Yo-ho-ho he took a bite of Gum-Gum

I've never really paid attention to Dynasty Warriors, as Chinese history usually isn't something that grabs my attention. Besides, I didn't think that I was missing much more than a whole lot of button mashing. Then Namco Bandai and Tecmo Koei announced that they were making a Dynasty Warriors game based on One Piece, Shonen Jump's anime/manga franchise about a stretchy boy trying to become the next Pirate King. Most anime-licensed games tend to be?? forgettable,?? but early footage looked surprisingly fun, like it could capture the energy of the source material.

Though plenty of anime games get passed over for localization, Namco Bandai actually decided to release One Piece: Pirate Warriors, albeit without an English dub. Fans should feel lucky the game is being released at all -- One Piece's popularity outside of Japan is far lower than other Shonen Jump properties like Bleach or Naruto. But is the game worth playing, or is it just Dynasty Warriors with cel-shading and stranger characters?

One Piece: Pirate Warriors (PlayStation 3)
Developer: Koei Tecmo/Omega Force
Publisher: Namco Bandai
Released: September 25, 2012 
MSRP: $49.99

After eating the Gum-Gum Fruit, one of many types of Devil Fruit, Monkey D. Luffy gains the ability to stretch his body like rubber, but at the cost of never being able to swim again. Not letting his handicap deter him, he sets off to sail the seas, finding adventure and gathering a crew. His ultimate goal: to traverse the Grand Line (the most challenging section of the ocean), find the legendary pirate Gold Roger's treasure One Piece, and become the Pirate King. Along the way, Luffy must overcome rival pirates, government-sponsored privateers??, shadowy organizations, and ultimately the full might of the Marines.

Pirate Warriors follows Luffy from his early adventures in the East Blue all the way to the massive Battle of Marineford, spanning more tha??n a decade of a story that is still only halfway done. As might be expected, adapting the source material into a playable form necessitates massive cuts, and so the game tries to focus on the important fights and events. This is both a blessing and a curse.

Part of the appeal of a long-running story like One Piece is having a chance to get to know the characters and understand their place in the growing story. While many arcs feel somewhat self-contained ??due to the nature of traveling from island to island, the arcs often introduce a new crewmate, develop characters, allow background machinations, and generally move the overall story. So when the aforementioned Battle of Marineford occurs, readers understand the weight of the events and why they matter. Combined with the exuberance and earnestness that creator Eiichiro Oda puts into his work, it's easy to become attached to the ?characters and cheer them on through increasing adversity.

There is almost none of that build-up present in Pirate Warriors. The story is a disjointed mess, merely "best of" moments that will only truly make sense to someone who is already familiar with the manga. The majority of the game is told from a flashback occurring at the recent start of the manga's post-timeskip second half, wi?thin which the crew flashes back to even earlier events. None of the crew questions why three of them weren't important enough to get a flashback to their introduction story, and apparently no one at Namco Bandai questioned this awkward presentation. Any detailed explanation of characters or the world around them are relegated to a glossary.

Chapters open and close with a na??rrated text dump trying to explain what has happened since the last chapter and what the ramifications of the chapter you just played were. Many cutscenes are presented in manga panels with voiceover, which feels lazy and barely serviceable when the fully animated cutscenes are so visually thrilling. Of course, because there is no overall narrative context, non-fans have much less reason to get emotionally invested with these moments. All that will register is that the guy made out of rubber blows up a ludicrously-sized giant fist to fight a leopard man who can shoot lasers from his finger.

That being said, Pirate Warriors features many attention-grabbing moments, such as a guy made out of rubber using a giant fist to punch a laser-shooting leopard man. The story bits that the game adapts may be disjointed, but these moments were chosen for being some of the best, most important parts of the manga. The game manages to capture the spirited tone of the source material. Unlike the sometimes slow and stiff One Piece anime, playing Pirate Warriors felt true to the manic energy of the manga.

The core of the game is what you'd expect from Dynasty Warriors -- various combos using square and triangle -- but the attacks are punchy and satisfying, even though there's little challenge in taking out a crowd of enemies. There is also a dash button for dodging attacks that can be mixed into a combo to halt counterattacks and speed up com??bat even further. Attacking or taking damage builds a meter for crowd-clearing special attacks, which are rarely necessary but feel quite good to mix into combat due to how snappy they feel. Some of the unlockable special moves power-up a character for a time, making you feel like a god on the battlefield.

Often a crewmate will be nearby fighting, however, they inflict such small damage that you can't count? on them for more than distracting enemies. Instead, it's better to tell one of them to follow Luffy, who gains the ability to summon them for a crew strike after performing the appropriate combo. Crew strikes feel somewhat superfluous, but they're useful for preventing enemies from counterattacking.

The combat can be a lot of dumb fun, so it's a shame that the camera tries its best to hinder combat whenever possible. It is content to swing wildly and offer the worst view whenever close to a wall. Adjusting the camera feels flighty and loose, while hitting L1 to center it behind Luffy is not always the best choice. Pirate Warriors attempts to fix this when it matters by allowing you to lock-on to certain powerful enemies with a press of R3, but this is awkward and doesn't help aim attacks. In fact, getting near the wall even while locked on still creates confusion. I'm pretty surprised that a game would be saddl??ed with such a poor camera in 2012.

The primary mode is the Main Log, a story mode which follows Luffy, with another character occasionally stepping in for specific fights. Main Log features three types of stages. Musou is a typical Dynasty Warriors kind of stage, pitting you against hordes of enemies, plus a boss fight. Capturing territories is incentivized, requiring enough kills in an area before that location's leader can be challenged for control. Stronger baddies will show up from time to time, usually signaling a mission to ??beat them or capture a specific territory. Though the game promises that missions have a great outcome?? on how the stage plays out, they only make a difference in the Battle of Marineford. Otherwise, the reward consists of a character being available to follow Luffy or activating a support ability to stun the enemies in a territory.

Another type of stage, boss, is simply a couple boss fights back to back. These encounters are generally more involved than the ones found in the musou stages thanks to plenty of cutscenes filled with quick-time events. QTEs are never a great design choice, but since the pop up so naturally, it's hard to complain in the heat of the moment when it feels like your button presses still make a difference. While this isn't the most flattering comparison, if you were able to enjoy the QTEs in Asura's Wrath by focusing on the ?crazy events on-screen, you'll probably enjoy these too -- they do an excellent job of keeping the boss fight's energy going.

Unfortunately, outside of the cutscenes, boss fights can quickly become frustrating. Most bosses have eaten their own Devil Fruit, granting them powers such as separating body limbs, summoning a hydra made of poison, or even turning into an element like sand or light. It's these element-based enemies that are the most frustrating. According to the rules of One Piece, their bodies are actually made of this element, meaning that they can turn into it at a moment's notice, letting attacks pass right through them. This means your in-progress combos are often going to whiff, leaving you open to a punishing counterattack. The only defense becomes alternating square and X to dash back and forth, getting a light punch in here and there, while fighting the camera to stay focused on your opponent. It slows down what wo??uld otherwise be a dynamic fight.

??The third stage type, action, is all about platforming using Luffy's rubber abilities, with intermittent enemies and a boss at the end tossed in for good measure. Calling it "platforming" is generous, considering that jumping, hitting, dodging, and grabbing the environment occurs via QTEs. Beyond extremely light puzzle e?lements, traversing an environment practically feels on-rails. This can be exciting at the right moments -- the Battle of Marineford comes to mind -- but more often made me wish that the engine supported greater free movement. It doesn't help that Luffy does the same canned animation every time he has a "Eureka!" moment for creating new ways to use his stretchy body to move around.

The game often struggles to maintain its lively pace, a problem that occurs in all three kinds of stages. When surrounded by enemies, bouncing through an action stage, or participating in exciting cutscenes, Pirate Warriors is a thrill. But the moment things slow down, be it from running to find more enemies, searching for the right path across a gap, or feebly chipping away at a boss's health, things begin to drag, and suddenly your engagement drops. Overlooking the game's button-mashing gameplay and imitation platforming is only possible thanks to the euphoria created by the ??enthusiastic pace. When the adrenaline rush wears off -- a?nd it inevitably will -- your actions suddenly feel repetitive and dull.

