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Posted by Bob Muir on Aug 27, 2013 in Videogames 
It’s been over 25 years since Ys I: Ancient Ys Vanished came out in Japan, and since then, the somewhat-unknown series has grown, putting out many action-RPG sequels and spin-offs, as well as tons of ports. To celebrate, publisher XSEED is putting out a premium edition of Ys: Memories of Celceta, a loose remake of Ys IV: Mask of the Sun and Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys (neither of which came to America) that make the entry fit better into the series canon. The PlayStation Vita game will normally retail for $39.99, but this premium version is $59.99 because of all the extra stuff that comes with it. Read more…
Tags: Playstation Vita, XSEED
Posted by Bob Muir on Aug 27, 2013 in Videogames 
When you think of HD game remasters, you generally focus on the visuals. Besides being rerendered in a higher resolution, HD versions sometimes have higher-res textures, framerate fixes, or small bonus touches. You don’t generally consider the audio, which is often the same music the game had before. But since Square Enix is making many more improvements for Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD (like creating new models), they’ve also redone more than 60 tracks from Final Fantasy X‘s 91-track soundtrack. That’s pretty cool! Read more…
Tags: Final Fantasy, PS3, square enix
Posted by Bob Muir on Aug 22, 2013 in Videogames 
Dark Souls II is still polishing its ability to smash your will into the ground. The sequel to the notoriously difficult 2011 game is due out on March 14. But before then, Namco Bandai will be holding a closed beta to test the online features, which will improve upon the spotty connectivity of the first game. The beta starts on October 5, but here’s what you need to know before getting too excited. Read more…
Tags: Dark Souls, Namco Bandai
Posted by Bob Muir on Aug 22, 2013 in Star Trek, Television 
In an interview about season four of Star Trek: The Next Generation on Blu-ray, Michael Dorn, famous for playing Worf on both that series and Deep Space Nine, related an interesting bit of news. It seems that CBS and Paramount may be interested in making a new Captain Worf-centric Star Trek series. Dorn says that he has spoken with a couple producers and even got to pitch the show. However, “business things got in the way in terms of [Star Trek Into Darkness] coming out and CBS/Paramount and their relationship with JJ Abrams. [Dorn doesn’t] think they wanted to step on his toes by putting a new series on, but it’s not dead yet.” Read more…
Tags: Star Trek
Posted by Bob Muir on Aug 21, 2013 in Comic Books, Videogames 
I’ll admit to being quite nervous about how Batman: Arkham Origins would turn out. It’s not being made by Rocksteady, who made the last two critically-acclaimed games. It’s missing Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill (Batman and the Joker). It’s a prequel, not following up on the tantalizing threads left by Arkham City. And it’s adding a multiplayer mode. But the latest trailer is the trailer that made me put down money for a preorder. It looks like a Gotham I want to explore and a story I want to experience. They even took Firefly, one of Batman’s b-list villains, and made him look kind of awesome and menacing! Plus, it helps that not only does Roger Craig Smith sound like a competent young Batman, but Troy Baker is doing an excellent job at emulating Hamill’s Joker, which is no easy task. Read more…
Tags: Batman, Batman: Arkham Origins, DC Comics, Warner Brothers
Posted by Bob Muir on Aug 21, 2013 in Videogames 
It’s really annoying when console producers are coy about when their new consoles will launch. It’s obvious that they’ll launch shortly before Thanksgiving, yet they dance around like the date is some treasure to be hoarded. At least Sony has finally come clean about when the PlayStation 4 will launch at its Gamescom event. Come November 15, you can buy a PlayStation 4 for $499.99. Europe and other PAL territories will have to wait just a bit longer, as the console will launch there on November 29. Time to start getting in line! Read more…
Tags: PS4, Sony
Posted by Bob Muir on Aug 20, 2013 in Videogames 
