the fact that the kill will actually display itself on the screen (eg. Name1 killed Name2) means playing dead is a great addition.

It’s a shame there are so few maps when we’re used to bigger offerings from the Time Splitters developer, but Team Assault does add variety in the form of different map objectives. These do a good job of promoting team play and slowing down the pace of a generally frantic multiplayer experience. Haze also welcomes the return of bots, allowing you to boost up the numbers in online and splitscreen. We wonder why new gen games got rid of them in the first place.

Free Radical’s latest offering does a good job of implementing asymmetric play in both online and single player and treads new PS3 ground with its seamless online co-op. Nevertheless, its potential isn’t quite reached elsewhere. Haze’s most interesting innovation is relegated to the first third and questionable voice acting, poor cutscene animations, and uninteresting characters turn the story into a melodrama rather than approaching any real seriousness. Haze set out to transcend the shallow shooters on the market, but in the end its major attraction is found in “gimmicky” Nectar abilities.

Haze – Pre-Played You are Shane Carpenter, and the year is 2048. You are a newly enlisted soldier with the leading company trying to create peace throughout the world. This company offers you cutting-edge technology, including vehicles, weaponry, and performance-enhancers….

The co-founder of Maxis, Jeff Braun, has confirmed that a new Oddworld Game is in development, with the team from Oddworld Inhabitants working on it:

They’re such a talented group of people and I really trust their ability to create compelling content.

It was hinted that the next Oddworld might be released via episodic content and could even take years before the game itself ships.

For those who don’t remember Oddworld, the various editions of the franchise introduced characters such as Abe and Munch who had to escape extermination using mind control and farts.

Source: Cordweekly

Although Guerilla Game’s love child has been delayed until 2009, most likely to avoid big name titles like Resistance 2 and Gears of War 2, SCEE’s Playstation day brought us the rare treat of real Killzone 2 gameplay footage. 

First off, how about a spangley new trailer?

What we really want is a full run through of the playable demo, and so we can share Jeuxvideo’s off-screen footage with you here.

If you want to gawk at some 720p gameplay footage, Gamersyde will fulfil your needs at this link.

Fear not European’s, Sony is bringing the Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots Playstation 3 bundle to Europe on June 12th.

The bundle will include a copy of the game, the Playstation 3 itself, a Sixaxis controller and cost €439.99.

The main point of contention is that a Sixaxis is included rather than the new DualShock 3. Sony claims this is “one of the most exciting bundles to date”, though I personally think it’s rather lacklustre.

Hopefully alternative MGS4 bundles will be announced down the line, which will include the DualShock3.

Even though I’m dying to get a limited edition gunmetal PS3, no rumble, no sale.

Source:  Kotaku

In a recent showing of their popular PC and Xbox 360 zombie shooter, Left 4 Dead, Valve’s Marketing VP Doug Lombardi let the world know that they weren’t developing a PS3 version of the game. However, he did leave hope that the game could be ported to the PS3. 

When asked if EA would be porting the game over to the PS3, much like they did with The Orange Box, Lombardi replied,

Left 4 Dead doesn’t have that guaranteed appeal yet – it’s a new IP. If you mention a new Half-Life, people want to make as many versions of it as possible. If Left 4 Dead is big, then we may see a PS3 version later, or if and when we do a sequel, people may be more interested in that.

Lombardi went on to say,

We’re only 150 people, so there’s only so many things we can do. But it’s one of those things with partners, wanting to take on that investment and risk. I think until L4D is proven, you’ll probably just see what we make in that franchise.

It seems as though much of the concern with developing a PS3 version is the financial risk and Valve doesn’t want to have any part of it. Hopefully, Left 4 Dead does well on the PC and Xbox 360 to allow the possibility for a PS3 port.

Sources: CVG.com and PS3fanboy.com

Echochrome is one of the most interesting puzzle games to come out for some time. Both due to its amazing sense of style and insane level of difficulty.  Although each version of the monochrome puzzler (it’s on both the PS3 and PSP) sports 56 unique levels, Sony has announced more is on the way.  The best part? They will be free.

The game will periodically (Sony has not confirmed how often as of yet) prompt the player to download new content, which will consist of a batch of new levels.  Since the game allows you to create your own levels, the developers have decided to pick the best of the best and make them available to all. Unfortunately, downloaded levels will only be playable until the new batch of content arrives.

While the time restriction is unfortunate, it’s still great to see echochrome being supported with fresh, new, and free content.  Let’s just hope there’s plenty of time to finish the levels before the next batch arrives.  No word on when the updates will begin, but we’ll keep you informed.

Source: PlayStation Blog

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Upon a recent journey to my local Wal-Mart, I found myself in the electronics section like I mysteriously always do. What I found, however, was a slight surprise – a Rock Band Special Edition bundle with an included wireless guitar.