All that said, when Pirate Warriors is on, it's on, and part of that comes from its presentation. The game is scored with a lively jazz/rock so??undtrack, and while I wouldn't call it memorable, it fits the mood of the game perfectly. Similarly, the cel-shaded characters don't possess the most complex graphics, but they're appealing and well animated, translating Oda's unique character designs far better than the anime does. Little touches like the cartoony way enemy soldiers run away with their hands flailing in the air are well appreciated. Sometimes there's a slight disconnect with the background graphics, which fall between bland cel-shading and overly-detailed (yet still styled) realism, but it's nothing too jarring. Slowdown is almost unheard of, with scenes running smooth no matter how many enemies are surrounding you.

Not to sound too snobby, but I'm so happy to see the Japanese dub present -- and not just because there's also no English dub. The Japanese voices do a wonderful job at shouting excitedly and screaming melodramatically, getting your blood pumping to mash more buttons. Admittedly, an English dub would have been a good option to have, particularly now that FUNimation is dubbing One Piece instead of 4Kids. But since FUNimation's localization is far behind the Japanese episodes, it would have required a lot of advanced casting for characters that wouldn't appear for dozens of episodes, not to mention the added cost that might have made localizing Pirate Warriors too expensive.

There is a nitpick about the dub however, and that concerns the need to read the subtitles to understand the characters. It's not a problem in the cutscenes, but when characters talk during gameplay, it can be difficult to switch your attention between reading subtitles and mo??nitoring the action. In addition, the subtitles will often disappear while performing platforming moves -- perhaps appearing for only a second -- making it impossible to know what was just said. Little of the chatter is terribly important, usually amounting to trash talk, so it doesn't affect progress; still, it is something that wouldn't be an issue if the game had an English dub (or if we all understood Japanese).

Progressing through the Main Log opens chapters in Another Log, as well as two boss-rush challenges. Another Log puts the focus on the 12 characters other than Luffy, who all offer unique movesets and playstyles. The characters only have chapters for where they actually appear in the story, but it's possible to use a character in any other character's chapters, with that chapter's official character filling? a support role. These are all musou stages, and many of the chapters are nearl?y identical, especially those of Luffy's crewmates. As Luffy's first crewmate, Zoro gets seven chapters that the other seven crewmates share, while two additional chapters are shared between the remaining four characters. They're a fun distraction, but due to the lack of story, there's little reason to play through them all. It would have been much more interesting for Another Log to offer exclusive fights or events not shown in the Main Log.

Since Another Log isn't full of story cutscenes that show changing conditions, it is here that the game can most often react too slowly to your actions. I can't count the number of times I would capture a territory, notice that a powerful enemy had just appeared, or receive the support of another character, only to be told about it half a minute later, as though it had just occurred. It made me wonder whether another ??powerful enemy had appeared or if it was referring to the one I had already killed off, and with the camera being so unhelpful, I never knew if I was going to get smacked with a strong att?ack out of nowhere. It was particularly jarring to be fighting a strong enemy, only to be interrupted mid-combo by a stock cutscene introducing that enemy to the battlefield.

The chapters in Another Log are available for play in both online and offline co-op, though offline co-op should be avoided at all costs. If the camera was unwieldy in single-player, it is almost unusable in sp??litscreen. Like many old Game Boy games, screen real estate is sacrificed to allow for full-sized characters, meaning you're almost always unaware that an enemy is charging up a big attack unless they're right in front of you. And even then, the frequent pop-ups explaining the latest mission take up more space. The map has been shrunk and placed twice on the screen when one regular sized map in the middle would suffice. Offline co-op just reeks of a throw-away mode, so it's surprising that teaming up with another player online can be quite fun, even?? if it just makes the normally easy stages even easier.

Every mode also makes use of collectible coins, which offer stat boosts to characters when properly equipped. Coins are gained by killing certain enemies, killing enemies without getting hit, capturing some territories, and opening rare treasure chests. Combining three related coins will cancel out the coins' normal stat boosts and create a team skill that may reduce flinching or increase attack strength when health is low, among other effects. Because the coins are based on characters or items from One Piece, it may be hard for a non-fan to discover team skills without fully understanding what three coins have in common. Even as a fan, I was frustrated to not be able to activate certain team skills due to a missing coin, as the coin distribution is near-random, with little chance to acquire a complete set without heavy grinding. The stat boosts and team skill effects have li?ttle impact on gameplay, so it's not a huge concern that?? acquiring coins is tedious, but it does make the entire system seem superfluous, as if it was only put in place to reference minutia.

One Piece: Pirate Warriors ultimately isn't that different from what I expected of a Dynasty Warriors game. The combat is simplistic, and despite the bubbly tempo, there are many parts that could have used more polish or consideration. Fans may decry the complete ignorance of two major arcs (Skypiea and Thriller Bark), as well as the small number of worthwhile non-Luffy fights. And yet, I can't say that I didn't have quite a bit of stupid fun with it. When the shouting characters, weird attacks, and strange enemies come together, Pirate Warriors excels at silly yet awesome spectacle. Just do??n't expect any depth or lasting appeal once the glow has faded.

The post Review: One Piece: Pirate Warriors appeared first on Destructoid.

I'm not the biggest RPG nut, but over my last decade of gaming, I have appreciated most of the RPGs I've played. After starting on Pokemon, I've played a Final Fantasy or two, and even delved into Persona. But until recently, I'd never even bothered trying the dungeon-crawler subset, specifically the type inspired by Wizardry.

Wizardry was surprisingly popular in Japan, leading to numerous spin-offs and games based around exploring labyrinthine dungeo??ns in the first-person. These games are usually very light on story, focusing on navigating an area and fighting lots and lots of monsters. Because an RPG's story is usually more important to me than the actual combat, it makes sense that I'd avoid this sub-genre, ?though I might make an exception for intriguing battle systems.

Unchained Blades places a greater emphasis on story than most games in the Wizardry tradition. It features a multitude of playable characters designed by various manga and anime artists and an overarching reason for traipsing through mazes. It also adds new systems meant to play off of the fact that characters have a personality. While Unchained Blades features elements that might draw i??n players like me, it sadly takes more than a narrative and unique systems to make an engaging experience.

Unchained Blades (PSP)
Developer: FuRyu
Publisher: XSEED Games
Release Date: June 26, 2012
MSRP: $29.99

The game introduces Fang as the Dragon Emperor, one of the most powerful beings in the world. In his hubris, Fang approaches the goddess Clunea in her sky temple and demands to be told of the strongest monster in the world, eager to test his strength. Understandably, this offends Clunea, ??who sends him crashing back to earth as a fledgling, the weak, human-like form of those still too young to be true dragons. To gain his power back, Fang must go questing through Titans, giant living dungeons, in order to be granted a wish by the goddess. Along the wa?y, fledglings from other monster clans will join him, each with their own wish to be granted.

It's a cool premise for an RPG, but even though Unchained Blades has more story than most dungeon crawlers, its influence on the core e?xperience is very light. It doesn't change the fact that the story still centers around trekking through mazes and fighting tons of enemies. It does try to shake things up by focusing on different characters in different chapters, but then it's right back into fighting through dungeo?ns. 

The numerous party members are almost?? all human versions of the monsters you would usually fight in RPGs, like golems, phoenixes, reapers, and Medusas. It adds some novelty to the usual band of adventurers, but it doesn't mean they're well-developed. All the characters can be boiled down to a simple character trait: Fang is ??an overconfident jerk, Lapis is a shy cute girl, Tiana is a hot-headed princess. You can attempt to learn more about a character by talking to them at a campsite, but they rarely give any valuable insight. For example, I talked to Fang and was treated to a soliloquy about how much it sucks to be a fledgling again and how much he wants to get revenge on Clunea. Hm, you don't say?

This seems to be the fault of the ori?ginal developer rather than XSEED's localization work. They tried to impart more personality to your party, but it doesn't look like there's much room in the script to add characterization. Many segments feature voice acting, which helps, though characters like Hector? and Lapis can be too cutesy. XSEED deserves a reprimand for the way text displays, though. There's an extra space after every bit of punctuation. Putting a double space after a period is controversial enough, but putting a space after a comma or even an apostrophe looks amazingly sloppy, like I was reading a fan-translation hack.

