All Topics Gaming older than one year ago

[Famitsu] Now that Yakuza 3 has been out in North America for a whole week and Yakuza 4 ia due to hit Japan in two days, it's definitely time for Sega to announce another one. At least, that's what Sega seems to think. At a Yakuza 4 event in Tokyo, Sega showed a teaser trailer for a new game in the series, with concept art depicting the familiar Kamurocho district of the other games. As usual, the next iteration will be produced by series creator Toshihiro Nagoshi.

Codenamed "Project K," the new game appears to star a young man who "knew the graveness of the crimes he continued to commit," and "that fighting is his destiny," but "doesn't know the cruel fate that awaits." Powerful stuff!

The video calls this new project "A new challenge for Ryu ga Gotoku" (Yakuza), suggesting that this new game will be different in some way. Perhaps this one will leave the story of Kazuma Kiryu behind entirely in favor of this new character. Or perhaps it'll be made for a platform other than PlayStation 3.

As far as imports go, Castlevania: Rondo of Blood is a pretty sweet one. For $9, it's a great game to add to any Castlevania fan's collection and plays quite well on the Wii: casual players get a forgiving save structure and stage system, while the hardcore fans get the same tried-and-true gameplay. Rondo of Blood is suited for quick pick-up sessions or even long marathon outings. Basically: you should play this game. It's good -- seriously good.

• Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (Turbografx-16 CD-ROM, 1 player, 900 Wii Points)

Every week, we like to check out what's new on the Virtual Console. We offer VC in Brief as a sort of taste to help you decide whether or not you would want the game in question. We also toss in our own two cents because we're pushy jerks like that.

#japan For Japanese gangster game Yakuza 4, SEGA held an open casting call for wanna-bes to appear in the game. Among those selected was adult video actress Rio, star of films Squirting Young Wife and Let's Have Sex at School. More »

I have an admission to make: I haven't played the original Risk board game. For hardcore fans of the game, that fact alone may discredit my opinion. However, after playing the upcoming XBLA adaptation, I wish I had discovered the board game sooner.

Risk Factions looks and feels like a Penny Arcade game: the art style is similar, and the writing is just as irreverent. As evidenced by the shorts released by EA so far, the world of Factions is animated (in more ways than one). The Colonel, who's fully aware that he's in a game, is one of the funniest characters I've seen in recent memory. Knowing his audience well, he promised that if I kept playing, I'd see tons of nudity in the game. (An EA representative hurriedly reminded me that it was just a joke, though.)

While Factions will allow players to play classic style Risk, newcomers will undoubtedly want to play through the main campaign first. The campaign does a good job of easing players into the basic rules of the game, and offers shorter, focused, objective-based challenges to conquer. The level I played didn't take place all over the globe: instead, it was a rather small map comprised of about a dozen tiles. One tile offered occupation of a missile silo, allowing you to launch a devastating area-wide attack against enemies.

Fellow Spartans!

The wait is finally over! CHAOS has been unleashed nationwide as the highly anticipated God of War III releases on store shelves today. If you didn’t make it to the midnight launch events last night, make sure to call your store and get your copy fast. God of War III is set to take to the stage as the biggest entertainment launch event in PlayStation 3 history and will be remembered as one of the best action adventure titles of 2010. Now is your chance to take down the Gods of Olympus by wreaking havoc and spreading chaos through all of civilization. I’d like to especially thank our Santa Monica Studios for all their time, hard work, and energy in delivering this award winning video game. I’d also like to give a big thank you to all the fans who have stayed loyal throughout Kratos’ journey and continued to support all things God of War.

In celebration of today’s launch, I’d like to share with you our new trailer called “Chaos,” featuring kick-ass footage from the game.

In the End, There Will Be Only Chaos….

#ps3 In the West, role-playing game Final Fantasy XIII is a multi-platform game, getting a release on the Xbox 360 and the PS3. While the PS3 version might look better, individuals are claiming that there are freezing issues. More »

The Engadget Show is teaming up with Joystiq's very own Chris Grant this Saturday in a brand new episode that features the newly unveiled PlayStation Move motion controller. Sony's Richard Marks will take the stage, bringing some brand new tech demos that highlight what the controller is capable of. This will be the first time the general public will be able to get their hands on the device, with random members of the audience being able to play with the Move live on stage. And there's going to be a special surprise ...

If you're in the NYC area, go to Engadget to find out more details on how to score a ticket for the show. If you can't make it, don't worry! Both Joystiq and Engadget will have a live stream of the episode available for you to watch this Saturday, March 20th at 5PM EST. Hope to see you there!

#screengrab When Mass Effect cosplay meets Russian booth babes, subtlety goes right out the window. As seen on Break. More »

#tron The original Tron was released in 1982. That was the golden age of arcade gaming. Arcade games and arcade culture were central to the film. And to the making of it, too. More »

#battlefieldbadcompany2 With public interest in free-to-play shooter Battlefield Heroes at critical levels following EA's controversial changes to the game's pay structure, the publisher is trying to light a fire under the game with a Battlefield Bad Company crossover. More »

While Metroid director Yoshio Sakamoto may not have played Shadow Complex, the XBLA darling's creators definitely played Metroid. During a panel titled "Designing Shadow Complex," Chair Entertainment Creative Director Donald Mustard encouraged the audience of prospective downloadable game makers to embrace genre limitations. "So, genre is one of your limitations because you aren't just competing against other games that are released in the downloadable space," Mustard said, pacing across the stage. "You really are competing against Gears of War, Mass Effect 2, Uncharted 2. That is the real competition and you need to find a way to differentiate yourself from those kinds of games. And that is an awesome opportunity."

