Sony Reveals Upcoming Goodies, PS3 FFXIII Bundle, New Controller Colours

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe has revealed three 250GB bundles, as well as a special PSP Go Rewards program for Britain only, offering free game downloads.

Sony held an event at the Tokyo Game Show to reveal some of the upcoming goodies! They gave details of a PS3 Final Fantasy XIII bundle, which includes the game and a limited edition 250GB ceramic white PS3 with special FFXIII design, as shown above. The bundle is to be priced at ¥41,600 (Approx $460 USD) and will be coming out on FFXIII's launch date of December 17 in Japan.

For those of you who like more options when you buy accessories for your console, you will be happy to hear that the PS3 will be adding more color options when it comes to the DualShock 3 controllers. Currently only available in black, white and silver, Sony plans to soon be offering the wireless controllers in two new colours: Metallic Blue and Deep Red. These new colours will be available first in Japan starting October 29th for ¥5,500 (Approx $61 USD).

The upcoming PSP Go has also been gaining hype. Sony has been preparing its online content and has a few new goodies to add to the line-up. First is the announcement of the online community for PSP Go users called RooM. After users install a system update coming sometime this winter in Japan, gamers will find a new icon on their PSP menu which will allow them to try out this new free online service. They will be able to create 3D avatars and rooms, post blogs and create albums to share with other PSP users. You can visit other gamers rooms and check out their content, as well as participate in online chatrooms.

Sony is also expanding the PS3 and PSP offerings for the PlayStation Store. They will be offering over 300 new video titles including the Harry Potter series and Terminator: Salvation. The full details on this new line-up are still to come.

Posted in Gaming by Locke on September 25th 2009 at 7:22pm 0 Comments

Runaway: A Twist of Fate teaser trailer is out

Remember Runaway: The Road Adventure or Runaway 2: The Dream of The Turtle? You don't? Shame on you! Oh you do? Well so do I, and loved them both, especially the first one (the second one was mean because it ended in a cliffhanger). So, that makes me extremely pleased to post this little news bit about a first Teaser Trailer for the third game in the series, Runaway: A Twist of Fate. It's set to release on PC and the Nintendo DS on the 4th quarter of 2009, so you know, pretty soon. I have no idea if that's global release or not, by the way. It may be that the retail box will be available in Europe before it lands in North America, but I would expect the PC version to be globally available on your favourite digital game store. But yes, Teaser Trailer, check it out.

It looks pretty, awesome and pretty awesome. If the gameplay, voice acting and the quality of puzzles is as good as the previous games, this title seems like an instant winner.

I like point & click adventure games, by the way, it's no secret really. The recent re-emergence of Monkey Island as a "remastered" Special Edition, the new Tales of Monkey Island episodic adventure from TellTale Games, LucasArts' decision to bring their back catalog to Steam and sites like GOG.com that bring other classic adventure games back to life, has really made me a happy camper this year. And while TellTale and some other developers made some adventure games within the past few years, it's nothing really compared to this full-blown genre comeback that seems to be happening this year. It's certainly interesting to see where this all leads, come next year.

Posted in Gaming by Kilu on September 23rd 2009 at 10:36am 0 Comments

Streets of Fury Released on Xbox Live Arcade

Streets of Fury, the next-gen Beat ’em up finalist of the Microsoft Dream-Build-Play 2008 contest is now available on the Microsoft Xbox Live Arcade.

The game takes place in a Paris devastated by suburban gangs. The army is on strike, so the President calls for the best privateer brawlers of Los Angeles streets to restore order and security.

Streets of Fury features a cooperative mode allowing up to 4 players to fight simultaneously on the same Xbox 360, two different solo campaigns offering 30 stages and more than 60 types of opponents, a team or free-for-all versus mode, a versus AI survival coop mode and 5 levels of difficulty. The player can choose between 9 characters available, each offering a wide range of combos. You will love to unleash the fury thanks to devastating special attacks as well as unlocking new characters, playing modes and in-game videos as he increases the security level of the city.

Quote: “We’ve been completely fond of the beat ‘em up genre since early childhood and played most of its classic games. To create Streets of Fury, we took inspiration from games like Streets of Rage, Fatal Fury or also Guardian Heroes” said Cyrille Lagarigue, one of the game creators. “We’re very excited to see our game released on the Xbox Live Arcade and to have succeeded in mixing some of the best gameplay mechanics from classic 2D fighting games into Streets of Fury,” declared Jordi Asensio, the games' other creator.

Both demo and full game are now available on the Xbox Live Arcade in the Indie Games section. For more information, visit the official website.

