Square Enix Message Board older than one year ago

#hitman Hitman: Absolution lets players don a variety of disguises. And soon, one of those outfits will be the Deus Ex suit. Because if you want to blend into a crowd, what better way to do that than with a futuristic body suit! More »

Lighting Returns, the upcoming Final Fantasy XIII title, uses a time mechanic. In the game, the world has only 13 days left before it ends. In a recent interview with 4Gamer, game designer Motomu Toriyama went into slightly more detail about the game's time mechanic. More »

#finalfantasy Some things can be finished quickly. Some things take time. The Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII logo, it seems, took time. A lot of time. More »

#culturesmash The conventional wisdom has always been Japan loves role-playing games and dislikes first-person shooters. First-person shooters, pundits said, were popular only with Western gamers. The pundits and conventional wisdom, it seems, are wrong. More »

#finalfantasy The airships are coming! Following a highly successful launch in Japan, DeNA Co. and Square Enix are preparing to bringing Final Fantasy Airborne Brigade to North American Apple and Android devices. More »

#galaxydungeon Smartphone game Galaxy Dungeon is Square Enix's attempt to mix card-based action with role-playing game elements. The mecha heroines caught the attention of some gamers, and there was some fanfare when it was recently released. More »

#finalfantasy This last Friday and Saturday in Tokyo, Square Enix held their 2012 Open Conference. While there was some talk about the relaunch of Final Fantasy XIV, the majority of the two-day event focused on Agni's Philosophy: Final Fantasy. Agni's Philosophy is the real-time tech demo of Square's new Luminous Engine that was first presented at E3 2012. The big draw of this video is that none of it is pre-rendered—none of it is a recorded FMV. Instead, everything is being done in real time by the Luminous Engine. While I thought I understood exactly what that meant, it wasn't until I spent the better part of two days up close and personal with the Luminous Engine that I came to understand how amazing it really is. More »

#finalfantasy This last weekend in Tokyo, Square Enix held an open conference centered around its real-time tech demo, Agni's Philosophy: Final Fantasy. While presenting the technical aspects was paramount in the design of Agni's Philosophy (as it was meant to showcase the detail and flexibility of Square's new Luminous Engine), its creators were adamant it feel like a Final Fantasy. But what exactly makes a Final Fantasy a "Final Fantasy"? To answer this question they put together a list of the five minimum components for a Final Fantasy. More »

This video shows off an easter egg in Hitman: Absolution, in which the ice cream truck Agent 47 drives at the beginning of the game comes back with a vengeance.

Courtesy of GameFront, the embedded video explains the steps it takes to find the easter egg, which occurs in the game's "End of the Road" mission. Obviously, that means the video also contains some plot spoilers, so viewer discretion is advised.

The current IO Interactive may not be developing the next Hitman game but some of the studio’s founders didn’t work on Absolution either – they’ve been working on multilayered multiplayer WWII FPS Heroes & Generals at their new company Reto-Moto. I don’t play many multiplayer games and I wish I could take back the few hours I spent with Guild Wars 2 and spend them cycling through a war instead. It’s the strategic component that primarily interests me, the large-scale European conflict that the Generals prod at, but I don’t spend much time as a soldier in my gaming life and having the greater purpose of the greater war beyond the battlefield might provide enough purpose to engage me. Latest vid below.

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#callofduty For years now, Square Enix has published the Call of Duty games in Japan. Square Enix honcho Yoichi Wada is apparently a big fan of the series—and Western games. His goal is apparently to make Japanese gamers more open to playing foreign titles. That's admirable. It would be more admirable if the company didn't keep screwing up the games. More »

In case you've not noticed it dozing on retail shelves, Sleeping Dogs is now grabbing 40 winks on Xbox Live's Games on Demand, and (Square Enix hopes) $44.99 from your wallet.

Back when Xav dissected it in August, the action-adventure's seedy underbelly didn't exactly strike him as brimming with originality. He doled out three and a half stars in his review, saying that while it's a good game, "Sleeping Dogs mostly leaves you remembering the media that inspired it and probably won't remain in your thoughts over time."