While I’ve read several times that the Rock Band wireless guitar would become available separately come April, I don’t remember hearing anything about the guitars being included in the bundle. Perhaps it just wasn’t advertised or maybe I just don’t pay attention since I already own the game, but it came as a surprise to me.

The bundle I saw was for the Xbox 360. I looked in the PS3 section also, but they didn’t have one. That’s not to say they don’t exist, but I can’t confirm it because there weren’t any there. If you didn’t know about this new bundle, then guess what? You heard it here first!

Riptenites assemble! Form of — Blaznats!

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been noticing quite a few themes that have been making their way through the industry. Throughout GDC, many of these took center stage in a variety of forms. Today, we review the reviews.

I left this one for last, as I know it may very possibly be my most controversial topic. I know that I may be wrong in the text that lies ahead, and I know I and Ripten as a whole are guilty of some of what I’m about to discuss, but I still want to make my point.

Reviews shouldn’t come with points attached to them.

What do these points mean anymore? Most publications are now working off the 7-10 scale, meaning that all titles worth playing are within that range, and anything that lies below shouldn’t deserve to exist. If you’re going to use a scale, use it responsibly.

Don’t give a mediocre game a 6 and an average game a 7.5. The scale is there for a reason. Obviously, reviews are mostly subjective and there are always going to be some exceptions that have earned themselves a bit of wiggle room.

A thought that’s been making its way through my mind lately is the possibility of evolving reviews to the point that they’re exclusive to just audio or video.

Picture this: A reviewer is assigned a game. Said reviewer plays through the game as normal, except when it’s time for he or she to type the review, they instead throw on the podcast headsets and in essence review the game on-air with some of the staff, who offer questions that readers of that game may potentially have. Just an idea.

Should reviews eternally stay as text, it should be just that: text. Explain the merits, downfalls, and caveats. With, at most, a thumbs up or down.

I feel that that the review standard that we have now has to change, hopefully one that will render aggregators like Metacritic useless. They don’t really do much besides act as an e-penis, or measuring sticks for publishers. If the Metacritic score is not up to par, publishers can put pressure on reviewers to sell out their editorial integrity.

A lot of this came to light in a very big way in the aftermath of the unfortunate firing of Jeff Gerstmann from GameSpot.

Even if the GameSpot situation isn’t what we all portray it to be, it still begs the question — is it possible to function solely off non-endemic advertising or as a whole, is gaming journalism forever going to be tied to some sort of advertisment pertaining to the same subject matter?

Will reviewers ever be able to pan a game without getting a call from a publisher asking why their shit game got a 3.5?

I’d like to believe as much, but it’ll take an equal amount of maturation from us as the press and them as publishers so we may coexist with less friction.

A prime example is the way Ubisoft has blocked Electronic Gaming Monthly magazine from early access to games, over EGM’s less-than-favorable coverage.

It’s the publisher’s responsibility to realize that when they rush out a bug-ridden game with major flaws, just to meet a specified launch date, it may not end up getting such a favorable review.

Killzone Concept Art

21 Photos

 

Credit: Xavier Marquis

Many hoped that Fatal Frame 4 would make its way to one of these systems as well. These hopes have now been dashed.

At a Tecmo Press event Nintendo has been revealed as Fatal Frame 4’s publisher. Tecmo and No More Heroes developer Grasshopper Manufacture will be working together to create the game exclusively for the Wii.

Quality third party titles are coming Nintendo’s way, with strong Wii sales tempting talented developers. The Wii-sclusive is planned for this Summer.

Source: Actu Wii

Previously, the British Board of Film Classification’s decision to ban the controversial game was successfully overturned by an appeal. However, the BBFC has continued the matter by taking it to the High Court, who has now ruled against the appeal that overturned the original banning. Manhunt 2 has been “re-banned”.

It was argued that the decision to have the game released, as decided after the appeal, would “undermine the BBFC’s authority,” and not just in the medium of video games.

Presently things look bad for Rockstar’s game, but something tells me this matter is far from over.

Can it be? Can the words I read be true? Is a Metal Gear Solid 4 demo coming to the Playstation Network next month? I do not believe it.

Ryan Payton, the game’s Assistant Producer, who we interviewed at E for All, gave us the impression that there would be no hope of a Metal Gear demo on the Playstation Network:

Considering how much we’ve changed since TGS/E for All, it would be a huge undertaking to create a new demo. Sorry guys.

To be honest, why would they need a demo for existing Playstaiton owners, when it’s almost certain that they are going to go out and buy the game anyway?

Nevertheless, perhaps Payton’s choice of words when he said a “new demo” wasn’t on the cards, should have been enough to place doubt in our minds. You would, however, expect Kojima to desire a demo that was representative of their final engine, so they might have taken that huge undertaking and updated the demo’s game engine.

