Concrete news on Ace Attorney 5!

The game will be released in the US on... the 3DS shop as a downloadable game.  It has also been renamed to "Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies".

There are some good and bad points about this.  In Japan, the game is being released on a cartridge, which is a better guarantee of ownership.  (I won't go into everything now).  In the US, it's Downloadable.  On the other hand, the Ace Attorney series - while a fan favorite - does not sell as many copies as, say, Street Fighter, here in the US and it is MUCH more expensive to localize.  Seriously, look at the care that goes into this localization.  Plus we have new Voice Actors, Phoenix may not be the only one voiced, we will have actual animation rather than sprite gifs, and the sprites of the characters are replaced with 3D models and backgrounds.

While the price is unknown, getting rid of cartridges does reduce the cost of the series in the US.  At least on Capcom's end. 

So, we'll see what happens.  I would prefer a physical copy, this way I can play it on other systems or just look at it sometimes, but it's ACE ATTORNEY.  It's going to be good.

And who knows? This might finally tip the scale for Ace Attorney Investigations 2. 

Musical Monday: Valadilene (Syberia)

Syberia is a point and click game made in 2002.  It (and the sequel) tracks the adventure of Kate Walker as she travels over Europe trying to find an heir so a factory can be sold. 

Each area has it's own music, but it generally only plays when you solve a puzzle.  This is the music for the first area, Valadilene. 

Also, the game is a lot of fun. 

Square Enix and it's international releases.

Square Enix has this annoying habit of releasing a game for Japan, updating it for it's US release (Fixing glitches, adding bosses) then rereleasing it AGAIN in Japan as a "Final Mix" with an even more updated, and canon, bonuses.

For example:
When Kingdom Hearts 1 was released in the US, it added a few cut scenes and bosses to the US version, such as Sephiroth and Kurt Zisa.    When the FM version was released in Japan, it added in a Xemnas boss fight. 

((The user has dubbed in English lines from else in the series to provide a rough translation.))

That's great, you may say, but why should I care?

Well, those scene made it into the KH2 flashback openings.   At the end of each "Day", we see corrupted flashes of KH1 and the scene of Xemnas walking through Sora.  This left many US players very confused because it was NOT in the KH1 game they played. 





Okay, so why am I going through this?

Square Enix has announced they are releasing FFX and X-2 in HD.  Some screen shots were released yesterday.

((Comparison))

but Famitsu has reported that the status of Final Fantasy's X-2 International/Final Mix post epilogue "Last Mission"  might not be in the game proper.  This mission serves to tie up the lives of the Spira cast and have a conclusive end to the game.  It was only available to the Japanese players. 

Square, you better fix this problem.  It's getting really frustrating. 

Ubisoft hiring debates.

Ubisoft shows the dark side of game development 
Namely, how quickly these people can get fired for unknown reasons.  The first director was rehired in a takeover, then fired without even being allowed to take his personal items.  Someone else was fired yesterday, (I can't find the article.) 

The fact is,  game developers have the ability to hire and fire who they want.  And without a reason. They fire people to get work but not give them pay, they fire people for having different ideas, and they fire people after buying the studio.

Game development seems like a fun, and fascinating, business.  There's just a very large amount of casualties in the business. 

Kingdom Hearts 1.5 RELEASE DATE!

We have a date!  The HD remix of Kingdom Hearts 1 FM (Never released in the US), Re:CoM (released in Japan and the US, but not in HD and at the end of the PS2 life cycle) and the expanded cutscenes of 358/2 (It was supposed to be the full game but they didn't have time.)  is coming to the US and Europe!

The release date is September 10th, and in VERY limited quantities you can get a 24 page art book with renders and concept art!

So, pre order and I can't wait to play this.  It will be lovely. 

Deleted Content: The Fantastic Four in Marvel Vs Capcom 3!

The Marvel Universe usually divides into four categories.  The Fantastic Four (above), the X-men (Wolverine, Storm, Rogue, Cyclops, Jean Gray/Phoenix, etc.)  The Avengers (Thor, Iron Man, Captain Marvel, and Black Widow. Etc.) and the unaffiliated.  (Punisher, Daredevil, etc.) 

So, if Fantastic Four is one of Marvel's prime teams, why did the Super Skrull get in over them?

Now, while the Skrull (and Doctor Doom) are Fantastic Four villains, look at how Super Skrull works.  He uses the abilities of all four of the members.

You see, back when they were setting it up, they fully intended to put all the Fantastic Four in there.  However, they ran into problems.  The Thing played too similarly to the Hulk to justify putting him in.  I believe Reed Richards had some gameplay problems and Susan Storm was hard to figure out a moveset.  Johnny Storm was fully made and modeled.... and promptly took up way too much space and processing power on the gamedisk.

So, the team decided to just make the Super Skrull to add variety and fix the gameplay problems. In addition, this freed up 3 other spots to be used on other characters. 

(As a side note, Silver Surfer was almost included but Capcom couldn't figure out how to include Silver Surfer's surfboard in his gameplay.  As that is kind of a key part of him, and he couldn't be sufficiently differentiated otherwise, he was cut.)

Musicl Monday: Credits (Mass Effect)

Never played Mass Effect, but this song is great. 

One thing I liked about Dance Central 3.

Okay, the entire game is really good, but I jumped at this.

I'm a growing fan of KPop  (It is really good!)  and when I heard that they put in 2NE1  I was really excited.  It absolutely provided some variety to the soundtrack and I think it's the first time a Korean song made it's way over in a dance/rhythm game to the west.

That's not to say there wasn't any other foreign song in it, Hispanic songs have been numerous, and they're really good too.

I wish the Dance Central games could grow a bit more international though.  It absolutely provides some variety.

New ways to fight Piracy!

((Sorry, needed a header))

Video game piracy has been around forever.  The ways to fight it have varied from codes put into the manuals, to always on DRM to GOG's giving lots of goodies for buying it without DRM, to Spore practically putting a virus on your computer.

HOWEVER! Two companies have come out with a really brilliant way to fight it.

Rocksteady is the developer for Batman: Arkham Asylum.  They released the pirated version of the game themselves... and disabled the ability to fly in the game.  If people wanted to play it, they had to buy it.

Which leads to the most recent attempt at staunching piracy, and does it really well. Kotaku has an article on it.  Basically, if you download the pirated version (Which they released), you start getting pirated in game.  You lose a lot of your profits, and it becomes impossible to move forward.

I think this works even better than Arkham.  Because, rather than just frustrating you over your piracy, it actually shows the problems with doing it.  

Lego Marvel Heroes trailer!

It is a nice trailer, and Deadpool over there made me laugh.

So, now we start finding out about the roster, eh? 

I liked how Lego Batman did it, while the story included mostly Batman, Robin, and Superman, the rest of the Justice League appeared in the end and the other heroes could be found scattered throughout the world.  While it could get very frustrating, Traveler's Tales did NOT release the full roster.  Lois Lane, Black Canary, Alfred, and Captain Boomerang, (among others) were surprises.  If it's keeping with the DC system, there will be two packs of five characters of DLC. 

So, who do you want on the Roster?