Japanese hardware sales, January 30 – February 5: Love song edition
We talk a lot of trash about Valentine’s Day because it’s hilarious and easy, but in all honesty, there’s nothing wrong with two people using the greeting-card holiday as an excuse to express their love for each other. To make up for our maliciousness, we want to help facilitate that lovin’ by providing some nice background music for your romantic evening.
Start off the night with the acoustic cover of Skrillex’s Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites by Bear Cavalry embedded above. Once things get a little cozy, follow that up with this piano version of Intuition by Feist, and when the moment is right, throw on Glory Box by Portishead to shift the mood into overdrive. Leave that on repeat for as long as necessary, and then bring things back down with Bjork’s All Is Full of Love. Now, get a room you two!
3DS: 75,018 [DOWN] 9,771 (11.52%)
PS3: 23,293 [UP] 369 (1.61%)
Vita: 17,141 [DOWN] 1,801 (0.51%)
PSP: 15,847 [DOWN] 161 (1.01%)
Wii: 8,814 [DOWN] 1,582 (15.22%)
Xbox 360: 1,382 [UP] 147 (11.90%)
DSi LL: 1,090 [DOWN] 90 (7.63%)
DSi: 669 [DOWN] 69 (9.35%)
PS2: 481 [DOWN] 232 (32.54%)
Retailers think Gravity Rush is out on May 29
We’ve been under the impression that Gravity Rush was slated to reorient our Newtonian perspectives sometime during the Vita launch window, but Amazon and Gamestop disagree, listing the title’s release date as May 29, which is quite a ways away from the Vita’s February 22 launch.
We called a local Gamestop to confirm the listing, and an employee informed us that Gravity Rush has a “ship date” of May 30 in their system, which lines up just about right. It’s entirely possible that the end of May is within Sony’s definition of the Vita’s release window, but we won’t know what’s the dealio really-o until Sony elaborates on the game’s “TBD” release date.
Skulls of the Shogun starts strategizing this fall
Skulls of the Shogun has been teasing us with cartoonish, captivating strategy since 2010, and as its previous release window of “early 2012″ is rapidly passing us by, we can finally take heart in some solid news. Developer Haunted Temple Studios says it’s “pretty confident” that Skulls of the Shogun will launch on XBLA in the fall.
Haunted Temple has been busy adding “a couple very cool features” and “a new platform,” it says in response to a fan’s inquiry on Facebook, and we can expect an official announcement with more information in the coming weeks.
The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom is today’s Steam Daily Deal
Sunday’s Steam Daily Deal makes perfect sense to us — at the end of the weekend, we often find ourselves wishing for the power to control time, to perhaps make the day a little longer, or start it all over again, or to reverse it to that one wonderful spring afternoon in 1995. The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom is therefore the ideal game to get lost in right now, especially since it’s 66 percent off (just $1.69) on Steam for the rest of the day, however long you decide that is.
TopWare games takes 50 percent, a load off on GoG
It’s a lazy Sunday afternoon, so stay in your pajamas, grab a mug of coffee and curl up in front of your computer with the final run of Good Old Games’ weekend deal on TopWare titles. The TopWare Mix is half off until tomorrow at 11:59 p.m. EDT and includes Two Worlds, Jagged Alliance 2: Wildfire, Jack Orlando: A Cinematic Adventure, the Earth series and more. Check out the full lineup right here, but hey, take your time. It is the day of rest, after all.
Diablo 3 collector’s edition details emerge from the abyss
UK retailer Game has listed the contents of the Diablo 3 collector’s edition, or as Blizzard is billing it, “The Ultimate Diablo 3 Experience.” This obviously makes the standard edition a “subultimate” experience, which is almost as cool as the “submarine” experience, which involves buying the collector’s edition for the sole purpose of taking bubble baths with the Diablo Skull figurine and the rest of its special contents:
- Diablo 3 PC/Mac Game
- Behind the scenes DVD and Blu-Ray Two Disc Set
- Collectors Edition Soundtrack
- The Art of Diablo 3
- Diablo Skull and 4GB USB Soulstone
- Diablo 3 Aesthetic Artifacts (in-game)
- World of Warcraft pet (in-game)
- Starcraft 2 Battlenet Portraits (in-game)
We’d give nearly anything for this tiny Mass Effect to be real
The latest thing on our “List of Things That Don’t Exist That Totally Should Exist” comes from Deviant Art user Pyroxene, whose 3D modeling skills have produced the adorable miniature Mass Effect scene seen above. It’s like Jim Henson’s Mass Effect Babies, or Poy Poy: Cerberus Edition, and we love it unconditionally.