The diverse characters also run into a slight problem in terms of visual consistency. Fourteen notable anime, game, and manga artists contributed character designs, and as a result some of the characters don't mesh well, either because of their clothing or because of their face, especially the eyes. In particular, the delicate design used for the reaper clan's Sylvie looks strange when introduced alongside t??he spirit fox clan's Niko. It isn't too annoying, considering that all the characters are from different clans, but it's still distracting, as if seeing a CG-generated character mixed into a?? hand-drawn crowd.

Conversely, customizing your characters' skills is one of the best parts of the game. The skill map is made up of numerous rings full of stat boosts and new abilities, similar to Final Fantasy X's sphere grid. Every additional level gives the choice of two new bonuses, with further branches offering new possibilities. Furthermore, gaining all the bonuses on a single ring opens access to the skill in the center, which is often more powerful. It's a?? matter of balancing the accumulation of nearby skills with progress towards the farther, juicier skills, and I really liked the control I had over each character's build.

But enough about the story and characters, dungeon crawlers are all about crawling through dungeons, and boy, do you crawl. It's easy to forget where?? you're headed in the first-person dungeons when the same? undetailed tiles are repeated everywhere. In fact, once you've uncovered the map by exploring the area, it's more useful to look at the map than the actual environment.

Naturally, you're forced into random encounters every so many steps. The usual turn-based battle elements are here: attacks?, sp?ecial skills, items, and running, as well as powerful "burst" skills unlocked when a character has attacked enough. Up to five enemies can appear on a screen, though they'll often be all the same type of enemy. If one enemy differs, it will generally appear in the middle as a sort of "general," and taking it out causes a "union break" that stuns the remaining enemies in some way. This seems to suggest new strategy concepts, but in practice the middle monster was always the strongest, so I just made it my target every time.

In a Shin Megami Tensei-styled twist, your characters can use their charisma to win monsters over to their side. Charisma rises and falls based on your battle performance, and if it's high enough, characters can "unchain" weakened monsters. After passing a timing minigame, the monster will join your party. However, it doesn't fight directly in battle, instead serving as one?? of up to four "followers" that attach to a character. The higher a character's charisma, the more likely a follower is to perform follow-up attacks, or even block or fully deflect an enemy attack. Followers will often approach their master after battle and ask a question, and answering correctly can boost charisma, improve the follower's mood, or earn gifts.

Unfortunately, anything involving followers is random, determined by your charisma score and the follower's mood, and as a result feels superfluous. The extra damage followers do is negligible, and only useful if a monster has only 1 or 2 HP remaining. There were countless times when I would have really liked the ability to tell a follower to not kill itself to protect a character with full HP, or instruct it to deflect a crucial blow, but there's no way to control these things. Even their questions seem random, as it's impossible to check the follower's personality while they're asking, This means you have no idea which response will produce which effect. One follower told me I needed to learn to dodge more, and when I agreed with it, it thought I was patronizing it, worsening its mood. When you have more? than one of the same monster attached to your party and they have different personalities, it's very difficult to remember how to sweet-talk them all.

Occasionally, your followers will be forced to fight a boss battle themselves against a massive group of enemies. This involves the followers throwing themselves at monsters and butting heads ?with little control from the player beyond a scrolling line of arrows that need to be pressed. How long they last before needing the next follower to automatically take over depends on their level. Occasionally, a follower will be forced into a one-on-one fight, which is the signal to mash X as fast as possible to win. These battles are the most superfluous use of the followers. They basically serve to halt progression until the game is satisfied that you've unchained enough monsters, even if you can't equip characters the number of followers they need just to pass the battle.

But this is par for the course in a game centered around grinding. Forget going through a dungeon in one go; noticeably stronger monsters show up on each floor, and sometimes even within a floor once a certain point is reached. Instead of providing a smooth curve tailored to the average path through the dungeon, each new section requires the player to stop and grind until that area's monsters can be handled efficiently enough. Then, it's time to head back to town, heal up,? and try tackling the next area.

The grind gets tedious fast, since the rapid rise in monster difficulty feels like padding to keep players from getting through dungeons too quickly. It's worse when you realize there's not much strategy behind battles, as the repetition turns an average, functional combat system into a drag. Even Tsutomu Narita's well-done soundtrack becomes boring when you're stuck in an area too long, forced to?? fight in too many battles to get to t?he next part of the dungeon.

As if to enhance the sluggish pace, once I finally started to make?? good progress in the skill map, the second chapter took the initial four characters away from me. I was stuck with a fresh set of characters, all at level one, which stole any sense of momentum the game was gaining. Adding insult to injury, this new party's first dungeon was the same dungeon I had just spent hours inside with my old party. It undermined any feelings of ??advancement that I had pushed for in the previous chapter.

All of the unique features that Unchained Blades tries to add to a standard dungeon crawler aren't enough to make it stand out. The story is too light to augment the game's core mechanical focus, while ideas like the follower system feel tacked-on and inconsequential to strategy. Fans of dungeon c?rawlers may squeeze some enjoyment from the grind, but most players will be turned off by the tedious progression and repetitive battles.

The post Review: Unchained Blades appeared first on Destructoid.

Here's a quick lesson on Japanese pop culture: Yamaha sells a software called Vocaloid, which provides the digitized voice of a singer and allows users to incorporate it into their own music productions. Each singer is represented by an anime mascot, to give a face to the voice. In the second wave of Vocaloid products, licensee Crypton Future Media introduced Hatsune Miku, who quickly became the most popular Vocaloid due to her voice and character design. She is essentially a virtual idol: singing in thousands of songs, being featured in tons of fan art, and even performing "live" in concert thanks to advanced holographic technology, way before anyone brought Tupac back to life.

It's quite a fascinating phenomenon, but of course that means there's merchandising galore. One product is Sega's rhythm game series Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA, which is a cuter version of Elite Beat Agents. There are two main PSP games in the series, as well as a few spin-offs here and there. The next major game in the series, Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F, is being made for PlayStation 3 and Vita.

Though no previous game in the series has been released outside of Japan, there was actually a localized demo of Project DIVA F for Vita present at Sony's E3 booth. It's hard to tell whether this is because Sega actually plans to bring the game west or whether Sony just needed another Vita game to fill up booth space. Either way, as the only contributor who had ever played the original PSP game, it fell to me to take Project DIVA F for a spin.

In Project DIVA F, players pick from a list of some of the most popular Vocaloid songs, including some sung by characters other than Hatsune Miku. As the music video plays, face buttons fly in from around the screen and land in corresponding spots, with timing indicated by a minute hand spinning and pointing up when it's time to press the button. The previous game also added the need to sometimes hold a button or press a d-pad direction as well. In general, it's easier to just time the button presses with?? the beat than to rely on the visual timing. Players are then rated on accuracy and can build up combos if they don't miss the buttons. Doing wel?l unlocks harder difficulties and numerous outfits.

I played the song "Cat Food" by doriko (the second song in the trailer above) on two difficulties, and in terms of the core experience, Project DIVA F is remarkably similar to the past two games. Sure, the graphics are somewhat better, taking advantage of the Vita's power to render more colorful and energetic scenes, even if Miku and friends are somewhat plastic. But co?nsidering the need to focus on the buttons flying in from anywhere on the screen, the pretty visuals in the background are at best ignorable and at worst distracting.

Some changes are made to the scoring system, such as a "Technical Zone" in which combos earn bonus points. One section of a song, "Chance Time," has been slightly altered. Instead of happening at a specific time towards the end of the song, this point bonus section is activated by filling a gauge up. The function of "Chance Time" still remains quite frustrating: it provides a massive point bonus that can only be fully taken advantage of by entering it with a high combo and not missing any buttons. Messing it up by missing only one or two notes can be the difference between getti??ng a great ranking and just barely passing the song.

These problems aren't helped by the accuracy required, which has not changed at all since the first game. The level of precision required from the player is sometimes astounding. For someone who grew up playing two instruments, has played rhythm games for years, and likes to think he has an excellent sense of timing, it can sometimes be shocking to play a Project DIVA game and be graded so harshly.

