Over at DIY Games, Jozef Purdes has written an excellent round-up of the freebie/indie graphical and text adventures released during October. This includes a multitude of mini-reviews, both for Adventure Game Studio-created free graphical adventures like Principles Of Evil: Volume 1, plus a chunk of the IFComp 2004 entries, showing off the huge range of entered interactive fiction, from Luminous Horizon ("Two teenagers with superhuman powers on a quest to find their parents") to All Things Devours ("You are a mad scientist... on a quest to destroy your invention that fell into army hands.") Andrew 'Zarf' Plotkin also has some very helpful reviews of the IFComp entries, incidentally.
Asmik Ace has opened the official website for the forthcoming PS2 version of Falcom's acclaimed 2D strategy game for Windows, VM Japan [here's Falcom's own site for the PC version.] Seems that if you don't get the license to port a Falcom game to PS2, you're not to be reckoned with, these days.
News: First screens of Idea Factory's Shinten Makai for PSP
The PSP version of Idea Factory's Shinten Makai - Generation of Chaos IV will have important additions, as some Japanese media including Watch Impress and the Softbank Games site have been reporting today. First screenshots and artwork can be seen there, too. The game (titled Shinten Makai - GOC IV Another Side, and announced for February 24th) will bring back some characters from previous chapters of both the Generation of Chaos and Spectral Force subseries. It will be the 23th game in the whole Neverland series, a very popular SRPG (well, mostly SRPG) series created by the original Dragon Force team.
News: Gyakuten Saiban 3 fan translation in progress
Over on the insertcredit forums, Broco reveals details about his working fan-translation for Capcom's GBA "niche court adventure", Gyakuten Saiban 3. Since Tim Rogers previously reviewed the Japanese version of the game, and found it "damned compelling", a release of this proof-of-technology .IPS patch (in which "about the first quarter of Case 1 is completely playable in English") is good news, indeed. However, "there's about 1.7 meg of text in this game", and translators are needed - check out the project's Sourceforge page for more info.
French developer Gaming Side has posted new info on its "real-time 3D shooting game", currently codenamed HILL Project. According to the site: "The game is in playable prototype state on the Playstation 2 and PC thanks to the Renderware technology. The final game is planned on the Sony PSP hardware and other platforms, like the Nintendo DS, are under consideration." There's also a new video on the game's official homepage which shows some of the not-unattractive PS2 prototype, switching things up between the Silpheed and R-Type perspectives. The team is still looking for a publisher to fund the title to completion, though - good luck to them!
Game-Science has posted a partial transcript of a new Famitsu interview with ex-Square employees Hironobu Sakaguchi [FF originator] and Nobuo Uematsu [FF musician], both of whom have started their own companies recently. Particularly notable? Sakaguchi's studio Mistwalker has three projects underway, and apparently, "[Sakaguchi] can't talk about the platforms just yet, but he has been in talks with Microsoft and Nintendo." Also of interest: "Uematsu is already involved in two of Sakaguchi's projects and will write music based on the scenarios."
News: Akella producing 'Inspector Glebsky's Puzzle' adventure game
According to a press release from Russian developers Akella, the company's next project will be "Hotel 'At a Lost Climber': Inspector Glebsky's Puzzle". This is particularly interesting for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the game is based on a detective novel (?) by the Strugatsky Brothers, Russian sci-fi and 'magic realism' authors who are renowned for scripting Andrei Tarkovsky's cult movie Stalker from their own book, Roadside Picnic. (Coincidentally, a recent GameSpot preview of forthcoming Russian-developed PC FPS S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Oblivion Lost mentions its uncredited indebtedness to Roadside Picnic and Stalker.) Secondly, the developers reference some intriguing game influences: Sierra's The Colonel's Bequest - A Laura Bow Mystery, and Jordan Mechner's oddly forgotten The Last Express. In any case, according to Akella, surviving brother Boris Strugatsky is involved in plot development, and '...the game is going to be a 3D-person quest with point-and-click interface. The characters will be made in full 3D while the backgrounds will be 2D pre-renders.'
