Credit Cards Submit! Releases for 2/11/08

slash000

Professor Layton and the Curious Village (DS)

Marking Level 5's first foray onto the DS, Professor Layton is an old-fashioned point-and-click adventure which requires your use of skills such as reasoning, knowledge and creativity to solve various puzzles.

Lost Odyssey (X360)

Lost Odyssey is the story of Kaim, an immortal character who has lived more than 1,000 years. He doesn't remember his past, and he doesn't know where his future lies. Throughout Kaim's journey, a handful of characters join him on an odyssey to discover their intricate past and destiny, leading players through a dramatic story of massive scale. Massively multiplayer online role-playing game elements are blended into the game's traditional role-playing game system, enabling players to make strategic decisions for a more immersive and deep gameplay experience. With story sequences penned by award-winning Japanese novelist Kiyoshi Shigematsu in cooperation with producer Hironobu Sakaguchi, Lost Odyssey sets a new benchmark for the RPG genre with a combination of true-to-life cinematics and an intriguing story of an immortal man. Players will witness Kaim's life as he lives through many generations, becomes part of numerous families, falls in and out of love, and confronts all of the conflicts that arise. Kaim’s struggles are set in a world that is on the verge of a "mystical industrial revolution," where mankind has attained dark powers. The massively scoped worlds, memorable characters and epic storyline play as an intense and unsettling blockbuster action film. Heading up the artistic demands of the title is famed Japanese comic artist Takehiko Inoue. Renowned composer Nobuo Uematsu has been recruited to create a contemporary soundtrack. [Microsoft]

Conflict: Denied Ops (PC, X360, PS3)

When the US government needs to act, but can not afford to be associated with the operation, deniable operatives are dispatched. Members of the unit must bear no identity; no objects, papers or clothing that could associate them with the government. Their task is to do anything necessary, no matter how ruthless, to dissolve the threat. Conflict: Denied Ops puts players in control of two of these merciless operatives, each of them highly specialized in both weapons and military tactics. With gameplay focused on accessible two-man tactics, utilize simple commands and switch seamlessly between team mates to lay down covering fire, explore diverging paths, create distractions and pin the enemy under fire. Making full use of Pivotal's Puncture Technology, Conflict: Denied Ops features a highly destructible environment, allowing players to utilize tactics such as shooting through walls to create sniping holes or blasting open new paths to take the enemy by surprise. Fighting for a good cause, does not mean they have to play by the rules. Brutalize the opposition, blast down buildings, and destroy everything in true Hollywood fashion – all throughout politically sensitive areas across South America, Africa and Russia. [Eidos Interactive]

Penumbra: Black Plague (PC)

Penumbra: Black Plague is a creepy and dark psychological horror experience featuring the adventures of Philip as he sets of in search of his dead father. Trapped in a shadowy, underground complex, intrepid explorer Philip is determined to discover the truth behind his father's disappearance. Surrounded by enemies and assaulted by terror from all sides, Philip must collect clues and solve vexing puzzles while combating the gnawing psychological terrors that assail his mind and threaten to strip him of his sanity. Can Philip master his fear and finally uncover the truth behind a mystery that has haunted him for a lifetime? Only you can decide. [Paradox Interactive]

Jumper (X360, WII, PS2)

Jumpers, people with a genetic anomaly that enables them to teleport themselves instantaneously to anywhere on the globe, have existed for centuries. An age-old battle rages between the Jumpers and the Paladins, a clandestine organization set on eliminating them from the planet. The Jumper game extends the film's storyline, following Griffin, a battle-hardened Jumper determined to avenge the death of his parents at the hands of the Paladins. Griffin's quest to find the killer spans exotic locales around the world. Jump Ability - Use your teleportation skills to "Jump" within hand-to-hand combat range of an enemy to start dishing out devastating blows. Combos - Exciting and intense layered combo fighting system. Finishing Moves - Instantly teleport enemies to exotic perilous locations to finish them. Enemy classes - Deeply ranked hierarchy of Paladin enemy types. Exotic Locales - 5 combat arenas set all around the world – Colosseum, Griffin's Desert Lair, Nepal, Tokyo Streets and Experimental Lab Facility. Unlockable abilities - Unlockable skills and combos through gameplay. [Brash Entertainment]

Dungeon Explorer: Warrior of the Ancient Arts (PSP, DS)