This is why Project DIVA F's main gameplay "innovation" seems so out of place. Though the game is also coming out on the PS3 in Japan, the Vita version has an additional method of input: a star that must be hit with the touch screen. When I first saw this, I thought it might remind me of the good times I had with Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan, but its implementation is really unintuitive. You don't actually tap the stars -- you swipe, anywhere o??n the screen. That's right, in a game th?at requires intense precision, Sega has decided that the best way to use the touch screen was to require an imprecise swiping motion. Whoever thought that this was a good idea needs to be fired.

Sega claims that it might actually consider bringing Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F stateside, noting that there was some "good" buzz from those at E3 who actually played it. While it's always cool for fans to get something they like localized, I'm not sure what the point is. If you've read this far, I'm impressed that you're actually interested enough in the game, considering the internet's feelings against Japanese games as of late. Hatsune Miku and Vocaloid are niche concepts in America to begin with and I can't see a Project DIVA game selling well enough for Sega, in light of its current economic state. Those who? might want to play it are likely to import it anyway, ??since players only need to figure out how to navigate the menu, making it a very import-friendly game.

Even then, once you consider the marri??age of stri?ct timing and imprecise touch screen control, it would probably be more fun to pick up the first PSP game on the cheap.

The post Preview: ??????????????????????????Hatsune Miku Project DIVA F has precision issues appeared first on Destructoid.

I've never been that big a fan of Splinter Cell, or at least the last-gen games that were clearly about stealth. There's nothing wrong with stealth, but a demo of the first game never clicked with me, so it was always a series I ignored. Though I never got around to picking up the full game, a demo of 2010's Splinter Cell: Conviction seemed much more enjoyable, even if it overhauled the game style. I totally understand the fans who want more stealthy Splinter Cell games, but for those who didn't enjoy the classic approach, the new ?Jason Bourne style is far more interesting.

And boy, does Splinter Cell: Blacklist look fun. It continues where Conviction left off, putting you in the shoes of Sam Fisher (now looking and sounding different) as he continuously appears out of no?where and wrecks up the joint. Several countries have gone rogue, upset at the presence of US in many foreign countries. They've formed The Blacklist, a gro??up of terrorist organizations demanding the withdrawal of US troops immediately. My hands-off demo covered much of the footage shown at Microsoft's E3 press conference, so I'll highlight the new bits you may not be aware of.

The demo begins at the Iraq-Iran border, with Fisher disguised as an enemy soldi??er carrying a dead body. Soldiers usher him into a tent so that they can treat the body, but one of them gla?nces suspiciously at Fisher. As he walks over, Fisher uses the "mark and execute" system to mark two of the men. When the soldier is about to attack, Fisher takes him hostage and instantly kills the two men he's marked. He tries interrogating the remaining soldier, but when he offers no information, Fisher has the option to kill or knock him out.

The possibility of a morality system was intriguing, but those expecting the options to matter should temper their expectations. Apparently there was discussion during development about incorporating morality points or consequences for killing or leaving enemies unconscious, but Ubisoft Toronto decided against it??. The team was worried that players would meta-game and chose their actions based on the consequences or point system instead of what they felt was right. As a result, the option to kill or incapacitate enemies is a purely aesthetic choice.

Fisher dons his classic outfit and moves through the camp, finding a group of enemies up ahead. This is the moment the player decides to show off the new "killing in motion" system. Taking cover in a tent, he marks three soldiers and dashes out, killing them in slow-motion. With a stab of the enemy in front of him, his "mark and execute" ability is recharged, allowing him to mark and shoot the two remaining enemies as he keeps running. This is something th?at could not be done with the old "mark and execute" system, which required Fisher to remain stationary.

Moving on, Fisher navigates some guards and springs up the side of a building, hanging on to the edge. A soldier patrols on top, and Fisher makes a sound to attract his attention so he can pull him to the ground, knocking him unconscious. The ability to draw a guard's attention isn't just limited to pressing a button. If you're playing Blacklist on Xbox 360, you can use Kine??ct voi??ce commands to attract enemies.

I saw the potential for abuse, and asked if Kinect would require a specific command or if a chatty roommate could set it off by accident. Though they had considered making it sensitive to any sound, perhaps for inc?reased realism, they had wisely agreed that this would be a bad idea. Players will have to use the right command if they want to utilize Kinect.

Fisher climbs up the building and waits for other soldiers to find the body, which has fallen in a puddle of water. Thinking quickly, he fires an electric bolt from his tactical crossbow, a new device that has multiple applications depending on the ammo used. Fisher moves forward but a truck with more soldiers and a turret appears. One of the perks of being the leader of the newly formed Fourth Echelon is having air support from his team. A firefight ensues, and onc??e Fisher feels he's in place, he calls in a missile from above to take out the turret and most of the enemy forces.

Ubisoft Toronto wanted to incorporate the idea of attacking tactically from multiple sides like in Rainbow Six, but adjusted to work for just one man, something demonstrated by Fisher approa?ching the room with his target. While he used brute force in the main demo, my private demo showed a ??much more strategical approach.

After peeking under the door to mark three enemies an?d identify his target, he places an explosive on the door and scales the building, ending up i??n front of a window on the other side of the building. Before the soldiers even know he's there, Fisher blows the door, drawing their attention so he can smash through the window and execute all three of them. There will reportedly be many moments in the final game that allow for such creative, multi-directional attacks.

Fisher closes in on his targ?et, who is enraged and claims to be a planted agent deep undercover for years, another deviation from the original demo. He yells at Fisher for blowing his cover and demands to speak to whoever is in charge. Fisher, being the head of th?e Fourth Echelon, obliges, grabbing him and getting an eye scan. The man was once an operative but joined the enemy a few years ago. Fisher demands information about the Blacklist with a gun to the man's throat, but the man would rather die, pulling the trigger on himself.

My demo continued, with more enemy forces closing? in on Fisher's position. Fisher must rely on his team? to get him out of there, as the player takes control of an attack helicopter. From a first-person viewpoint, the helicopter proceeds to eliminate every enemy outside Fisher's door. With the coast clear, Fisher runs out, jumps, and the demo ends.

This demo may have given the impression that older fans are simply out of luck when it comes to the stealth gameplay they love, but some hints from the team imply that they shouldn't write off the game yet. While Conviction's co-op multiplayer is returning, it is also being joined by the revival of S??pies vs. Mercs, the classic mode from the last-gen games.

Fisher can drag bodies to hide them, and in general there will be a balance of steal??th and action. ??Earned cash can also be shared between the single and multiplayer modes, something that is always appreciated.

So for a guy who has never really cared about Splinter Cell, I came away impressed. Blacklist looks like it will be a satisfying experience when it releases in Spring 2013. In the meantime, it seems that I need to go back and play Conviction.

The post Preview: Killing in motion in? Splinter Cell: Bl??acklist appeared first on Destructoid.

As far as I'm concerned, there hasn't really been a portable Assassin's Creed worth playing. Despite the release of three story-based handheld games -- only one less than the console releases -- they have contributed nothing of value to the franchise's story or characters. So when news broke of a new installment for Vita, it was perfectly reasonable to have doubts. This is especially true since the promise of a console style had been made before with the PSP's Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines.

But the Vita is no PSP, and Assassin's Creed III: Liberation is a new chance to make a quality Assassin's Creed game for handhelds. Perhaps in an effort to distinguish itself from past spin-offs based on console characters, Liberation features a new female protagonist who lived in the same period as Assassin's Creed III's Conner. And just like ACIII, it's looking fantastic.

It's 1765, and there's trouble in the South. The Louisiana Rebellion is brewing, and Aveline de Grandpre, a French-African assassin, must help fend off Spanish soldiers in New Orleans. Parts of her story will cross over with Conner's in ACIII, but for the most part, she'll be on her own. Just l??ike Conner won't be stuck in cities like Boston, Aveline will be able to explore outside areas.

