Final Fantasy XIII Update

Meet the Mastermind behind the installments of Final Fantasy

Xtival Weekend Returns!

Xtival Returns with "Xtival '09 Winter" and is expected to commence on 27th November 2009.

"What Does this mean?" you ask, well the main "popular" reason is that EVERYONE gets Xbox Live for FREE for the whole weekend, so all your friends that have XBL Silver Accounts can now play online and see what its like to play with us "Gold Members" of the Xbox Live Community.

Not only that other special events (which will be announced closer to the date) will take place. Special Events include random prize giveaways and online tournaments for popular games such as Halo 3 (ODST), Gears Of War 2, Modern Warfare (1 & 2) and Fifa 10.

Obviously the only way to "win it" is to be "in it", so check the official Xtival Website here every so often for the latest and up-to-date news regarding the Xtival '09 Winter Event.

Exports do work in Band Hero

Band Hero was released onto various consoles nearly a week ago and while most are currently enjoying the game (or maybe switched over onto Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in the process) the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 versions of the game do allow previous downloaded songs from Guitar Hero World Tour , not to mention having the option of importing (yet again) the songs from previous guitar hero games, including the recent Guitar Hero 5.

Just like last time there is a charge for importing Guitar Hero 5 songs into Band Hero (and have mentioned this in a previous blog post a few weeks back), the reason for this post is that previous "imported" content such as Guitar Hero Smash Hits & Guitar Hero World Tour can be "re-imported" into Band Hero for FREE!

Basically if you have already imported the Guitar Hero World Tour & Smash Hits setlists into Guitar Hero 5 you can "re-download the activation key" (so to speak) inside Band Hero to activate the songs for play in Band Hero - at least this way it makes the game more "rock-ish" - and playing more (aswell as favourite) songs is always a good thing.

Playstation Video Store Goes Live In UK

I recently recieved an e-mail from the "Sony Newsletter" saying that there "Playstation Video Store" service is now officially up and running.

Basically the PSN Video Store (for short) is to rival a variety of online "digital" movie purchasing stores such as "Zune Video" on Xbox Live and Itunes Video.

The major difference (so i have read) between the PSN Video Store and XBL Zune Video Store is that all purchases on the PSN Video Store are ONE-OFF-ONLY payments and you get to keep the video. For example "Angels & Demons" on the PSN Video Store costs around £11.99 to buy, with this you can transfer it to your PSP or possibly even your PC and transfer it to other portable video devices - not to mention keep it on the PS3 and watch it like a normal DVD (or HD fBlu-ray film).

This seems like "superb" news espically compared to the XBL Zune Video Store where all videos (mainly movies at the moment) are RENTED out for a week for around 560 MS, which is around £4.50.

To Celebrate the launch of the PSN Video Store, Sony are offering everyone (and anyone) who purchases "Angels & Demons" from 19th November to 30th November a FREE Download of "The Da Vinci Code" (usual price is £6.99) - So thats two great films for one superb price.

For more information regarding the PSN Video Store click on this link.

Band Hero - The Complete Export Track List

Most of you will probably find this rather old news, but id like to mention it anyway seeing as Band Hero isnt one of the "popular" Xbox 360 (and PS3) titles this holiday season.

As most of you are aware you can import previous Guitar Hero games into Band Hero, well you can also export Band Hero to be used in Guitar Hero 5 (and possibly future Guitar Hero games). Now the process is exactly the same as importing/exporting music into Guitar Hero 5.

The only difference is that around 62 tracks (out of 65) from Band Hero can be exported into Guitar Hero 5 and it only costs 400 MS, which is slightly different to the 480 MS points that i previously read about.

Either way since i had recently completed the main "story smode" of Band Hero i decided to import the songs into Guitar Hero 5 and i was welcomed with a nice 2.2GB Download, so while waiting i found the "track list" of songs that are imported into Guitar Hero 5, which are:

• "ABC" - Jackson 5

• "American Pie" - Don Mclean

• "A Million Ways" - OK Go

• "Angels of the Silences" - Counting Crows

• "Back Again" - Parachute

• "Bad Reputation" - Joan Jett

• "Believe" - The Bravery

• "Black Cat" - Janet Jackson

• "Black Horse And Cherry Tree" - KT Tunstall

• "Bring Me To Life" - Evanescence

• "Dirty Little Secret" - All American Rejects

• "Don't Speak" - No Doubt

• "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me" - Culture Club

• "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" - Poison

• "Fascination" - Alphabeat

• "Gasoline" - Airborne Toxic Event

• "Hands Down" - The Dashboard Confessional

• "Hang Me Up to Dry" - Cold War Kids

• "Happy Together" - Turtles

• "Honky Tonk Women" - Rolling Stones

• "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" - Marvin Gaye

• "If You Could Only See" - Tonic

• "In a Big Country" - Big Country

• "I Want You to Want Me" - Cheap Trick

• "Just A Girl" - No Doubt

• "Kids" - Robbie Williams and Kylie Minogue

• "Kung Fu Fighting" - Carl Douglas

• "LES Aristes" - Santigold

• "Let's Dance" - David Bowie

• "Lifeline" - Papa Roach

• "Lips Of An Angel" - Hinder

• "Love is A Battlefield" - Pat Benetar

• "Love Story" - Taylor Swift

• "Naïve" - Kooks

• "Ocean Avenue" - Yellowcard

• "Our Lips Our Sealed" - The Go-Go's

• "Paralyzer" - Finger Eleven

• "Pictures of You" - The Last Goodnight

• "Picture to Burn" - Taylor Swift

• "Oh, Pretty Woman" - Roy Orbison

• "Put Your Records On" - Corinne Bailey Rae

• "Rio" - Duran Duran

• "Rockstar" - N.E.R.D.

• "Santa Monica" - Everclear

• "She Will Be Loved" - Maroon 5

• "Steal My Kisses" - Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals

• "Sugar, We're Goin' Down" - Fallout Boy

• "Take a Picture" - Filter

• "Take Back the City" - Snow Patrol

• "Take What You Take" - Lilly Allen

• "The Adventure" - Angels & Airwaves

• "The Impression That I Get" - Mighty Mighty Bosstones

• "Turn Off The Lights" - Nelly Furtado

• "Walking On Sunshine" - Katrina and the Waves

• "Wannabe" - Spice Girls

• "Warwick Avenue" - Duffy

• "When I'm Gone" - 3 Doors Down

• "Whip It" - Devo

• "You Belong With Me" - Taylor Swift

• "YMCA" - Village People

• "You Had Me" - Joss Stone

These songs, with the 85 songs that are already on the Guitar Hero 5 Disc, allow me to choose from over 140 different songs, and since i have previously imported Guitar Hero Smash hits and downloaded Guitar Hero DLC - i now have over 220 songs to play from - which is alot of music.

Playstation 3 - 3.10 Firmware Update Goes Live

The latest Playstation 3 Firmware update, 3.10, officially went live this morning and one of the major features that has been added to the Playstation 3 is facebook.

Xbox Live went live with facebook, twitter and last.fm support earlier in the week, but 2 days later sony have now responded with their version of the facebook application.

At this moment in time the "facebook" on the PS3 only allows users to update their "Trophy status, PSN Store purchase information and recent gaming event information", users will not be able to post messages on the wall or view friends photos - this all has to be done via the main "facebook" website, which now looks more realistic and better than it did on the previous PSN Web browser.

Other small changes that are included in this firmware update is that "thumbnail photos" can be sorted into different layout, such as vertical (like previously) or in rows of 5 - which makes it easier to view alot of photos at once on screen. Also the background colour of your PSN Gamertag can be changed colour, as before it was a dull grey, but now you can customise is so your friends know exactly which person you are on their list. The last update is that "POLISH" is now an officially suported language on the Playstation 3 console.

For more information regarding this 3.10 Firmware update on the Playstation 3 check out a preview of it on the playstation.

Tekken 6 Online Patch To Be Released Thursday

NAMCO have recently announced that on Thursday 26th November an Online patch will be released for Tekken 6 on the Xbox 360 and PS3.

This online patch will fix a few problems (mainly the slow response time when pressing buttons during matches) aswell as adding new features such as showing your opponents signal strength.

In case you are wondering this fix that is due out later in the week, is not the same patch that is rumoured to update Scenario mode to online co-op (instead of offline co-op only). The scenario mode update patch is expected to be released later in the year.

Regarding the recent fix that is due to appear in Tekken 6's Online mode later in the week, here is a complete list of "update features" upon what it will change in the game:

• Improved input response: improvement of the game's responsiveness to button / command inputs

• Selectable search priorities for ranked matches: players will be able to set search priorities for opponents in ranked matches based on comparable rank or connection quality as well as location

• Optimized data transmission between fighters and spectators: fight data will be optimized in order to reduce the bandwidth load on the host’s console

• Signal strength bars: the signal strength bar will reflect connection quality more accurately

• Chance to cancel match: players will be able to cancel the match before it begins once the opponent's signal strength has been displayed on ranked matches.

