Search Results

Atlus announced today the release dates for the three highly-anticipated titles from publisher NIS America.

• Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice for PS3 will hit stores on August 26th.

Beautiful artwork, funny characters, and deep strategy gaming come to PS3 Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice, a new entry in the famed strategy RPG series, follows the exploits of Mao, the most honored student at Evil Academy, a school where the tardiest, laziest, and rudest demons receive the highest marks. The son of the school chairman, Mao has never once attended class nor opened a textbook. He longs to overthrow his father and assume the title of Overlord, which he decides he must become a hero to achieve. Join him on his zany adventure filled with witty dialogue, exciting events, and thrilling strategy battles!

• Disgaea DS will arrive on September 23rd.

Completely remade to take advantage of Nintendo DS, Disgaea DS offers a deep strategy RPG experience with an exceptional story, a fantastic script, and a host of lovable characters and settings. An all-new story focus means a completely different experience for the player, not to mention a brand new ending. Geo Cubes add special effects to the battlefield, completely shifting the balance in the blink of an eye. Using local wireless multiplayer support, take your friends on in grand battles of strategy and wit– or try different modes like Defeat the Leader and Capture the Flag. With support for touch screen control and excellent of use of the two Nintendo DS screens, Disgaea has never played better.

• Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure will also arrive at retail on September 23.

Enter the world of Rhapsody, where music and action combine to create a charming adventure! A beautiful remake of the PlayStation original, Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure for Nintendo DS delivers stunning high-resolution 2D sprites, innovative music-based RPG gameplay, and more features than ever before. New features exclusive to the DS version include dual screen navigation and unlockable characters not previously available. Experience a wonderful symphony of RPG fun!

Via: Press Release

If you found this story interesting, why not subscribe to our RSS feed to get your daily fix of gaming news?

Loads of different titles are coming out starting tomorrow, and we have the full list for you right here. Looks like it is going to be an interesting week in gaming, so let us know what you plan on purchasing.

June 22

• Guitar Hero: On Tour (DS)
• Rock Band (Wii)
• Rock Band: Special Edition (Wii)

June 23

• American Girl Kit Mystery Challenge (DS)
• Battlefield: Bad Company (PS3, Xbox 360)
• Battlefield: Bad Company Gold Edition (PS3, Xbox 360)
• Command & Conquer 3: Kane’s Wrath (Xbox 360)
• Supreme Commander(Xbox 360)
• The SimCity Box (PC)
• The Sims 2: IKEA Home Stuff (PC)
• Top Spin 3 (DS, PS3, Xbox 360, Wii)

June 24

• 1 vs. 100 (DS)
• Alone in the Dark (PC, PS2, Xbox 360, Wii)
• Baseball Mogul 09 (PC)
• Big Beach Sports (Wii)
• Cake Mania 2 (DS)
• Elements (PC)
• Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift (DS)
• Gears of War: Refresh (Xbox 360)
• Gourmet Chef (DS)
• Hail to the Chimp (PS3, Xbox 360)
• Hellboy: The Science of Evil (PSP, PS3, Xbox 360)
• Mega Man Star Force 2: Zerker X Ninja (DS)
• Mega Man Star Force 2: Zerker X Saurian (DS)
• Midnight Play Pack (DS)
• My Weight Loss Coach (DS)
• Naruto Ultimate Ninja Heroes 2: The Phantom Fortress (PSP)
• Operation Darkness (Xbox 360)
• Overlord: Raising Hell (PS3)
• Purr Pals (Wii)
• Wall-E    (DS, PC,PSP, PS2, PS3, Wii, Xbox 360)

June 26

• Deadliest Catch: Alaskan  Storm (PC)

June 27

• In the Shadow of the Raven 2 (PC)
• Samurai Warriors 2 (PC)

All release dates are subject to availability, so some may be in stores on the day listed, the day before, or the day after so check with wherever you purchase your games because shipping times vary.

Lionhead Studios is working the hype-meter to death lately with their strangely timed asset releases for Fable 2. I expect the meter to explode due to a speed-ball type effect. What with the slowing down and speeding up being a constant and all… Anyway, they released all sorts of info during Gamer’s Day, held back some of the assets, and have let them flow in a constant trickle ever since. Marketing at its finest people.