Pyroxene originally set out to create three characters, but apparently the fun of chibi-fying some of gaming’s most beloved characters is a little hard to let go of. Hit the source link for a high-resolution shot of the scene, as well as close ups of the individual models, their wire frames and the impressively compact textures used.
Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing sequel striking stores this sholiday season
Sega plans to release a sequel to 2010′s Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing, the kart racing game originally made for Xbox 360, PS3, PC and DS, at the end of this year, Kotaku reports. The New York Toy Fair outed the sequel with a display of new toys (At a toy fair? Surely not.), and an attendant confirmed its development. New characters and vehicles will be announced later this year, Kotaku says, some time before the holidays, we assume.
Rhythm Thief and the art of appropriation
When done the wrong way, cloning lets one company divert revenue and attention away from the original, nearly identical source. But when done well — when it’s “inspiration” and not outright copying — everyone’s happy. People who liked the original game get to play something that takes what worked about that game, and builds on it in interesting ways. The developer of the new game gets a proven framework upon which to apply its own ideas, and a built-in fanbase to sell to. And the originator gains the prestige of having its game become a genre-defining work.
That’s the case with Sega’s Rhythm Thief: The Emperor’s Treasure for 3DS. Sega’s musical adventure wears its influences on its sleeve, and is better for it.
The first time I played Rhythm Thief, at TGS, I only experienced some of the minigames, which reminded me of Elite Beat Agents in style and of Rhythm Heaven in their simple construction and beat-matching play. That demo left out an important part of the game. What happens between minigames reveals this to be, like so many DS and 3DS games, from the Layton school of game design.
Just like Level-5′s Layton series, you move from static screen to static screen, tapping randomly to find hidden coins, collecting items for use in minigames, and interacting with the citizens in order to solve a mystery (and trigger minigames). You’ll also pick up extra items for use in longterm collectible-based games. The structure is almost identical.
Sega took that framework — it’s unmistakably descended from Layton — and put its own spin on that. Whereas Layton’s world is obsessed with puzzles, Rhythm Thief’s is all music and sound. The minigames are all musical: you open locks by matching tones or rhythms, and you collect sounds with a recorder to replay later in order to solve puzzles (a police siren to make a scalper run away and leave his wares, for example).
Rhythm Thief substitutes a young, dashing thief (“Phantom R”) for the elegant professor (still on a hunt for magical artifacts, of course); an overtly anime-styled look for the European animation style; and Paris for London and/or whatever mysterious village. Rhythm Thief’s Paris is a beautiful place, too, filled with color and life. Within a few minutes of starting, I started planning a vacation to France.
Perhaps my favorite tweak on the Layton formula is Phantom R’s sidekick: instead of a schoolboy, he’s assisted by his dog Fondue, who barks in French (“Woeuf!”) How charming!
The main alteration, of course, is the use of musical minigames, which have you tapping, swiping, pressing buttons, or tilting in time to music in order to complete tasks. For example, “Le Getaway” is a side-scrolling rooftop chase scenein which you press A to jump and B to slide. “Battle Diabolique” is a fight between Phantom R and a horde of identical, armored enemies, who rush in from one side. You press anywhere on the D-pad to deliver an open-palm strike to an enemy on your left, and the A button to strike to the right.
There’s even a nod to rhythm games from Sega history — talking to a man in a loud poncho and sombrero will bring up a no-fooling Samba de Amigo minigame, controlled by the D-pad and buttons.
As for the story, I’ll tell you only the beginning of the premise, which I think we can all agree is a rock-solid setting for any rhythm game: Napoleon has been reanimated. What?
Ubisoft Reflections resume outs unannounced Kinect game
Ubisoft Reflections’ next effort will be aimed at Kinect, it seems. Artist Joss Scouler’s LinkedIn account reportedly listed an unannounced Kinect title in the works, but it has since been removed from the profile. Scouler has been with Ubisoft Reflections for over five years and and helped ship the studio’s most recent console game, Driver: San Francisco.
“After just finishing Driver Wii as lead artist and spending time helping finalise the artwork for Driver: San Francisco, it is onto the next project on 360 Kinect which looks to be very exciting indeed,” Scouler’s entry previously read. Eurogamer managed to spot the unaltered profile, which pegged him as art lead on the Kinect project.
We’ve contacted Ubisoft for a statement and will update if we hear back.
