The extras have been revealed for the Trigger Heart Exelica Dreamcast release. There's a soundtrack CD and a 'special booklet,' whatever that means. The other addition mentioned on the page is voice during battles.
As a freelance journalist I tend to spend rather a lot of my time lazily flicking through the television channels in the middle of the day when I should be working, and more often than not I find myself distracted by the adverts for the toys currently vying to be placed on children's Christmas wish lists, in particular the ones that are videogames, but do their best to pretend they're not (by saying they're "educational" or "for all the family" or something.) Just off the top of my head there are things like the Game Wave "Family Entertainment System", and the ridiculous range of educational techo-mcguffins from Fisher Price, such as the Pixter handheld system, or the I Can Play Piano (which brings to mind the Miracle Piano system released for the NES.)
Recently though I've been most captivated by the advertising for the Miuchiz handheld system, which, while little more than a Tamagochi-esque trinket, when connected to a PC with the included USB cable, appears to allow the user to take their character into a fully 3D MMORPG, Planet Mion, where they can interact with other users, play games, and that sort of thing.
Is it any good? I have no idea. It's for kids!
Brandon's note about Game Wave: I had meant to do a proper post about this, but mathew's gotten the ball rolling already. All I really wanted to say was that it's clearly the game system made "by Canadians, for Canadians," as the parent company Zapit Games is located in the great white north (Mississauga). That particular system is also a DVD player, and comes with four 'zappers,' aka remotes, which allow you to interact with the screen in (maybe?) a Wii-like manner. Or perhaps you just choose up, down, left, and right, and it's really *only* a DVD player that they've inexplicably tried to pass off as something else. If that's the case, there's a good chance their games will work on anything that plays the format. The only proper game-like game they've got is bejeweled, but I'm always entranced by these half-effort style things.
Mathew's note about Brandon's note: As far as I've seen from the adverts, there is no "Wii" like functionality; not to say that the games don't have specifics that mean they could only be played on a Game Wave. What the adverts have is a jingle that promises quiz games and rhymes "big words" with "little nerds", and is performed by the kind of session musicians that cry themselves to sleep every night.
Brandon's newest of notes: I found that commercial, and it's as astounding as he says it is. Check the youtube comments too, as they're clearly written by people who are, let's say, "concerned" about the success of the Game Wave.
I don't think we've ever really talked about the Pickford Brothers on Insert Credit, have we? Well, they're an astonishingly prolific pair of British siblings who've been in the industry since the days of 8-bit computers, and most recently have created Naked War, a rather lovely play-by-email game which is a lot more exciting than "play-by-email" makes it sound (though perhaps not as exciting as "naked" makes it sound) and that you should all check out if you have the time.
But what has piqued our interest most recently is that on their personal website, Zee-3, they're just uploaded a rather in-depth article about the creation of the first title they worked on as a team, the ZX Spectrum title Zub, which is very informative for anyone interested in what went into making a game on home computers in the 80's. They've also got an article on the creation of Plok, for people who remember the 1993 SNES title with fondness.
EJRW comment: Did you know the Pickford Brothers are actually behind some of Rare's more interesting NES games, like Solar Jetman and Ironsword? Well, neither did I before I did some research a while ago. Now we all know!
News: Moss shooter planned for 360, MileStone shooter for Wii
Moss (current owner of the Seibu Kaihatsu imprint, and thus the Raiden series) has a shooting game planned for the Xbox 360 in Japan, if the G-rev 360 schedule is to be believed (not to be confused with game maker G.rev). And why not believe them? Interesting news, and the Raiden series has a tendancy to appear on the Windows-based Type X these days...
G-rev's page for Wii indicates that MileStone will release a shooting game on the console in 2007 - best guess is Karasu (Karous).
This is old news by now, but might as well report it for those who missed it. Last Hope is available for preorder. That's the German homebrew shooter that was originally released on Neo Geo home cart (and doesn't seem to have sold out - it's still available if you're rich/have mental problems). So it's coming to Dreamcast before Neo Geo CD somehow, if you're interested in checking it out.
And in related play-asianess, the weekly special is Magna Carta Portable, for $11.