Enough complaining though, here are three new screens for your viewing pleasure. Let’s just hope that the gameplay is just as neat as the atmosphere depicted in all the screens we have seen. Also, the little goblin looking thing in the main screen above - does anyone else think it resembles the minions in Overlord besides me?

PS3 owners may have missed out on the strange fantasy world of Overlord last year, but at least they can look forward to an expanded edition soon. Overlord: Raising Hell is essentially the same game, but with extra missions and gear for your little minions. As always, you’ll control a horde of little gremlin-like things as you play a villain trying to take over the land populated by different parodies of fantasy cliches. It certainly puts a fun and interesting twist on the whole RPG genre. Makes me kind of wish I hadn’t already gotten my fill of Overlord from the PC version.

Remember last week when we and a slew of other gaming sites got information from the Game Informer website that stated that the new title to the Prince of Persia game was Heir Apparent? Remember when I said that we will just wait around for word for Ubisoft? That, my friends has indeed happened, and it came straight from the Ubisoft forums.Here it it:

ADVISORY

Rumors have popped up that the new Prince of Persia game is called “Heir Apparent.”
This is not the case! The origin of the mistake is in the title of the Game Informer
article on Prince of Persia called Heir Apparent.

Just to clarify: The Heir Apparent is the name of the article, and it is NOT the name
of the new game.

No name has officially been announced.

When I clicked back on the Game Informer link I provided, it has changed drastically and “Heir Apparent” is no longer mentioned on the main page. I guess enough sites got confused over the snafu and they changed it. Most of us in the gaming world take what GI says with complete trust because they have always been a reliable source, so don’t get mad at them over this - it could easily have been an new intern’s first day or something.

Like I said in the previous post, we will keep our eyes peeled and our ears open for you as soon as word comes down from the Ubisoft overlords or Ubidays, whichever comes first.

Via: Games Radar

A title like that doesn’t write itself very often, so I’m happy to take advantage. The new Rocketmen expansion pack, It Came From Uranus, is now available on the PlayStation Store. You’ll also now find two new Hot Shots Golf characters, each of which cost $.99, and are small enough that I reckon they’re already on the Blu-ray disc you hold in your hands.

Rounding out the DLC scene is this week’s installment of Rock Band tracks and 21 new Karaoke Revolution: American Idol tracks.

You’ll also find demos of both Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit and Overlord Raising Hell, new videos, trailers, themes, and wallpapers.

Hit the break to see all of the today’s new content.
Read the full article

Codemasters has just released a new demo on the Playstation Network for the upcoming Overlord: Raising Hell, an expansion to the hit RPG. The demo will give PS3 owners a taste of some of the new features for the expansion. As always, you’ll play the Overlord who wreaks havoc throughout the land with the help of your swarms of minions. The expansion will take place after the first game and offer additional game levels, online co-op and versus play, and extra armor upgrades for minions. The full game is set to be released for the PS3 on June 24th.

Via Press Release

The PlayStation Store has gotten a great update this week with three solid demos, new music for both Guitar Hero III and Rock Band, the expansion pack to PixelJunk, PixelJunk Monsters Encore ($5.99), and Rocketmen: Axis of Evil ($9.99). In addition to all that, there’s a number of trailers for games and movies, including an Iron Man trailer and one for WipEout HD and Mercenaries 2.

Check it all out after the break.

Read the full article

When Pandemic announced back in February that they would be developing the next console version of a Lord of the Rings Game, I was pretty excited. Despite the fact that they are under the umbrella of the evil EA overlords is no matter because Pandemic make great games. Add to this the news that the new LotR title would be like Battlefront but with orcs was even more enticing information, and recently the director for the game Eric Gewirtz revealed even more information for the upcoming title.

Apparently, gamers will be able to choose from different battles from the film such as Helm’s Deep, Pelennor Fields, Minas Tirith, The Black Gates, along with other skirmish areas such as Moria, The Shire and Weathertop. The cool thing about it though is that according to Gewirtz, you get to play play as a bad guy as well and can start “running through The Shire, trampling Hobbits and burning the place to the ground”. Awesome! Death to those nasty little hobbitses. Some other battles or skirmishes that were not featured in the movies will be added as well, these will be from both the books and made up by the writers for the game but will remain true to Tolkien’s lore.

