Dark Souls Coming to PC, DLC Forthcoming

Now to contrast the unfortunate news of the previous post, here’s something we can all be thankful for.  From Software’s will be bringing their 2011 hit suicide simulator Dark Souls to the PC on 8/24.  “So what?” you might be saying.  “I already own it for the PS3 / 360.  What does this matter to me?”  Well you’ve got a lot of nerve, mister.

As it happens, the PC port will include some new DLC dubbed “Artorias of the Abyss”.  This will feature new areas, enemies, bosses and equipment.  Best of all, it’s going to be brought to the console versions this coming winter.  Happy now, you lousy ingrate?

News Roundup – 5/31/2012

Let’s kick things off with Skyrim’s first expansion, Dawnguard. Looks quite amazing! Like the addition of Morrowind’s crossbows. This is a 360 exclusive for a bit, but it’ll wind up landing on PS3 and PC in time. Hopefully it’ll be bug-tested this time (and keep fixing the PS3 Skyrim, because I’d buy a GOTY edition if it doesn’t break my console).

Secondly, another trailer, this time for NetherRealm’s latest fighter based on the DC universe.

Looks fairly solid thus far.

That’s what I felt like sharing!

More Dead Space 3 Images!

Ah, E3 season brings out the best in leakers. Destructoid has seven grainy images of Visceral’s Dead Space 3. Most of them have a second fellow next to Isaac, donned in a red suit instead of Clarke’s traditional blue. As you may have surmised, this suggests co-op is being implemented into the next game. I’m a little disappointed it does not appear to be Ellie, as she would make a most awesome squadmate. *shrugs* Also of note is the environment, which does seem to be that icy planet the rumors posited. More as it breaks!

 

News Roundup: 5/2/2012

Learn how to play Persona 4: Arena in English with Rise and Teddie!

And while we’re on Persona 4, the Vita port The Golden is coming to America this fall. Siliconera has the details here.

Unfortunately, XSEED had to cancel the American port of Vanillaware’s Grand Knights History due to lack of funding. I imagine the PSP market is also shrinking in our neck of the woods. Shame, though.

It would seem the original Deus Ex is coming to the PS3 as a PS2 classic, according to Siliconera. I don’t know how good the port was, but the PC game is a definite classic!

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed Announced; VYSE IS INCLUDED

IGN drops the word that Sega will announce a sequel to their Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing, subtitled Transformed. Skies of Arcadia hero Vyse will be making his presence felt on the race track alongside Golden Axe’s Gilius Thunderhead (and Dr. Eggman and AiAi). It’s amazing what one character can do to spike interest in something. :p I’ll keep you informed on how much Skies of Arcadia love the game will feature once I know more. More info on gameplay at the link.

Update – Press Release from Sega doubly confirms Vyse’s appearance:

SONIC & ALL-STARS RACING TRANSFORMED™ CHANGES THE RULES OF RACING

LONDON & SAN FRANCISCO – 30th April 2012 – SEGA® Europe and SEGA® of America Inc. are excited to announce Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed™, a thrilling new racing experience featuring Sonic the Hedgehog and a fantastic cast of SEGA All-Stars competing across land, air and water in vehicles that fully transform from cars, to planes to boats. Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed will speed on to the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system, PlayStation® Vita, Nintendo 3DS™ hand-held system and PC Digital Download late in 2012.

Following on from the huge success of Sonic & SEGA All-Star’s Racing™, the characters now have their own unique transforming vehicles designed to take advantage of the varying terrain. The line up on the Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed grid sees SEGA favourites – including Sonic the Hedgehog, Dr Eggman and AiAi – return to battle against newcomers that include Gilius Thunderhead of Golden Axe and Vyse of Skies of Arcadia. The brand new dynamic environments and tracks in Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed are once again inspired by SEGA’s illustrious gaming history. When the road falls away beneath you in Super Monkey Ball’s Temple Trouble track your car transforms into a boat and speeds down the rivers and rapids, whilst the Panzer Dragoon inspired track, Dragon Canyon, takes you into the sky in complete control of your plane, barrel rolling to out-manoeuvre rivals and obstacles before transforming back in to a car and racing to the finish line.

“Given the fantastic feedback we received from critics and consumers alike for the first game we really wanted to push the boundaries on our follow up game, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed” commented David Corless, Global Sonic Brand Director. “Transforming vehicles allow us to do this – as well as drifting your car around the corners of a track, you get to fly your plane and pilot your boat against others all within one race. Add to this a grid full of star characters, retro IP, fun, fast race modes and cool tracks and racing fans of all ages are sure to love this one!”

