February 3, 2016

Miitomo, My Nintendo to Launch this March

Posted on February 3, 2016 by Jason Nason

Nintendo outlined its launch plans for both Miitomo, the company’s first smartphone app, as well as their new loyalty rewards program “My Nintendo” today.

Nintendo’s first app made exclusively for smart devices, Miitomo, will launch in North America in March for both iOS and Android phones and tablets.

Starting February 17th, people will be able to pre-register for Miitomo by signing up for the new Nintendo Account service using their existing email, social media accounts or current Nintendo Network IDs. People who pre-register will be among the first to be notified about the availability of Miitomo when it launches in March.

Nintendo will offer a special Miitomo bonus to anyone who signs up for a Nintendo Account between February 17th and launch.

Miitomo is a social experience that uses Nintendo’s Mii characters, which first debuted on the Wii console, to engage friends in a lighthearted and welcoming environment. Users can spark fun conversations and learn more about each other by answering questions such as “What song has been stuck in your head lately?”, “Do you believe in aliens?”, or even “If you saw a nose hair sticking out of your friend’s nose, what would you do?” Users can also easily take and share photos featuring their Mii with the Miifoto feature. Nintendo’s new My Nintendo rewards program will launch alongside Miitomo in March, and will be able to connect with the app.

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See Ramza Beoulve In Action in Dissidia Final Fantasy

Posted on February 3, 2016 by Chelsea Richards

The Lion War is not the only place we can see the Beoulve’s exploits. Nomura’s announcement for Ramza joining the Dissidia Final Fantasy Arcade cast (thankfully without eighteen belts, but at least he has a nose!) was made almost a year ago, a trailer from Square Enix today finally shows off what he can do. Given the direction towards 3v3 team fighting, Ramza seems to take a slight step towards a support role, with  “Shout” buffing either teammates or himself, with other Final Fantasy Tactics favorites like Ultima and even Throw Stone making it into the mix.

Players of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn might recognize that his Japanese voice actor is shared with Alphinaud Leveilleur, with no word on if Phil LaMarr (War of the Lions) will reprise the english role, when and if a console release ever happens. While there are no signs of the villains, or even some of the newcomers from Dissidia 012 as of the time of this writing, some of us will be keeping our fingers crossed that they will join newcomers Ramza and Final Fantasy XIV’s Y’shtola.

Dissidia Final Fantasy Arcade was released November 26th, 2015, and has been guaranteed to be an exclusive for at least one-year.

[youtube id=”Z0QgbqVu6Ec”]

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7th Dragon III Code: VFD Swoops Down to North America 3DS this Summer

Posted on February 3, 2016 by Jason Nason

The age of dragons is nigh, as SEGA of America announced it will localize and release 7th Dragon III Code: VFD in the Americas. The turn-based, dungeon crawling RPG for the Nintendo 3DS system pits players to save the world with a group of highly customizable characters with diverse party roles, such as Rune Knight, God Hand and more.

In between dungeon crawling sorties, there’s also base building, dating, and a cat café (really). While this is the first of the 7th Dragon series to be released outside of Japan, the story is comprehensive, so no prior knowledge of the series is necessary.

When it arrives this summer in retail stores and on the Nintendo eShop for Nintendo 3DS, 7th Dragon III: Code VFD will be available for $39.99/CA$54.99.

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Overwatch Beta Returns To Active Duty On Feb 9th

Posted on February 3, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

Blizzard’s upcoming objective based team shooter Overwatch will return to closed beta on February 9th according to a post on the developer’s official blog. The Overwatch beta began late last October and continued until right before Christmas, the devs took the game offline for an extended period to put the finishing touches on new maps, make a number of balance changes and the highly anticipated new persistent progression system.

Here are some of the new features/fixes according to Blizzard:

  • An all-new progression system
  • Two new maps, including a new game mode
  • Several hero balance updates
  • And a variety of Private Game updates, including full A.I. matches

Players who already had access to the closed beta will gain access to this second phase of testing. It is not known if previous Stress Test Weekend members will get a shot at beta phase 2 but Blizzard did stress that they will be looking into adding more players as testing continues.

We don’t have any details on what this new game mode or two new maps will be, I guess we will all find out together in just six days time.

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Broken Bootlegs- Super Mario World Famicom

Posted on February 3, 2016 by Erika

Super Mario World Famicom

Broken Bootlegs is a weekly series covering unlicensed games (also known as bootleg games) for mainly 8-bit and 16-bit consoles. This week’s edition is the appearance of one of the more well-known bootlegs out there, a pirate port of Super Mario World for the Famicom!

