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Japan Gets Special Edition Pokemon DS
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Nintendo DS, Role Playing Games,
Yet another special edition DS Lite will be hitting Japan in conjunction with the release of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl on September 28th. The special package, including the black DS with dual Pokemon characters traced on the cover will include a copy of the game and will sell for 16800 Yen. As if the game itself wasn’t going to whip Pokemon fans in Japan into a frenzy, this limited edition console should have people lining up around the block.
Read More 
| Famitsu
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Game Watch Shows New Tales Of The Tempest Screens
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Namco, Nintendo DS, Role Playing Games,
Namco’s new entry in their Tales RPG series, Tales of the Tempest is set to ship on October 26th in Japan. Ahead of the release, Game Watch Japan has a set of screenshots from the game. The shots show off a few of the different gameplay situations, including the skit system, which carries over from earlier entrants in the series. Also depicted are some in-battle screens that show off some of the special attacks, some shots of the overworld, and a couple of the dungeon areas. The game follows the story of the Caius Qualls, aged 15, on a quest to find out more information about his real parents. No US release date has been announced, but other releases in the series have made it to the US, so there is hope.
Read More | Game Watch
Japanese Gamers Line Up For Final Fantasy III DS
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Culture, Nintendo DS, Role Playing Games, Square Enix,
Square Enix’s Final Fantasy III for the Nintendo DS was just released in Japan, and gamers lined up overnight to grab the limited edition bundle featuring a custom DS Lite and the game. Over 80 gamers were lined up by 3:00 AM, and by the time the store opened, over 150 were in line. The game itself has proved to be an extremely popular pre-order as well, with nearly 500,000 Japanese gamers reserving a copy of the game. The new, 3D-rendered re-make of Final Fantasy III will see its release in the US on November 14.
Read More | Famitsu
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Lionhead Briefly Talks Fable 2
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Role Playing Games, Xbox 360,
In an update on the official Lionhead website, the Fable design team talks briefly about their approach to Fable 2. The game is still a long ways off yet, so not a lot of detail is given at this time. The standard game sequel platitudes are mentioned; the game is intended to be bigger and better than before, of course. A little bit about the design process is mentioned, starting from the 2D art for most of the areas in the new game. Lionhead is kind enough to publish one piece of concept art for the sequel. Fable 2 still has a ways to go in the development process, so there is still time for the development phase where Peter Molyneux over-promises the features in the game, and then pulls those features before the game is released.
Read More | Lionhead Studios
Following on the heels of Australia and New Zealand, where the game has already been banned, a Lancashire MP is calling for Reservoir Dogs to be banned from being sold in the United Kingdom, as well. MP Lindsay Hoyle, of Chorley, has “signed a House of Commons motion calling for the British Board of Classification to refuse… (the game) a certificate and ban it in the UK.” The game violence is extreme, allowing players to torture and brutalize police officers as well as members of the public. As more and more connections are being drawn between violence acted out in video games and the real-life episodes, politicians are calling out for curbs. The graphic nature of the Reservoir Dogs game has made it something of a political lightening rod.
Read More | Lancashire Evening Post
Terry Lavender, a resident of Vancouver’s West End, is Simon Fraser University (SFU) Surrey’s communications manager, and also studies in the SFU’s school of interactive arts and technology. Lavender has created a video game called, Homeless: It’s No Game, as part of his graduate studies. He hopes to determine “whether it’s possible to fuse computer games and social activism to make a difference.” Players of the video game walk in the tattered shoes of a homeless woman on the streets of Vancouver, with the object being “to survive 24 hours in the West End, scrounging for food, clothing, and shelter, while dodging hazards like the police, drug addicts, irate drivers, aggressive dogs, speeding cyclists, and surly tourists.” While the project is not finished, Lavender has already released the source code to the public as encouragement for others to adapt the idea. The game may be accessed online via his website: http://www.sfu.ca/~tlavende.