With these "newly" updated feature and fixes the online aspect of Tekken 6 should become more enjoyable and playable then ever before.

Tekken 6 already up on PSP

Tekken fanatics out there - Tekken 6 on PSP was already up a week ago so check it out guys. I have it on PSP just now. Tekken 6 is also available on PS3 and Xbox 360. If you got an ICQ guys I can share you up the file - just leave a comment and add me up on your ICQ account. (Here's my ICQ - 572848760).

New Live Channels added to Sky Player on Xbox 360

If your a Xbox SKY Player Customer and (or) a fan of the Sky service then you may have recently noticed that "several" new "LIVE" Channels have been added to the service.

Most noticeable are "Eden" , "Crime & Investigation" aswell as another childrens live channel "Disney XD"

This news may not "interest" everyone, however it does indicate that Microsoft and Sky will (over time) bring new LIVE Channels to the Xbox Sky Player. Its all just a matter of "when" and "how long". But as usual Sky and Microsoft will just give us the answer of "soon".

However seeing Disney XD live on the Xbox Sky Player sort of makes me happy as they tend to show Pokemon Marathrons (including Pokemon Movies 10 and 11) - which i always forget to record - either way Happy viewing!

Gomola Speed

Retro Game of the Day! Gomola Speed

It is no secret that I am fond of strange & obscure games (and studios). That's why titles like Gomola Speed by UPL (1990 for PC-Engine, the Japanese TurboGrafx-16) were made for me.

There are plenty of people who argue against video game emulation for many reasons, but let's face it, without dipping in now and again I would have never discovered little gems like this! Gomola speed puts you in command of a strange worm creature, with an expandable body of sorts.

The goal is to reach the exit of each top-down mazelike level, avoiding enemies and capturing food (by encircling it with your body, similar to how Sega's NiGHTS attack mechanic works). Enemies can be stunned with bombs, then destroyed by similarly encircling them.

At the base your worm is just a head (vulnerable to death if an enemy touches it) but otherwise you can pick up "balls" to extend your body and therefore increase your food/enemy encircling ability. However, the longer your body, the lower your multiplier for points - although you will need all your body parts attached to gain passage through a level exit.

Hmm, the more I read what I am writing, the more this game sounds like some kind of trippy nightmare! In all seriousness, Gomola Speed is a very fun and unique spin on a proven game style - and typical of some of the weirder obscure titles available on this wonderful system. I'd love to see more titles of this genre be made available through re-release/virtual console.

News? Yep news!

A bit slow in the world of FOSS gaming lately, and all the forum trouble here at FreeGamer/FreeGameDev certainly didn't help.

But with the help of Ghoul and qudobup there is now a new and advanced forum (well it still needs a nice non-standard style, but functionality is there).

So go and post some FOSS gaming news in there!

Bloodfrontier Beta2

So what news are there actually? Today a new beta of Bloodfrontier has been released! It is a FPS based on Cube2: Sauerbraten, which tries to do some things a little different while still keeping it a fun FPS.

Bloodfrontier beta2 trailer

Changes you can expect include running along walls and kicking of them (Parkour like features seem a bit of a trend in gaming lately... War§ow also has a similar feature), all new secondary fire-modes and a precursor to coop campains amongst the usual new maps and graphical updates.

Tremulous 1.2 gameplay beta

Shocking news! After years of waiting there is some movement on the Tremulous 1.2 front. You can now download and update to your existing 1.1 install with which you can test the new game-play changes of the upcoming 1.2 release (when ever that might arrive).

Changes include mostly balancing fixes and some "rearrangements" in game-play.

Sadly it does not include all the nice graphical updates which have leaked from the dev team now and then.

Some news from the Nexuiz forum

No new release from Nexuiz yet, but some interesting news never the less.

There are some nice upcoming new player models (link1, link2); Something which really is the last graphical department where Nexuiz doesn't shine.

And ODE physics have been implemented into Nexuiz:

Rube Goldberg machine in Nexuiz

Besides these great news, there is a nice modification in the works which adds zombies and spider-bots (awesome combination if you ask me ;) ).

