Note:Something is strange and different here. One person told me its CPS III , others say CPS II...I'll have to get to the bottom of this or wait till the 18 for the AOU show.
Info for the Part 3's fighting games
Capcom has officially announced the next game in the DarkStalkers series, to be known in Japan as Vampire Savior. The new game runs on Capcom's old 16-bit CPSII hardware, and uses several frames from the first two Vampire games, but has all-new backgrounds. There are also reported to be four new playable characters, including Anita (!), Morrigan's sister, who may be called "Genevieve," a new insectoid female character, and one unknown. The game will debut on February 18th at Japan's AOU show.
Last year, Sega, Dreamworks SKG, and Universal Studios got together to produce big virtual amusement parks. After numerous delays and planning problems, their first GameWorks center is opening in Seattle, Washington on March 15.
MTV, or Music Entertainment Television, will be doing one of their patented four-hour info-specials on March 15. So if you can't make it, watch it!
GameWorks Seattle is 30,000 square feet of pure trendiness, with a brewpub, cafe, and Internet lounge. And, of course, classic and advanced "signature" games (Virtua Fighter 3, Scud Racer).
GameWorks Las Vegas goes up May 1997, GameWorks Ontario (in California) opens in summer '97, and there will be 40 of them by 2000.
SCE has finally officially announced it. Alundra is slated to be the first action RPG for the PlayStation. Despite the initial lack of RPGs in general on the PlayStation, the recent Japanese release of Final Fantasy, coupled with Enix's announcement of Dragon Quest 7 for PlayStation and this SCE announcement, the PlayStation is rapidly establishing itself as the RPG players' machine of choice.
The game is slated for a Japanese Q2 '97 release and boasts over 7,000 screens. Gameplay revolves around traditional puzzles, traps and monster fighting. The soundtrack will consist of over thirty songs generated by the PlayStation sound system.
Alundra is the name of the hero of whom players take control. The plot revolves around the discovery that he has the power to enter people's dreams. All battles are fought in real-time on the main screen thus there are no intrusive loading times when entering battle.
The producer of the title is Yasuhiro Oohori who best known for his involvement with Land Stalker. Map design was done by Kenji Orihara best known his contributions to the Shining Force series.
There is no word yet on a US release for the game, but with the obvious void of action RPGs, it is likely to be translated.
I mentioned this earlier and it appears that Resident Evil 1 Will come to the Saturn
Expect it sometime in the next few months. Possibly so you can prepare for RE2 on Saturn.
Check out this Related Resident Evil 2 Preview
Darkstalkers 3 will hit the arcades right next to Street Fighter 3. Based on Capcom's new CPSIII arcade board. Darkstalkers will wow gamers with the smooth animation and the high resolution character designs. Little information has been released, but it is known that a majority of the characters from the previous Darkstalkers will return with a few new characters rearing their frightning heads.
The balance has been further refined for this version, and several new fetures will be implemeted in order to seperate it from SFIII. Look for Darkstalkers to hit the arcades later this year.
ManxTT. Sega's premier motorcycle racing game is arriving on Japanese shelves on March 14, with an American version arriving shortly after.
Victory Goal 97 (Japan) will make its debut on March 14 too. The first title became Worldwide Soccer 97, so this would make it...Worldwide Soccer 98, in the US.
GT Interactive had put Quake and Duke Nukem 3D on TBD status, pending a decision to publish the game under their label, or sell off the licenses to another party. Both projects will be going forward, but not from GT.
According to inside sources at Sega, Quake and Duke Nukem 3D have been picked up by Sega of America, with the intent to release the two titles for the Saturn come December. This may come as a result of Sega wishing to beef up their NetLink gaming libraries despite lukewarm 3rd party response.
Jurassic Park, The Lost World will be done by DreamWorks Interactive for development of the PlayStation game. DreamWorks are best known for The Neverhood, a PC game.
Little is known about the game The Lost World: Jurassic Park (or the movie for that matter). I'll have some screen shots soon
NOA's new release schedule is missing as many as 10 games that third-party developers say will arrive in Q1 and Q2, 1997
Despite prior knowledge of as many as 10 additional games arriving in the first half of 1997, Nintendo of America released Friday an incomplete list of games to appear from now until June.
NOA's list includes some old and some new ship dates for these games:
Mario Kart 64 (today, February 10)
Blast Corps (March 24)
Star Fox 64 (June 23)
The renamed Force Pak (a vibrating accessory which will be
available on June 23, and compatible with Blast Corps and
Star Fox 64)
NBA Hangtime (out since January 15)
Doom 64 (scheduled vaguely as March)
Turok: Dinosaur Hunter (March 4)
Mission Impossible (obscurely scheduled as TBA)
and Hexen (scheduled simply as summer, but GTI says June)
The list doesn't include previously scheduled games like Kirby's Air Ride, which is believed to be under severe re-development, GoldenEye, and a slew of other titles.