Also according to Gewirtz:

“We’ve focused equal parts on the good perspective and the idea of re-creating cinematic moments from the films — not faithfully so much, but just kind of allowing the player to experience moments that are like the films — but also really, for the first time, letting you get the chance to play as all of the bad guys. Play as the Balrog, play as Sauron and Sarumon, and really kind of live out that fantasy fulfillment of “what would it be like to really just destroy Middle-Earth? What if evil had won?”

During battles, players will be able to choose between fighting as a melee warrior, third-person archer, support class mage or stealth scout and will be given access to key characters from the film and books like Aragorn, Gandalf, and Legolas. Gewirtz also went on to discuss the different modes to choose from, such as Ringwraiths and all other kinds of really interesting tidbits that I just cannot fit in this post.

To read more of the interview, and to get the rest of the scoop on the game, just hit the link below. In the meantime, you can expect Lord of the Rings: Conquest to hit retail sometime in the Fall for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360. You can read the full press release issued this morning after the jump.

Thanks: Videogaming247

Read the full article

With the release of the Guinness World Records Gamer’s Edition for 2008,  Next Gen has compiled a list of the 50 greatest gaming records. These range from the largest upright arcade machine (built by G4’s Attack of the Show) to the most guest stars in a videogame series (Grand Theft Auto).

The original Xbox reigns in as the largest console, while the longest ban from Xbox Live belongs to an individual who won’t be getting online with his gamertag or console until December 31, 9999, by which point I imagine our ape overlords won’t even be interested in videogames.

My two personal favorites, though, were highlighted by Evil Avatar:

Longest game title

The longest game title was for a Japanese-only PS2 game released in 2005. It’s called White Princess the Second – Yappari Itto ni Ittemo Soujyanakutemo Ok-na Gotsugou Shugi Gakuen Renai Adventure, or in English, White Princess the Second – Love Adventure in the School That Follows the Principle of Convenience, Where It’s Okay to Stray From the Path or Stay on the Path.

Highest production budget

The game with the highest budget was Sega’s Shenmue, which cost $70,000,000 to create. It took seven years to complete and first appeared on the Sega Dreamcast in December 1999. However, it may soon be beaten by the Silicon Knights game Too Human for Xbox 360, which sources claim has already cost over $80,000,000.

Sure, $70 million is a bit much, but Shenmue was really, really awesome.

In this fictional follow-up story to 50 Cent: Bulletproof , players will be able to play as the hip-hop star in an all-out battle to protect Fiddy’s assets and to collect payment from a crooked overlord.

Sorry, I am having a hard time typing this without dying from uncontrollable laughter.

In 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, gamers can participate in multiplayer drop-in and drop-out co-op, interactive counter-kills, driving, and aerial combat. The game will also feature exclusive unreleased music from 50 Cent and G-Unit.

For more information, check out the FileFront page for 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand and our previous posts here and here.

Via: Press Release (which is posted after the jump)

Read the full article

For decades, we’ve been playing as the lonely ship at the bottom of the screen firing away at the encroaching aliens. But now, Taito’s turning the tables with their new Space Invaders game, titled Space Invaders Get Even: Gyakushuu no Space Invaders (a.k.a. Space Invaders Get Even: Counterattack of the Space Invaders). As you’ve probably guessed, this Wii game will have you controlling the Space Invaders themselves this time around. Luckily though, it won’t just be you slowly moving them down at faster and faster speeds. Instead, the game looks like you’ll take control of the three different types of invaders (who I assume have different abilities) to destroy cities and fight the occasional boss battle. It looks kind of like Overlord, minus the actual Overlord. Could be fun, but unfortunately this game has been announced as Japan-only for now. But Taito’s been indicating they want to start exporting more games, so who knows?

Via Siliconera

Go to Hell as Codemasters announces launch of new Overlord content, now available for Xbox 360 in single-player, multi-player and split-screen downloadable packs. The expansion packs range from one free one to two premium packs which cost 800 and 400 MSP. Included in this new DLC is the previously PC exclusive Overlord: Raising Hell.