Posted in Gaming by Locke on September 23rd 2009 at 9:56am 0 Comments

Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy Concert Dates

Square Enix has just announced the upcoming concert dates for Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy. They have quite an interesting song listing for these concerts, and Nobuo Uematsu himself is even playing at the shows! The upcoming shows are as follows:

October 8th, 2009: Vancouver, Canada
This performance is the Canadian Debut of the concert series, and will feature the Vancouver Symphony and UBC Opera Ensemble at the Orpheum Theatre. The show will include the North American premiere performance of the Final Fantasy VII: Main Theme! Details and tickets can be obtained at vancouversymphony.ca.

December 12th, 2009: Rosemont, IL, USA (Dubbed as the Chicago Show)
This exciting show is to feature the Chicagoland Pops Orchestra, Elmhurst College Concert Choir, and Susan Calloway, conducted by maestro Arnie Roth. Best of all, Nobuo Uematsu will play the B3 organ with the Chicago Mages! The show will contain North American Premieres, World Premieres, and works never heard outside of Japan! New arrangements of Dancing Mad and J-E-N-O-V-A will be debuted at this show. Details and tickets can be found at ticketmaster.com.

February 5th/6th, 2010: Seoul, South Korea
This one includes the Korean Symphony. South Korea's spectacular Seoul Arts Center will be the host of these performances, with Nobuo Uematsu in attendance for both shows. For more information visit ffdistantworlds.com/seoul.

Posted in Gaming by Locke on September 20th 2009 at 6:26am 2 Comments

Console Hardware and Price Updates

The console wars continue and gamers can expect more good news as the holiday season approaches and companies work to get the sales. The first noteworthy mention is for the Nintendo Wii. Rumors and flyer previews have been floating around the internet for about a week now, giving us a fairly solid idea that a decent price cut is about to occur. Retailers in the United States including Walmart, Toys R Us and Target all have had clippings of upcoming flyers leaked that show the console at its new price of $199 sometime before the end of September.

Also worth mentioning, both Microsoft and Sony have larger hard drives on the way for their consoles. Both companies have revealed 250gb models of each console coming very soon in various bundles.

Microsoft and the Xbox 360 have the Modern Warfare 2 Limited Edition bundle currently available for pre-order at Amazon, to be shipped in November of this year. This includes an Elite 360 with a 250gb hard drive and 2 black wireless controllers. Unfortunately, this bundle is currently only being made available to North America.

There is also a Forza 3 bundle for the Xbox 360 which is more Europe-friendly, slated for October 23rd, 2009. Includes a 250gb console, a headset, two wireless controllers, and of course a copy of the game. Not too bad of a deal if the price is right.

Finally, Sony and the PlayStation 3 Slim are also rumored to be offering 250gb bundles soon, however this information has not yet been confirmed. A leak from a Swedish retailer shows inventory for four 250gb PS3 Slim bundles: Uncharted 2, FIFA 10, Need for Speed: Shift, and Ratchet & Clank Future. We will have to wait and see if there is some truth to the rumors!

Posted in Gaming by Locke on September 18th 2009 at 9:48am 3 Comments

Left 4 Dead 2 Banned from sale in Australia

Left 4 Dead 2's plans to go adventuring down under have come to a quick halt thanks to a ruling by the Australian Classification Board, the company in charge of giving games their official rating for the country. Their website shows that the game has received the rating RC (refused classification), however initial information did not reveal why this rating was given. As long as the game keeps this rating, it will be illegal to sell or rent the game in Australia. The original Left 4 Dead game was given the maximum rating of MA 15+.

A statement was made by the Classification Board to clarify the reason for the ban.

Quote: "the game contains realistic, frenetic and unrelenting violence which is inflicted upon 'the Infected' who are living humans infected with a rabies-like virus that causes them to act violently. However, it is the use of the 'melee' weapons such as the crowbar, axe, chainsaw and Samurai sword which inflict the most damage. These close in attacks cause copious amounts of blood spray and splatter, decapitations and limb dismemberment as well as locational damage where contact is made to the enemy which may reveal skeletal bits and gore."

This is the fourth game to be banned in Australia so far this year, alongside Sexy Poker, Risen, and Necrovision, however two of these titles have been allowed for sale after modifications were submitted.

The ban has been confirmed by An EA spokesperson, however they did not comment on what actions the company will take to get the rating changed.

Quote: "We're still working through the submission process with the Classification Board, we want to explore all opportunities before we can make a comment."

Posted in Gaming by Locke on September 18th 2009 at 9:04am 1 Comment

Final Fantasy: The Crystal Bearers Coming This Winter

We have known for a while that Square Enix has planned for Final Fantasy: The Crystal Bearers to be released in Japan on November 26th, but it is now clear that the North America release of the game will come one month later, on December 26th, 2009. Yes that's right, the day after Christmas. Bummer.

This Final Fantasy game will be exclusive to the Nintendo Wii and has some 2 player co-op areas that might be interesting. I have provided a few pieces of artwork from the official fan kit, available at the FFCC: TCB website, which can be seen by clicking to view the full article.