Examples given include the bayou, a wilderness area that functions like the frontier in ACIII, and Mayan ruins in Mexico, an area which hopefully gives fans that follow the minutia of the mythology something to wonder about. Don't expect any modern-d?ay revelations though, because Desmond isn't related to Aveline and won't be framing the story.

The demo, however, was set purely in New Orleans, 1768, in?? the midst of a riot against the Spanish soldiers. Aveline must? support the townsfolk and keep them from getting killed. Starting above the action, she finds a soldier below to perform an aerial assassination on, leaping down and using her target to break her fall. This provides enough charge to a new meter to let her access the redesigned quick-kill system.

First introduced in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, the old quick-kill system required timed, focused button presses after Ezio achieved his first kill in a group. Liberation's new system slows down time and allows Aveline to pick her targets just like Splinter Cell: Conviction's "mark and execute" system, wiping out the soldiers once the mode? is exited.

As combat progressed, I got a chance to see some of Aveline's new tricks. Besides the usual hidden blade weapon and her version of Conner's hatchet, a machete, Aveline has a few gun options. The pistol functions similarly to the Renaissance-era pistols of past games but with a bit more speed and less range, as well as the option to dual wield. On the other hand, the mus?ket is slow, but more powerful. Both guns are loud and likely to draw more attention to Aveline, but at least she has the option of stabbing an enemy with the musket's bayonet. Rounding out the notable weapons was a poison blowpipe, which worked just like a crossbow loaded with poison arrows. The touch screen can also be used to pause the game and switch between the weapons.

Soon, a carriag?e full of gunpowder is lit on fire, requiring Aveline and an ally to drive the carriage t??hrough the streets to get it away from the crowds. The direction is naturally controlled with the left analog stick, while acceleration is handled by pressing the touch screen. I wasn't quite sure why this system was better than pressing a button, but it seemed to work well enough.

Aveline successfully gets rid of the carriage and jumps off before it explodes, leaving her with one last last duty: to save some kidnapped rioters. ?She storms a building, picking off guards along the way with a combination of stealth and aggression, and finally rescues the prisoners.

The demo officially ended at this point, but I was also shown a separate area of the game, the Governor's Palace of New Orleans. Certain landmarks were shown, such as the St. Louis Cathedral, the highest building of the time. It's certainly not anywhere near as high as some of the points in the past games, but it still gave an impressive view of the city. I haven't visit New Orleans before, so I can't speak to the accuracy of the layout, but I sti??ll came away impressed by the work that went into creating the city.

Like ACIII, Liberation looks to be an exciting new take on Assassin's Creed with all the new shine of its big brother. My only concern is the fact that both games are releasing on October 30, 2012. Two meaty, console-qu??ality, open-world adventures set in the same time period may overshadow each other, despite their different protagonists and geographical settings.

Of the two games, ACIII is clearly the one that's more important to the franchise's continuing storyline, so it would be a shame to see Liberation lose out in the process. Hopefully my fears are ?unfounded.

The post Preview: Assassin’s Creed III Liberation is the real deal appeared first on Destructoid.

I remember picking up the first Rayman Raving Rabbids game when the Wii launched in 2006. While I had planned on buying Red Steel alongside Twilight Princess (a purchase mandated by Nintendo fan law), a negative early-morning review had convinced me to drop the mediocre FPS in favor of a minigame collection that seemed much more fun. Was Rayman Raving Rabbids worth the $50 I paid at launch? Hell no, but I sure got more enjoyment out of it than when I played my friend's copy of Red Steel.

Since then, the Rabbids have become a successful property of their own, not only because of the Wii's lucrative minigame market, but because of their charming, silly personality. I never? picked up any of the original game's sequels, and part of me feels like the Rabbids' schtick is played out, but I'd be lying if I didn't crack a smile every time they do something silly or scream "BWAH!"

And so as it was with the Wii, it is with the Wii U. Ubisoft is making a new game in the series, Rabbids Land, that is set to be a launch title for Nintendo's new system. This time around, the Rabbids are taking aim at Mario Party.

In Rabbids Land, the Rabbids have invaded an amusement park and intend to have a good time, ??rules be damned. This takes the form of a board game punctuated by minigames. My demo didn't really show how the board game would be set u?p, but focused on a few of the minigames so that I could see the possibilities of the Wii U controller.

The first minigame I played took its inspiration from Indiana Jones. The Rabbids dressed up like the famous adventurer and rode around on top of boulders in a vaguely Temple of Doom-them??ed area. Like many Wii U games this year, this one featured asynchronous multiplayer. One player tilted the Wii U GamePad horizontally to control three Rabbids on small boulders and gather ten diamonds. Meanwhile, the second player tilted the Wiimote to move one Rabbid on a big boulder who needs to squash the other player's Rabbids. The Rabbid on the big boulder could roll faster than the Rabbids on the smaller boulders, but the weaker Rabbids could slip through small green gates to momentarily escape their hunter.

The GamePad had a top-down view of the entire area while the TV screen had an angled, slightly zoomed-in view, but in practice this difference didn't matter. If the big boulder Rabbid couldn't see one of the smaller ??boulder Rabbids, it was obvious that it was in the corner not currently visible. It might have been a lot more interesting if the small green gates shifted over time and were only visible to the GamePad player, but as it was, there wasn't anything here that couldn't have been done with two Wiimotes on one screen. Innovation aside, it was a fun game, with good tension for both players.

The other minigame I was able to check out was a riff on a Tunnel of Love ride. The two playe?rs must work together to help unite soul mates by picking them out of a crowd. T??he identification process is both silly and dirty: pull up the Rabbids' skirts or kilts to see if they have matching symbols on their underwear. This game showed off asynchronous multiplayer much better than the first, thanks to the different views actually mattering. The Rabbids have different symbols on their fronts and backs, and each player can only see one side.

So the Wiimote player aims at a Rabbid, presses A, and aims higher to lift?? the skirts or kilts, while the GamePad player simply drags the clothing up with their finger. The goal is to find as many matching pairs as possible before time runs out, and all the Rabbids are replaced once a pair is found. It turns into a shouting match as both players try to compare and match the symbols they have as fast as possible. Well, that's what it would be in theory at least, since my Wiimote partner seemed very overwhelmed by the concept and only spoke up once he had very carefully analyzed all of his Rabbids. Desp?ite my partner's reluctance to have any fun with it, I could see this being a good icebreaker game at parties.

There are many more minigames set to be included in Rabbids Land, and I'd imagine not all of them make "innovative" use of the GamePad. But if they're as fun as the Indiana Jones minigame, it shouldn't really matter. The GamePad just opens up more possibilities; there's nothing wrong with using old methods if they work. I'd still be interested in seeing how fun the board game element is before committing to Rabbids Land over the inevitable Wii U Mario Party installment.

The post Impressions: Rabbids Land is the Wii U’s Mario Party appeared first on Destructoid.

For the past two months, I've been hearing good things about Guacamelee!, a colorful, luchador-themed Metroidvania game from DrinkBox Studios. Saying "Metroidvania" is usually good enough for me to be interested, but adding in wrestling moves that feel straigh??t out of a brawler, a dual-world mechanic, and a playful art st??yle made this something I had to see for myself.

Most of the buzz has centered around the PlayStation 3 version of Guacamelee!, but the game is also coming to the Vita. It's pretty much identical to the consol??e version, but that's not necessarily a go?od thing.

The area Drin??kBox presented was early in the game, essentially what is shown in t??he trailer above. It teaches the basics, introduces wrestling moves, and throws a few easy baddies for you to play with.

The luchador not only has the expected b??asic attacks, but also some dual-purpose special moves that allow him to burst through breakable walls both above and below. If enough damage is done to an enemy, pressing triangle will initiate a gra?b, allowing the player to hurl him away for a finish, preferably into another enemy.

Using jumps and special attacks to move around feels great, but sadly the combat has some issues. Enemies move very fluidly and like to punish any mistakes you make, such as whiff??ing with a punch and failing to stun the enemy. This wouldn't be a problem, but the luchador's reach was never qu??ite what I expected it to be, so I repeatedly came up short. There were many times when I felt like the luchador was close enough for an attack and learned he needed to be even closer to actually connect. The special moves have much better range, but obviously there are many times when you want to use a basic attack.

