Awesome Radical Gaming

I have fond memories of the 1942 series, I can remember playing the arcade game at various different places. It was always fun…shooting stuff in a plane. Anyway, on July 23 the new, 3D, 1942 will be out on XBLA. PSN users have to wait til the 24 for some reason. 2-player online co-op seems pretty fun, and the same composer that worked on Metal Gear Solid is doing the soundtrack for 1942: Joint Strike.

The whole release, and an image gallery, after the link.

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There’s all kinds of Atlus news today, first Persona 4, now this. Summon Night: Twin Age is an action RPG for the DS that fully stylus controlled. The email goes on to detail that the stylus controls are “precise controls (no excessive line drawing to attack or squiggles in the corner of the screen to roll, folks)”, which is good but I’m not a huge fan of touch controls in games. I mean, for menus it’s one thing, but to use it solely, I don’t know. I couldn’t get into Phantom Hourglass because of the touch controls, it just wasn’t fun for me. Just because the DS has a touch screen doesn’t mean you need to make things more difficult and use them as the sole movement mechanism just to prove that you can do it.

Summon Night: Twin Age does look pretty cool though, reminds me of like Secret of Mana or something, though I never played the first so I have no idea what it will be like.

Get ready to experience a fully-stylus driven action RPG with precise controls (no excessive line drawing to attack or squiggles in the corner of the screen to roll, folks)!

Summon Night: Twin Age is headed to a Nintendo DS near you (hopefully yours) on May 20th! Two playable characters get to experience the story from different perspectives, which means seeing new things the second time through. Trade items with a friend via local wireless. Oh, and the game looks gorgeous, too. How dare you doubt me! Perhaps the trailer below is the proof you need:

NIS America sent out a press release this week confirming Disgaea 3 will hit North American PS3’s this August. Disgaea was pretty radical and so was Disgaea 2. I can only assume that Disgaea 3 will be more of the same, which is a good thing. There seem to be a lot of complaints about the graphics, since it’s a PS3 game and all, but I feel like a game doesn’t need to have awesome graphics to be totally awesome.

Santa Ana, CA – NIS America announced today that Disgaea3 is heading for the PlayStation3 Computer Entertainment System this summer. Much loved by hardcore gamers around the world, Disgaea3 makes a bold new step towards the next generation console with a whole new cast, story, and game system.

About Disgaea3 Disgaea3 is a sequel to Disgaea, a hardcore, turn-based, strategy RPG popular on the PlayStation2 and PlayStation Portable. In Disgaea, character units have a limit to their movement and attack ranges, based on level and weapons equipped. There are other special game factors that let you take advantage of the 3D battle map, many of which are unique to Disgaea.

One of the many new feature to Disgaea3 is the addition of a Geo Block, which creates a 3 dimensional battle instead of the traditional 2D. Much of Disgaea3 is yet to be unveiled, but rest assured, plenty is due to arrive in the coming months.

Key Features

* Geo Block - A cube-shaped terrain-altering object. Players can use it to access and attack enemies where normally they cannot reach.
* Geo Panel - A group of stat-altering elemental properties that are placed upon certain parts of the battlefield. When there are one or more colored panels on the battle grid, it means an element can affect that area. The effect can boost or reduce your unit’s stats.
* Item World - A special randomly-generated battle stage within each and every item you find. By defeating these special battle stages, you are able to strengthen your items.

Looks like the release date for Metal Gear Solid 4 has been set for June 12th. This news comes from Destination PlayStation, a retailer conference for Playstation goods. Yes, June 12 is a Thursday, but stranger things have happened. Also, apparently there is bundle coming out that contains MGS4, an 80GB PS3, and a DualShock 3. I’d totally buy that, if I have the money when the release date rolls around.

No official word from Konami, yet.

Source

Tomonobu Itagaki announced at Microsoft’s GDC keynote that Ninja Gaiden II has a confirmed North American release date of June 3. Also announced was a cool new feature. You can record all your radical ninja moves and upload them on Xbox Live for others to view, sort of like watching Halo 3 replays. But with a ninja. Seems pretty awesome to me.

When I saw this trailer for Opoona I thought there was no way in hell it would ever make it to North America. It just didn’t seem like something that would sell big in the U.S. and I assumed the developers would think the same and not bother to release it here. I was awesomely wrong, Opoona is scheduled for release in North America on March 25, 2008. Actually, I’m pretty positive it won’t sell a ton of copies, but I guess that doesn’t really matter to me as long as I get to play it. The whole press release is below:
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Press releases are funny things. Like, I’m sitting here trying to think what I should add to this post to make it the least bit interesting…and I can’t think of anything. What more can I say? Rockstar Games announced that the release date is April 29, 2008 (PS3 and Xbox 360). That’s it, that’s the best I can do. But the people writing these press releases, they are good. They can always think of plenty of ways to embellish any announcement and make it sound interesting. I could never, in a million years come up with the phrase “genre-defining”, they’re good. They’re real good.

Rockstar Games Announces Release Date for Grand Theft Auto IV

Next-generation Console Debut of the Grand Theft Auto Franchise Set for April 29, 2008

New York, NY - January 24, 2008 - Rockstar Games, a publishing label of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: TTWO), is proud to announce the release date for Grand Theft Auto IV, the new title in the genre-defining Grand Theft Auto franchise. Developed by Rockstar North, Grand Theft Auto IV will be simultaneously available for Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system and PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system and will be in stores worldwide on April 29, 2008.

“We are so excited to be releasing Grand Theft Auto IV,” said Sam Houser, Founder and Executive Producer of Rockstar Games. “We’ve pushed ourselves very hard to make something incredible and hope the game sets a new benchmark for interactive entertainment.”

For more information, log onto http://www.rockstargames.com/IV

I was beginning to get worried that Crisis Core wouldn’t be coming to the North America…boy was I totally wrong. The latest Final Fantasy VII spin-off officially has a release date of March 25, 2008. Some other dates of note:

• Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates (Nintendo DS) - March 11, 2008
• Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors (Nintendo Wii) - February 26, 2008
• The World Ends With You (Nintendo DS)- Spring 2008

Here’s the whole press release:
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Square-Enix announced today that Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and The Tower of Mirrors will be released on February 26th in North America. Also, the North American release will feature bonus content including a new mode, “Payback Mode”, and four hidden bosses. “Payback Mode” seems totally awesome, I don’t know what it is, but it’s cool.