In a surprisingly civic-minded move Sony Japan is auctioning five hundred PSP systems and donating the proceeds to victims of last month's Niigata earthquake. The winners will receive a PSP bundle with their name on the system's bootup screen, according to Asahi News (Japanese page). You can view the auction here. It should be noted that Sony's only donating the money raised above the retail price, not the entire amount. A cynic might suggest Sony's only going for free publicity.
The new Shaman King GBA game; Shaman King: Master of Spirits (EB link) was developed by KCEJ. The Castlevania series is developed by KCET, but the engine looks very similar to Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, even to the extent of using spirit souls, suggesting that it may be borrowed. Just a heads-up that this may be a relatively simplistic Castlevania clone, by the near-makers of the original.
Word is that Castle of Shikigami 2, the XS Games port of Alfa System's Shikigami no Shiro 2, is out on the street in the US. XS Games site maintains that the game was released in september, which is likely untrue. Further word has it that EB games stores each got one or perhaps two copies, and the game is no longer available through their online store. The price was initially $10, but apparently some WalMart stores have copies for $20 still. Try all other avenues before resorting to shopping with the devil.
There's been much speculation as to the current status of shooting gods Psikyo. The company was a splinter group from Video System - they established themselves back in 1992, going on to develop such titles as Strikers 1945. Round about 2002 (the date is very unclear), Psikyo disappeared off the face of the earth, presumably going bankrupt, releasing a final G-Taste mahjong game right before dissolving. Then along comes X Nauts, with suspiciously Psikyo-ish qualities, publishing Chou Aniki Protein Densetsu being among these. After much confusion, it now appears as though Psikyo is an X Nauts division. It is unclear how this came to pass, but there are two main theories: One is that X-Nauts is simply Psikyo restructured, as much as Playmore is the new SNK. Another theory is that X-Nauts is a shell publishing company which re-formed Psikyo as a development unit. Either way, Psikyo is very clearly back, and currently partnered with Taito not only for work on the Type-X arcade board, but also for re-releases of the company's classic shooter titles. While the middle bits are vague, the end result is clear - Psikyo is alive and kicking.
Another review that got lost in the shuffle for a while. tim wrote this before the game had been released in america...but it's only going up now. It's no less provocative, perhaps moreso, given that certain bits contained therein are no longer totally veridical. That's right, veridical. Look it up.
Noise Factory is working on a CD Box with soundtracks from the Gôketsuji series: Gôketsuji Ichizoku
Gôketsuji Ichizoku 2 -Chotto dake saikyô densetsu-
Gôketsuji Gaiden -Saikyô densetsu-
Gôketsuji Ichizoku 3 GROOVE ON FIGHT
Shin Gôketsuji -Matrimelee- The details of the box, such as the price and release date, will be announced shortly.
Kenichi Takano's company will be presented to Tokyo Stock Exchange in December, 24th, according to Amusement Press. Cave's main shareholders just before the presentation will be as follows: Takano (39%), Atlus (7%), Takara (5%) and Nihon Enterprise (5%).
Major Korean video-game company Hanbit Soft has signed an agreement with Hitachi to enter the Japanese market. Two MMORPGs will start beta test next year: Granado Espada and Neo Steam. Game Watch has a nice set of Granado Espada's hi res screenshots.
News: Tales of Eternia Online screens and system explained
More details and high resolution screenshots of Namco/Dwango's first MMORPG for Windows thanks to Game Watch. The game now has the usual "Tales of" opening movie. Inomata's designs again?
The rather splendid Hally over at the VORC retro game music/'chiptune' site has posted English-language info about new Japanese homebrew hardware from WeirdDeviceCorp that will allow you to play NSF music files on the real Famicom/NES hardware. Apparently, 'It uses SD memory cards (up to 64MB) for file transfer, and also features [a] 3.5mm audio mini plug'. For more info and pics, you can check out the Japanese-language page for WeirdDeviceCorp's TNS-HFC1, which will be sold at Comiket in December. Though the gadget only supports Mapper 0 tunes, that seems to include most of the tracks on 2a03.org. Therefore, NES music geeks should run, not walk to Comiket if they want to hear NSFs as god (or, at least, Hiroshi Yamauchi) intended.
"SNK's reorganized. It has been confirmed (in the usual vague manner) that:
1: SNK Playmore has absorbed SNK NeoGeo and Noise.