With a wide range of unhappy gamers, skeptical stock analysts, and eager competitors pointing to Nintendo's clear lack of games -- not to mention the company's own proud, hypocritical "quality over quantity" marketing scheme -- it makes little sense for Nintendo to be as incomplete, confused, and patchy regarding its upcoming titles.
Nintendo Co. Ltd. develops all of NOA's first-party titles in Japan, and the Kyoto-based gaming company is extremely secretive regarding the release of its games, much to the chagrin of the gaming press, and ironically, NOA, which is often times the last to know when its own games will arrive. Sources at Nintendo explained that despite the release list of the confirmed games (listed above), changes may still be made, and games could be deleted or added to the list on any given day.
There are five third-party developers who will publish games by June of this year, who weren't included on the first-half production schedule. When asked to respond, a Nintendo source said, "Many companies simply didn't respond in time for the release to be sent, and just as many weren't sure whether whether or not their games would come out on time." However, up to nine games planned for first half 1997 have either been delayed or simply been lost in the cracks of Nintendo's busy production schedule.
A group of third parties which claim their games will arrive before or by June 1997. This list includes:
Electronic Arts' FIFA Soccer '97 (March/April)
Vic Tokai's Dark Rift (March/April)
Interplay's Clay Fighter 63 1/3 (June)
Midway's War Gods (June/July)
Titus's Lamborghini 64 (Q2)
Other games, which have been mysteriously dropped from NOA's own first-party product schedule include those mentioned above (Kirby's Air Ride and GoldenEye, which was recently given a cover on Nintendo Power and was planned for March), plus Body Harvest, Body Count, and Ken Griffey Jr. Baseball (which was scheduled for spring '97). Other third-party developers whose games seem to simply be in limbo or have been delayed are Cu-On-Pa (TBA), Dead Ahead (TBA), Freak Boy (Q4), H20's Tetrisphere (TBA), and others.
The problem plaguing many companies, a source close to Nintendo said, is that developers are still getting to grips with the complex development system, and that every company wants to make sure their game is complete before it ships. This, however, is the same tune companies have been singing since the games started slipping last October, when as many as five to 10 games slipped off the Q4 1996 list. In fact, NOA Chairman Howard Lincoln's defense for Nintendo 64's delay last year harmonizes beautifully with this same sentiment -- waiting to make sure the quality is there -- but the end results have ranged in quality, with the painful Cruis'n USA giving lie to his argument the most.
In some cases, the delays have greatly improved the games, like in Acclaim's case, with Turok: Dinosaur Hunter. But in other cases, like Midway's NBA Hangtime, it is believed the game may not have been much different if it had arrived when it was originally scheduled in December 1996. Another reason for the delay: Nintendo's own in-house quality assurance group often looks at a developer's game and sends it back for more tuning, bug-testing, additions, and in some cases, sent back for full re-development, like in the case of Buggie Boogie.
Nintendo is planning to launch color-cased versions of Game Boy Pocket this spring. The slim silver machine will be joined by black, yellow, green, red and transparent. These colors have been available in Japan for some time where, curiously, the standard silver version is not sold.
Fox Interactive has announced three new projects tied into the entertainment activities of its parent company. Most notable is Alien Resurrection from Argonaut Software, which is based around 20th Century Fox's forthcoming Alien 4 movie for PSX. Also on the roster is a product called X Files Data Files and Anastasia which will be based on the animated movie of the same name.
Will an uncut version of FFVII make it to US shores despite some of the game's mature themes?
Sony still isn't sure. As with other Final Fantasy games, Square has incorporated a
number of adult themes in it's latest game in the series. Already,
the question of censorship has come up, but it seems SCEA has
not yet found the answer.
Some of the items of note within the game include:
The exploration of a brothel
Cross-dressing
Public urination
Sexual activity
A decision has not yet been reached. SCEA is working closely with Square on the US conversion. A spokesperson at Sony stated: "We want to keep the integrity of the work intact but there has been no decision made on the matter."
While the censorship of material publishers consider inappropriate for the US market is nothing new, the practice has recently come under fire as videogame audiences become more mature. The videogames rating council has yet to rate Final Fantasy VII, but the occasional mature themes are likely to push the title into at least the teen rating.
Clearly, Sony has more than a few issues to consider in its decision. The first issue is, as a conservative company, is Sony willing to allow what is likely to be its biggest title of the year to be at least a teen rated game? Will the older rating hurt sales in anyway? Will parents not purchase the title during the Christmas rush?