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed also sees the popular All-Star moves return with a brand new mechanic allowing your All-Star bar to power up faster if you race daringly and stylishly. An all new fair weapon system ensures that weapons fired at your vehicle can either be blocked or evaded once you have gained the skills to do so, making each race a unique and exhilarating experience whether it’s on water, in the air or on land. Old rivalries can be settled and new track records set in the enhanced online multiplayer mode, whilst the Grand Prix mode and competitive Battle Arenas will prove that Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is certainly set to change the rules of the race.

Artistic Discussion – The Good and Bad of Gaming Box Art: 4/25/2012

Good – Shin Megami Tenshi: Persona 3 Portable (PSP, Atlus)

Despite my dislike of the game’s conclusion (see here if you don’t mind spoilers), I still adore Shigenori Soejima’s spin on the franchise, and this is an eye-catching cover. It puts the focus on the choice of a male or female protagonist, one of the game’s selling points, and it’s effectively using blues and blacks to give it an excellent sense of mood.

Bad – Batman: Arkham City Game of the Year (Xbox 360, Warner Bros./Rocksteady)

Wha…?

This is how to take your box art in the wrong direction. First off, this looks like an magazine advertisement, not a box. This kind of over-saturated blurbage quickly makes my eye wander off to somewhere else. It’s okay to maybe squeeze one blurb on there normally, but to have four wedged into nearly every tiny bit of space is overkill. Second, the render of Batman is rather poor. What exactly made Warner Bros. decide to go with “Batman wrapping blood off of his face in extreme closeup” for their GOTY box? That’s rather unattractive. And then there’s the double logo, one shoved into the top right corner and the other lurking in the background. Plus the bonus content! Can’t forget to throw that in there.

In short, there’s too damn much going on on this box, and there’s nothing appealing about it whatsoever.

Even More Resident Evil 6 Details

Lots and lots more about RE6 has bene revealed since the trailer, but I’ve been a bit busy to retype them all up myself.  With a bunch more being revealed today, I’ll merely do some quoting from Siliconera.

Capcom have put up a brief internal interview with three senior members of their Resident Evil 6 team on their community site. Hiroyuki Kobayashi (Executive Producer), Eiichiro Sasaki (Director) and Yoshiaki Hirabayashi (Producer) touch upon a few points of Resident Evil 6’s story and play style, and while there aren’t any major reveals during the talk, they do tease some interesting things.

First off, as suspected, Chris’ style of play is more action-oriented—since Chris and the BSAA are waging a war against bio-terrorism—and Leon’s is slower, with a greater focus on horror. This decision was made very early on, but the three creators say that the Chris sections of the game won’t be straightforward action. Depending on the paths you take, you’ll encounter horror aspects as well.

You may recall that, at one point, Capcom used the term “dramatic horror” to describe Resident Evil 6. This shouldn’t be a considered a new genre—the basis of the game is still survival horror, but “dramatic horror” is the term they’re using to indicate that they’re trying to create a story that will make the player feel involved. As previously reported, Resident Evil 6 will also have a considerable amount of voice-acting, and this will be reflected in the form of the characters constantly talking to their partners.

On the subject of characters, while only Chris, Leon and Jake are playable—as far as we know—each of them also has a partner. Chris is teamed up with fellow BSAA member Piers Nivans. While this is the first time Piers has appeared in a Resident Evil game, he was introduced in a Resident Evil manga in Japan a while ago. In 6, Capcom want to give the impression that he’s been a part of the BSAA for a while.

Meanwhile, Jake Muller, who is also Albert Wesker’s son, is teamed up with Sherry Birkin, who makes her first major appearance since Resident Evil 2. Sherry was affected by the G-Virus and lost both her parents at a young age. Meanwhile, Jake has Wesker’s blood. These parallels between the two characters will bring them together and a bond will form between them during the course of the game.

Finally, poor Leon finds himself in a situation that’s all too familiar to him. The dev team feel that Leon gives off the impression of someone that’s been used by many women throughout the years, and wanted to play up that aspect further in Resident Evil 6. Leon’s partner is Helena Harper, and there are several mysteries surrounding her. The developers tease that he may find himself being used by a pretty lady once more. No mention was made of whether the other lady in the recent trailer was Ada Wong, but if it was, one would imagine Leon has much to look forward to.

Counting each playable character’s partner, that makes for six protagonists. Capcom decided on this because they felt it would give them an opportunity to tell a more interesting story. With regard to the partner system, one of the major improvements being made is the ability to drop in and out of co-op play at any time. You won’t have to return to previous checkpoints or start stages over from the beginning if someone wants to join your game.