2: SNK NeoGeo Hong Kong is now SNK Playmore Hong Kong
3: SNK NeoGeo Consumer Corporation is now SNK Playmore USA
That means there are now only three legs remaining out of the enormous
Playmore group. Ben Herman mentioned via email that the move is an attempt to simplify worldwide identity.
Familiar as it is, ditching the "NeoGeo" is due as well, given the
direction that SNK has been moving in. And given that they don't have
hardware to deal with, it seems to make some sense to consolidate
whatever they've got going, development-wise, at SNK NeoGeo and Playmore."
Cave's Mushihimesama hits Japanese arcades today, and they have implemented an Internet Ranking section to their site for both normal and maniac modes of the game. Cave has also announced DoDonpachi dai-ou-jou for cell phones, and an original adventure game titled 'Detective Play Alpha' [rough translation].
Over at U.S. indie site DIY Games, there's some interesting info (plus a little grousing over sluggishness) about Jets'n'Guns, a Czech-developed 2D side-scrolling PC shooter with some neat-looking graphics, and a playable demo available for download. According to the developers, "Jets'n'Guns is a heavy piece of ground shaking rock blasting action dressed in full metal jacket colored to kill in graphics that will blow you eyes out!" Heck, it's even got a metal soundtrack by Machinae Supremacy, makers of the best Chris Huelsbeck remix of all-time, even including Scooter's remix of 'Level One' from Turrican. Nice to see Western shooter developers keeping up their end of the bargain, anyhow.
Another Gamasutra interview from me, this one with one of Rid Hershel's favorite US developers; WayForward. Discussed therein: 2D vs 3D gameplay, the Shantae series, developing on the DS, and the difficulty of getting original IP published as an independent developer.
Evan Robinson has posted some interesting solutions to crunch-time difficulties in his blog. He puts forth six solutions to the problems at EA and any other studio facing this issue, from his perspective as an engineer. Quite well done. Thanks to Rasmus for pointing this out a few days back.
Somewhat old news, but Game Watch has posted some info, screens and illustrations for Nippon Ichi's newest SRPG Phantom Kingdom. Thanks to Recap for the link.
News: Namco + Victor release 39 CD music compilation
Over on 765music.com There's some great flash animation announcing a new 39 CD (plus omake) compilation of Namco music. It's very light on details, but it's going to be limited to 2,000 units and will be priced at 76,500 Yen ($730). It will only be sold by pre-orders, but there's no word about where or when you can trade your hard-earned cash for this astonishingly huge music collection. S!: There are a few more details over at Game Science, including info on bonus merchandise.
That venerable bastion of condensed 2D shooting gameplay, ABA Games, has released Torus Trooper; thus continues the 6 month release schedule that Kenta Cho has established in the last few years. I think he describes it best:
On December 7th, Tanomicon will be releasing a very special Battle Garegga superplay DVD with 180 min. of footage from four different runs played by two top players. This is "Insanity DVD the Madness Battle Garegga."
News: Preorder Bonus for Psikyo Shooting Collection Vol. 2
Taito have announced that their release of Psikyo Shooting Collection Vol. 2, which includes the arcade shooters Sengoku Ace and Sengoku Blade, will include a special DVD when preordered. The DVD will feature superplay footage of both games, with both loops of each game accounted for. Also included on the disc will be an art gallery and other materials. Psikyo Shooting Collection Vol. 2 will be released on December 2 for 6090 yen.
A fine review from tim, updated for the new Willennium. It has a horrible picture of me in it also. Continuing our tradition of vegetarians reviewing meat-based games, here's a fine discussion of Yoshinoya.
News: Official beatmania IIDX 8th Style CS site launched
Konami has finally launched an official site for the Playstation 2 version of beatmania IIDX 8th Style, which is due on November 18th. Close to 90 songs will be featured, including a number of exclusives. Packaged with first pressings will be a special IIDX RED entry card with an illustration by GOLI.
Katamari Damashii creator Keita Takahashi has mentioned that he was not inspired by anything specific in the creation of his new series. But evidence suggests he may be leaving something out! The undoukai (literally 'exercise competition) is a series of sporting events that children participate in from preschool through highschool. One of the events is called tamakorogashi, and involves rolling a giant ball to a goal, as you see to the left. Full image here, with another here. Thanks to Osakachoujinnodouryou Yuki for pointing this out.