Bayonetta Demo Now Available on XBL and PSN

SEGA's latest (and much talked about) hack and slash, Devil May Cry styled, game - most commonly known as "Bayonetta" may not be released till early next year however fans following the game can now "rejorce" as the demo is now available for download on both UK and US PSN and XBL Accounts.

The Demo, which was previously released several months ago on the Japanese XBL Servers, and most recently been given away as FREE USA XBL CODE Downloads in Competitions finally lands on UK Consoles today, and even though its took all this time to get here its still the demo (with nothing extra added) that i played several months ago and at the recent Eurogamer Expo.

The Demo itself is around 780mb (on the Xbox 360) and 1664mb (on the PS3) and contains 2 Different levels - 1 level mainly fighting and showing the "action" side of Bayonetta, where as the other level shows more of the "adventure" side of Bayonetta, either way - if you enjoyed Devil May Cry you will certainly like Bayonetta.

On another note Eurogamer are currently running a competiton where a few lucky people could win an imported (PS3) copy of the game, which will run on any PS3 Console (since PS3 Games are Region 3) or a limited edition version of the Xbox 360 (PAL) game. For more information on this competition.

Super Mario Land

Retro Game of the Day! Super Mario Land

Super Mario Land by Nintendo for GameBoy, released at the system's launch in 1989. My, that was quite an eventful year then, hm? (Sega Genesis and TurboGrafx-16 each launched in the States that same year). Who knew..!

And so, we bring you Mario's first portable outing. Well, other than all of the LCD Game & Watches and such, which I suppose there were many of - but this was the first "big deal" in a way. With a new system to launch, and a new market to initiate (and conquer), Nintendo had a lot of work ahead of them once again. They may have not delivered with a fancy color display on their portable model, but titles with gameplay such as Mario Land and Tetris more than sufficed for the time being.

What we received was basically a very scaled-down version of what had previously worked (quite well) in the home market. Mario Land was not a clone of the original console experience, but it did a good job of aping many of the conventions while expanding upon them ever-so-slightly. The consumer base was quite satisfied with the result - though the game was quite shallow compared to other (larger) console releases appearing at the time, as a launch title on an unproven portable platform Mario Land could do no wrong, and it was very well-received.

As usual, Mario is tasked with rescuing a princess (Daisy) from a new rival (Tatanga the Mysterious Spaceman... errr whatever!) Canon notwithstanding, the run-jump-dodge mechanics of the previous games were here in shrunken-down form. The fireball powerup was replaced with a "Super Ball Mario" (some things just don't translate well!) which could be used for angled attacks, and also to retrieve coins with.

New to this adventure was the inclusion of side-view shooting segments, 1st (and probably last!) in a Mario game. You'd take flight in Sky Pop or submerge with Marine Pop and dispatch with enemies. It felt strange doing this in a Mario game, but the deviance was welcome - Mario Land felt fairly "experimental" like a one-off anyway.

The game looks very sparse and simple now, but at the time it was absolutely a blast to be able to play this without being tethered to a normal TV setup. The game was charming in its diminutive nature, and the always-cute graphics coupled with the happy little soundtrack augmented the time-tested, if predictably average, gameplay. That's not to say the game was not well-designed - though it wasn't taking any chances, it was a solid and enjoyable effort from beginning to end.

Nintendo did a wonderful job with this Mario title, they had to - it marked the birth of the entire portable pillar for them, and so a lot was riding on it. At the same time, though even then Mario was a huge name in videogaming, they took a huge leap of faith by selling it separately - otherwise-unknown Tetris was chosen as the pack-in game for the GameBoy units, and that choice ultimately said a lot about both games and what Nintendo was thinking for the future. Mario did well regardless, and still holds up today as a fun little exercise - but Tetris was bundled with the GB and has (rightly) gone on to inspire a whole genre of video entertainment, while Super Mario Land was essentially a side story in an already-ongoing saga.

Donkey Kong Jr

Retro Game of the Day! Donkey Kong Jr

Donkey Kong Jr by Nintendo, released in 1982 in the arcade. The follow-up to their behemoth title which appeared a year earlier - how does this one measure up?

In the 1980s, as has been noted before in this column, sequels to arcade games often had little to do with the previous installments of games they were based on, sometimes sharing basic themes and little else - perhaps an evolution of mechanic. DKJR certainly falls into this category, as it is certainly similar to the first episode, yet the way everything works is quite different.