News: Trigger Heart Exelica - the newest last Dreamcast game ever
Newest in a long line of 'last ever' dreamcast shooters, the mediocre Warashi (it's a shame to say that) Naomi-based game Trigger Heart Exelica will be hitting the Dreamcast in February 2007. The game will get the standard premium and normal editions, according to Arcadia, who reported the news first. If you want more info on the game or Warashi, check our post announcing the unveiling of the Naomi arcade original. Thanks to Recap for the news, and alex for the screenshot.
Update: The game is actually still called Trigger Heart Exelica, not Trigger Heart Extend, as we'd previously stated.
To commemorate the Japanese launch of Ryu Ga Gotoku 2 (or Yakuza 2 if you're that way inclined) on the 7th December, SEGA are pulling out various stops to give away launch based freebies.
Most games get these kind of launch incentives but Ryu Ga Gotoku 2's are particularly cool. In addition to a signed CD, which is pretty standard freebie fare, a jacket and a long sleeve t-shirt will be available. For the latter pieces of clothing however, there will be lottery type events at various stores so acquisition is by no means guaranteed.
The forums are going to be down for a bit after some excitement over the weekend - the wiki is also locked for now - will update as the situation progresses.
This is not the first time we've seen the idea of a digital comic series for a gaming system - though the chances of getting this in a language other than japanese is still close to zero (Silent Hill PSP comics aside), but coming from Arc System Works, it's still interesting. The company wil start to publish (through AS Networks) a digitilized version of Sangokushi, the classic manga from Mitsuteru Yokoyama, for the DS next month. It'll be the first of at least three announced volumes, with new colored scenes and BGM and sound effects for the reader. The series is called 'Gamics' ('Game x Comics') so every volume comes also with a game based on its content, being the first one a war tactics simulation.
There's a slim chance that our collective childhood memories won't be cruelly dashed against the sharp pointy rocks of modernity. SEGA have announced the release of a new Sonic game for the Wii. The screenshots, thus far, lack hideous humans and the in-game movie looks promising (the latter is tucked away on the official site).
No price or Japanese release date has been set but the game is expected some time early next year.
Brandon's note: When we met Yojiro Ogawa (the games's producer) at TGS, he liked our (tim's and my) idea that any 3D sonic should be more like Sonic R than Sonic Adventure - he agreed. This is promising - so is the fact that he was in charge of the boss battles for Panzer Dragoon Saga, as he was previously in Team Andromeda's inner circle. This is all from an interview that is unfortunately lost, but it's true nonetheless.
What with the release of Armored Core 4 a scant few weeks away, From Software have kindly gone out of their to answer people's questions regarding the game. As of yesterday, a FAQ page was added to the official Japanese site.
It covers almost all the areas of interest people have had, namely what happened to the FCS lockbox (it's now the entire screen), where are the floating leg types (they're gone because all leg types in the game now have the ability to float) and is heat damage still modelled (it's gone too). They also went out of their way to explain that there won't be online compatability between the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game (ah, bless).
What with Super Robot Wars XO a mere week away from its Japanese release, someone has been nice enough to upload the promotional video used in Japanese stores (it's in two parts, here and here).
Despite the reassuring robot posturing, the new Xbox Live functionality is given a fair bit of air time. With any luck they'll have sorted out any of the obvious balancing issues for a mode such as this. It's also still clear to see that the game is just a slightly sexed up (by "sexed up" we mean "shiny") version of the Gamecube iteration.
Princess Crown was an Atlus/Sega co-production for the Sega Saturn which became famous for its high-end 2D animation and sprite detail. What you may not know is that the man behind it is Jouji Kamitani, which later formed up Vanillaware, a company devoted to 2D graphics-based games which, to our knowledge, hasn't developed a single game in its whole history. But the wait is over, since Famitsu Magazine has just revealed a brand-new production from Nippon Ichi Software directed by Mr. Kamitani and developed by Vanillaware.
Grim Grimoire will take the form of a "mahoutsukai [magician] simulation game" for the PS2 where the player will have to assign different actions to the characters in real time using an icon menu. The combat system is indeed described as something "unique" by Famitsu itself, and will be presented in a side view not unlike Princess Crown's, only with much more detailed 2D graphics and animation, they say. Best of all, this is not the only Vanillaware game currently in development for the PS2. 2007 will be the best year for Princess Crown fans after all this time of silence. Stay tuned.
