Today Square Enix game producer Tomoya Asano launched a development blog for the Nintendo DS remake of Final Fantasy IV. The development column idea may well have been inspired by the Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fatescommunity blog organized by the director, Mitsuru Kamiyama. That particular action RPG rose to first-place this week in sales in Japan. Maybe dev blogging might not be such a bad way of promoting a game?
Asano writes that with the full remake of Final Fantasy III for the NDS, his team at Matrix Software focused on novelty in three main areas. 1. Converting the graphics from sprite-based images to polygons. 2. Improving game balance, so that each of the job systems would confer advantages for experimentation. 3. Expanding the scenario. Adding cut-scenes to flesh-out the storyline in a way that wasn’t possible on the Famicom cartridge of the original.
That’s not to mention the role of full-motion videos, along with the instrumentation of the music remixes. Asano calls Final Fantasy IV “Remake #2.” A provocative statement if good sales invite a host of follow-ups to round out the series. Will we be seeing other Super Famicom classics on the DS?
After reading this article a few days ago - I have been utterly unable to settle on a definite side of the argument. Using your brain to control things in the physical realm has been a major section of science fiction for many decades now and it only makes sense that scientists and sci-fi fans would push the limits of technology as far as their imagination.
Wired posted an article back in May explaining and showcasing the progress of two different companies in the field of brain controlled video games. If you snoop around a little and head to the Emotiv website, you will see a lovely journalistic video showing off a game which allows the player to move parts of Stonehenge with purely the power of your mind.
My question to you is, how do you feel about this? of course it looks kinda cool but on a more realistic level, won’t this just lead the way to even-less active couch-potatoes? Not only that, but how do you feel knowing that technology has access to your brain signals and thought patterns? how would you know that it wasn’t just your active brain signals that were being monitored digitally?
For a while there, I wasn’t too sure of the chances this thing would be coming to Europe - for starters, someone like me (big on aesthetics) this thing is a nightmare and ugly as sin, but for big gamers this new Xbox package could give you that feeling of extra nerdiness that keeps us geeks up and running.
The ‘Halo’ themed console is pretty much your standard Premium SKU but with a fancy design on the box and the controller to commemorate the final game in the Halo series. It also comes with a HDMI port so you can hook it up to your HDTV more conveniently. Although the Elite is so far the only official Xbox machine with HDMI, I’m pretty sure this will lead way to the normal premium getting the connection also.
The Halo themed 360 hits stores on the 26th of September for £279.99, why, isn’t that the same date as the game is out as well?!
Machinima is a specific form of new media which has developed with thanks to the open-source nature of modern video gaming. What I’d like to show you today showed up earlier this week and is perhaps the most technically astounding piece of machinima I have seen.
As it is an amateur production, you can expect that the script may not be upto scratch, but the team behind ‘Combine Nation’ have done a pretty good job of making an interesting five minute short through the use of the popular tool ‘Garry’s Mod’.
I would have to say that my favorite thing about this video is the brilliant implementation of the handy-cam technique - something which I know would have taken a lot of skill to implement.
BioShock, BioShock, BioShock, BioShock - has anyone been able to escape the media-storm of this game in the past week? It certainly does remind me of when Gears of War erupted last Christmas, all of a sudden it was as if there was no other games in existence or ever coming, all that mattered was Gears. Of course, all that is over now and gamers simply look for the next big fix.
A failed attempt to run the demo on my aging PC and several hyped conversations later and the game is finally upon us and on store shelves - any opinions?
Of course, we must not forget that other games are released this week - I’d love to play Blue Dragon as it finally sees a release here in the West. The new J-RPG inspired blockbuster makes use of three greats - Sakaguchi, Uematsu and Toriyama and looks to be one hell of a good combination of cliché anime/rpg conventions.
After E3, I think it’s fair to say that Konami are teasing players the world over with the short videos and small tidbits of information in regards to their next biggest video game.
This week however marks another year of Leipzig games convention (the biggest yet), and many new things have been shown off to the world (including a PS3 TV recording device which gamers don’t necessarily need or want).
Here comes another video from the conference itself showing off some of the incredbily detailed landscapes and locales in Metal Gear Solid 4, as well as some of the bad-ass bad-guys you may be facing in the game itself.
It was only a few hours ago I was telling someone how to get the original Buzz to work on a PS3 and now look what has happened. Sony have gone and told the world about this great new product they shall be releasing titled ‘Buzz’, for their simply amazing console ‘PLAYSTATION 3′.
The game is taking a slightly different angle this time round, focusing more of the community aspect via the Playstation Network. It’s called ‘Buzz! Quiz TV’ and due to the power and ‘innovation’ of Sony Computer Entertainment, you will be able to download a large array of new content for the game beyond its shelf life - most probably at a price.
Brighton-based developers ‘Relentless Software’ will most probably find their job a hell of a lot easier when the game is released thanks to a planned ‘MyBuzz’ service. The system will allow users to upload and quiz other members of the community with their very own question time.
It’s just a shame really that the casual gamer audience that these types of games are being aimed at probably can’t justify spending £450 on something which can be done on a machine that costs a fourth of the price and is already out there in stores at a recommended retail price of £39.99.
Thanks to the people over at Jeux-France, some photos have come out of Leipzig, showing European release dates for Super Mario Galaxy, Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles, and that scuba diving sim Forever Blue.
As it stands, it looks like we’ll be getting galaxy on the 16th of November, followed by The Umbrella Chronicles on the 30th of November. And to keep you entertained before these, we’ll get Forever Blue on the 9th.
Thanks to the lucky guy ‘levyjl1988′, what seems to be a character selection screen from the highly anticipated game ‘Super Smash Brothers Brawl’ has been leaked onto the intertubes.
With such a large amount of unfilled, empty spaces on the screen, I can only pray that Nintendo will go back on their word and reinstate ‘Mr. Game and Watch’ as a playable character - he was clearly the best and most interesting fighter in the previous entry. Certainly proves that Nintendo haven’t yet unveiled all of the available characters on their blog - which is good, sometimes spoilers really do spoil thing!
Upon the release of the new Elite Xbox 360, Microsoft are going to be trying their hardest to woo fans to the 360. With many major releases for the console bursting out of the woodwork in the coming weeks before the Christmas period, it will be hard to escape the console and it’s green alure.
Shizzle Games are reporting that Europe will be given a brand new Core console pack as well as a price drop on both current systems.
The image shows that the current two SKUs will be rebranded around the release of the Elite this Friday. The core will be converted into the ‘Arcade’ unit which boasts the slogan ‘just play!’ - and coming out of the box with a 256mb memory card, wireless controller and five arcade games will allow you to do just that. Not to mention the £20 price drop as the console is rumoured to go on shelves for £180 (the same price as the Wii console I might add)
The Xbox 360 Premium is also going through some changes with a new ’silver finish’, although it is not yet known whether this refers to the faceplate and disc tray or the actual console. Nothing is changing in the actual package but the Pro console will drop the price of the current Premium to £250.
Of course, the elite won’t be facing any price drops and remains at the £300 price point.
What with Blue Dragon, Halo 3, Rock Band, GTA4, Eternal Sonata, BioShock and many excellent 360 games on the horizon, Microsoft is hoping many gamers will plop down some hard cash for their console come this Christmas.
For a while there, I wasn’t too sure of the chances this thing would be coming to Europe - for starters, someone like me (big on aesthetics) this thing is a nightmare and ugly as sin, but for big gamers this new Xbox package could give you that feeling of extra nerdiness that keeps us geeks up and running.
Thanks to the people over at 