In the first game, the player controlled Mario, who was trying to rescue his girlfriend from the big ape's clutches. This time around, Mario is the enemy - he's captured Donkey Kong (turnabout is fair play, right?) and you control DK's son, attempting to rescue your daddy. "Such irony, Miyamoto!"

Anyway, it works. The game seems to be an evolution of the previous engine, you still have a large Donkey Kong sprite holding the top spot at screen left - of course, this time he's imprisoned - and the game as whole is a lot more tropical and colorful. Mechanic-wise, Junior can jump like Mario did in #1 - but he can also grab and ascend up vines or poles.

Like the first game, the goal is to reach the screen's top - but often you need to physically "grab" a key to represent freeing your dad, or (in the case above) push a series of keys into locks in order to liberate him. Offensively, gone are the mallets from the first game - Jr can drop fruit when climbing onto pursuing enemies below. This is pretty difficult to setup and not really worth the effort much of the time.

DKJR is a strange and confounding game - and like the previous iteration, it can be quite difficult. When it released, it was warmly received in arcades; Donkey Kong was a hugely popular game, and this followed the coattails rather nicely. Perhaps it was a bit more complex, even too much so, than the first, and so it never achieved the same popularity - all the same, an enjoyable and colorful game, and one which is still fun to try today.

iPhone App Game Development

iPhone App Game Development Blog #16

Development blog sixteen! So, pardon me, I have taken a break for a couple of weeks. For shame!

Things are going well. Development on 180 is proceeding as usual. It should not come as a surprise to anyone who reads this column with any regularity, that the procedure in this case has ben one of much irregularity. iFist - our debut app - was much easier to develop as the scope was much smaller. 180 isn't a particularly "larger" game just by looking at the screen grabs, but there is a lot more going on under the hood and so a fair deal of extra work has had to be done (and several concerns to be dealt with). We came very close to releasing it recently, but decided to let it sit in the oven for awhile longer and push it towards more of a "deluxe" version.

I feel it is the right idea, as this is really our opportunity to make a splash with the community at this point. iFist was getting our feet wet - 180 is diving in headfirst! I'll conclude by saying the gameplay is rock-solid, even after some months of development it's become quite refined and I still get lost for hours with the game. It is easily my favorite puzzler on the iPhone. "Sure you will say that, it's your game you are trying to promote!" Prove me wrong, alright! We've been testing a lot with friends (and strangers) and many people are describing it as addictive. I have trouble getting them to give me back my phone..

Outside of 180, things are fairly quiet around Headcase Games. Originally the plan was to release 3 games by the end of the year, due to extenuating circumstances we won't even have our second available until early 2010. As for next year's plan? It is actually very exciting, a lot of things will be coming out of us next year. It is still rather early to tell, and of course a lot of things depend on the reception of 180. If the game does really well, we have lots of plans to soup it up and do a sequel. The rough ideas are already in place, and I'd love to charge into that immediately. At the same time, it would be very gratifying to shelve all of that and go forward with a different game altogether, and we've got lots of things on the boards for other exciting projects. As we are a small operation, we must concentrate on one thing at a time before planning our next move.

It is worth noting that Ben and I are working to help out some friends with a small game development startup (howwwwww many startups have I been involved with this year?!) and you can bet that it is certainly affecting everything else..

Socially, things are going quite well. We are closing in one 10,000 friends on Myspace, 150 Fans on Facebook (Facebook fans are hard to come by! Especially when you've not released any products for months) and just shy of 3,000 followers on Twitter. This is all very important to us, in that our connection with the outside world is going to absolutely make or break our success. We have been working hard to build (and maintain) strong ties with the community out there, to give you all reasons to look at our page and see what we are up to. It sort of goes without saying, but this is really our main line when we release a game since we aren't putting out lots of paid advertisement for our productions. It's all a big experiment, but so far the results (in the set-up) have been very satisfying. It will be very interesting to see how the follow-through plays out.

And so, we move on to "iPhone App Reviews," such as they are. What's spinning on my iPhone lately? Besides 180?

Drop7 - yeah, still. Since I first mentioned it, this game has completely sucked me in but good. I play it every day now. It is a marvelously designed game and the masterminds behind it must be quite proud. I am eager to see what else they've got up their sleeves. I think my high score on hardcore is 400,000

Squareball - this has been described as "love it or hate it," do tell! The screens screamed "stylish and retro" to me so of course I picked up the lite. It's nice - I like the idea. But I got frustrated in about 1 minute. I feel bad to say, but after a couple of tries, I can't see myself trying this one any more.