For Mustard, that meant moving "orthogonally" from what the "big $60 retail games" are doing. Mustard said, "For us, what that ultimately meant is target an old and abandoned genre. Which to us was kind of this Metroidvania side scroller adventure genre that had been abandoned. No one was making games in this genre. And we said, 'What if we took that genre and fused that with some of the modern sensibilities that had come out; some of the modern ideas of AI and physics and graphics? That would be a really cool combination.'

#modernwarfare The team from Britain's FiveFWD gadget show were feeling crafty the other day, so went and built themselves a full-scale replica of "The Pit", Modern Warfare 2's training area. More »

Nearer Moto GP 07/10, sadly.

#streetfighter These apparently leaked shots of a Super Street Fighter IV theme for the 360 are a bit more interesting than they ought to be, showing off a new range of alternate costumes for the game's fighters. More »

#clips Monster Hunter, the game series that lets players hunt...monsters, is getting another installment. More »

#projectk Like clockwork, SEGA churns out a new Yakuza game almost every year. With Yakuza 4 coming out in Japan this March, it's time for...another new Yakuza game. More »

#nsfw If you were to name which Star Wars characters you like to see in a burlesque show, Slave Leia might be at the top. Heck, a Stormtropper-getting-naked might make the list, too. Boba Fett? Sure, why not. More »

Did you miss your first chance to visit Arkham Asylum?

#pc NVIDIA, a company known for its graphics cards for PCs, today revealed a push for the living room of the future, with the release of software that allows PC gamers to play in 3D on their television sets. More »

Ghostwire lead developer Tom Soderlund told us at GDC that his upcoming DSi-exclusive Nintendo DS game will be coming to Apple's iPhone and Google's Android. The DSi version, published by Majesco, is set to come out near Halloween this year, and it's possible the other flavors will be ready by then as well.

One advantage these systems have over the DS is the bonus of GPS, which could lead to some interesting location-specific ghosts. We hope Elvis' grave is first on the list.

Mind the gap.

#oddities If you every wonder why some Japanese players have a bad impression of Western gamers, read this post. More »

#pc Warcraft III, a PC (and Mac!) game released almost eight years ago, just got a couple of new, official patches. Now that's some post-release support. More »

Bumps in the night. Unexplained sounds. A chill up your spine. Extreme terror. These things aren't associated with the Nintendo DSi, unless you unexpectedly leave yours behind in a taxi. But A Different Game CEO Tom Soderlund wants to bring all of that augmented paranormal activity to your DSi with Ghostwire and turn you into a ghostbuster (minus the proton packs). Now you're armed with a stylus and the power of Nintendo.

Originally conceived four years ago for Symbian-powered smartphones, the idea is to turn your handheld into a tool for communicating with the paranormal world. The built-in camera, sound meters, light meters are all a part of the experience, providing a combination of real-world and computer-generated data. Soderlund's team built an adventure game around it -- you talk to ghosts, find out what's troubling them, and either capture them or attempt to ease their pain.

Fact: there are 16,164,886 guns in Borderlands according to Gearbox Software developers Matthew Armstrong and Jimmy Sieben. That's a lot of guns. Remember that scene in The Matrix where Neo says "Guns. Lots and lots of guns."? It's a lot more than that. That's also the number of guns before the DLC, which has inflated it even further. So how do you have someone design each one of those firearms and build out the specs? Even if you only paid 25 cents per gun, that would still chew into your development budget to the tune of over four million dollars. So what do you do, hotshot?

Easy! You make a system that does it all for you. In an SXSW panel, Sieben and Armstrong spoke about the systemic development tool named Gearbuilder that they developed, going into detail about how they created the system to handle the creation of that many customized guns. It generates the guns based on one of 12 different manufacturers, giving each one a different grip, body, cylinder, barrel and accessories. Based on those, that same system determines how much damage the gun will deal. But what's surprising is, as impressive a figure as 16 million is, it's still only one gun. Shoot on through the break for more.

#michaeljackson In early 2009, popstar Michael Jackson was facing financial ruin. Part ownership of his Neverland Ranch was sold off, and 1,4000 personal artifacts were slated to be auctioned off. That auction never happened. A new one is, however. More »

#splintercell It's a bit hard to believe the long-delayed Splinter Cell: Conviction will actually be out soon. If you needed something tangible as proof, you could always try the Xbox Live demo of the game, due out this week. More »

CyberConnect2 CEO Hiroshi Matsuyama decided to ignore Capcom’s request to withhold confirmation of Monster Hunter 3’s port to PSP. He took to his Twitter account and posted the following… “It’s the Monhan P3rd Announcement. Looks interesting!” There you go…an official confirmation of Monster Hunter 3 heading to PSP. Way to cannibalize Wii sales just before [...]

and here The Japanese VC release of Castlevania: Dracula X - Rondo of Blood retained the original voiced intro, but the NA VC release has a different voice actor. I wonder what the story behind this is! Thanks to ReyVGM for the heads up!

LovePlus gamers that are still infatuated with their virtual girlfriends can now mark down the location of their love by sending in a picture from their PC or iPhone to a special site set up by Konami. So…now you can be extra creepy and see who else is dating your virtual girlfriend, as well [...]