The PSP has its own unique story of Three Kingdoms and the heroes that rise up to fight back the looming Evil. Dungeon Explorer: Warriors of Ancient Arts is a fully customizable adventure throwing hundreds of weapons, skills, and fighting styles your way while keeping the classic game’s exciting multiplayer element intact. [Hudson]

The DS version picks up a few centuries after the PSP version, and follows the story of heroes who rise to fight against the evil Demon God and his legions of the undead. Dungeon Explorer: Warriors of Ancient Arts is a fully customizable adventure; throwing hundreds of weapons, skills, and fighting styles your way while keeping the classic game’s exciting multiplayer element intact. [Hudson]

Dark Messiah of Might and Magic: Elements (X360)

In Dark Messiah of Might and Magic: Elements, players are introduced to the dark and unforgiving world of Ashan, scarred by a bloody history and threatened by the apocalyptic prophecy of the Dark Messiah. The game sports a refined experience thanks to several improvements in gameplay, design and other technical aspects. Players embody the young hero Sareth and choose his evolution path to acquire spells, skills and abilities that will set his destiny. Experience Might and Magic like never before, with refined game mechanics carefully crafted for pad-controlled carnage, including a brand new lock-on feature and tweaked level design and game statistics. Explore three previously unreleased secret levels with new objectives, gameplay, and rewards. New multiplayer maps have been created exclusively for Xbox 360, while all other features have been completely remastered for an optimal Xbox Live experience, allowing you to play with up to 10 players. Enlist with the Humans or the Undead and choose to play as an archer, priestess, mage or knight. Make use of powerful and unique skills and spells on the battlefield, including powers such as meteor shower, berserk charge and rain of arrows. [Ubisoft]

Spaceforce: Captains (PC)

Now it's your turn: discover, explore and conquer an entire Universe. But it won't be easy: the unique mix of turn-based strategy and role-playing is extremely challenging! Choose from more than 100 Captains and upgrade your ships in almost unlimited ways. Lead your customized squadrons into the fight with 6 distinct species and conquer solar system after solar system. An Atmospheric 3D animated world with crisp graphics and a pulsating storyline with many side quests await you. Addictive RPG elements will keep you on the edge with each Captain that you command. Decide battles against neutral squadrons, bands of pirates or opposing fleets in your favour by strategic movements and foreseeing resource management. Enhance and upgrade your space stations as well as your captains and fleets step-by-step by discovering over 200 cutting-edge technologies. [DreamCatcher Interactive]

Sam & Max Episode 203: Night of the Raving Dead (PC)

I have nothing, sorry.

Carrier Strike Force (PC)

got nothin'

XIII Century: Death or Glory (PC)

nothing again!

Wipeout Pulse (PSP)

As is tradition with the series, gamers trench race at high speeds in futuristic vehicles outfitted with weapons. New to the franchise with Pulse is a mag-strip, a part of the track that locks the vehicles onto the track, allowing them to race through loops, 90-degree-angled parts of the track, and steep drops. The game features seven different modes, wireless support, 24 new tracks, and eight teams (including one called EG-X). Downloadable content is available immediately upon release. The game's soundtrack features tracks from Stanton Warriors, Loco Dice, and Mason, but players can opt to play their own MP3 files from a memory stick.

Innocent Life: A Futuristic Harvest Moon (Special Edition) (PS2)

(Also known as "Harvest Moon: Innocent Life") Advanced robots and computers do the work for people on Heartflame Island, but this shiny technology can't save the inhabitants from an ancient curse. The spell could be broken if someone unlocks the ancient lands sealed off from humans, but you're the only one capable of pulling it off. Can you work hard and reclaim the land before time runs out? Grow crops and raise animals in a futuristic world. Unlock the secrets of the ancient ruins as you interact with the villagers. Explore the island, by walking or ATV...one of many high-tech tools at your disposal. [Natsume]

RPG Maker VX (PC)

Nothing here either, sorry

I guess the ones to look forward to are.. Professor Layton, Lost Odyssey, Sam & Max, and Wipeout Pulse. The others I have not heard much of.. Maybe the weird Natsume 'futuristic' harvest moon?



