BitSnark

The digitally downloadable prequel to cult PSOne RPG tactical gem Vandal Hearts, has finally been given a release date and price point for Xbox Live Arcade with PSN release and pricing details to follow.

Priced at 1200 MSP and releasing on January 20th, the title is expected to exude the same addictive turn based tactical gameplay as the 1997 PSOne original.

Players must aid Tobias Martin and his followers in trying to prevent a war in their homeland of Sostegaria. Vandal Hearts: Flames Of Judgement boasts multiple endings, extensive character customization and over twenty maps.

Time to grab some points methinks 🙂

PSN details will be updated as they are known.

Namco Bandai’s flagship arcade dogfighting franchise once again graces the PSP with an extensive campaign set in real-world locations such as Tokyo, London, San Francisco and more.

Additionally, the developers are also including an eight-player online mode, that includes a variety of gameplay modes such as Versus, as well as four player co-op campaign mode.

The official press release can be seen below:

/’ACE COMBAT^TM JOINT ASSAULT’ /**BRINGS ITS BULLET-STREWN OPEN SKIES TO THE PALM OF YOUR HAND, SUMMER 2010*

*/- The Unsurpassed ACE COMBAT Flight Action Series Returns to PSP^TM (PlayStation^TM Portable) with a Stunning and Intense New Aerial Experience For All -/*

CERGY-PONTOISE, FRANCE – 12 January 2010 – Duck and cover! The pre-eminent aerial combat series from NAMCO BANDAI Games is delivering its next instalment in summer 2010 with the all-new */ACE COMBAT JOINT ASSAULT /*for PSP (PlayStationPortable). Featuring accessible and exhilarating gameplay, incredible new benchmark visuals, an engrossing single player campaign and comprehensive online multiplayer options, */ACE COMBAT JOINT ASSAULT /*will once again remind the world why the /ACE COMBAT /series is the reigning lord of the virtual skies.

Developed by the renowned Project Aces development team at NAMCO BANDAI Games Inc. in Japan, */ACE COMBAT JOINT ASSAULT /*is the latest in the acclaimed /ACE COMBAT /series of flight action games, and the second to appear on PSP following /ACE COMBAT X /in 2006. In the brand new */ACE COMBAT JOINT ASSAULT/*, the nail-biting close-quarters combat and incredible visuals are completely re-designed to deliver maximum intensity and an accessible and fun experience for any fan of flight action.

Set in the skies over familiar real-world locations including Tokyo, London, San Francisco and more, players will step into the shoes of allied pilots and set out on numerous original missions to obliterate the enemy in fierce tactical dogfights. The new ‘Enhanced Combat View’ makes the intense combat more dynamic and believable to the player, making full use of the vast aerial environments to produce an incredible high-speed sensation and let players feel the raw exhilaration of delivering ace shots at supersonic speeds. All-new multi-strategic AI evolves the mission flow according to the player’s choices throughout the campaign for an even richer depth of gameplay experience.

Alongside the new gameplay features, the team has focussed on producing the best visuals ever seen for a flight game on PSP while also significantly ramping up the online functionality. Multiplayer gameplay lets ace pilots get even with their foes in the eight player online versus mode, or cooperate with up to four friends in the co-op campaign mode. Let the tracers fly.

*/ACE COMBAT JOINT ASSAULT^ /*for PSP is scheduled to launch across EMEA and Asia Pacific in summer 2010. For more information about the NAMCO BANDAI Games Europe line up visit http://www.namcobandaigames.eu .
*About NAMCO BANDAI Games Europe:*

NAMCO BANDAI Games Europe S.A.S., is a leading interactive entertainment software publisher based in Cergy-Pontoise, France. The company is a part of the NAMCO BANDAI group of companies known for creating and publishing many of the industry’s top video game franchises including the RidgeRacer™, Tekken™, SOULCALIBUR™, Tamagotchi™, Digimon™, Dragonball® and Naruto™ brands.
All trademarks and copyrights associated with the manufacturers, aircraft, models, trade names, brands and visual images depicted in this game are the property of their respective owners, and used with such permissions.

©GeoEye
©JAPAN SPACE IMAGING CORPORATION
ACE COMBAT™ JOINT ASSAULT & ©2010 NAMCO BANDAI Games Inc.

The oft talked about and released-on-PC-first remake of Croteam’s classic insane FPS has now finally been given a date and price after 360 owners were left out in the cold last year when the remake released on PC.