OneStrokeShare - Supposed to be a ripoff of "Polarium" from DS, right down to graphics rips. I tried to load it up but the instructions were confounding. There were like 6 pages of "how to play" - no thanks! I'll leave it there and give it a try sometime as I have heard I would love Polarium, but man..

Pac-Man Remix - I did (and do) love the screen grabs of this. I am a sucker for pac-things and so have had my eye on it for awhile, Namco dropped it to like $1 for Thanksgiving so I finally bit (though, I was wary!) I was suspect of the controls, and they didn't disappoint in that they are awkward. Still, not as bad as could be and I will play it some more. I would be so much happier with a joystick though. Pac just doesn't play right with touchscreen, no matter how you slice it!

ADD - Addictive Dumb Distractions - one of my thoughts was to make an iPhone version of Wario Ware - someone beat me to the punch! I barely played this at all yet, but the moment I spent with it led me to believe it was worth the couple of bucks I parted with for the purchase. My heart goes out to the poor dev, this thing was in submission hell for like NINE MONTHS. Holy crap.

Ramp Champ - heard it was free so I jumped on it. This is a highly-rated app that people have been talking about for awhile (and I have always admired the design/screenshots) so a free DL was a no-brainer. After a couple of moments of play, I quickly realized that I don't care. Ski ball (the "official one") is supposed to be pretty fun, or so they say - I hope it is more fun than this! I don't mean to piss on the dev, this is one of the most beautiful applications I have seen and the attention to detail is fascinating. I just wish they applied all that TLC to a more worthy gameplay experience. Tossing balls on my iPhone is not such a blast at all.

Scramble 2 - my friends just turned me onto this title the other night. A free download, I'll say this is the recommendation of the week. So addictive, so clean, so easy to pick up and play. The game is not without it's issues, but the game is so good (and so full-featured) and it is free that I feel bad even complaining. Basically it drops a bunch of letters, and you have 2 min to drag your finger to connect adjacent letters into words. It takes a little while to get your brain around it - even after a couple of days I am still trying to adjust. it's not easy, and not for stupid people, but I like the way it makes me think. The most irritating aspect of it, is that there are so many "non-words" in there - you will see what I mean. A must-download!

Cobra Command - Another very recommended app, with a bit of explanation - many people will dislike this game. It is a port of an old 1980s laserdisc game, it looks (and sounds) like an old episode of GI Joe. It is very charming, and brings me back to the old days! There is a bit of a trend with these lately, which makes me happy, but then these games can also be quite frustrating with their very binary gameplay. It is irresistable to DL this as it is currently only $1 on the Appstore down from $4 (after only a few days!) and "they say"they are gonna bonk it up to $10. Who knows - but absolutely worth a dollar, hands down, for anyone to try (especially if you are over 30!) Warning, a beefy download (shy of 300 Mb). Also, I must note that EA just released Dragon's Lair, "the king of Laserdisc games!" I am waiting for M.A.C.H. 3, personally..!

Side Arms

Retro Game of the Day! Side Arms

Side Arms, or Side Arms Hyper Dyne, depending on who you ask - released by Capcom in the arcades in 1986, and porting to the TurboGrafx-16 in 1989/1990 (Radiance).

Yep! It is another outerspace shooter. Okay, so maybe I didn't play to many RPGs or Sports titles as a kid - don't worry, we will get to more of those in the future. The 1980s and 90s were pretty cluttered up with this stuff - and there was no shortage of them from Capcom, certainly.

Side Arms was part of a "semi-series" (unnofficial, not connected by name) of shooters of "a guy flying through space instead of a straight-up spaceship" that Capcom was known for producing back in the day. In fact I can't think of any proper Gradius-style games they've ever released, can anyone enlighten me?

Following on the heels of Section Z (another "robot guy flying in space") and in a similar era as the ("unconnected") Legendary Wings, Side Arms felt like a distinctive mashup of the former and top-down historical-themed blaster 1943: The Battle of Midway. The powerups all seemed very familiar (the giant "POW" that you could pick up, and blast across the screen, the general art style and aesthetic, despite the completely different theme) and compared to their predecessors, the arsenal available to the player in this game was much more souped-up/impressive compare to what Capcom had put out there before. Side Arms lived up to its title, this game was all about blasting.