This is mostly a problem with shrinking the game down onto the Vita. Guacamelee! looks beautiful on the OLED screen, but the characters are quite small, meaning that making sure your att??ack connects is a little difficult. Similarly, t??he triangle button prompt for grabs is tiny, as is the text.

The developer noted that they were probably going to adjust these things, but I might actually prefer if they simply zoomed in a bit more instead of trying to replicate the entire screen of the PS3 version on a smaller screen. It doesn't need to be as zoomed-in as Metroid II on the Game Boy since the Vita's screen is pretty big, but it wo??uld be smart to give more consideration to the hardware.

Speaking of Metroid: Guacamelee! loves making homages to the series. One of the luchador's abilities is to transform into a chicken with the press of a button. Besides just being silly, this feathered form helps him fit through small corridors, similar to Metroid's morph ball. One room contains ?a Chozo statue holding a power-up. An old man nearby ??even calls it a Chozo statue, which I was told was something that would be changed before release.

But hey, why not call a spade a spade? If you're going to be influenced by a game, you might as well pick a good one. It may sound like Guacamelee! is just taking Samus Aran and dressin??g her up in a luchado?r mask, but the game has its own identity.

Besides adding moves normally found in a brawler, the luchador gains the ability to switch betw?een the planes of the living and the dead. A wall may block a path in one world, but switching to the other world by hitting the shoulder buttons reveals a way through. Some enemies can only be attacked on one plane, but if y??ou're crafty, you can time a plane shift so that the invincible enemy is hit by another enemy you just threw.

Of course, the true test of a good Metroidvania is whether or not the world is as fun to explore when you're backtracking with a shiny new trick. New abilities unlock?? new areas, but I wasn't able to test this out during the demo, so I can't say if the backtracking is fun or repetitive. However, based on the care being put into the? rest of the game, I expect it should be fine.

Other than the small characters and interface, Guacamelee! is shaping up to be an entertaining pla??tformer with lots of personality. ?I didn't even get to try out the two-player co-op, but I already know that I'll be picking it up when it releases later this year.

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You've watched the Nintendo press conference. You've seen all the latest news from Nintendo all day long. You've learned our opinions of the press conferences. You've heard how adorabl?e the new rock Pikmin are. But have you heard someone talk over Reggie and co.?

Join us as Jonathan Holmes speaks with his Nintendo-hating friend John Pungitore about all the announcements Nintendo presented today -- about the entire press briefing! You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll rage ?about John's tastes in gaming. At least, that's what the YouTube comments have shown so far. See the rest of the epic nine-part video below!

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There was tons of news coming out of Nintendo's press conference. Unsurprisingly, most was about the Wii U. We saw a new Pikmin, the reveal of Nintendo Land, and proof that Nintendo is courting third parties. But for some people, th?e announcements were a major disappointment! What should have been mind-blowing and co?ol was relatively safe.

What do our editors think about Nintendo's presentation? Jonathan Holmes, Jim Sterling, and Chad Concelmo took a little break fr??om seeing all the games to chat about what?? they liked and disliked from this morning's press conference.

The post E3: Talking to Destructoid editors about Nintendo appeared first on Destructoid.

The Avengers came out in theaters earlier this month, and if you haven't heard, it's pretty great. Ubisoft is still working on the movie tie-in game, though, which they premiered at their press conference today. Titled Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth, the trailer showed no gameplay fo??otage, but it did confirm that we'd be seeing more than just the characters used in the film.

Though licensing prevents Spider-Man and the X-Men from showing up in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the trailer shows Wolverine, Spider??-Man, Magneto, and Venom all fighting each other. We won't know for sure until we see some actual in-game footage, but at least this trailer looks nice!

Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth is releasing for Xbox 360 and Wii U.

The post E3: Ubisoft adds Spider-Man, Wolverine ?to Aven??gers game appeared first on Destructoid.

There's a hot new trailer for Dust 514, the upcoming free MMO FPS for PS3 by CCP. (OMG!) Watch as people get attacked by tanks before taking revenge with an orbital strike from massive spaceships. You can still sign up for the closed beta, which starts for those lucky random participants on June 29?. There are more be??ta events scheduled throughout the summer.

As part of Sony's Virtual E3 Experience, gamers can visit a Dust 514 area in PlayStation Home, with the first 10,000 visitors getting "all access" beta keys that guarantee access to every?? beta event. If you miss out, keep visiting, because there will be more keys given out as the summer continues.

The PlayStation Vita is also getting a companion app called Dust 514: Neocom. Users can customize characters, interact with other players, and make purchases on the Dust 514 marketplace. The app will be released alongside the main game, later this year. With Microsoft also announcing SmartGlass today, I guess com??panion apps ??are the new trend.

The post E3: Dust 514 gets PlayStation Home area, Vita app appeared first on Destructoid.

I promised myself that I wouldn't get excited for a new Gears of War game after the third?? installment wrapped things up. Maybe a game about the Pendulum Wars would be cool, but I thought I was pretty much done ??with fighting the Locust and the -- ugh -- Lambent.

But this trailer for Gears of War: Judgment? Hot damn, this is looking good. Plus, Baird was easily one of my favorite characters, so seeing him in charge instead of Marcus "Jake the Dog" Fenix will be a great change of pace. I think I can forgive this for not being Bulletstorm 2.

The post E3: Gears of War: Judg??ment looks like more bloody fun appeared first on Destructoid.

Sega and Westone's Wonder Boy series was really strange when it came to naming conventions. Wonder Boy started visiting Monster Land and Monster World, and before you know it, Sega put out a Genesis game with the unwieldy Japanese title of Wonder Boy 5: Monster World 3. (For a good overview of the confusing series, I highly recommend Hardcore Gaming 101.)

My point in explaining this is that the last game in the Wonder Boy series was the more-concisely-titled Monster World IV, a game which was supposedly excellent but never made it out of Japan. Almost a year ago, Sega announced that they were bringing a localized version of Monster World IV to XBLA and Virtual Console, but we haven't heard anything since then.

What luck, then, that XBLA Fans have spotted an Xbox Live Marketplace listing for Sega Vintage Collection: Monster World. The bundle will include Wonder Boy in Monster Land, Wonder Boy in Monster World, and the newly-localizedMonster World IV. The listing, since removed, gave a release date of April 25, 2012, though it could be a placeholder date. There's no explanation of why Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap, which is essentially "Monster World 2," is not includ?ed. ??Maybe it's because it's missing any mention of monsters in its English title.

Marketplace listing outs Sega?? Vintage ??Collection: Monster World [XBLA Fans]

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I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I was invited to see a new, previously unannounced music game. Internet hyperbole states that music games, or rather rhythm games involving guitars, are dead, killed by over-saturation from franchises like Guitar Hero. Nobody is jumping to make a new color-matching game when Rock Band 3 exists, with a music l??ibrary built over the last four years.

But contrary to Harmonix's underlying desire to teach music to the masses, many people never did graduate from their plastic instruments. Games like Power Gig: Rise of the Six String and Rocksmith, as well as Rock Band 3's pro guitar mode, attempted to tea??ch guitar, but didn't succeed as instructional metho??ds for various reasons.

Now, a new game has risen to the challenge. BandFuse: Rock Legends intends to teach guitar newcomers how to play on a real guitar. Can a plastic guitar devotee like myself learn to?? shre??d?

BandFuse: Rock Legends (Xbox 360)
Developer: Realta Entertainment Group
Publisher: Mastiff Games
Release: 2012

I'm no rock expert; my guitar experience begins with playing very simple bass guitar parts in a high school rock band and ends with an embarrassing amount of hours put into Rock Band. Luckily for me, Flixist's Max Roahrig knows his way around the strings, so we were able to test out how BandFuse works for both neophytes and experts.

The first thing I noticed when playing BandFuse is how simple the game's fretboard is. Instead of trying to skew the perspective to simulate a vertical fretboard, all the notes flow horizontally from right-to-left. It wasn't until I had played a song that I realized how much this reminded me of guitar tabs, albeit professionally made instead of some fan-made approximation. It felt extremely natural and easy to read. All the current graphics are placeholders, so the layout could still change, but the scrolling tabs seem near-finished. The developers seem to recognize t??hat when it comes to visualizing notes, simpler is always better.