Type-moon has announced Fate/Zero, a collaboration novel(this is where novel means a real book, not a PC game) with Nitro+. It serves as a prequel to the popular bishoujo game Fate/stay night, describing the events that happened 10 years before. The art will be done by Type-moon while the actual storyline will be written by Urobuchi Gen from Nitro+, who's best known for writing the scenario for Saya no uta, which many fans believe to have one of the best written scenarios in the Nitro+ lineup. The novel will be released at Comic Market 71 at the Type-moon booth.
Fate/Zero was actually already hinted at in Fate/Hollow Ataraxia, where it was featured as one of the movie posters with the words "Coming Soon".
For those that don't live in the UK, we have a current affairs TV program by the name of Newsnight. Towards the end of some shows they have Newsnight Review, which normally consists of various culture pundits desperately trying to sound clever. Over the weekend they cast their gaze towards the release of the Wii and the PlayStation 3.
As you'd expect, the hosts are mostly dismissive but remain begrudgingly positive about gaming (to the point they actually admit having fun, quite a large step for the stuffy British media). It is amusing to see egotistical critics out of their depth though, especially on national televison.
Someone was kind enough to upload the terrifying spectacle to YouTube and I thought it worth sharing. Enjoy!
Back in September, while on the plane back from the Tokyo Game Show, I began stirring around a longish article for my sponsor on that trip. It took rather longer than I expected to finish, then took a while longer to go up on the site. Then when it did, it was altered to fit what my editor felt the site needed at that moment. Fair enough; I just asked permission to reprint it elsewhere, in its original form. And here it is! I think it's got some interesting stuff in it, amongst the things you've heard before! Maybe not. At any rate, I thought some people out there might enjoy the opportunity to read it as intended.
So we must accept it - if there's a really promising title announced these days it has to be for mobile phones. It's not actually different to getting it for a handheld, after all, and much cheaper. You'll need a Foma 903 i for this one, though, which may well be worth it, since you don't see a multiplayer, Valkyrie-no-Bouken-inspired game made by Cave every day. Check the official site out, it's coming next month.
James from the forums linked me to this video, which shows a scene from Sonic the Hedgehog for 360, what with all the creepy realistic people in it, and some GIANT hedgehogs. Anyone who's been following the game could guess that the following scene would take place, but it's still horribly disappointing. It's basically the end of childhood. You're all adults now, and your parents don't love you, and neither does jesus or sega.
Here's something you won't find...well anywhere! It's an auction put up by devin shockwell of the blackmoon project. Blackmoon is a CD-i enthusiast site, and as such, this Zelda auction is related to that. To boil it down, the auction focuses on two Zelda games that were released for the CD-i; Zelda - The Wand of Gamelon, and Link - The Faces of Evil. The games, frankly, weren't that hot. But the art was very nice. What devin has done is he's professionally printed out unique, original versions of the art, with story and whatnot associated, and nice frames. These are signed by the original artist, rob dunlavey, and come with a letter from him, detailing some of his work on the project. You can check out quite a bit of the art from the games in rob's computer games section. The auction also comes with every CD-i game rob had a hand in:
What's more, it comes with the retrogamer magazine that covered the Zelda CD-i games, signed by the authors, and all of the proceeds go to charity. Check the auction itself for super detailed info - beware, only 4 days left, as I dragged on this a bit! The print is size A4 by the way - not super huge, but hey, it's for charity! Who are you to complain!?
News: Coin-op makers desperate for things to write press releases about
Coin-Op Today continues to be one of the funniest websites around, and this press release from Stern Pinball is no exception. This is an entire press release about how Tony Hawk had a South Park pinball machine in his room on MTV's Cribs show - South Park pinball was done by Sega, whose pinball division Stern incorporated. "Hawk was extremely proud of the game as he stopped the MTV camera crew's walk through his home to show them."
Amazing! The state of the coin-op industry continues to astound. With this, and Bay-Tek Games' recent showcasing in Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, the industry is clearly poised for a comeback.