Read More | The Surrey Leader
Gamers tired of all the meat-and-potatoes fare being consistently served up by the industry at large, now have a feel-good, vegetarian alternative—LarryBoy and the Bad Apple for Game Boy Advance. Based upon the popular children’s characters, the VeggieTales, this game allows you to slip on the cape of a crime-fighting, superhero cucumber. To succeed, you must save the citizens of Bumblyburg from a thoroughly rotten fruit, one “Bad Apple.” To aid you in your quest you’ll have numerous superhero gadgets at your disposal, including the all-important sidekick, namely Archibald Asparagus, who acts as your character’s butler. For the health-conscious gamer, this is obviously all about eating a well-balanced diet.
Read More | Pocketgamer.co.uk
A Shadowrun Retrospective
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Culture, PC, Retro, Role Playing Games, Xbox 360, Xbox Live,
One of Microsoft’s big initiatives for the upcoming year is the launch of the Live Anywhere service, which seeks to bring PC gamers and Xbox 360 gamers together across the Xbox Live service. One of the games that Microsoft is using to push the service is the new version of Shadowrun. The Shadowrun franchise has its console gaming roots in both Genesis and Super Nintendo versions of the game. Some of the iterations in the game’s history have been fairly faithful to the pen-and-paper roots of the role playing game, while others have been decidedly less so.
Unfortunately for fans of the original game, it looks like Microsoft’s effort is going to be the least accurate portrayal of the Shadowrun universe yet. Ryan McPherson at eToychest reviews the game’s historical console releases, and briefs gamers on why the Microsoft release may be Shadowrun in name only. The game deviates so far from the paper RPG gameplay that the licensee of the tabletop version, FanPro, issued a statement that the computer version “…is not in continuity with the tabletop RPG. It may be more accurately described as a game loosely based on Shadowrun.”
Microsoft hopes that Shadowrun will be one of the titles that will help Live Anywhere succeed, and the fact that the game doesn’t closely follow the Shadowrun universe doesn’t preclude it from being a good game. But one does have to question why they would bother licensing the original intellectual property if they were essentially going to disregard the gameplay and back story of the tabletop version in favor of their own revised continuity.
Read More | eToychest
Wild Arms V Art, Screens Surface
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: PlayStation 2, Role Playing Games, Screenshots,
The Wild Arms series started on the original Playstation, and for the 10th anniversary of the game, Sony Computer Entertainment Japan is releasing Wild Arms the Vth Vanguard this Winter 2006 in Japan. GameWatch Japan has published character art for the three main characters, Dean Stark, Rebecca Streisand, and Avalil Van Freul. Screen shots from the in-game cut scenes, dungeon exploration, and battle segments have also been released. Battle mechanics seem to be based around the same structure as the fourth game in the series, with slight changes. No American release has been announced at this time, and no pricing has been set for the Japanese market.
Victor Ireland Forms Gaijinworks
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Retro, Role Playing Games,
For many gamers, Working Designs was synonymous with import game localization excellence. The company was responsible for the translation of the fabled Lunar series from Game Arts. Working Designs also brought some key titles to the Sega Saturn, including Shining Wisdom, Dragon Force, and Iron Storm. The company also was known for its extreme attention to detail, in both its localization efforts and the packaging for its games. Unfortunately, this may have also led to long delays for some of the company’s releases; many of the delays may not have been the fault of Working Designs, but they certainly contributed to its demise. The company officially announced its closure on December 12, 2005.
Now, through an entry in the blog of Corbie Dillard, comes news that Victor Ireland may be staging a comeback. The former head of Working Designs apparently has a new company, Gaijinworks. Gaijinworks has only a placeholder website at the moment, but Dillard quotes Ireland, “I’m not done bringing JRPGs to the US yet. Keep an eye on gaijinworks.com and we should have something more interesting than a placeholder there by the Fall.”
Read More | Corbie Dillard via 1up
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