According to the new Famitsu, Nippon Ichi is making a new game in the Phantom series, titled Phantom Kingdom. The game will be a rethinking of the Phantom Brave system, with a return to turn-based battles, and will include some elements from Disgaea. Battle environments will be randomly created. Release date is sometime in 2005, on PS2.
Less than 24 hours after EA_spouse decided to share her story, Joe Straitiff (formerly of EA) decided to place his own EA experience in the blogosphere. Starting with the switch from simply Maxis to Maxis/EA, Joe gets into more of the nitty-gritty of corporate culture, human relations, and simple personality conflict.
IT media reports that if you preorder Radiata's Stories now, you will also receive a compilation of tunes from various tri-Ace games. The CD will have 2 battle themes each from Radiata, Valkyrie Profile and Star Ocean 1, 2, 3 and Blue Sphere for a total of 12 tracks. The quantity of discs will be extremely limited. The game is scheduled for the 27th of january, 2005.
Cave's Mushihime should be making its way to Japanese arcades today. To "celebrate," Cave has uploaded one wallpaper image on the game's official site. EDIT: The game has been pushed back one week to 11/19... oops!
Between the 12th and the 30th of november, the official site of Wanda to Kyozô will have some musical excerpts from the game. If you want to hear what the new compositions from Ôtani Kô sound like (Dreams Come True), it's better than nothing. The game is still scheduled for release in 2005.
News: Impressions of Alchemist's Baldr Force EXE for DC
Alchemist has recently released yet another 'last hurrah' for the beloved Dreamcast, Baldr Force EXE, a port of their PC game. With the CERO rating of 18 many could be tempted to write the game off as one more DC hentai game. Anyone who played the demo in Akihabara however might be forgiven for thinking this game is a robot blaster with a top-down 16-bit heritage and graphical frippery Dreamcast-style. The game isn't, unfortunately, anything of the latter sort. Since there's a dearth of information about the game, here are some impressions.
Review: KOF Maximum Impact
November 10, 2004, 09:08 PM
by brandon, via tim rogers, eric-jon rossel waugh - [permalink]
Tim wrote this KOF: MI review some time ago - then eric-jon got ahold of it, and made scads of comments. Then tim made more. Then eric-jon made more. The result is nine kinds of fantastic, filled with informative bickering, overthinking complex verbiage and pontificating. Please enjoy.
Simon's new book Gaming Hacks has been released. It's got contributions either in text, advice or theme from persons you know and love, such as Chris Kohler and nfg Lawrence. It's not a bad group of pages, from what I've seen.
An anonymous spouse of an anonymous Electronic Arts employee has posted a fairly gruesome LiveJournal entry, which details the working conditions of the industry giant's game designers. According to the article, which is freely distributable under the Creative Commons deed, EA's practices involve intentionally setting a "crunch time" for non-tardy projects, establishing mandatory eighty-five hour work weeks (though, as the article puts it, employees can go home early on Saturday night for "good behavior"), and a near-elimination of vacation time upon a project's completion. There are also quite a few interestingly anonymous comments already posted by both former and current EA employees in the Comments section.
Not sure how long it will remain so, but EB Games currently has the excellent Technic Beat, published by Mastiff, as being a posthumous 3DO release. Rise from your grave indeed.
There's a new 'issue' of the e-zine Armchair Arcade out, this time with a hand-painted cover. Though not as daring as previous months, the issue does include an article from Australian 'bedroom programmer' for the Tandy computer Nickolas Marentes, which is worth checking out.
This is a bit old, but still very interesting - Dragon Shadow Industries has released Decaying Orbit for the NUON. The game is a little Scorched Earth-ish. Read more about the gameplay here.
Right now it's downloadable and burnable, but he's also considering releasing the game with extra levels, case and whatnot, so let DSI know what you think. This is likely the last NUON game ever, unofficial or otherwise, but never say die!
Our pals at Tokidoki Journal are looking for editors. Well, writers really. Not only that, they need a graphic designer or two. So if you feel inclined, send an email to David Remy, removing the NOSPAM of course. They're trying to revive the site as a monthly fanzine, which was rather good in its prime, but recently fell into a rather inert state, much like the old insert credit place. Revitalization is good.