Of course compared to its brethren, Side Arms had a few distinctive things going for it. Number One was it was much more conventional at the time; very straightforward levels, large graphically impressive bosses awaiting you at each round's end. And Two, this was a 2-Player affair, like the contemporary Wings. Unlike that game, when a special powerup was collected the two-players could merge together into a "super warrior" (awkwardly controllable by both players!) with a very increased multi-directional shot. It was strange at the time, but different and therefore kind of cool.

Side Arms gave way to Forgotten Worlds, ultimately, which was the cream of the crop of this type of game - we will review it someday! In the meantime this is a good, if somewhat average, period shooter to take out for a spin. Strangely, it never appeared on any main console other than the TurboGrafx-16 (and even then, I believe it was only a single-player port - I am not sure of that, however).

Monster Hunter 3 tri

Monster Hunter 3 tri - the third console installment in the Monster Hunter franchise was released for the Wii on August 1, 2009 by Capcom and is the direct sequel to Monster Hunter 2. It was first announced for the Playstation 3, but was canceled. Capcom, specifically Capcom managing corporate officer Katsuhiko Ichii, announced on October 10, 2007 that Monster Hunter 3 will be a completely Wii-exclusive title.

Prior to its debut, a demo of Monster Hunter 3 was included with Japanese copies of Monster Hunter G. A special bundle was also released on August 1 featuring the game packaged with a black Wii console and a Classic Controller Pro. On August 3, 2009, Capcom issued a press release confirming the game will be localized for North American and European markets. It's currently undecided whether or not the Western release will have monthly fees for online play.

The ecosystem of the game has been expanded to include underwater environments and desert regions. Including Eighteen new monsters that were developed for the game, their interactive AI completely redesigned. Each weapon class has been updated with new moves and innovations. Weapon classes included are Sword and Shield, Great Sword, Hammer, Bowgun (Light, Medium and Heavy), Lance, Katana (Longsword), and the new Slash Axe, which can switch between Axe and sword forms. Bows, Gunlances, Hunting Horns and Dual Swords do not return from previous installments. According to producer Tsujimoto Ryozo, "[Capcom] love the idea of voice chat (WiiSpeak) and know that it is a minimum for western players," suggesting Western releases of Monster Hunter Tri may feature support for the peripheral.

Happy Gnu Year

I know it's a corny title but, hey, it doesn't hurt to occasionally pay homage to the movement that preceded what we now know as 'open source'.

2010. Could be a good year!

We have a revamped FreeGameDev forum. It was a big spanner in the works when the previous forum got lost, but in the long term it may have been a blessing in disguise. Now the forum is better organized, using more recognised software, and has a very nice theme designed by Qubodup.

I encourage project maintainers reading this post to go straight to the Project Showcase & Collaboration area and share your hard work with us and the community so that more people can learn of your games.

The FreeGameDev Planet has also since returned, also looking better with a new theme by the dedicated Qubodup. And let's not forget the FreeGameDev Wiki, the place to point any budding open source game developer.

I'd also like some feedback on another idea - an open source games subreddit. This would allow easier submission of game updates or news from anybody. It is moderated, so shouldn't fill up with spam. Since it is part of reddit, it may also result in massively increased exposure for popular submissions. It can also be themed, but there's no point putting effort into that if it's not something that'll get used, so... feedback! :-)

I'd also like to thank Julius for some good articles during a quiet period for Qubodup and myself, and long may it continue - Julius' contributing, that is, not the quiet period! I like to think that the blog does serve a purpose and the more quality content the better.

Well, I hope you have a productive year, and that we get to enjoy the many open source game updates that are going to occur. There are some good ones already that have slipped in during the festive season, but that's for another day!

 - C

R-Type

Retro Game of the Day! R-Type

R-Type by Irem, arcade release in 1987 and ported to several systems in the following years. Today the concentration will be on the Sega Master System port, released in 1988. There was also a release with the launch of the TurboGrafx-16 in the States, another year after that.

Yes, R-Type - called "The Led Zeppelin of Shoot-em-ups," this game is known far and wide even all these years later as being one of the true genre-defining legends. It's story is strange - published in the arcades in the West by Nintendo, but appearing only (at the time) as a flagship Sega Master System cartridge, R-Type was a bit of an anomaly. I never saw the arcade until years later, but I did see the commercials - and then I got my hands on the cart.