Here are the details for each pack:

Overlord: Raising Hell: Go deeper into the Overlord’s twisted world as this single-player expansion pack opens a series of hellish new levels, each a supernatural abyss for the game’s five domains: Mellow Hills, Evernight, Heaven’s Peak, the Golden Halls and the Ruborian Desert.

• Devilishly good single-player expansion pack.
• Includes new Abyss levels and Dungeon Challenges.
• Premium pack: 800 Microsoft Points from Xbox LIVE Marketplace.

Access to each abyss is via a portal, which opens once a kingdom has been successfully conquered and the previous ruler banished to a personal hell within. However it’s not just the fallen heroes that have been dragged into the abyss: the Overlord’s newly loyal peasants have also been taken down into hell too.

With the undead denizens of each abyss on the attack and threatening the Overlord’s reign above ground, there’s only one thing for it: assemble a Minion army, descend into each abyss and embark on a fresh wave of tyranny in order to return the serfs to their homelands, defeat the fallen heroes once and for all, and claim the throne of the underworld.

Overlord: Challenge PACK: Come and have a go if your Overlord’s hard enough. All new pillaging fun with seven additional online multiplayer maps, including the competitive ‘Capture the Maiden’ map and ‘Protect Your Power’, where players must defend the Overlord’s tower against waves of enemy attack.

• Seven all-new multiplayer maps, including “Capture the Maiden”
• Deviously difficult Legendary Single Player Mode.
• Premium pack: 400 Microsoft Points from Xbox LIVE Marketplace

Putting the Minions through their toughest workout, the Challenge pack also introduces a ‘Legendary’ difficulty mode, which challenges players to achieve Legendary status by using their most aggressive Minion managing skills to complete the single-player game under exceptional bad-ass circumstances.

Read the full article

Flagship has finally got the patch for Hellgate: London up. The Evoker and Guardian classes have been completely reworked. Players of these classes will have to respec their characters before adventuring. For subscription players two new gameplay modes have been introduced along with the Stonehenge expansion content.

The Stonehenge edition of the Hellgate:Chronicles contains the following:
Stonehenge is a huge outdoor hub accessed through a special portal in Templar Base, connecting players to several new and exciting quests. Heroes will find themselves in completely new open, outdoor wilderness areas unlike anything seen within the city limits of London, battling terrifying new demons and bosses and finding new items very distinct in their appearance. This action-packed update includes:

• The Caste Caves – Unlock four unique dungeons, one for each caste of enemy – Beast, Necro, Spectral and Demon – to seek and destroy a powerful overlord that resides in each cave. Defeating them and collecting their heads will allow you to continue the adventure…
• Moloch’s Lair – Only after collecting the heads from the Caste Caves will heroes be allowed entry into the lair, with a chance to defeat the legendary Moloch, one of hell’s most imposing minions who carries very unique items that can only be obtained by defeating him in combat. And because Moloch’s soul is eternal, this quest and it’s rewards can be a never-ending challenge
• The Wild – These three mini-raid areas present players with difficult obstacles but also huge rewards with three levels that get increasingly more difficult even with the recommended full party size – you will need a small army to get through these challenges

In addition to the above, The Stonehenge Chronicles also includes many of the other updates the Hellgate: London community has been asking for, including improvements to game UI, a large number of skill balance changes, a PvP dueling arena and more.

Visit Hellgate: London for the full patch notes.

Within the pages of the February ‘08 issue of Games for Windows: The Official Magazine (shown right) features an upcoming title I dare say many have heard little to none about until now. This latest issue of GfW is offering gamers a world exclusive first peek at Chris Taylor’s Gas Powered Games’ (Total Annihilation; Supreme Commander; Dungeon Siege) upcoming action/RPG/RTS hybrid title, Demigod.

Inspired partly by the popular WarCraft III mod Defense of the Ancients, Demigod pits players (or teams of players) at destroying each others bases. A somewhat unique aspect to the game revealed is that rather than managing units and gathering resources that you see in a typical RTS, players control a single hero unit with varied powers, leveling up as they kill the A.I. controlled units around the map.