#hitman The video game industry isn't all fast cars and trips to Japan. For every studio head basking in the glow of media attention there are 100 developers lower down the food chain whose job can be a little more mundane. More »

#hitman Far be it from me to only harp on Hitman: Absolution's less admirable qualities. The game is also frequently funny, and often very well-written. The overheard dialogue is often worth sticking around and listening to, and the crowd chatter is among the most convincing I've ever heard in a game. (The game itself is a lot of fun, too.) More »

#groovecoaster Experimenting with new ways to make folks pay for their iOS games, Square Enix releases Groove Coaster Zero, injecting new songs and adapting a free-to-play model to Reisuke Ishida's original musical masterpiece. More »

Agent 47 is a fashionista (one doesn't accidentally wear $10,000 custom suits), so it should come as no surprise that he's also fashion forward and into Adam Jensen of Deus Ex: Human Revolution's garb. Today, Hitman: Absolution's launch day, both Adam Jensen's armor and pistol are available as downloadable content in Mr. 47's latest outing on Xbox 360, Steam and, likely, later today on PS3, following the PSN update.

The Deus Ex: Human Revolution DLC suit provides "better protection from firearms with advanced armor," while Jensen's pistol can be equipped with a silencer for Agent 47. There are also a series of pre-order bonus costumes available for a buck apiece, or bundled for $6. Agent 47 isn't the only Square Enix protagonist getting in on the dress-up and raiding closets, Sleeping Dogs' Wei Shen also got in on that action.

#finalfantasy Binge drinking. Jerking off. Squids. It's just another wild night in the world of Final Fantasy. More »

#finalfantasy When Final Fantasy XIV relaunches as Final Fantasy XIV: Let's Pretend This Game Didn't Happen A Realm Reborn in the near future, the people behind it plan to add a whole bunch of new features. More »

Agent 47 is back on the job in Hitman: Absolution, which we said in our review "abandoned some of the ideals of the original games in the series, but it delivers with its own formula." Let's see if others thought this was a hit, man.

• IGN (90/100): "Like Dishonored before it, it's actually a true pleasure to play a game that lets you tackle it from multiple angles. After several years of increasingly totalitarian games where you're very much following a pre-determined path, it's nice to have a game that doesn't just encourage improvisation; it requires it."
• Polygon (85/100): "Hitman: Absolution is a faster, more streamlined game than its predecessors, but that only makes it different, not bad. The dark humor has been toned down, but still peeks through. The same anti-hero menace and professional purpose remains. And more importantly, the core purpose and gameplay that's always driven the Hitman series is still there. It's not as cerebral as Hitman: Blood Money."
• Eurogamer (70/100): "Reloading some of its best levels, turning off the hints and watching and waiting, it's much easier to remember what it is that makes Agent 47 so special. Hitman is a series to treasure for those moments, even if Absolution isn't its finest hour. Hopefully it won't be another six years before IO Interactive gets another shot at showing us why."
• Edge (70/100): "Contracts redeems Absolution, but it doesn't absolve it. The game has taken a unique formula and diluted it, allowing the fashionable trappings of other stealth titles to intrude upon a series that has always confidently eschewed convention."
• Videogamer (50/100): "Occasionally you'll witness flashes of brilliance, glimpses that suggest IO could yet salvage something from this wreckage for its next Hitman game. And then you finish a stage with a tedious quick-time event, snapping the neck of a morbidly obese Danny Trejo-alike in a wrestling match watched by hundreds - astonishingly earning yourself a Silent Assassin rating in the process - and you shake your head sadly and wonder how it all went so badly wrong."