Finally, zombies are a part of the “dramatic” storytelling style, too. The zombies in Resident Evil 6 are a result of the C-Virus, but how they’re born is being kept under wraps for now. When you encounter them, you may see them holding items from their former lives as humans. For instance, a former chef may wield a cleaver, while another zombie might be holding a baseball bat. So, zombies can use weapons, and they’re faster than players are accustomed to, too, in order to make them more frightening.

Some other news: RE6 will have a pre-order bonus of extra Mercenary Mode maps depending on the retailer, a super-expensive deluxe edition has been confirmed for Japan (with Leon’s leather jacket!), and find out more about “Wesker Jr.”, aka Jake Muller.

Artistic Discussion – Super Terrible Boxes of the Gaming Art: 3/26/2012

Currently, I have a backlog of horrible boxes and nothing on the terrific side (beyond repeating arcade fliers I recently praised in my Looking Back pieces), so we’ll discuss four buggers of box art bodacious-ness today for fun.

Knight’s Contract (Xbox 360, Bandai)

At first glance, there doesn’t seem to be anything terribly wrong with this box.  Generic beefy hero and scantily-clad vixen seem pretty harmless.  It’s the bottom of the box that’s the problem.  We have two identical monsters, flipped and repasted, for maximum laziness.  They don’t even take the different lighting into account on either of them.  That’s sloppy work, Bandai.  So, ho-hum heroes, duplicated beasts, unimaginative effort.

Hunter (Amiga, Activision)

A decent attempt at capturing spy action, Activision, but it’s still pretty dull to look at.  Blueprints, fuzzy photos and a floppy disc with a generic (word of the day?) label on it doesn’t really inspire me to take note of your game.  Even the two bullets fail to capture my attention.  I’ve definitely seen better,

Lone Solider (Japanese, PS1, Virgin Interactive)

The last two are Japanese boxes of fail.  I have a sneaking hunch this box flopped horrifically in Japan.  It’s tailored for American audiences, and it’s not that spectacular to begin with.  I know this is PS1-era polygons here, but at the very least they should hide their model tears a little better (see below the pecs).  Where’s his left arm?  Why does he have a crosshair on his cardboard UZI?  Why such a terrible haircut?  This piece blows it as many ways as it can, that it does.

Puzzle Bobble DS (DS, Taito)

I’m sorry, but I am not buying a game with a dinosaur taking a difficult shit on it, no matter how cute is.  I even like the Bubble Bobble/Puzzle Bobble designs.  But I have to draw the line somewhere.  This is gross. XD

Jet Set Radio HD Update: Let’s Look at the Funk

This is a bit late, but I thought I’d mention that there was some good news regarding the upcoming HD port of Jet Set Radio.  While we won’t be receiving all of the music that was included in the 2000 release, we’ll still be receiving 16 out of 30 of the original tracks in the port.

The following is a list of what we’ll be getting, as compiled by Joystiq:

Original Songs by Hideki Naganuma

Grace and Glory

Humming the Bassline

Let Mom Sleep

Moody’s Shuffle

Rock It On

Sneakman

Sweet Soul Brother

That’s Enough

Licensed Tracks

Toronto – Electric Tooth Brush

Magical Girl – Guitar Vader

Super Brothers – Guitar Vader

Bout the City – Reps

Funky Radio – B.B. Rights

Miscievous Boy – Castle Logical

Yellow Brea – F-Fields

Everybody Jump Around – Richard Jacques

Comparing this to the Wikipedia entry for the original game, it appears that we’ll mainly be missing out on the songs that had been exclusive to the US and European releases, which isn’t that much of a loss.  I could go without ever hearing “Dragula” again for the rest of my life.  Either way, it looks as though all of my favorite songs will be in the HD version, so this will definitely be something to look forward to.

Epic Mickey 2 Officially Confirmed

Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two

Although it has been strongly rumored for months, credible sources have made it all but official that Disney Interactive and Junction Point were working on a sequel to their hit 2010 Wii game Disney Epic Mickey. Well, SFGate has spilled the beans and revealed that Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two is officially on its way to Wii, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 later this fall.

The game will feature two-player co-op with both the iconic Mickey Mouse and his “older brother” Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. There will also be full voice work as opposed to the silent captions of the original. It’s also described as a “musical,” where, in classic Disney fashion, the characters will burst out into song during the game. The developers also promise that they are working to significantly improve the camera, a sticking point for a lot of players in the original game.

There are several other tantalizing details revealed in the article. Be sure to check it out at SFGate: Disney sketches sequel to ‘Epic Mickey’ video game