The game was a sight to behold, one play and it was evident why we weren't getting this on the NES. The graphics were up there with the best of what was available at the time, the shooting action was intense, the stages and enemies were iconic and memorable. Shooters were far from a novelty (NES gamers had been enjoying the likes of Konami's Gradius and Life Force for years by now!), but this title changed the game in a lot of ways. Suddenly the genre was much more exciting then ever!

The shots shown here are simple, a lot of sacrifices had to be made to get this to squeeze into the Master System's memory - even so, it was impressive. Dig up some shots of the TG-16 or arcade versions, and the pixel art still looks impressive and beautiful even in the modern day. The SMS version made a concession by throwing in a new level not found in the arcade or other ports.

R-Type stood out from others of its ilk by introducing the "Force" pod, a power-up which you could detach from your fighter and use as a free-floating "option" - or you could stick it to the rear and blast away at foes behind you. It was invulnerable ("hmm why didn't they just build the whole ship that way?") and could pass effortlessly through background scenery which would otherwise smash you - and was helpful to use as a shield from enemy fire. You could power up your weapons 3 times, using a vertical shot, a 3-beam reflective laser, or the awesome Ring Laser which ripped through enemies and just.. looked really cool. Additionally, you could pick up two separate "bits" which would each hover above and below your craft. Interestingly, they'd only fire if you used the Ring Laser - R-Type was the first game, to my knowledge, to give the player such an interesting "extended family" of firepower devices.

Also unique to R-Type was the "charge beam" - you could blast away with your rapid-fire finger, or hold down the button for a moment and charge that puppy; unleash away and a deadly, singular shot would release, very helpful when engaging bosses. Speaking of which, all the bosses in the game were gloriously and meticulously rendered, many looking like something out of HR Giger's nightmarish psyche - and it would be shameful to forget to mention the third stage battle cruiser, which you'd destroy in phases before engaging its engine for the final takedown.

The original R-Type kicked off a hugely popular series, which has evolved even to this day - it has made appearances on several platforms in the years since, and many of them have been spectacular above-average efforts enjoyed by many. For me, I will never forget the first time I was clued into this cartridge, when suddenly shooters became extremely important to me!

Enjoy Retro Game of the Day? Please support us and pick up a copy of iFist for iPhone and Ipod Touch! Available NOW on the iTunes Appstore! It's just a buck!

Final Fantasy XIII Official US English Trailer

Finally, Square Enix released the trailer of an epic proportion for Final Fantasy XIII, now in English, featuring a new CGI, gameplay, story and characters.

Flying Dragon

Retro Game of the Day! Flying Dragon

Flying Dragon by Culture Brain for NES, released in the USA In 1989.


Just another karate game.

Crisis Force

Retro Game of the Day! Crisis Force

Crisis Force by Konami, an epic shoot-'em-up released for Famicom (Japanese version of the NES) in 1991. This was never released domestically. Much to my consternation!

First, some business to get out of the way - yesterday's review was a tongue-in-cheek callout to an old joke. In an old issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly, I think it was actuallythe first "real" issue, they'd adopted the Famitsu (famous Japanese game review mag) style of "4-review-crew" blurbs per game, superimposed over each reviewer's 1-to-10 rating of the title in question. This was quite a novelty in US gaming press, and this drama was punctuated by one of the reviewer's blurb about a game called Flying Dragon - the entirety of which was quoted in yesterday's review. So, there's the joke. Some people got it, some didn't. Moving on..

Crisis Force was a late entry into the Nintendo Pantheon of space shooters, so late that it actually never saw release outside of The Homeland. For what reason, I am not sure - it was a graphical tour-de-force with plenty of engaging gameplay for the style of game it was ("vertical shmup") and it featured 2-player simultaneous action. Ohh, that sounds dirty! The point is, the NES was never known for being able to push these types of games (fast-moving shooters with tons of detailed characters on screen) so this was absolutely a remarkable accomplishment.

Even more so considering the amount of special FX going on. Pick up the game and the player will immediately notice similarities to 16-Bit titles like M.U.S.H.A., with several levels of detailed parallax scrolling trying to distract you as enemies fly in to destroy your fighter.

There is a lot of depth to this game (configurable ships, merging with the second player, mutitple weapons systems, etc) and the challenge can be quite daunting. Since it was such a late-day presentation, relatively few people knew it existed and therefore it never achieved the popularity of a Contra or Life Force. That's a shame, as this game was truly a labor of love and absolutely a testament to what the NES (errr, Famicom) could do when put through its proper paces.