So what leads us to believe that an MGS4 demo is on the way to the Playstaiton Network? Well, we can read it in the Playstation World magazine:

Want more MGS4? Well you’ll get it very soon. The stage we played here will be on the PSN Store in the next month.

What a tasty little surprise if true. But don’t forget, magazines have been known to get things wrong. Still, PSW sound very confident after their play time with the game.

While you ogle at the photograph of these edible words, we’ll try to keep you informed.

Update:  The PSW Editor has been in contact with MGS4.net to let them know that a demo for the PSN Store is indeed planned, and they expect it to land in February.  Though they do say that’s if the game is coming in May…when I was expecting it in June anyway:

At the time of writing the article a Konami rep told us a demo, the demo we played in our office for the magazine article, would be on the PSN Store. It’s finished, we played it, so something should be appearing this month.

It could all depend on the game’s final on sale date, if it has moved to May then a demo could appear later, possibly February.

Sources: Gametrailers Forums and MGS4.net

Can we blame them? They brought us 3 gems last week – a Super Stardust HD demo and upgrade, The Club demo and a new PSN game, Snakeball.

The Australian Store has already been updated, and reports from the French Playstation forum suggests that the same meager offerings are on their way to Europe also.

*Update* – A French Sony representative lets us know that last week was their week off and so they had nothing set up for this week, which is perfectly fine. Therefore, this weeks European update is only what they had hanging around, making our title a tad unkind.

European Store Update:

Downloadable Content
Folklore – Fear in the Night Pack (AU$3.45) [4 additional side quests, 1 additional folk, 1 additional costume for Ellen]

Media
Devil May Cry 4 – “Final trailer” (Free, 212 MB)

US Playstation Store Update:

Games/Demos:
-NFL Tour ‘09 Network demo

Downloadable Content:
-NFS: ProStreet – numerous unlockables – between $1.99 and $2.99 each

Rock Band:
Individual Songs – $.99 each unless noted otherwise:
-“Attack” – 30 Seconds to Mars
-“The Kill” – 30 Seconds to Mars
-“Dirty Little Secret” – All-American Rejects
-“Move Along” – All-American Rejects
-“Song With a Mission” – The Sounds
-“Limelight” – Rush – $1.99
-“Hard to Handle” – The Black Crowes – $1.99
-“Gimme Three Steps” – Lynyrd Skynyrd – $1.99

Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
-Die Fantastischen Vier – “Ernten Was Wir Säen” – $2.49
-Trust – “Antisocial” – $2.49
-Extremoduro – “So Payaso” – $2.49
-Warner/Reprise Track Pack – $6.25
–Linkin Park – “No More Sorrow”
–Mastodon – “Sleeping Giant”
–The Used – “Pretty Handsome Awkward”

Trailers:
-Gran Turismo 5 Prologue Japanese Launch

Bionic Commando has been dormant, apart from two Gameboy sequels in 1992 and 1999, but Capcom reintroduce the series for the next-generation. In this outing, players will be able to use the main character’s bionic grappling arm to traverse and kill enemies.

Enjoy the new screenshots and artwork.

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Source.

Heavenly Sword has been updated to 1.10 and only one feature can be confirmed. Rumble.

Some impatient souls were complaining that Heavenly Sword had not joined the rumbling ranks. Ninja Theory’s PS3 offering now has (along with Warhawk which joined last week) and update 1.10 can be downloaded on start up of the game.

Other than rumbling, there are rumors that loading after death is faster and some framerate problems have been improved. I believe that this is just a placebo effect, and the problems were never that bad in the first place.

With the US Playstation Store update, which can be found here, came the 1995 original and classic Warhawk. Nice to see it joining the Warhawk Omega Dawn Booster pack that some of us can’t yet download sadly.

The original game has a Gamesranking.com average of 88%, which is a tad spectacular considering it was born in an era when games weren’t given out 10’s left, right and centre. It can now be yours to play upscaled on your PS3 and on your PSP for $5.99

Unsure of whether you want to fly back to the past? Have a look at the trailer:

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Paul’s hair has always been ridiculous and now as Namco christen his new item move as “Long Paul” we get to see his hair grow like he was dunked in some radioactive miracle grow:

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Bruce moves like a chicken, so why not make him lay chickens? Namco says yes sir!

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Leo’s got hold of a pistol, though I feel it’d be more humorous if a flag saying “BANG!” popped out when he shot it:

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Funny stuff. More videos of the item moves can be found at SDTekken.

What’s also new in the Tekken world? Namco have revealed the complete list of Tekken moves – that’s right 117 pages of Tekken 6 moves. The list can be downloaded here as a PDF file (needs Adobe Acrobat Reader).

To end, how about a bad ass unblockable move from Miguel, a new character in the Tekken franchise:

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Now that’s what I’m talking about!