That doesn't mean there isn't still a bit of a learning curve to understand the tabs. As an unskilled bassist, my mind just doesn't "get" chords. So when they popped up in a song, I generally hit the first chord, then flailed around on the strings until some single notes ?started popping up again. However, this seems like something that would go away with just a little practice. Converse??ly, Max was able to jump right into Judas Priest's "Breaking the Law" and hit most of the notes, chords included.

Up to this point, we had stuck to the lower difficulty levels. The lowest level greatly simplifies the tabs, reducing riffs to just one note and removing chords entirely. The next level adds chords in, but still keeps you from getting in over your head. Curious to see how far the difficulty went, we bumped the difficulty up to the highest level, which ??included every note as far as I could tell. Higher difficulties also mix in palm-mutes and whammy bars, even noting how long you should bend the note.

The added complexity could be overwhelming for those just learning to play, but the finished product will have a feature that allows you to slow down, speed up, and loop sections of the song, helping you figure out a tricky part. And if there's one section you just can't seem to get, you don't need to worry about failing out. For now, BandFuse has no "crowd meter" which will kick you out of a song before it ends. In fact, if you really want to, you can ignore the tabs, turn down t?he guitar track, and just freestyle. It's less about? beating a song to get a high score and more about absorbing the technique.

Realta is aiming for a set list of around 55 songs, with the usual mix of rock, metal, alternative, and pop rock. Some of the songs we got to play with included "The Bleeding" (Five Finger?? Death Punch), "Harder to Breathe" (Maroon 5), "Yellow" (Coldplay), "Sweet Home Alabama" (Lynyrd Skynyrd), and "Back from Cali" (Slash). That last song may be one of many from Slash, as he is involved with the game beyond just licensing a track. Slash is serving as the game's musical instructor, guiding the player through the game and providing advice on how to rock.

There's still some room for improvement, however. Currently, feedback on how you're playing is very minimal. I'm not saying that BandFuse needs more bars and combo meters, but some confirmation that you're playing great would be nice. There's an electric effect that shows up when you pl?ay a note correctly, but it appears once you've completed the note. Realta wants to show that you've nailed the note, and that's a great idea for all the notes you hold longer than one second, but it can throw you off when th??e electrical effect shows up on a string the moment you start playing the next note on a different string.

Of course, the game is in an extremely early state, and for now we're essentially judging the concept and the technology, and that technology is impressive. Something I didn't consider until it was pointed out to me is that there is no lag, or at least no perceptible lag. Deciding to test out this statement, I played a few fast notes, and sure enough, they played instantly in the game, even with added effects like distortion, chorus, and reverb. Compared to the noticeable lag while singing or performing a drum solo in Rock Band, this was quite magical.

A lot of things are up in the air for BandFuse. It's? being developed on Xbox 360, and there is a desire to port it to different systems, but no confirmation yet. A bundle with a guitar and the necessary adapter could be in the works, as Fender is a partner, but it's too early to talk release plans. Multiplayer will be present in some form, though it's unknown how it will be implemented. Most tantalizing is the hint of playing additional instruments like a USB microphone -- lyrics appear a??t the top of the screen, screaming out for some notes -- but there are no announcements for now.

Still, the core game looks promising. Out of all the games which promise to teach you music, this one felt the most natural to me. Anyone interested in learning to play guitar should keep an eye on BandFuse.

The post Preview: Learn to play ?guitar with BandFuse: Rock Legends appeared first on Destructoid.

[Upda?te: We've added hot new screenshots to our gallery, fresh from Atlus.]

We figured this might be what Atlus was teasing a few days ago, and it feels so good to be right. Atlus just sent out an email to the Atlus Faithful confirming that their Persona 4 fighting game collaboration with Arc System Works will be coming west. Wisely, they're dropping the convoluted Japanese title Persona 4: The Ultimate in Mayonaka Arena and just calling it Persona 4 Arena, which is much more to the point.

The console port will feature new story and online modes, which I was hoping for after having fun with BlazBlue's surprisingly enjoyable story mode. And luckily, we won't have to wait long: Atlus plans to release Persona 4 Arena as soon as this summer. Until then, you'll have to make due with preordering.

The post Atlus confirms Persona 4 Arena f?or US? release this summer appeared first on Destructoid.

It's safe to say that a major part of the atmosphere in the original Silent Hill games was the soundtrack by Akira Yamaoka. Any new music in the series will inevitably be compared to his work, which is almost unfair, since the man is such an exceptional musician. So when the intro track to Silent Hill: Downpour gets posted on Soundcloud, what can fans d?o but compare it t??o what came before?

A good intro track should set the tone for a game, and going by this one, we can probably expect the rest of the soundtrack to be mainly atmospheric, like most modern games. There's a simple guitar and piano riff at the beginning, and then lots of hollow ambience. It's not bad, but nothing special, at least until the end. When the percussion kicks in, you finally get a good feel for what composer Daniel Licht (Dexter) is aiming for. It's no Theme of Laura, but ?the last part gives me hope for the rest of the soundtrack.

[Thanks, Andreas!]

The post ??Lis?ten to the intro track for Silent Hill: Downpour appeared first on Destructoid.

If you're looking for a good time-waster this weekend, look no further than Adult Swim's new game Captain Commander. The latest from PixelJam -- a.k.a. the guys who did Dino Run -- has y?ou playing as the titular Captain Commando, saving his men's orifices from nefarious aliens with no grasp of English. In essence, you're fighting against incomprehensi??ble message board trolls.

Captain Commander looks like a supercharged Atari game, wit?h that special brand of nostalgia that reminds you of dated games without being dragged down by their gameplay conventions and graphical limitations. It's sill?y fun and well worth a play. Plus, the jet you get to fly goes right-to-left! That's still unusual enough for me to recommend it just based on that aspect.

The post Captain Commander is an Atar?i?? game for the Internet age appeared first on Destructoid.

_{[As originally posted on Japanator]}

It's been a while since we last heard of Dragon Age: Dawn of the Seeker, the anime spin-off of Bioware's fantasy RPG. Dragonagemovie.com has been updated, and we now know that Bioware and EA's collaboration with FUNimation is coming in Spring 2012. Fumihiko Sori (Vexille) is directing the project, and s?tudi??o Oxybot is taking care of animation duties. And my, what horrible animation it is. It looks quite poor, with objects having no weight at all.

Maybe the story will make up for it? Dawn of the Seeker tells the story of Cassandra, an Orlesian Seeker who is framed while attempting to save the Chantry of Andraste from a dangerous conspiracy. Cassandra must clear her name and "overcome her raging emotions" to save ??the day. I can ?almost see Bioware finishing their synopsis with, "Women, am I right?"

VIDEO: Dragon Age Anime Production Update [Crunchyroll]

The post Dragon Age: Dawn of the Seeker releasing in Spri??ng 2012 appeared first on Destructoid.

Last year's Shank was a gleeful journey of violence and bad-ass-itude, wrapped in wonderful, hand-drawn animation. Realizing that gamers really liked stabbing baddies in the gut, developer Klei Entertainment is gracing us with a second installment, aptly named Shank 2.

Let's ignore the unenthusiastic line reading in the trailer and the unnecessary plot details of Shank being forced to protect those dear to him in order to focus on the return of what made the first game great: the old ultra-violence, which seems to be back with a vengeance. Klei claims to have rebuilt everything from the ground up to improve the controls. The developer is also adding a new arcade-style survival co-op mode, which looks more Horde-styled than the usual co-op.

Shank 2 is set for an early 201?2 release on Xbox Live Arcad??e, PlayStation Network, and PC.

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[Update: Our original story noted that Tetris: Axis is out on October 20; the correct release date is October 2. Furthermore, ??we've added a not??e to clarify that EA's Android versions of Tetris (while free) is supported by ads. Sorry for any confusion.]

As the Nintendo 3DS struggles to capture your attention in the age of smartphone gaming, ??two new puzzle games are the best examp??le of one of the main problems with the system and its games.