The second issue, is the maintenance of the integrity and rhythm of the story. Will cutting minor portions impact too greatly on the product or bring massive user backlash?
Final Fantasy 3 also dealt with adult themes including suicide, death of one's husband/son as well as the deliberate poisoning of an entire town. Square is no stranger to the darker elements of the genre. Interestingly enough, almost nothing was cut in the US version of FF3 from its original Japanese form.
If you would like to give input for FF7 and voice your opinion e-mail Sony and tell them what you think about it. You may also want to include how old you are as well, since this is a also an issue scea_webmaster@jamisongold.com
Sega has announced three new Model 3 arcade games will be debuted at the AOU show on February 19-20 in Japan. These titles are:
Virtua Striker 2 - Soccer
House of the Dead - Shooter
Top Skater - Sports
Makoto Yamashita, current president of Bandai and future president of Sega-Bandai, may handle previous Saturn-only titles a bit differently once the merger has gone through. In a Yomimuri news interview in Japan, he mentioned that he was amenable to licensing Sega software to other platforms. "We would port Virtua Fighter to the PlayStation and Nintendo 64, if we could get a license from both companies."
This isn't Sega's official line, but it seems Nakayama and Yamashita need to talk before the whole merger takes place in October.
Among the new games coming out for the Saturn this quarter include Tokimeki Memorial Drama Series, Volume 1, which is an adventure game based on the girlfriend simulator of the same name. This title arrives on March 14.
Advanced V.G., a sprite-based fighter starring young girls of unnatural proportions and short skirts, coming March 21.
Tenchi Muyo! adventure game hits stores soon. Get re-acquainted with Ryo-ohki, Tenchi, Sasami, Ayeka, Ryoko and the rest of the gang in cel-animated goodness. The game comes with a bonus music CD and will sell for 8800 yen.
Of more interest to American gamers, though, is that the new Advanced World War comes to Japan in March 1997. The first in the series, known by Western gamers as Iron Storm, was ported by Working Designs and sold very, very well. This new version uses new 3D graphics, more units, land, sea, and air attacks, and generally more complex. The new game looks really nice, down to the water reflection effects. While Working Designs hasn't stated whether it will pick up this hot property, given the success of the first Iron Storm, it seems only a matter of time.
Responsible for Gunstar Heroes and more recently, Guardian Heroes, both of which are special effect-filled blasters, Treasure is largely composed of ex-Konami programmers, who formed their own company a few years back, and are now back to design the extravagant-looking 2D action title Yuke Yuke Trouble Makers. Explosions and light-effects are their calling card and Yuke Yuke Trouble Makers looks set to continue that tradition. This game will definitely appear in Japan, but no word of its appearance in the U.S. is out.
The game, like Yoshi's Island 64, is two-and-a-half dimension (to coin Nintendo's own phrase) title and features scrolling levels with 3D situations and bosses (a la Clockwork Knight). You control twins (one at a time, or both in two player mode) on a mission to destroy an evil force. On the way and for all practical purposes you destroy the entire Universe with a huge arsenal of weapons.
Graphically, the game looks incredible -- but in a weirdly conventional sort of way. Borrowing a lot of visual and gameplay elements from Gunstar Heroes, you have to jump, swing, and shoot your way through the most colorful, action-packed backdrops we've ever seen. This promises to be one of the most exhilarating N64 titles, and the Treasure name virtually guarantees quality.
Enix's lack of support for the 64DD (the cancellation of Dragon
Quest for the system) may be salved a little by this deliciously
simple and fun game.
Full scoop here. More Yuke Yuke Info
2/8/97
The major differences from the original controller are minor, but noticable. First the handgrips are longer and more contoured. The L2 and R2 buttons are also at a slightly different angle while the directional pad and action button placements are identical to the original.
The new sticks' placement is excellent. Moving from the D-pad to the sticks is as simple as moving your thumb. A switch allows you to change from analog to digital, so it is possible to use the analog mechanisms as a digital controller. Likewise, it is possible to still use the D-pad as a digital controller while still in analog mode.
The solenoid coils which provide limited feedback, are a nifty
addition. The level of vibrations is about the same as a beeper
vibration and made the feel of play a little cooler.
Sony New Analog Controller Pic
The current model is housed in a different plastic than the current model, but it is likely to revert to the original gray when the unit enters productions. Overall the logical design (using dead space for new sticks) is brilliant, and should provide loads of new possibilities for developers.
The stick is currently slated for release in the US sometime in September.
Star Fox 64, the N64 sequel to popular SNES shooter, is scheduled to appear in America on June 23! Nintendo also announced the Force Pack (The Jolt Pack in Japan), a controller pack that vibrates in tune to the on-screen action, should also come out on the same day.