#review Hitman: Absolution is a wickedly smart, darkly enjoyable video game, one that's as generous to players as its protagonist is merciless to his victims. You'll stab, strangle and shoot your way through level after level, sometimes grimacing, sometimes scowling, sometimes laughing. When all is said and done, you'll probably need a shower. More »

Somewhere within the A.I.-powered mind of a target is a kindling of what tomorrow brings; a spark filled with aspirations that will soon come to fruition. Goals to achieve, a life to live. That is, until a bald, bar-coded assassin ends those thoughts by slipping a thin fiber wire around his neck. Or pushing him off a building. Or poisoning his morning latte. Stabbing him. Shooting him. Ending him.

Hitman's infamous good/bad guy Agent 47 blends into the background, planning how he will extinguish that spark as a target unknowingly lives the last moments of its life. It's these moments, deciding precisely how to eliminate a target, that imbue Hitman: Absolution with its own special brand of sadistic magic.

Agent 47 comes a-knockin' next week and, well, for starters ... don't open that door. He's not there for a chat. Along with the above launch trailer, feel free to check out our hour-long stream of the game for a better sense of Hitman: Absolution from a safe distance.

When Hitman: Absolution launches on November 20 in North America, players will be free to access the game's asynchronous online 'Contracts' mode without the need of an online pass. In regions outside of North America, however, the 'Contracts' mode will require a code included in retail boxes of the game.

Where things get a little confusing is that the online pass for "Contracts" will be available for free in all regions outside of North America, with the pass available for download from each platform's respective digital marketplace at no charge - even if you're in a region that requires the included code.

"We'd actually planned to have this mode accessible via a code in the game's box, but we really want to make it available to anybody that plays the game - so we want to take a new approach," the official Hitman Tumblr blog notes.

If you're in North America, the mode is just there. "If you're elsewhere, you can redeem the code inside the box, or you can simply select the 'Buy Contracts Pass' option. From there, head to the store where 'Contracts' will be free to access."

When Ubisoft launched Driver: San Francisco it too altered the plan for its Online Pass, making it available as a free download after printing issues gave users invalid codes. Square Enix, on the other hand, has decided to forgo the pass to ensure all users can access the mode.

#kotakuqa The next Hitman title is just around the corner, releasing this coming Tuesday. We all know what Conan O'Brien thinks of the title, but maybe you're still curious about the stealth game that approaches. More »

#rumor Last year, there were unconfirmed reports that Square Enix's Tokyo headquarters was a dark place to work. This latest report doesn't sound nearly as bad as those. Doesn't sound like rainbows and sunshine, either. More »

#deusex The movie based on the third Deus Ex game, announced this summer, now has a director: Deadline reports that it'll be Scott Derrickson, the guy who directed... Sinister. And The Exorcism Of Emily Rose. I guess someone must have asked for this. More »

#hitman Oh, Conan. You surely are the clueless gamer, but you manage to make some of the best commentary regardless. More »

Conan O'Brien is barely even interested in games, but Hitman: Absolution seems to tick his boxes. Maybe it's the mulching, or having a barcode on the back of his bald head, or just the emphasis on eco-friendly body-storage.

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light has made the jump to Core Online, Square Enix's recently unveiled cloud gaming platform. It's the third game to find its way there, with Hitman: Blood Money and Mini Ninjas made available at launch. Core Online is accessible via Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Chrome, making Guardian of Light available to Mac users.

Lara Croft's 2010 jaunt into isometric puzzling is free-to-play through Core Online, but only if you're okay with having play interrupted by ads. The service's help page indicates ads should generally appear every 20 minutes, as long as you watch a full minute of sponsored messages at each interruption. On our testing we were offered a selection of three ads, each with different running times. 1 minute and 14 seconds of a Mini Ninjas ad gave us 25 minutes playing time.

If you prefer raiding tombs without people intermittently trying to sell you stuff, you can remove ads from the full game for $9.99, or from individual missions for $0.99 each.

#sleepingdogs Hopefully in the hustle and bustle of the big fall releases, everyone hasn't lost sight of Sleeping Dogs, the little Hong Kong open-world crime game that could. At least, I still play the game off and on while rotating between others. More »