Thanks to stabo10 we learned of this nice movelist FAQ for Arcana Heart. It's rather detailed, but there's more information for some characters than others.
Puns aside, one of the more adult orientated Wii games set for iminent release is that of Spike's Necro-Nesia. It's a survival horror game set on an island filled with abnormally large wildlife. The player has lost their girlfriend to the chitinous fangs o' doom and has to use a mixture of torchlight and a machete to make their way through the sinister horde.
It's fair to say that the screenshots fill me with horror but not in the way the developers probably intended (plus gameplay impressions elsewhere haven't been great). On a partial upside the official site does hold host to a rather nice animated comic.
The game is released in Japan on the 2nd December for 7,140 yen.
So it begins. An intrepid PlayStation 3 owner has successfully upgraded the hard drive of the 20GB edition. Nice going though, especially considering that something like this has happened for the console's launch.
Ollie Update: There's some official blurb on the Japanese PlayStation support site basically stating that this "upgrade" is perfectly fine. Game Watch has also been kind enough to investigate this somewhat bizarre aspect of the PlayStation 3 further.
The game will be released february of next year for the princely sum of 6090 yen. For those that live near or in Osaka, you can fondly caress this controller at the Games Japan Festa opening in the next few days.
From Software are in the throes of celebrating their 20th Anniversary, and along with the various Armored Core high fiving, a few of their lesser known back catalogue titles are getting more attention as a consequence.
The King's Field games are responsible for the company's gaming genesis and it's only fitting that a collector's box set for all the games is finally getting released (PSone/two). In addition to containing all four games, the box set includes a memorial DVD, a soundtrack, a map of the Verdite realm and a very nice artbook. For those that bought the recent PSP ports then you may rue your decision in light of this news.
The boxset will be released in Japan on the 25th January 2007 for 9,800 yen.
You might've heard about it by now, but an alpha build of Sonic 2 had been found, and released. It's got quite an oddity, in that when Sonic was going at high speeds, he would bounce off of walls. That would've been quite a disaster! Special note for Sega - remember those days when you'd find something didn't quite work in your Sonic game, and you'd go back and fix it? These sorts of lessons aren't meant to be unlearned. I suppose they'll sell about a million copies of that no matter how much it sucks though.
Check Hidden Palace's forums for interesting captures of the alpha, and specifically the animated gif of the bouncing. I've mirrored it in the event that that Qjimbo, who made the image, can't manage the bandwidth. This version of the game contains the hidden palace zone, which was removed from the final, and revisited in Sonic & Knuckles (though in a different form).
As an interesting aside, reading UKR's post about the find, more specifically the comments, you'll find the story of the young man who beat Sonic 2 four hours after it was released on Sonic 2sday in the UK. It's pretty interesting!
Typing of Ys was a typing tutor minigame included in the PC version of Zwei!!, similar to Typing of the Dead, et al. Well, Nightwolve, who's since moved on from the RIGG group we mentioned some time ago, has taken it upon himself to extract the tutor from the original game, translate it with the help of two fellows by the names of Wrydwad and Deuce, and naturally make it available for download. Check out details and downloads here. It's quite fun, and based on the universe of Ys II Complete.
While you're at it, might as well check out this Lords of Thunder hack, which uses a Nightwolve tool to add a new powermetal soundtrack to the classic shooter. SignofZeta's responsible for that one.
Asmik Ace's sim RPG Tenshou Gakuen Gekkouroku, which recap mentioned back here, has a new streaming video up. Recap, who brought this up in the first place, says motoi sakuraba is doing a full soundtrack, and the game is also fully voiced. The game will be released on the 22nd of this month, and of course you can preorder it here should you so choose.
The Shindenken doujin circle has put up a video of their side-scrolling action game Asahina Mikuru, which is based on the Mikuru character from Haruhi. It's right there at the top, you can't miss it.
Chaz says: This one should be followed despite the cheap looks, because Shindenken (Shin Kanagawa Denshi Gijutsu Kenkyuusho) is a very good circle which has the habit of making bizarro-doujin versions of oldschool games, which resulted in projects such as Dig Baku (a favorite of mine), Escalator Action, Rope Runner... You can get videos of these games here.