The first game is Tetris: Axis, published by Nintendo and releasing on October 2. It features more than 20 modes and one-game multiplayer for up to eight players. It also "lets players use the magic of the Nintendo 3DS system to jump into the action in 3D," which I doubt will matter much because it's Tetris.

The second game, published by EA, is simply called Tetris, and is free today (supported by ads) to anyone with an Android phone. It may lack all the bells and whistles of Nintendo's version, but Tetris is such an endearing game design you don't need all those extras to have fun with it. No one in their right mind is going to want to buy a version with multiplayer when a scoreboard is nearly identical in function for a game like this. And while this version may lack over 20 modes, I doubt most people buy Tetris wanting more than a marathon mode.

Don't misunderstand, I'm perfectly fine with buying a well-constructed, premium handheld game. But when the competition is offering their version for an affordable $0, Nintendo's $35 version is going to b?e a hard sell, no matter how many unnecessary 3D graphics are lai??d on top of an ancient game.

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Hi-Rez Studios announced that Global Agenda, the first free-to-play shooter MMO on Steam, will so?on be receiving a big update that brings the game to version 1.5. Called "Recursive Colony," the free expansion will feature the first new Open Zone since the Sandstorm expansion last summer.

The area is set the titular Recursive Colony, "an electronic, hive-mind fa?ction of robots constructing robots and intruding upon the player social hub of Dome City." Players can find new quests, new PvE content, and new PvP content.

If you're one of those lucky people on your way to PAX, you can stop by booth #252 and be amon??g the first to try out the new expansion.

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Following in the footsteps of Gnox the mercenary, Direwolf the wizard gets his own trailer for the multiplayer action RPG Crimson Alliance. He? does his best to not sound like a mad, evil wizard, then totally comes across as a mad, evil wizard. If wizards aren't your thing, you can always play as the mercenary or Moonsha?de the assassin, who should be getting his own trailer before long. Grab two friends to play in co-op, either locally or online.

Crimson Alliance will be available on Xbox Live Arcade on September 7. And don't forget, if you already bought all five Summer of Arcade games, then you'll be ge?tting a copy of Crim??son Alliance for free!

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Trendy Entertainment has put out another trailer for Dungeon Defenders to remind you that, yes, the game still exists! Dungeon Defenders is a third-person co-operative tower defense game with four different classes. This particular trailer focuses on the Squire, a hack 'n' slash character who seems to have forgotten to wear his pants today, giving him an Arthur-like look.

Dungeon Defenders was officially delayed not once but twice, then missed its Q2 deadline for a Steam release. In the meantime, Trendy Entertainment released Dungeon Defenders: First Wave for iO??S and Android, as a precursor to the full gam?e.

Now, Dungeon Defenders will b?e released on October 19, 2011, for Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, and PC.

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While Mojang attempts to hold on to the name of Scrolls, fellow indie developer Halfbrick is changing the name of their upcoming iOS game Machine Gun Jetpack. From now on, the game will be called Jetpack Joyride.

As explained in their video, Halfbrick realized that while the machine gun jetpack is still in the game, there are so many other types of jetpacks included that the name was a misnomer. Rainbows, lasers, bubbles, there are a lot more options than just a machine gun jetpack, including vehicles. Plus, alliteration is awesome!

Jetpack Joyride will be released for iPhone ??and iPad on September 1, 2011, for 99 cents.

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Grasshopper Manufacture, the company of wacky auteur Suda51, continues its partnership with Digital Reality as they work on a new project named Black Knight Sword. A downloadable game for Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network, the story follows a black knight who has teamed u??p with a sword spirit to take down a beautiful but evil princess. Seems pretty straightforward, until you remember that Grasshopper Manufacture is making i?t.

Black Knight Sword is a sidescroller framed as a play, with colorful graphics that look like cardboard cut-outs. Since Digital Reality is from Hungary, there's some European art design in there too. Former Silent Hill composer Akira Y??amaoka seems to be in charge of the sound?, so that's always a treat.

The biggest shame is that this teaser shows less gameplay than? the screenshots you can find below. Still, I'm liking how it looks. For the right price, I even think the game could be released at retail! But then again, it's a sidescroller, and people refuse to pay any reasonable amount of money for one of those, no matter how well crafted it is.

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A goblin pack! Their kind hates ice and fire both! I'l?l draw it near! Take the offensive! F?all still!

That's all I got from this footage of Dragon's Dogma from Gamescom. Sure, the combat looks kind of fun, and riding on a flying enemy while you stab its back is pretty cool. But I can't help wondering if the player might have taken down that griffin much faster if his AI companions would shut their trap for one goddamn second. If Capcom is going for a Lord of the Rings-esque fantasy theme, complete with goblins that sound like Gollum, they should at least try to duplicate some of the witty banter between characters like Legolas and Gimli. Five minutes of those soundbites were bad enough, so I'd imagine hearing them for the whole game would drive ??a man totally mad.

Fall still!

The post Dragon’s Dogma video makes me pine for silent characters appeared first on Destructoid.

_{[As originally posted on Japanator]}

A new Persona 4: The Animation trailer featuring Rise and Kanji wearing next-to-nothing? I'd say that's exciting enough, since the last trailer was three months ago. But a trailer featuring the show's previously-unheard opening theme song? That's even better! What is best about the trailer is that, except for the version we've posted above, it's only "aired" on the Midnight Channel at midnight every night. So cool!

The opening theme is "sky's the limit," sung by Shihoko Hirato, and the ending theme is "Beauty of Destiny," also sung by Shihoko Hirato with Lotus Juice. Both songs are written by Shoji Meguro with lyrics by Lotus Juice, both of them having worked on music for the recent Persona series.

The series will last for two seasons, which is around 24-??26 episodes in Japan. There's no word on any US licensing, but NIS America made Persona: Trinity Soul on of its debut anime titles, so there's always a chance they might license this series as well. Considering how good this trailer looks, they'd be fools not to.

"Persona 4 The Animation" Trailer Streamed, Theme Songs Announced, and ??More [Crunchyroll]

The post Newest Persona 4 anime trailer f?eatures poppy theme song appeared first on Destructoid.

_{[As originally posted on Japanator]}

A little over a year ago, FUNimation announced a Dragon Age anime project, a surprising move for a company that normally focuses on translation and localization. Since then, we haven'??t heard much, and here's why: the project has been pushed back to 2012. At least FUNimation has released a little more info about it though!

Officially titled Dragon Age: Dawn of the Seeker, the anime will feature a girl with three swords and, most likely, a dragon. You can check out some trailers of what's in progress so far, as wel??l as the first c??oncept art image. For a picture, it looks good! Now to wait on a synopsis.

Dragon Age anime called 'Daw??n of t?he Seeker,' pushed to 2012 [Joystiq]

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In readying the iPad 2 version of Two Worlds II: Castle Defense (released on PC, Mac, iPhone, and iPad back in May), TopWare has added a really cool new feature. Using the iPad 2's camera, Castle Defense can track the player's eyes and use that information as part of "3D-ET." This technology allows the player to move their eyes to look around corners in the newly modified game engine. A??s the viewer looks around, the perspective will shi?ft.

It's a cool idea that has rarely been used in games so far, with the only recent example I can think of being a hidden picture DSiWare game. This technology probably won'?t be used much in the future because the iPad 2's gyroscope can probably do the effect easier, but I still think it's a neat way of using a camera. You can check out the effect for free by downloading the Lite version of the game, or you can drop money on the full version.

The post Two Worlds II: C?astle Defense adds Eye??tracking technology appeared first on Destructoid.

Because every game has to come with a pre-order bonus these days, Gamestop is offering a free plush doll of Mama when you pre-order Cooking Mama 4: Kitchen Magic for the 3DS. Yes, for putting down $5, you can get you?r very own Mama to abuse like she abuses you when you inevitably screw up a rec??ipe.

Even for a pre-order bonus, this doll appears to be cheaply made. I can't imagine they spent more than 10 cents putting these into production. It looks like a strong ?breeze could cause it to fall apart. St??ill, I suppose it's free, so you can't complain too much.

The post Pre-order Cooking M??ama 4 at?? Gamestop and get free plushie appeared first on Destructoid.