The expected gameplay mechanics of Demigod are best described by 1UP:

“In Demigod, you control one of many ‘demigod’ heroes — some of which survive solely on the strength of their own powers, others of which thrive on building smaller units and structures of their own for support. The guy on the left in the screenshot below is one such hero, ‘The Rook,’ a former king whose spirit now animates an anthropomorphic castle. Demigod is, as you’d expect, a multiplayer game at heart, with an emphasis on co-op play. There’s a single-player mode, too, though Gas Powered Games says it will serve mainly as a ‘training ground’ for the multiplayer.”

Sounds like a cross between Black & White and Overlord. I can’t emphasize enough how pleased I am to see co-op being given a 1st rung feature. I hope this game ends up as awesome as it sounds.

You will find tons more details (interviews, screens, etc.) regarding Demigod in the upcoming issue of Game for Windows: The Official Magazine (which should be in stores soon).

GfW Via 1UP

Gaming Steve posted an interesting article titled “Gaming Steve’s Top 10 Games That Nobody Played In 2007″. I may not agree with his entire list, but it’s an interesting read. The 10 games he listed are:

Check out this link to view his reasoning behind all picks. Most games above I would have to agree with other than The Darkness and Overlord. The Darkness was great fun for a few days, but the sloppy multi-player element really turned me off. It felt as if the game designers simply got lazy when they tossed that into the game. The other game I would not have put on the list would be Overlord. I’m not sure what to say about Overlord exactly, but it was over-rated by the press around release time. Overlord wore on my nerves after a couple hours of playing. It was simply too easy for the type of genre it fell into in my opinion.

We are all well aware of the more media savvy patches that were introduced to FileFront this week. Gamers who play BioShock, CoD4, FIFA 2008, AVENCAST, and EVE Online are happily playing the latest additions and fixes to their games. But what about PC games that do not make the front page - are they less worthy? Of course they aren’t! So, for those of you who have games other than the ones mentioned above and they need a patch, check out this week’s list of patches to see if your game was included.Here are just some of the many patches available on FileFront. For the full list, click here.

Granado Espada: Sword of the New World - v2.4 Bahia Island Client Patch - The new Version 2.4 Bahia Island Expansion of Granado Espada has been made available for download. Immense yourselves in the tropical beaches of Bahia Island as this new expansion comes to you this Christmas. Take part in light hearted mini games and stand to win special in-game items! Dress up in beach wear and explore the new maps. Team up with valiant heroes of Vespanola to defeat the new powerful raid bosses in Island of Fire. Unfold the story behind the “Nameless person” & “The one who searches for his memory”, choose your alliance with them and make your family stronger.

Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance - Fixed issue where Seraphim sACU could use overcharge before upgrading. (Done by selecting both unupgraded sACU and an ACU and giving overcharge command)
Fixed issue where FA only player could inappropriately be another faction during online play. Plus many balancing issues have been addressed and new Cybran Land Units have been added.

Tarr Chronicles - This v1.0.3.0 patch improves Vista compatibility, fixed freezing videos issue, added toggled AA, and a squashes a few other bugs. Quazar and Aklla have also given you the ability to change resolution in all OS and CPU. Added toggled anti-aliasing, fixed problem with freezing videos, fixed error in guardian mines part 3, fixed problems with implanted video memory, fixed problem “D3D invalid call (data/shaders/pspost.txt)” . Please note, that if you have any saved games, the items you have in the hangar after loading (as well as your custom devices) WILL NOT CHANGE, so any balance-changes or bugfixes in them will not be applied. If you want to have ALL the changes in the equipment you’ll need to create a new profile and delete the old one.

Depths of Peril - A patch has been issued updating Depths of Peril to v1.004. Please note that if you’ve already downloaded the v1.004 beta patch, this patch is not required. Added an extra check to make sure covenant never thinks it is at war with itself, added very hard covenant aggression difficulty level, and fixed a bug that allows most projectiles to get an extra critical hit bonus, etc.

Overlord- Codemasters has added a patch for features in addition to those present in OVERLORD I. Here is a basic summary of those features: Split Screen, maps include a new free survival map called Rocky Race, amBX PC gaming peripheral is enabled, etc.