Brandon's after the fact note: All their other games look a bit more exciting though! If you like the look of mikomiko youkai taiji, there's actually a trial version to check out.
A delectable Virtua Fighter 5 tournament was held on Saturday and it resulted in a clear winner (who goes by the nickname of Fudo). For me, one of the best examples of photo journalism in the context of this event would be this cheeky snap. You can almost feel the ass kickage. Naturally, when these guys get online with the PlayStation 3 port expect the further tearing of new ones.
Ollie Update: Some nice people uploaded a video of the final itself onto YouTube.
News: SNK and G-mode/DECO characters to play together
Remember when G-mode bought Data East's IP way back when (February 2004)? Turns out the Japanese mobile developer has more than just Burger Time and Bump 'n' Jump cell phone ports in store for us. This newly-announced collaboration of SNK Playmore and G-mode results in the latter giving us (or at least Japanese mobile users) "Garou Densetsu vs. Fighter's History Dynamite" in Spring 2007, and SNK now has the freedom to use Fighter's History characters in their future arcade and console game titles. Check out the full press release here.
The extras have been 
As a freelance journalist I tend to spend rather a lot of my time lazily flicking through the television channels in the middle of the day when I should be working, and more often than not I find myself distracted by the adverts for the toys currently vying to be placed on children's Christmas wish lists, in particular the ones that are videogames, but do their best to pretend they're not (by saying they're "educational" or "for all the family" or something.) Just off the top of my head there are things like the 
Brandon's note about Game Wave: I had meant to do a proper post about this, but mathew's gotten the ball rolling already. All I really wanted to say was that it's clearly the game system made "by Canadians, for Canadians," as the parent company 
I don't think we've ever really talked about the Pickford Brothers on Insert Credit, have we? Well, they're an astonishingly prolific pair of British siblings who've been in the industry since the days of 8-bit computers, and most recently have created 
This is old news by now, but might as well report it for those who missed it. Last Hope is available for 
Newest in a long line of 'last ever' dreamcast shooters, the mediocre Warashi (it's a shame to say that) Naomi-based game 
To commemorate the Japanese launch of 
This is not the first time we've seen the idea of a digital comic series for a gaming system - though the chances of getting this in a language other than japanese is still close to zero (Silent Hill PSP comics aside), but coming from Arc System Works, it's still interesting. The company wil start to publish (through 
There's a slim chance that our collective childhood memories won't be cruelly dashed against the sharp pointy rocks of modernity. SEGA have announced the release of a new Sonic game for the Wii. The 
What with the release of 
What with 
Princess Crown was an Atlus/Sega co-production for the Sega Saturn which became famous for its high-end 2D animation and sprite detail. What you may not know is that the man behind it is Jouji Kamitani, which later formed up 
For those that don't live in the UK, we have a current affairs TV program by the name of 
So we must accept it - if there's a really promising title announced these days it has to be for mobile phones. It's not actually different to getting it for a handheld, after all, and much cheaper. You'll need a Foma 903 i for this one, though, which may well be worth it, since you don't see a multiplayer, Valkyrie-no-Bouken-inspired game made by Cave every day. Check 
These things happen lately, you know. And Marvelous Interactive 
Here's something you won't find...well anywhere! It's an 
Thanks to stabo10 we learned of this nice 
Puns aside, one of the more adult orientated Wii games set for iminent release is that of Spike's 
So it begins. An intrepid PlayStation 3 owner has 
It turns out that Taito have gone for the more 
You might've heard about it by now, but an alpha build of Sonic 2 had been found, and 
Typing of Ys was a typing tutor minigame included in the PC version of Zwei!!, similar to Typing of the Dead, et al. Well, 
Asmik Ace's sim RPG 
The 
You'll recall that 
A delectable 
Remember when G-mode bought Data East's IP way back when (February 2004)? Turns out the Japanese mobile developer has more than just Burger Time and Bump 'n' Jump cell phone ports in store for us. This newly-announced collaboration of SNK Playmore and G-mode results in the latter giving us (or at least Japanese mobile users) "Garou Densetsu vs. Fighter's History Dynamite" in Spring 2007, and SNK now has the freedom to use Fighter's History characters in their future arcade and console game titles. Check out the full press release 