Due to poor jumping physics, expect this to happen quite a bit

Due to poor jumping physics, expect this to happen quite a bit

Developed by Hummer Team and released in 1995, this bootleg did something that Nintendo developers said that couldn’t be done: giving Mario a dino companion on their former flagship 8-bit system. Surprisingly, the development team did a somewhat decent job in recreating the experience of playing the game so that it’s actually playable. Surprisingly, features and items like Yoshi, Fire Flower, and Cape Feather all work just about as they did on the original game. The music is mostly faithful to the original tunes, though some of the instrument choices can be a bit hard on the ears. Unfortunately, but understandably, the level layouts that were put into the game were either partially or completely redone, and enemies were either not included or replaced with another to help with system slowdown due to too many objects on the screen at the time. One such enemy replaced is the giant Bullet Bill replaced with a series of three Podoboos. As for system slowdown, this is most noticeable while playing though the Ghost Houses, as at times, the screens are quite populated with Boos.Read More

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Square Enix Reminds Us About The Hitman Beta With New Trailer

Posted on February 3, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

Do you realize that Square Enix’s episodic version of Hitman is only about a month and a half out from release? To remind us all that not only is the full game coming out on March 11th for Xbox One, PC and PlayStation but those who pre-purchase the game can gain access to a limited beta version on February 12th on PS4 and February 19th on Windows PC. Sorry Xbox One owners it looks like you won’t be getting a beta version of Hitman.

Hitman (2016) serves as a prequel to the existing entries in the franchise. Like other versions of Hitman this game will allow players to approach their missions in a variety of ways, although the series is well known for allowing Agent 47 disguise himself and carry out assassinations covertly without being detected.  This version of Hitman will also feature open-world gameplay similar to 2006’s Hitman: Bloody Money instead of the linear mission structure of the older PS2 Hitman titles and 2012’s Hitman: Absolution.

When the game was announced at E3 2015 Square Enix promoted the game with an “intro pack” that would consist of three locations, six story missions and several sandbox missions.  Last month it was revealed that the game would follow an episodic format instead – with the intro pack containing a prologue mission and the Paris open world map only. New locations like Thailand, The United States, Japan and Marrekesh will be released starting in April. Along with the new location these $10 episode packs will also include brand new story missions and assassination targets.

There will be six PlayStation exclusive contracts for Agent 47 to take. The PlayStation Blog summarized one of them as:

“The first PS4 exclusive contract will be available when the game launches on March 11th. We’re calling it “The Director.” Your target is Scott Sarno, Director of European Operations for the CICADA private military corporation. He is a thirty-year veteran of clandestine operations and has been linked to a number of questionable operations in Europe and the Middle East as far back as the mid-nineties. He is highly trained and incredibly observant, you should expect him to be accompanied by several CICADA agents at all times.”

All of this this means that the price for entry will be quite a lot lower than the initial $30 that was expected – you can pre order the Hitman: Intro Pack for $15 USD on PlayStation 4 or the full package for $60 USD and either way guarantee yourself access to the beta.

Check out the trailer in the embedded player below.

[youtube id=”iDgOwNVFBxQ”]

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Homefront: The Revolution will have microtransactions

Posted on February 3, 2016 by Fionna Schweit

Homefront wasnt most sucessfull, or most talked about FPS the year it came out, so I personally was surprised when a follow up was announced.  Now it seems that sequel will be relying on microtransactions to work. designer Fasahat Salim said in a recent interview with Gamestop that none of them will be for exclusive content, nor will the game become “pay-to-win” as a result: Anything that you can buy, you can also earn by playing the game.

Salim also said there will be no season pass in the same interview. This does not mean it wont have any post-launch content to the contrary its mentioned in the interview that it will exist, just not as a season pass. When pressed about the microtransactions Salim said “It’s absolutely not a pay-to-win system because everything we’re providing in these resistance crates is available for free in the game through normal play all we’re offering is, for those players that don’t necessarily have the time to invest in the game, to unlock those cool things” He went on to say that the game will have additional missions added but in a “drip-feed” system, which i take to mean they will come out every onece and a while, and be free. Perhaps this will be similar to the Halo 5 approach? Either way its a win when ever I see a game not selling a Season pass or map packs.

Look for Homefront: the revolution on May 17, and untill then check out a hands on preview that PC gamer was able to do last month.

 

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