BitSnark

Take a peek before it gets taken down:

And there was much rejoycing.

Hopefully we’ll see a lot more on this addition to the Fabula Nova Crystallis series soon.

At the Square Enix Production Presentation today, Final Fantasy XIII-2 was announced for 360 and PS3 platforms for a Japanese release sometime this year.

A trailer was also promised that we were due to receive on Thursday.

Well, due to some funky Youtube leakery, you can watch the trailer NOW.

Not much is given away in the apparently CG-rendered trailer, but there are lots of Soul Calibur inspired weapons and armour (you’ll see what I mean) and feathers.

Lots of feathers.

Be warned however; the first half of the trailer is comprised primarily of spoilers, detailing the end of Final Fantasy XIII.

The trailer can be seen here:

Watch at your own risk etc.

In a move that will lighten the hearts of PS3 owners across the world, Square-Enix has confirmed that the mysterious Final Fantasy Versus XIII remains a PlayStation 3 exclusive.

At the packed production press conference, Director Tetsuya Nomura declared that he “stood his ground on the platform”.

Interesting.

Not to be outdone by Kingdom Hearts 3DS having a change of moniker, the long in development Final Fantasy XIII: Agito on PSP will also have a renaming too.

The game will now be known as the much more verbally digestable; Final Fantasy Type 0, will ship on two UMD’s(!) and will arrive in Japan this Summer.

Swanky.

With any luck we’ll find out more details shortly.

After doing a bunch of rounds on the rumour mill lately, Square Enix has at last confirmed the gossip by announcing Final Fantasy XIII-2 at its production conference event for PS3 and 360 platforms.

Motomu Toriyama, he who directed Final Fantasy XIII, will return to direct the game again, with Yoshinori Kitase taking the reigns of producer once again. Apparently, development on the title is carried out with fan feedback concerning Final Fantasy XIII in mind. Hmmm, hopefully that’ll mean we’ll get less linearity and more in the way of character development flexibility.

Very little else is known in the way of details at the moment, but what is known is central protagonist Lightning will return, alongside a new cast of characters with the game releasing this year in Japan (likely before Versus XIII) with a European release date TBD.

Trailer, media and additional details will follow so stay tuned.

Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance.

Oh yeah, Square-Enix give yourself an otter clap, I see what you did there; the three D’s and all that.

On a related note though, just what *is* it with their increasingly nonsensical subtitles for their Kingdom Hearts titles?

Those crazy Japanese folk.

In what could reasonably be described as an announcement that *nobody* saw coming, Codemasters has today announced that developer GFI will revive the long dormant Cannon Fodder franchise with Cannon Fodder 3, which is due to be released on PC & 360.

Originally released way back in 1993 on pretty much every home gaming platform available at the time, the game enjoyed a huge amount of success with its cartoon stylings, satirical humour and top down viewpoint squad action.

The official press release is below:

“Cannon Fodder 3

GFI announce development of the sequel to a well-known tactical action – Cannon Fodder 3
Several military groups of Europe, Asia and Africa have made a military alliance to establish dictatorship by joint efforts. Your goal is to stop them at any cost… Even with a price of thousands lives of soldiers named “cannon fodder”, who are ready to die everywhere and every time it’s needed. ‘Cause it’s their work.

You have a small army which consists of only “cannon fodder” soldiers, who are ready to rush into fight with the enemy, sparing neither effort nor oneself. The player will have to pass several episodes full of cartoon violence among different locations, and the Earth is not the limit – it’s time to go into open space and show the enemy “who’s daddy”.

You’ll get classic isometric environment in full 3D, weather effects, change of time, destructible environment, physical water – all this and a lot more you’ll find in Cannon Fodder 3.

Cannon Fodder 3 is currently under development for PC and Xbox 360 platforms under Codemasters’ license.”

Fucking stoked I be.

EA has announced a demo for People Can Fly’s sweetly over the top FPS Bulletstorm to arrive on Xbox Live and PSN platforms on the 25th and 26th of January respectively.

The announcement mysteriously did not include news of a PC demo however.

In regards to content, the demo allows players a taste of Echo mode, a cooperative gametype that follows and compares player scores as they battle through locations contained in the campaign. In the case of the case of the demo, the location in question is a collapsed building which players must navigate, all the while dispatching enemies with the most flair possible to earn those valuable points via the Skillshot system.

In case you’re unfamiliar with the awesomeness of this concept ever-so lightly cribbed from Bizarre Creations take-it-or-leave-it third person shooter The Club, the idea behind it is that you use the Skillshot system to kill bad guys in as creative a fashion as possible and rack up points according to how stylishly you killed your foe.

For instance, while shooting a bad guy in the head might get you 50 points, leashing the guy with your magnetic leash, kicking them in the face, throwing them away, shooting them as they soar through the air and then pushing them into an overloading electric generator would score quite a bit more.

As a nice little bonus the demo also allows players to unlock upgrades specific to their platform to be utilised in the Anarchy multiplayer mode when players purchase the full game.

With the current deluge of modern first-person shooters and ‘real’ combat experiences being shoved down our throats ad-finitum, Bulletstorm seems like perhaps the most refreshing alternative available and certainly represents a throwback to the original excess of the FPS genre that got us falling in mad, violent love with it in the first place.

Ever since that sordid business with developer Infinity Ward imploding and the studio heads Vince Zampella and Jason West flipping publisher Activision the finger as they went out the door, a large amount of speculation was cast over what would happen to the Call Of Duty series when developer Treyarch weren’t in charge of development.

Recently formed developer Sledgehammer Games, which includes talent from Dead Space developer Visceral Games, has put out an ad, asking for extra talent to work on the ‘next Call of Duty’.

It makes sense that the Sledgehammer Games would be working on the new Call Of Duty due this year, since not only is this Treyarch’s ‘off-year’ but also Infinity Ward is still in the midst of rebuilding and rehiring; putting them in no kind of shape to develop a new entry in the series.

According to studio head Glen Schofield, Sledgehammer’s COD will include military situations based on “real stuff”. “Working w/ military guys – their stories will blow you away. Names/locations will change but some situations going in the game – real stuff!” Schofield said.

Having been scorned by far too many cynical cut ‘n’ paste efforts where the CoD franchise has been confirmed, I can safely say that unless this does something different and worthwhile, i’ll be far too busy having gameplay orgasms with Battlefield 3 to care.

Just sayin’.