For more information on the contents of all listed patches please click on the game title.

Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness
System: Sony PSP
Price: $50
Rated: T for Teen

The tactical RPG has held a special place in my heart as game genres go. It’s a love/hate relationship. On the one hand I hate being bored while playing games, fighting endless battles with no real goal in mind just to advance the plot. However the strategy elements, the chess-like plotting and considerations that entail fighting through a game of Final Fantasy Tactics or Advance Wars keeps me coming back.

A few years ago I stumbled upon Disgaea 2 and La Pucile Tactics, two games in this genre by NIS America. Both games had the typical turn-based tactical RPG feel to them that reminded me of the classic Final Fantasy games I’d enjoyed in the 90’s. There was one marked difference though for Disgaea - it was legitimately funny.

Not funny in the sense that it thought the mechanics were odd or something was incorrect, but laugh-out-loud funny. The characters were parodies of RPG conventions and Japanese pop-culture. This alone pushed me through the battles to the conclusion and hours of enjoyment leveling up characters and items. While Disgaea 2 was by definition a sequel game I had somehow missed the original so I sought out a used copy at my local game store only to be told by the manager I trusted that Disgaea was one of those titles that people didn’t trade in often, it got purchased quickly when a copy appeared and never seemed to come back unlike say the latest Matrix game or Madden NFL title.

That lone fact sold me even harder on the game. Why didn’t people trade this game back in? What made it a collector’s game as much as a favorite? Finally, six months later the manager called me to give me a heads up that they’d gotten a copy in on trade in good shape and that he’d hold it for me. It took a second for me to remember why I’d cared. Once that realization returned I rushed down to the retailer, put forth my money and bought the used title without looking back.
Read the full article

Last week I told you about the new downloadable content for Overlord through Xbox Live. Well, today we have some new screens for the “Raising Hell” premium content. In “Raising Hell”, players get to go deeper into the Overlord’s twisted world as this single-player expansion pack opens a series of hellish new levels. Complete with new enemies and objectives, each new level is a supernatural abyss - a hell for each of the game’s five kingdoms: Mellow Hills, Evernight, Heaven’s Peak, the Golden Halls and the Ruborian Desert. Access to each abyss is via a portal, which opens once a kingdom has been successfully conquered and the previous ruler banished to a personal hell within. However it’s not just the fallen heroes that have been dragged into the abyss: the Overlord’s newly loyal peasants have also been taken down into hell too. With the undead denizens of each abyss on the attack and threatening the Overlord’s reign above ground, there’s only one thing for it: assemble your minion army, descend into each abyss and embark on a fresh wave of tyranny in order to return the serfs to their homelands, defeat the fallen heroes once and for all, and claim the throne of each kingdom’s underworld.

Anyone who decides to get any of the Overlord DLC from XBL shoot let us know what they think of it. It comes out this month, and in the meantime - enjoy some more screens from the “Raising Hell” expansion while you wait to be just a little more evil.

SEGA and Creative Assembly has delivered to us the first trailer from their latest game in development, Viking: Battle for Asgard. As Skarin, the powerful yet flawed warrior, the gamer will take part in battles, fight magical beasts and barbaric warriors, and try to stop Ragnarok – the apocalyptic battle that could destroy everything. In the new trailer, you get to see Skarin battle his enemies in a blood filled rage. So far, between the small amounts of gameplay and cut scenes, the game is looking rather cool. The army of monsters headed Skarin’s way in the beginning of the trailer reminded me a bit of Skeletor on steroids, and the huge beast at the end of the trailer - well, lets just say that if I was Skarin, I would have wet myself.

With Beowulf and now Viking: Battle for Asgard, it looks like Nordic barbarians and warriors are getting the much needed love they deserve from the gaming companies - of course, this is just a mythology fan talking here. Anyway, if you want to watch the trailer, you have to go through an age gate first because the game as yet to receive a rating from the gaming world’s overlords the ESRB.

Look for Viking: Battle for Asgard to be in stores for the PS3 and Xbox 360 in Spring 2008. In the meantime, check back with us often for updates and more cool assets from the game.

Storyline and Features After the Break

Read the full article