When it comes to games, the Wii U is really hurting, so almost anything would help at this point. While people don’t generally buy new systems to play old games, people do generally like Street Fighter. So maybe announcing all three SNES Street Fighter II games might help! Even after current Street Fighter producer Yoshinori Ono said that it wouldn’t happen, Capcom announced that Street Fighter II, Street Fighter II Turbo (which also includes SFII Championship Edition), and Super Street Fighter II will be available on Wii U for $7.99 each. And there’s a deal for the US: if you buy one game, it drops the price of the other two by 50%. If you’re in Europe, if you buy two, you get the third one free. Both deals cost the same if you’re getting all three, so consider reliving the days when you couldn’t patch fighting games and your old version became obsolete! Read more…
Tags: Street Fighter, Wii U
Posted by Bob Muir on Aug 20, 2013 in Videogames 
Alright, that header pun is pretty bad, but more importantly: Gamescom is starting in Germany, so you know what that means: new demos, trailers, and sizzle trailers, i.e. the kind that feature a ton of different games trying to sell you on a system. The Xbox One is slowly recovering after a disastrous reveal period, and now that Microsoft has made an about-face on pretty much every negative aspect of the system, these games are actually looking kinda good. Alright, they’re just looking good in general! New console launches are always rocky, but if you choose to upgrade now instead of waiting a year, it at least looks like you’ll have some decent game options in the meantime. Read more…
Tags: Xbox One
Posted by Bob Muir on Aug 15, 2013 in Animation, Videogames 
“Fantasia” is a name that evokes a lot of musical history and artistry. While some may argue (myself included) about the song selection in Harmonix’s Disney Fantasia: Music Evolved, it seems that the music-oriented studio is still trying to stay true to Walt Disney’s original concept of marrying music with fantastic imagery. This latest look helps contextualize what Harmonix is doing in the broader scope of the somewhat-ongoing Fantasia project. In the meantime, it has also been announced that composer Inon Zur is contributing original music for the game. Zur has done music for games like Dragon Age and Prince of Persia, so he’s a solid vet to have involved. Read more…
Tags: Disney, Music, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Posted by Bob Muir on Aug 15, 2013 in Comic Books, Videogames 
Telltale Games knocked it out of the park with The Walking Dead: Season One. It garnered tons of “Game of the Year” awards, which is incredible for a modestly-budgeted game with no bleeding-edge graphics from a smaller developer. Season Two is coming in Q4 2013, but before those episodes start releasing, Telltale has another comic book collaboration to start: The Wolf Among Us, a prequel to Bill Willingham’s Fables series. The episodic game will release its first episode in Q3 2013, with the overall series centering on Bigby Wolf, the reformed Big Bad Wolf who can take human form. Bigby works to keep other fairy tale creatures in line in a part of NYC known as Fabletown. Read more…
Tags: DC Comics, Fables, PS3, The Wolf Among Us, Vertigo, Xbox 360
Posted by Bob Muir on Aug 14, 2013 in Anime, Videogames 
Arc System Works has released a trailer for the first anime adaptation of BlazBlue, their spiritual successor to Guilty Gear. Titled BlazBlue: Alter Memory, the trailer first recaps a bunch of anime intro footage from the games, as if you remind you that yes, they have been animating fights all along and this is a natural extension. And then, there’s the new footage, which is looking pretty sharp. The anime will supposedly adapt the tangled plot of the first game (BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger), but I’d hope that they consider continuing it into the sequels. Hideki Tachibana (Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kira) will direct with Seiji Mizushima (Fullmetal Alchemist, Mobile Suit Gundam 00). Read more…
Tags: BlazBlue
Posted by Bob Muir on Aug 14, 2013 in Animation, Videogames 
Okay, considering how much actual animation there is, “animated” might be a bit strong. But this fan video from Dave Rapoza takes the SNES classic Super Metroid and puts it into a lightly-animated vignette. There’s some interesting grit to the drawings — actual grit, not the modern “dark = gritty” use of the word — that reminds me of Magical Game Time, while the direction suggests an alternate timeline where Samurai Jack‘s Genndy Tartakovsky helmed a Super Metroid cartoon in the mid-90s with his signature style. Rapoza says the drawings were all done in Photoshop and assembled in an editor, which explains the minimal animation. But take a look, and appreciate the great sense of atmosphere! Read more…
Tags: fan videos, Metroid, Nintendo
Posted by Bob Muir on Aug 13, 2013 in Comic Books, Fandom, Television 