Due this Wednesday and selling for 1200 Microsoft Points, Serious Sam HD retains the frantic gameplay of the original but adds four player co-op and a HD sheen to the proceedings.

Get ready to sell your granny and maybe rob a bank or two as Sony Computer Entertainment Europe today confirmed that the ‘Ultimate Trilogy Edition’ of the forthcoming awesomeness that is God Of War III, will in fact retail for £109.99 in the UK.

Ouch.

For your cash you get the God Of War Collection (Region free and around £25 to import at the moment), soundtracks for all three titles, exclusive DLC skins, making of DVD and other production materials.

Oh, and it all comes in one big ornate looking box too.

Worth the cash? Possibly not. But those with far too much money and an obsessive love for Sony’s mythological series, will find their collector tastes quite well satisfied with this huge collectors edition.

The rest of us meanwhile will just import the God Of War collection, buy God Of War III at £32.99 on release and shrug our shoulders at the extra ‘content’ while we save fifty odd quid.

Chalk this one up alongside that ill-fated Halo movie folks as an interview run by website Collider with producer Michael De Luca, alleges that the silver screen version of Konami’s seminal stealth series Metal Gear Solid, simply won’t be happening in the foreseeable future.

In his interview with Collider he went on to say: “I don’t think it’s going to move forward because I got the sense that there may not be enough of a coordinated will at this point on the side of certain parties to see a movie get made.”

He went on to expand on his reasoning, stating that Konami are concerned about a duff movie hurting the image of the game series. “The franchise being as big as it is kind of helps the movie. I’m not sure the movie does the same thing for the game.”

De Luca added: “The videogame companies are very protective of their property and there are certain things a studio requires freedom-wise to market and distribute a movie effectively in a global marketplace and sometimes getting those two things to match up is really hard – it was just kind of impossible to get the agendas to match up.”

Well based on this and Halo’s evidence, movies based on games tend to go one of two ways; they either decide that they can’t do justice to the source material and call it a day, or the movie is released and is usually shockingly bad.

Rebellion, developers of the forthcoming Alien Vs Predator title, have confirmed that a demo of the highly anticipated xenomorph face-off will hit in the near future with a specific date yet to be determined.

Given how the original AvP titles were back on the Atari Jaguar and later on the PC, i’ll be interested to see how this newest effort fares.

If you were holding off on buying it, your chance to do so at least brand new anyway, is fast dwindling.

Nintendo today have announced that Metroid Prime Trilogy for the Wii, is no longer being manufactured which means that after stores have sold out of their existing stock, the only way to obtain the critically acclaimed compilation would be to purchase it preowned.

1UP.com have the full story which can be viewed by clicking on the link below:

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3177553

During their CES keynote earlier today, Microsoft confirmed the release date for their forthcoming 3D camera based motion control accessory for the XBOX 360. Known only by it’s placeholder name ‘Project Natal’, the system will go on sale in all territories this December.

No pricing details or software line up have been announced at this point.

Ever since the successor to Zelda: Twilight Princess was announced at last years E3, Ninty fans have been gnawing at the bit to get any info they can regarding Link’s next Wii outing.

What we do know is that it will be built from the ground up to take full advantage of the Wii motion control system, as opposed to Zelda: Twilight Princess which was essentially a conversion of the Gamecube version.

Now we have one other fact; the next Zelda title on Wii will arrive this year. The release window was confirmed by Nintendo president Satoru Iwata in an interview with Japan’s Asahi Shimbun. What wasn’t confirmed is whether or not the release window pertains to a Japanese or a Western release. My money would be on the former.

Further beans were spilled in what appeared to be a surprising revealing interview, as Mr. Iwata went on to talk about the next machine to follow up the wildly successful Nintendo DS handheld.

According to the Nintendo CEO, the successor to everyone’s favourite dual touchscreen handheld would boast very detailed, high resolution visuals and in-built sensors for detecting and reacting to player motions and gestures. This chimes in correctly with the rumour mill as of late, as Nintendo is known to be currently courting the very powerful Nvidia Tegra graphics chip for alleged inclusion into a successor to the Nintendo DS.

In these times it seems ironic and certainly risky, that a Western developer would take liberal inspiration from Japanese made 2D platforming shooter stalwarts Metroid and Castlevania for their latest effort when the audiences for those games are not only difficult to please, but fast dwindling also. Thankfully however, Chair Entertainment in partnership with Gears Of War developer Epic Games have taken the gamble and in doing so have produced one of the finest titles in Microsoft’s Xbox Live Arcade software library to date.

