All Topics Gaming older than one year ago

The announcement of Valkyria Chronicles 2 came as a surprise for most. In spite of the modest sales of the first game, Sega greenlit a second title in th franchise, this time for the PSP. We spoke with Sega director Takeshi Ozawa and producer Shinji Motoyama about the difficulties in translating the experience to PSP, and the cameos we can expect from the upcoming sequel. [Note: While two people were interviewed, only the responses from our single Sega-provided translator are transcribed. We apologize for the lack of proper attribution.]Joystiq: Obviously, many people were surprised to see a sequel not on PS3, but on PSP. Does this open up the chance that the franchise will move to even more platforms, like the 360, for example?Translator: It's difficult for us to comment on because, actually, we weren't thinking about specific platforms when designing the game. And it just turns out, we developed for the PS3 and this time we chose PSP as the platform. We do take into consideration, in terms of game design, and delivering the game world and experience to the users. This time, we thought PSP was the ideal platform to do that. It's as simple as that. But, it's because of this that discussions became kind of widespread, and people started asking questions "why there's no 360 version?" We don't want to say anything that would enrage the fire of that discussion.

Final Fantasy XIV has gotten a steady stream of information since its announcement at Sony's E3 press conference earlier this year. And now, the game's official website has loosed a flood of information on its classes, enemies, how the classes break down into "disciplines," and much more. Aside from all the new text, the site also got a handful of new screens (including the fancifully bearded, screaming face you see above).Rather than waiting for us to poorly contextualize the nitty gritty details on a genre we don't always focus on, head over to our MMO-centric sister site Massively for more. [Via Massively]

Like New Super Mario Bros. before it, New Super Mario Bros. Wii is instantly playable, addictive and fresh. It plays like every Mario game before it, embracing its NES legacy by requiring players to hold the Wii Remote on its side. Although the gameplay is immediately recognizable, the addition of four-player competitive multiplayer makes it feel, as the title reminds us, new. After even just one level, we had to question "why didn't Nintendo think of this sooner?"New Super Mario Bros. Wii makes the arbitrary distinction of offering a "cooperative" Story mode, and a competitive multiplayer mode, but after a level or two, it's clear that there really is no such thing as cooperation in the Mushroom Kingdom. There's no real reason to switch between either mode, as both feature the same levels and a finite number of lives for the players. The only real addition to the competitive mode is the scoreboard at the end of a level, which ranks players based on their score, coins collected and the number of enemies defeated.Why do we say there's no real cooperation in the Mushroom Kingdom? Simple: there are so many ways of being murdered in NSMBW. You can grab a fellow player and throw him down a cliff, into an enemy or into some molten lava. Grab a Yoshi and eat your friend ... and then spit him into a Piranha Plant. They won't be your friend anymore! You can even kill someone before they get to live a full life, by finding their spawn bubble and destroying it in an -- ahem -- inconvenient place (over a pit, perhaps?).