Arrested Development is about a dysfunctional family and the way they bounce off of each other’s mistakes and schemes. So it’s natural to extend that same metaphor to a messed up family of gods — in this case, Marvel’s Asgardians. In this fan video, Thor, Loki, and Odin are mixed with scenes and lines from Arrested Development to create a funny look at this strange royal family. Take a look! Read more…
Tags: arrested development, fan videos, Marvel, thor
Posted by Bob Muir on Aug 13, 2013 in Fandom, Star Trek, Television 
Last night’s Breaking Bad Season 5.5 premiere — the second half of the final season — was a tantalizing look into where the rest of the season could go. But we’re not here to talk about that, we’re here to talk about a comedic scene that helped break the tension in the middle of the episode. There are no storyline spoilers here, so those with spoiler-conscious constitutions can safely watch, though I suppose hearing this scene out of context could spoil the surprise if you wanted to go in completely cold. Regardless, if I hadn’t seen the episode last night, I’d have been okay with watching this animated version of the scene. Read more…
Tags: fan videos, Star Trek
Posted by Bob Muir on Aug 8, 2013 in Tech, Videogames 
John Carmack, co-creator of Doom, co-founder of Id Software, and programmer on many, many computer games is joining Oculus VR, the company making the Oculus Rift, a virtual reality headset for use with games. Carmack was the one who debuted the device at E3 2012, and now he is taking a full-time position at the company as Chief Technology Officer (CTO). However, the award-winning programmer isn’t really leaving Id, either. He’s still planning on working on games, and he’s also not abandoning his rocket company Armadillo Aerospace. Read more…
Tags: id Software, oculus rift, Rocket
Posted by Bob Muir on Aug 8, 2013 in Videogames 
For a while there, I thought it was entirely possible that Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney would not be released outside of Japan. Sure, Level-5 often takes an unusually long time to announce Western releases for their Layton games, but with so many other niche games not leaving Japan, you can’t blame me for being nervous. It didn’t help that Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies is only getting a digital release, and Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth 2 never got translated at all. But lo and behold, during the latest Nintendo Direct, they finally confirmed that the US (and it turns out also Europe) will be getting this crossover game in 2014. Read more…
Tags: 3DS, Ace Attorney, Capcom, Level-5, Nintendo Direct, Phoenix Wright, Professor Layton
Posted by Bob Muir on Aug 7, 2013 in Videogames 
So far we only knew that Sol Badguy, Ky Kiske, and Millia Rage were returning for Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN-, the long awaited proper sequel to whatever the last Guilty Gear X2 update was. Now four more characters have been confirmed to be returning to the game: Chipp Zanuff, May, Venom, and Potemkin. There are no new characters yet, but Potemkin’s design does look quite different from how he used to look. See his new art for yourself below. Read more…
Tags: Arcade Games, Guilty Gear
Posted by Bob Muir on Aug 7, 2013 in Cinema 
Disney’s 2011 Muppets reboot was surprisingly great, so here comes the sequel: Muppets Most Wanted, on track for release on March 21, 2014. The new film prominently stars Ricky Gervais, Ty Burrell, and Tina Fey, alongside the usual cast, of course. In fact, lots of people are returning, including the director, producers, cinematographer, composer, and co-writer. The only major creative force not returning besides the actors is Jason Segel, who also co-wrote The Muppets. The previous film was a passion project for Segel, and you can tell from how enthusiastic he was about the whole thing. Since he declined to work on the sequel, here’s hoping that the rest of the crew can keep the spirit. But enough of that, check out the teaser! Read more…
Tags: Disney, The Muppets
Posted by Bob Muir on Aug 6, 2013 in Anime 
I’m still a little surprised that Sailor Moon is poised to make a comeback after so many years of laying low. But there’s a new anime on the way this winter after a delay from its original air date this summer. This anime apparently won’t be a remake of the original anime, but will instead take a different direction. This could mean that it will simply interpret the original manga in a different way, or it could mean a new story. The makers are still figuring some things out, since there are no voice actresses confirmed, not even for main character Usagi (Serena for you American fans). Read more…