Adding:

Audiosurf:

Audiosurf is a music adapting puzzle racer where you use your own music to create your own experience. The shape, speed, and the mood of each ride is determined by the song you choose. You earn points for clustering together blocks of the same color on the highway, and compete with others on the internet for the high score on your favorite songs.

Orange Box Original Soundtrack

langfor6

I'm having a hard time deciding between Puppy Palace or the horse game. Damn these limited resources!

IceBurner

For those who have never heard of it, RPG Maker is a series of RPG game engines with a built-in, user-friendly interface, database, & tools for creating your own RPGs. It originated on Gameboy, spawned two SNES editions, a PS1 version, one for GBA, and several PS2 editions. The home-console versions from PS1 onward have been commercially released in English. The Playstation 2 RPG Makers are 3d; all others are all 2d.

The first PC version was RPG Maker 95 and there have been several editions since. RPG Maker 2000 was the first to truly offer features equivalent to a big-name 16-bit console game. Starting with RPG Maker XP, you can edit the game engine itself, which is coded in a language called "Ruby". This provides an extremely powerful platform upon which you can create ... nearly anything RPG or platformer-ish.

Please be aware that only XP & VX have been officially released in English for PC. No edition of RPG Maker is freeware.


Official english site and demo for RPG Maker VX: http://tkool.jp/products/rpgvx/eng/index.html

VX looks to be a sort of revised/expanded/upgraded engine based upon XP:

• An apparent decrease in image sizes, seems to be due to a lower screen resolution of 544x416 (that's an odd one...). While it might still allow for variable-size sprites, the stock character art is now even more super-deformed.
  
• Inventory and spell icons are now picked from a "system icon set": a single large image with all the icons set up like tiles -- same idea as the tilesets for building areas. This is as opposed to having to select from a list of individual images in XP. Quicker to edit, find, and choose so it's actually a nice improvement.
  
• The addition of icons for indicating status effects, also picked from the same system icon set.
  
• Support for automaticly showing character portraits in dialogue boxes is back in.
  
• Each map now has 5 graphic layers, and you can select a different tileset for each as-you-work, without leaving the map editor. This is an increase in flexibility and the number of graphic layers.
  
• Certain common events such as doors and item pickups seem now have streamlined automatic handling in addition to being able to make them the old-fashioned way.
  
• The random dungeon generator that was in at least one previous version has returned.

Magic Pink

slash000 wrote: »

Dungeon Explorer: Warrior of the Ancient Arts (PSP, DS)
The PSP has its own unique story of Three Kingdoms and the heroes that rise up to fight back the looming Evil. Dungeon Explorer: Warriors of Ancient Arts is a fully customizable adventure throwing hundreds of weapons, skills, and fighting styles your way while keeping the classic game’s exciting multiplayer element intact. [Hudson]

The DS version picks up a few centuries after the PSP version, and follows the story of heroes who rise to fight against the evil Demon God and his legions of the undead. Dungeon Explorer: Warriors of Ancient Arts is a fully customizable adventure; throwing hundreds of weapons, skills, and fighting styles your way while keeping the classic game’s exciting multiplayer element intact. [Hudson]

Anyone know anything different between these two? I downloaded the Japanese PSP demo and it looked neat but are you stuck with the 4 characters as made or do you make your own? And how does the DS differ?

Magic Pink

slash000 wrote: »

Maybe the weird Natsume 'futuristic' harvest moon?

This is just the PS2 port of the PSP Innocent Life. It's crap. All they added was some in game events and a camera angle change.

darleysam

Well I saw the Conflict: Denied Ops demo on Live and thought I'd give it a shot, it had some part about a 'destructible environment' or whatever in there, and that sounded fun at least.

Waste of bandwidth.

Absolutely terrible to play, looked like an upscaled PS2 game, didn't enjoy a single second of the thing. The only 'destructible' stuff that I actually saw (stone? no sir, don't be a fool) was wood, and all that did was break obviously along pre-designated lines. Sure there were more of these than you might see in other games, but it's still pretty obvious what's going on. This wouldn't be so bad, if it weren't for the fact that a wooden box can fall all of 2 inches, before shattering neatly into approximately 8 evenly-sized sections, every time.
I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that the rest of the game used the same engine, and therefore doesn't exceed these benchmarks.

edit: in other news though, anyone know anything about that Spaceforce: Captains? The premise sounds interesting enough, certainly my kind of thing, but the fact that I've heard absolutely nothing about it, or the studio behind it, leads me to assume that it won't actually be any good.