Wearing its classic inspirations proudly on its sleeves, Shadow Complex places the player in no doubt as to what type of game it is. Sure, the gameplay mechanics are linked together by a threadbare plot about a shadowy government faction trying to blow up the US or some such drivel, but its the timeless formulae of platforming, item upgrading and backtracking for new areas that defines Shadow Complex.

After an action packed prologue which gives players the merest taste of the weaponry and gadgetry to come, the player is then thrust into the shoes of an average Joe, traipsing through the Canadian Rockies with his fiancée as they stumble upon a cave entrance which leads into the vast subterranean complex where the bulk of the game takes place.

One thing that I have to make abundantly clear here however is this; Shadow Complex is neck and neck with Battlefield 1943 as the most visually staggering game to be released on XBLA at a budget price point. It seems the most obvious benefit of having ‘Uncle Epic’ help produce the game was that developer Chair Entertainment would also be able to leverage their (still) impressive Unreal Engine 3 tech in the game to produce some pretty sweet visuals; and sweet they are. Light sources ignite from mussel flashes and explosions, character models are all impressively detailed and move fluidly, massive arachnid robots move with startling grace and menace all the while boasting the minutest of mechanical details. It truly is a staggering visual display and one which should be raising eyebrows of developers who put out lesser efforts at retail pricepoints.

As it subscribes to the design edict of Nintendo’s Metroid and Konami’s Castlevania series’ respectively, the gameplay in Shadow Complex, is simple yet rewarding. Staying true to its inspirations, the game plays out on a 2D plane, allowing the player to jump to other platforms, shoot, crawl and use special abilities to get to areas that were previously inaccessible. To break up the experience, there are sections where the player can take control of a turret and mow down oncoming enemies from the background. Additionally, the player themselves may also shoot and toss grenades at enemies in the background, although it is notably less precise than taking aim at foes on the same axis as yourself.

3D aiming issues aside, the main character controls well with a number of acrobatic actions such as wall to wall chain jumping, hanging fire and close combat manoeuvres all proving intuitive and easy to pull off.

Anybody who has played any of the Castlevania or Metroid titles will realise that the hook of these titles lie in being able to upgrade your arsenal and the acquisition of items that allow you access to areas that were inaccessible when you first came across them. Shadow Complex follows this genre convention, dangling the figurative ‘carrot on a stick’ as a players seek to upgrade that jetpack so they can reach a ledge or a grappling hook which would allow access to a previously unreachable overhang. Where Shadow Complex trips up slightly, is that it gives the player too much power too quickly. Ironically, newer weapons are no longer sought for their ability to kill enemies, since the player is more than capable of killling most foes in the game with lesser weaponry; instead they are merely used to help the player progress past certain barriers, as some may only be destroyed by a grenade, rocket, plasma shot and so forth. While a minor flaw, the weapons still remain fun to use in combat, with the awesome ‘friction-dampener’ and ‘foam-gun’ proving to be notable highlights.

Still, the classic addictive hook of exploration and loot remains and those of us with obsessive disorders will absolutely have to find every ammo upgrade, gold bar and health maximiser to satiate ourselves. Like every other game in the genre, Shadow Complex boasts boss battles. Such encounters though are not strong points for the title as the bosses themselves often tend to be fought more than once and whilst are visually impressive, they remain uninspired, unchallenging affairs.

Paying homage to their classical muse, Chair Entertainment have worked an RPG-style levelling system into Shadow Complex. With each level reached with valuable ‘XP’ obtained from killing bad guys, comes the promise of better accuracy and more health. Whilst the health benefits appear pragmatic and tangible, the accuracy ones do not as I could still shoot just as well at level 5 as I could at level 25.

Shadow Complex is not a long game, the game clocks in at between five and seven hours for an initial play through. It’s lure of course, lies in repeated playthroughs to see everything, collect everything and reach that 50th level.

As the sum of it’s parts, Shadow Complex is not the best in the genre (that honour would go to Castlevania: Synphony of the Night), but Chair Entertainment have nailed all the basic, fundamental aspects of what makes these often forgotten games satisfying and enjoyable, topping it off with a lush, often beguiling visual veneer.

With a sequel surely in the pipeline after some well-deserved monstrous commercial success in the last four months, I am giddy with excitement to see where Chair Entertainment and Epic Games will take this labour of love next.

Highly recommended.

Overall Score: 8.7