According to Akiman's homepage, Capcom sold all the rights of the Street Fighter series to Capcom of America.
After Udon making the illustrations for Capcom Fighting Jam, this shows even more the disinterest of the Japanese company for one of their biggest franchises. On the other hand, it may also be the only way for us to get new SF games in the future. Still, it is a bit ironic to do it on the year of the "15th" anniversary.
The Viewtiful Joe 2 official site has been updated. New info: you can change from Joe to Silvia during the game. Not so new, but still pretty interesting: other bits of information about the game, like Silvia's new VFX (replay) and the many innovative ways she'll find to show her panties.
The trial version, distributed in several magazines, will allow you to unlock special present boxes through the final game, as well as a 5% bargain at the shop.
Also, the pretentious column has been renewed; instead of something on VJ DS as promised, we get something on Ôkami. The game seems to be in quite a big trouble, though it's hard to see through the mist of megaton-Nintendoish language. They are changing a lot of things in the game, throwing away some stuff that wasn't as good as it should have been, and adding some other stuff. "The only thing that hasn't changed is that you still control Amaterasu by touching your game controller". I guess they mean the game won't be Trance-Vibrator compatible, at least.
Either way, they seem to be willing to take their time. The game is scheduled for 2005, without any further detail.
For all those Bemani and DDR freaks out there, Play-Asia is reporting that Andamiro's DDR-'inspired' arcade game Pump It Up Exceed is coming out for PlayStation 2 in Korea on November 24th, including over 100 songs and a packed in dance-pad. (Interestingly, Konami has previously been rather upset with Andamiro over the arcade versions of Pump It Up.) The folks at DDR Freak mention that the bundled pad will be USB, meaning it's the same as the PC Pump It Up pads and usable on the PC versions of the game. There's no word on Japanese or Western releases, although an Xbox version is also rumored but unconfirmed for Korea.
Tsukasa Jun [a.k.a, NOT Range Murata] has updated his journal page, hinting at a potential Hot Gimmick 2 release for the PlayStation 2. He specifically mentions working on new scenes including Yuka Yamabuki, the newest character featured in the first Hot Gimmick release for the PS2. Other details concerning new and upcoming Tsukasa works can be found at long range bullet.
Here's an interview I did with Mastiff's (La Pucelle, Technic Beat publisher) Bill Swartz, over at Gamasutra. He discusses localization, the problems with most translations, and how a small publisher can get good distribution, even inside of their first two years. It's not a bad slice of interview.
ARIKA has declared that the previously announced Ketsui superplay DVD is now on indefinite hold. It appears that ARIKA has obtained a special non-death version ROM of the game from CAVE, and miscommunication with the hired player about this special version has caused a fallout.
Well, it's not quite what we'd originally planned, but the frontpage has been changed to Movable Type, in order to accommodate multiple authors (such as zepy, rid hershel, jiji and quite a few more). As a result, you may see new entries coming in from various sources, rather than my referencing them directly as I did in the past. Note also the little [p] to the right of the source - that's a new permalink, in case people would like to link to an article directly.
The features issue is still not fully resolved, but this is a good temporary solution to get the site back to a degree of relevance. Hope you all approve. Thanks much to simoniker for making this happen.
X-nauts have announced that they'll be bringing a sequel to Psikyo's arcade shooters Sengoku Ace and Sengoku Blade to Japanese cellphones. The new game is called Sengoku Buster, and will be distributed through the "Psikyo Game Parlor Marion" service. It has five levels, and upon completion, the game will display a password that can be used to obtain various goodies via X-nauts' site. The game has two difficulty levels and has the ability to register player scores in a national ranking database.
The posting situation isn't going to change that soon, though I shall try to be a bit better about it than I have until we get our new system up and running. We sort of have someone working on it. You will like the new system though, I promise that. Regardless - just letting you know we're not dead. insert credit will very likely not die for some time...it's just hibernating. I will try to have a new article up from tim shortly. Oh yeah, and vote, if you want to.