Dirty

slash000 wrote: »

Not sure if we're still doing this thread or not, but I'll post this week's releases:

I think apotheos suggested that a new thread be made each week. I don't know if that was just his opinion as a poster, or his suggestion as a mod.

Also, I tried the Denied Ops demo. 3 flavors of ass.

KimFidler

I want to pick up Lost Odyssey but I still have so many games to wrap up at the moment. I have to max out Burnout, Mass Effect (which will probably wait until the DLC comes out), Halo 3, Bioshock. Blah.

Is there a chance of Lost Odyssey becoming hard to find or is it a big release that I'll be able to find in a couple of months?

darleysam

I'd assume he meant it as a mod, to avoid this becoming a megathread. Also this week, there's three games on Xbox Originals or whatever it's called, Black, Ninja Gaiden Black, and Sid Meier's Pirates. Anyone know how these run under BC? I'm probably more interested in Black or Pirates, since I've got NG, and although NG:B is meant to be easier, I've already had my ass kicked by it, and not sure I want to buy it again just to get the same treatment.

Dagrabbit

Dirty wrote: »

slash000 wrote: »

Not sure if we're still doing this thread or not, but I'll post this week's releases:

I think apotheos suggested that a new thread be made each week. I don't know if that was just his opinion as a poster, or his suggestion as a mod.

Also, I tried the Denied Ops demo. 3 flavors of ass.

The co-op aspect was fun enough for a rental somewhere down the line. Not worth a purchase though.

RainbowDespair

Might want to mention that Audiosurf comes out this week (Friday) on Steam. $10 ($9 if you preorder) and besides being an incredible game, it also comes with the Orange Box soundtrack.

And I wouldn't worry about not being able to find Lost Odyssey later on. Microsoft is publishing it after all.

apotheos

Dirty wrote: »

slash000 wrote: »

Not sure if we're still doing this thread or not, but I'll post this week's releases:

I think apotheos suggested that a new thread be made each week. I don't know if that was just his opinion as a poster, or his suggestion as a mod.

Also, I tried the Denied Ops demo. 3 flavors of ass.

Really lets do that. It would make for much better threads. Thats like 60% poster and 110% mod talking.

MHYoshimitzu

Magic Pink wrote: »

slash000 wrote: »

Maybe the weird Natsume 'futuristic' harvest moon?

This is just the PS2 port of the PSP Innocent Life. It's crap. All they added was some in game events and a camera angle change.

When you say it's crap, do you mean the game itself, or the port? I was interested in the PSP version but was waiting for a price drop.

Khavall

Add Audiosurf to the list.

This Friday.

With the Orange Box OST.

Couscous

XIII Century looks interesting.
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/xiiicenturyswordhonor/news.html?sid=6169432&mode=recent

If you took the popular Total War strategy games, stripped out their overarching turn-based strategic layer, and kept the awesome real-time battles, the resulting game would look a lot like XIII Century: Death or Glory, a real-time tactical game from 1C and developer Unicorn Games Studios that's about the brutal era of medieval warfare.

XIII Century is a game that's about battles, and nothing but battles. It will feature more than 30 of them, divided into five campaigns that cover European history. These include notable battles such as Bouvines, Falkirk, Las Navas de Tolosa, and Lake Peipus, a legendary battle in Russian history that was fought on the surface of a frozen lake. All of the battles aim to historically reconstruct as much as possible, from accurate depictions of the landscape and terrain to the weather conditions and the colorful heraldry of the participants. Of course, how the battle unfolds will be up to you and your skills.

Magic Pink

MHYoshimitzu wrote: »

Magic Pink wrote: »

slash000 wrote: »

Maybe the weird Natsume 'futuristic' harvest moon?

This is just the PS2 port of the PSP Innocent Life. It's crap. All they added was some in game events and a camera angle change.

When you say it's crap, do you mean the game itself, or the port? I was interested in the PSP version but was waiting for a price drop.

The game itself is very poor.

polaris314

I really need to show some restraint this week, but I know I'll probably cave and get Lost Odyssey and Audiosurf. I just started DMC4 (loving it so far), and got me a Radeon 2600hd to breathe some life back in my rig, which is finally starting to show its age with the advent of the more recent UE3 games/Crysis. So I have plenty to keep me occupied, not to mention I could use to save some money for a change, but I am really weak sometimes. :P

taliosfalcon

Khavall wrote: »

Add Audiosurf to the list.