Quote: A thousand years have passed since the events of the original Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles. The destruction of the Yuke Crystal during the Great War had at once brought the victorious Lilty Tribe prosperity, the defeated Yuke Tribe apparent annihilation, and the world a new age of science and reason. In this new era exists a rare breed of powerful beings called "crystal bearers", whose seemingly magical abilities have led them to be feared and scorned by the public. The young mercenary Layle is one such crystal bearer, who has been hired to escort the new passenger airship Alexis, the pinnacle of Lilty technology and a symbol of their current dominance. However, when the Alexis is suddenly besieged by a horde of monsters, Layle comes face to face with an adversary thought to have vanished from the pages of history, on a quest that may threaten the future of the world..

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Posted in Gaming by Locke on September 15th 2009 at 6:27am 1 Comment

Final Fantasy XIII Japanese release date confirmed, Dec 17

Remember, back in April, when I posted about some speculation surrounding the FF13 release date? It started with the FF13 PS3 demo that had just landed, and by finishing the demo you were treated with a screen that said "Coming Winter 2009". Don't remember? It's okay, I didn't either. Also, remember how some of the professional gaming media, 1UP at least, were betting the release date to be either 24th or 31st of December... you know what, why don't I just quote you the relevant part of my original news post.

Quote: According to 1UP, the second half of December, more specifically the two last Thursdays of the year, have been kind to Square Enix in the past, and those crazy Japanese guys are just all about tradition and things like that, right? So, 1UP's quick glance at the calendar seems to confirm that the release date is either 24th or 31st of December. Now, I personally think that those two dates are pretty crazy to release a game on, so I'm going one week back in time and say it's going to be 17th of December. How's that for speculation?

Well, guess who totally called it? Yep, that's me. In the Final Fantasy XIII Premiere Party, held in Japan during last week, they confirmed the Japanese release date to be 17th of December, 2009.

The Premiere Party was a pretty big event, along with the release date announcement they revealed some other tidbits of various things. First and foremost, there will be a PS3 Bundle with the game. Whether it's Japanese only isn't clear at the moment, so I guess more info on that will eventually surface. Secondly, a Japanese beverage company Suntory, is producing a 30,000 unit limited edition Final Fantasy XIII Elixir drink. Details on the drink are a bit vague at the moment, but it probably doesn't have any alcohol in it. And lastly, the game's theme song is performed by Sayuri Sugawara. The track is called Kimi ga Iru Kara and if I remember correctly, it's Uematsu's work. I personally haven't heard of the singer before, but I guess that's on par with every other FF game theme's and their singers.

In the event they also performed Masashi Hamauzu's work from the game's score (I wonder when that is coming out, I kind of want it right now) with an orchestra, had a big food sculpture, and sampled the Elixir drinks. And that is all from the event, I will post a few pictures in the end of the article of the Elixir.

In other FF13 related news, the Square Enix Members Community Manager (I think), confirmed few weeks ago that the English voice over work for the game is done. And I think in an interview, after the Dec 17 was confirmed, someone, perhaps Yoichi Wada or Yoshinori Kitase, said that while they don't have a firm release date for the rest of the world, they are firmly aiming at Spring 2010. I think this was actually known since E3, but it's good to know that they still think it's possible. I have heard doubts from gaming media around the internet, but I think it sounds reasonable. Considering that the voice over work is done, and that the 360 version is 70% done, I think they can make it, no problem.

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Posted in Gaming by Kilu on September 11th 2009 at 10:07am 4 Comments

Penny Arcade Expo Warns of Swine Flu Outbreak

Did anyone visit the Penny Arcade Expo? Are you feeling a bit sick when you returned? Do you have a high fever, nausea, and fatigue? If so, you may have a case of the swine flu.

Mike Krahulik warned everyone who attented the Penny Arcade Expo: "PLEASE if you feel symptoms (fever, etc) call your doctor."

We have a list of potentially infected flights and trains leaving the Expo. Check after the break for a full list, and more information.

Also, for more general information about the swine flu (H1N1 virus), check out this link.

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Posted in Other by Marona on September 10th 2009 at 6:28pm 3 Comments

Kingdom Hearts Palooza!

It's September and that means Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days is closer to come on the Nintendo DS! This game will be released in September 29, 2009.

In the first Kingdom Hearts game, Sora turned his Keyblade onto himself in order to save Kairi, whom gave her heart to him. This lead to the creation of Roxas, with no memory of his past. He joins Organization XIII and slowly discovers the truth of his existence as well as the Organization. He meets and befriends the XIV'th member of the Organization, Xion, who questions herself after one fateful mission and also cannot remember her past. Both Roxas and Xion, who are friends with Axel, form a friendly trio. The story takes place in the 358 days Roxas spent, while Sora was in Castle Oblivion for 2 days (hence Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories.)

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Posted in Gaming by Marona on September 05th 2009 at 9:00pm 5 Comments