Another piece I wrote for Gamasutra - a 5,000 word quote feature from the Tokyo Game Show. I interviewed Nobuya Nakazato (Shin Contra), Yasumi Takase (DDR), Akira Yamaoka (Silent Hill), Yuji Naka (Sonic Team), Takazumi Tomoike (Sengoku Musou PSP), Yoshiki Sugiyama (Sengoku Musou DS) and Fumito Ueda (Ico). In the last interview, most of the questions were actually asked by tim. The main thing that (should) differentiate this from most other quote articles, aside from those by someone like say, fenegi, is that I attempted to allow each developer to retain their vocal mannerisms, by working more from the original japanese than the translations. In fact, translations were not available for Naka and Ueda. It's not a bad series, some very honest answers came from these interviews.
And incidentally, while you're there - check out Frank Cifaldi's feature on the AMOA arcade show in Vegas. It's good too.
Taito has announced (see Dengeki Online) that they are bringing Unreal Tournament to the Type-X arcade board. The arcade version will be identical to the PC, with story mode for single player, and battle mode for multiplayer. The game will make use of the Windows XP OS for ease of porting, and will use the NESYS network to connect the UT machines across japan, with a system-wide ranking system.
In other Taito news, check out their financial results. A bit old, but very interesting. Therein they basically declare that they want to be the only amusement maker in the world.
You know we're all about the alternative perspectives. Well this one's so alternative that it's...not. Fragdolls is a 'gamer girl' weblog, sponsored by Ubisoft in order to promote their FPS titles. Very sneaky stealth-marketing. Take a look at this boing boing post for additional information. Insidious!
Mash has come up with another bizarre mod for those of you obsessed with messing with the things you own. He's figured out a way to link a tiny MMC reader to the original N-Gage, allowing hot-swapping, and without modifying the internals of the system. Rather funny how on occasion the thing that 'couldn't be done', is. And easily. For $15.
Over at DIY Games, Jozef Purdes has written 
Asmik Ace has opened the 
The PSP version of Idea Factory's Shinten Makai - Generation of Chaos IV will have important additions, as some Japanese media 
Over on the insertcredit forums, Broco 
French developer Gaming Side has 
According to a 
The new Shaman King GBA game; 
There's been much speculation as to the current status of shooting gods Psikyo. The company was a splinter group from Video System - they established themselves back in 1992, going on to develop such titles as Strikers 1945. Round about 2002 (the date is very unclear), Psikyo disappeared off the face of the earth, presumably going bankrupt, releasing a final G-Taste mahjong game right before dissolving. Then along comes 
Major Korean video-game company Hanbit Soft has signed an agreement with Hitachi to enter the Japanese market. Two MMORPGs will start beta test next year: Granado Espada and Neo Steam. 
More details and high resolution screenshots of Namco/Dwango's first MMORPG for Windows thanks to 
The rather splendid Hally over at the 
Cave's 
Over at U.S. indie site DIY Games, there's 
Somewhat old news, but Game Watch has 
That venerable bastion of condensed 2D shooting gameplay, 
On December 7th, Tanomicon will be releasing 
Taito have 
Konami has finally launched an 
Katamari Damashii creator Keita Takahashi has mentioned that he was not inspired by anything specific in the creation of his new series. But evidence suggests he may be leaving something out! The undoukai (literally 'exercise competition) is a series of sporting events that children participate in from preschool through highschool. One of the events is called tamakorogashi, and involves rolling a giant ball to a goal, as you see to the left. Full image 
Tim wrote this KOF: MI review some time ago - then eric-jon got ahold of it, and made scads of comments. Then tim made more. Then eric-jon made more. The result is nine kinds of fantastic, filled with informative bickering, overthinking complex verbiage and pontificating. 
There's a new 'issue' of the e-zine 
This is a bit old, but still very interesting - 
Viewtiful Joe 2 
For all those Bemani and DDR freaks out there, Play-Asia is 
X-nauts have announced that they'll be bringing a sequel to Psikyo's arcade shooters Sengoku Ace and Sengoku Blade to Japanese cellphones. The new game is called Sengoku Buster, and will be distributed through the "Psikyo Game Parlor Marion" service. It has five levels, and upon completion, the game will display a password that can be used to obtain various goodies via X-nauts' site. The game has two difficulty levels and has the ability to register player scores in a national ranking database.
Chinese phone maker Lenovo has 
Mash has come up with another bizarre mod for those of you obsessed with messing with the things you own. He's 