This Friday.

With the Orange Box OST.

Xenogears of Bore

Magic Pink wrote: »

MHYoshimitzu wrote: »

Magic Pink wrote: »

slash000 wrote: »

Maybe the weird Natsume 'futuristic' harvest moon?

This is just the PS2 port of the PSP Innocent Life. It's crap. All they added was some in game events and a camera angle change.

When you say it's crap, do you mean the game itself, or the port? I was interested in the PSP version but was waiting for a price drop.

The game itself is very poor.

It's the worst Harvest Moon related game ever made. Puzzle de Harvest Moon included.

One Thousand Cables

Audiosurf for game of the week. I'll fight anyone who says otherwise.

But seriously, if you have a) an okay computer, b) any sort of music library, and c) ten dollars, get off your ass and buy it. Not only is it awesome, but you're also supporting indie game development.

Greg USN

I am very interested in Lost Odyssey but I really want to read some reviews of it first. I am not to worried about it having an old school system but I haven't heard if it has random or initiated battles. If its random I may have to think twice about it. Honestly that was the only thing I hated about Enchanted Arms.

amateurhour

I can't believe they're still making the RPG maker series. I remember getting the second one on PS1 (or maybe the first one) and it was decent, but they keyboard wasn't available so I got bored with it pretty quickly. I wouldn't mind getting my hands on one of the latter PS2 versions though.

Dixon

Ok...Spaceforce: Captains may not be the best name for a game, but I like the sound of the description. Checking this out now. *I wish I knew why people won't just make a game the exact same as Freelancer with more ships and more universe*

SirUltimos

IceBurner wrote: »

http://tkool.jp/products/rpgvx/index.html is the official Japanese homepage for RPG Maker VX. No English version of the game or page yet, but Enterbrain did surprise us all with an English release of RPG Maker XP (which I proudly own).

From the images, it honestly doesn't look vastly different from XP. I don't expect to have time to translate the text.

• An odd decrease in character/NPC art size. While it might might still allow for variable sizes, the stock art is now even more super-deformed.
  
• Inventory and spell icons are now picked from a "system icon set": a single large image with all the icons set up like tiles -- same idea as the tilesets for building areas. This is as opposed to having to select from a list of individual images in XP. Quicker to edit, find, and choose so it's actually a nice improvement.
  
• The addition of icons for indicating status effects, also picked from the same system icon set.
  
• Support for automaticly showing character portraits in dialogue boxes might be back in.
  
• I see tabs on the tileset selector in the map editor and the buttons to select which "tile layer" you're editing are gone from the iconic toolbar. It seems that each map now has 5 layers (one of them may or may not be the layer for events/sprites/NPCs), and my guess is that you can probably select a different tileset for each. This would be an increase in flexibility and possibly in the number of graphic layers.
  
• Looks like changes have been made to event handling. Doors and item pickups seem to have streamlined automatic handling. Not sure what's going on in the other two pictures.
  
• Can't recall if this was in XP, but the random dungeon generator that was in at least one previous version has returned.

The random dungeon generator was in 2003.

Thetheroo

Isn't Ace Attorney 4 out tommorow?

urahonky

Greg USN wrote: »

I am very interested in Lost Odyssey but I really want to read some reviews of it first. I am not to worried about it having an old school system but I haven't heard if it has random or initiated battles. If its random I may have to think twice about it. Honestly that was the only thing I hated about Enchanted Arms.

You're a terrible person for hating random battles.

Pent

This audiosurf game (thanks thread) looks incredible and so does Lost Odyssey.

That being said I'm looking into what the new dark messiah game is all about (re-release?)

slash000

Thetheroo wrote: »

Isn't Ace Attorney 4 out tommorow?

Apollo Justice comes out a week from tomorrow.

Spoit

SSBB was supposed to come out this week

Khavall

Spoit wrote: »

SSBB was supposed to come out this week

It's ok, I can say with 110% assurance that brawl will not have any more delays



Because it's coming out when I'll be away for spring break. And when I get back I have rehearsals every day until 11PM followed by production meetings and will not be able to play it 'till like, may.