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Written by Dustin Murphy
Man, this week has been a busy one, and game companies are certainly flooding the headlines with some major announcements. These announcements pertain almost down to just Nintendo and some leaked info surrounding Bungie’s successful, but highly criticized game – Destiny. We’ve also seen an amazing announcement from Koei Tecmo that we will be mentioning in here, but also giving it an article of its own thanks to the PR teams we work with.
So first up, this week we saw Nintendo’s new Nintendo Direct, which was a big shocker in both good and bad ways. As many of you have read, watched, and probably heard about going around; Nintendo has given their New Nintendo 3DS a release date for North America, which is February 13th, or rather almost a month away. The ugly side to this? The handheld costs 199.99 USD and does not come with a charger, but is also only going to be sold as the New Nintendo 3DS XL variant. So what does this mean? You’ll have to buy a charger if you don’t already own a 3DS, which means your two handhelds? They need to play nice together. This also means those who wanted interchangeable faceplates may have to suffer and wait a bit longer since there’s no definitive release date in the foreseeable future at this point. The bright side to that is Nintendo hasn’t exactly shut down the idea of this being completely possible as of yet.
Alongside the announcements from Nintendo we also got to see a mind boggling sale out in just a matter of an hour for the Majora’s Mask bundle, which sold out and some went straight to bidding markets at outrageous prices already. On the flipside, Capcom in turn also announced their sleek new Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate bundle, which features a beautifully crafted New Nintendo 3DS in a silver and bluish-grey paint style, but also the game pre-loaded so that fans can instantly hop into the action and go to town on some rather brutal enemies. We also got to see that Xenoblade Chronicles has gotten some nifty work done and stands out to its previous version; that being said – get one if you haven’t already. Just prepared to bite down on a few extra bucks to get that charger if you don’t have one yet.
We also got to see a few launch titles for the New Nintendo 3DS that will be taking advantage of the new amiibo collection that Nintendo has recently released and has taken the world by storm. We now know that Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. will for sure be releasing on North American New Nintendo 3DS’ and regular Nintendo 3DS, but will be taking care of the amiibo functionality. We’ve also got to see a few others such as Sega’s now announced Ace Combat Horizon Legacy+, which is the first re-imagining of that title, and will feature special jets specifically designed just for its New Nintendo 3DS launch.
With all of Nintendo’s mind bending announcements, we’ve also gotten a bit of news going out from multiple places (you can read the original article here:) about Veteran World of Warcraft players, those playing for ten years only, are getting recognized by Blizzard. These folks (if you are one you may want to check your inbox and mailbox) are getting treated to a rather uniquely crafted statue that they can put up on their shelves and let it make their other collectibles almost shrivel in comparison; that’s unless you have a Cyborg Ninja from Metal Gear Solid of course. This is nice to see that Blizzard has taken a moment to help recognize their founding players in order to keep the game going, but also as a simple gesture or a thank you as you may call it. This also comes with news that there has been a bit of trouble with their new MOBA called Overwatch. It has seen a bit of trouble in licensing due to a company also called Innovis wanting to use the same name to trademark their tactical app for airsoft players (you can check out the Polygon article here: Blizzard’s Overwatch hits trademark problem). Hopefully this gets resolved and both parties can come to an agreement of who gets the name and who doesn’t. I’m sure they’ll both be playing nice in this matter.
Smitti on WoW’s Official Forums posted the picture of what he received
In other news, we’ve also learned there’s been a bit of information circulating about the highly anticipated Final Fantasy XV Duscae demo that will be releasing with Final Fantasy Type-0 HD. In the demo many players were hoping to drive the bro-esque road trip title by driving the car that is seen many times within the demo. Well don’t pack those bags and plan to hit the road just yet. According to PlayStation Lifestyles Article, game director Hajime Tabata has come out and said that the team had originally planned to put the car into the demo, but at that changed as they want players to get a feel for their new seamless world they’ve built. They want players to get a feel for the game and know that when they step into the new open world that the game they crafted so carefully, is indeed a Final Fantasy world. So prepare only to get a feel for the game and prepare so that when you can’t drive, you won’t be disappointed. This is not the first time Square Enix has changed something in a demo to make it more suitable for all crowds. Hopefully this means the game will relive up to the hype that was built up almost nine years ago with the games original announcement as the name Final Fantasy XIII: Versus, which takes place in the same world as Final Fantasy XIII/XIII-2/Lightning Returns and Type-0 HD. Hopefully when they finish the Fabula Nova Crystallis Saga, players heads won’t be spinning and they’ll be able to know what takes place and where. If not, those who’ve never played the previously mentioned will not be lost around what’s going on.
Another big announcement (at least to us) is an upcoming title that has been announced for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita. The game when originally released was a niche game, it filled the spot that Monster Hunter had left wide open for fans of the series, and eventually became a rather large success and filled that bit of need players had. Since we haven’t done an article about it (yet – it’s being edited) we’ve decided in a way to announce the game for Koei Tecmo here! As of March 31st, players will once more get to go on a hunt for demon’s in the smash hit Toukiden: Kwami. The title is an expanded version of Toukiden: The Age of Demons that initially released on the PlayStation Vita last year as an exclusive. This time around, it’s getting a bit of an upgrade, which means new monsters, new story, more Mitama (helpful spirits) the original content, cross-play between the two platforms, and even cross-save functionality between the two. This means there has been a lot going on and we are only beginning to see the information come in. Till then? Stay tuned on that bit.
On top of this we’re also excited to announce that some of our former writers have moved onto cover gaming culture, but also still review games! Before we mention what and how they’ve done what they’ve done, we want to first and foremost thank them for their contributions to our team during their time here. Those guys are Jesse Olvera our co-founder and former member, Aaron Johnson, our former founding writer and reviewer Josh Turner, Johnny Walker Red, Kennard Daniel Prim, and lastly our former Editor-in-Chief – Casey Todd. They’ve moved onto continuing writing, reviewing, and working on their so far rather awesome editorials and podcast that’s currently up on SoundCloud and they are seeking to get put on iTunes as a weekly upload. You can check them out over at their Facebook Page called Beyond the Pixels (or click the name to be taken to their page). We hope you can give them a like, check out their content which varies quite a bit from our own, and give both our teams some support!
In case it was missed we also have a new review up for Duke Nukem 3D: Megaton Edition! Head there now if you haven’t already given it a look over. We hope you stay tuned in as we have a new review coming for you Tuesday afternoon. Until then we have a few new articles that are ready to go up and we hope you have a safe and wonderful weekend! Till next time.
About the Writer:
Dustin is our native console gamer, PlayStation and Nintendo reviewer who has an appetite for anything that crosses the boarders from across the big pond. His interest in JRPG’s, MMO’s, Handheld Gaming, and Pizza is insatiable and can’t be softened by even the biggest names in the gaming industry. His elitist attitude gives him direction, want, and a need for the hardest difficulties in games, which is fun to watch, and hilarity at its finest. To follow Dustin, hit him up on Twitter over at @GamingAnomaly, find him on his Google+. Wanna game with him? You can find him on PSN with RaivynLyken.