Tags: Sailor Moon
Posted by Bob Muir on Aug 6, 2013 in Star Wars, Television 
People have been waiting on a live-action Star Wars TV series for years. (Anyone remember this old Penny Arcade comic joking about what it would be like?) Supposedly, George Lucas wanted to hold off on making it until visual effects technology had improved even further. But now that Disney owns Lucasfilm and Lucas is out of the picture, it seems like the main obstacle is out of the way. Disney also owns ABC, which has reached out to Lucasfilm to discuss making a Star Wars TV series of some sort. Read more…
Tags: Disney, Star Wars
Posted by Bob Muir on Aug 1, 2013 in Comic Books, Videogames 
It seems like you can’t get to the third game of a series without multiplayer being thrown in along the way. As rumored, Batman: Arkham Origins will have a multiplayer mode called “Invisible Predator.” It’s an eight-player mode that pits two three-person gangs against Batman and Robin. Basically, Bane’s gang and Joker’s gangs play a game of territories against each other. Along the way, they need to fend off Batman and Robin, who are using stealth tactics to take out the gangs. If certain gang members meet up at the right place, one of them can become Bane or Joker themselves, which grants bonuses and paints a bigger target on their backs. Read more…
Tags: Batman, Batman: Arkham Origins, DC Comics, Warner Brothers
Posted by Bob Muir on Aug 1, 2013 in Cinema 
One of the major influences on Pacific Rim is that Japanese concept of giant monsters coming from the ocean to attack the city, something exemplified in Godzilla and later riffed on in media such as Neon Genesis Evangelion. How fitting is it then to see someone cut a Pacific Rim trailer in the vein of old Toho kaiju film trailers? The trailer even includes some of Godzilla’s classic score, which fits really well. If the effects were worse and the colors a bit more washed out, this would be spot-on, but it still works wonderfully as it is. What is it that makes big Japanese text tossed on top of images of monsters so cool? Read more…
Tags: Godzilla, Pacific Rim
Posted by Bob Muir on Jul 31, 2013 in Videogames 
After much waiting, Irrational Games has finally revealed its DLC plans for game-of-the-year contender BioShock Infinite. Burial at Sea will be a two-chapter DLC that tells the story of an alternate reality Booker and Elizabeth who live not in Columbia, the city in the sky, but in Rapture, from the original BioShock, on the eve of is downfall. Unlike the first BioShock, which is set after the underwater city has torn itself apart, this story is at least partially set when the city is still functioning properly. It looks like a film noir story. But most enticingly is the fact that you will play the second chapter, set during the downfall, as Elizabeth, who will play much differently than Booker.
Burial at Sea hasn’t been dated yet, but I’d expect the first chapter to arrive later this year, with the second chapter stated to arrive by March 2014. Each chapter will cost $15, but those who paid $20 for the Season Pass DLC obviously get it for free.
In the meantime, there’s a new piece of DLC you can download right now: Clash in the Clouds. For $5 (or free if you have the Season Pass), you’ll get four arena maps with 60 challenges. It’s standard “horde” mode stuff where you fight waves and waves of enemies. Along the way, you can unlock new concept art, voxophones, kinetoscopes, and other materials in The Columbian Archeological Society. I’m not that astounded by this offering, but if you really enjoyed the main story’s combat, this will be another big dose of fighting.
Source: YouTube
Tags: BioShock, BioShock: Infinite, PS3, Xbox 360
Posted by Bob Muir on Jul 31, 2013 in Cinema, Comic Books 
It’s always cool to see a movie early, so here’s something you might be interested in. Kick-Ass 2 has a few early screenings on Wednesday, August 14, as part of a Fan First screening program. Moviegoers in Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, and Dallas can go to Fandango and buy tickets now. Fans will get special bonuses too, such as free snacks, a limited edition poster, and a free download of the song “No Strings” by Chloe Howl. Tickets are $25, and the way these things work, I’d imagine the tickets will go fast. So if you’re going to see Kick-Ass 2 and you live in or near one of those major cities, you might as well see it early and tell your friends! Read more…
Tags: kick-ass 2
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