RandomNPC – Video Game RPG Reviews, Editorials, and Features

Hey people, it’s that time again: time to wish it wasn’t Sunday and we all didn’t have to get up in the morning.  But as long as we’re putting off sleep, how about we gather ’round and talk news for a while?  In today’s episode:

• The Great Hacking Bonanza of 2011 continues at a startling pace, including Sega, BioWare, and the CIA as some of the latest targets.
• Amidst this, rival hackers try to unmask each other: LulzSec vs. th3j35t3r vs. Anon vs. everybody else.  Where’s Thunderdome when you need it?
• A new Kinect accessory makes it more useful in tight quarters, promising a rash of broken furniture and appliances in small apartments the world over.
• Miyamoto: At present, the Wii U is a one controller to one console deal.  Maybe we’ll let you hook up a 3DS or something, we’re not really sure.
• Rock Paper Shotgun regales us with the story of a man trying to trademark the word “edge.”  Seriously, read the whole thing if you have the time.
• Speculation on the console wars to come, a game company disappears from the face of the Earth, an idea fit for a Duke, and much more!

Continue reading ‘What Happened This Week – Kinecting Wii And U For The Lulz’ »

Ys is a series that gets far less attention than it deserves. There are many reasons for this, but the main one is that Americans have not really gotten to experience as many of the adventures of Adol the Red as their Japanese counterparts. There are also some people that are probably turned away simply by its title; it’s not exactly intuitive to pronounce it as ‘ease.’ Regardless, Nihon Falcom and XSeeD are determined to rectify the first issue by releasing more games stateside, hoping to give Americans more time with the top-down action RPG series. That’s where Ys Seven comes in, and as it takes the series in many new directions, there’s a lot to like.

Continue reading ‘Ys Seven – Staff Review’ »

So close to all D’s, yet so far. In a press release today, Square Enix announced that downloadable content for Dissidia 012 Duodecim is now available on the PlayStation Network. At $0.99 per purchase, the content ranges from additional outfits to background music packs; the latter including music from previous Final Fantasy games. The full list of options is available here.

Director David Silverman, by way of his Twitter feed, announced that Mass Effect 3 would feature the female Commander Shepard more prominently in advertising. Specifically, he confirmed that the company is working on a trailer featuring FemShep, and she will be on the boxart of the Collector’s Edition alongside her male counterpart.

Evening, folks! Hope you brought your appetite for media, because we have, shall we say, generous portions. In today’s update: Cardboard Troopers, Dai 2 Ji Super Robot Taisen OG, Dragon’s Crown, Final Fantasy XIII-2, Grand Knight’s History, Hyperdimension Neptunia Mk2, Pandora’s Tower, Tales of the Abyss 3DS, Tales of Xillia, and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. Dig in!

Continue reading ‘Mass Media 06/13/11’ »

Howdy-ho, people! It’s time for the news, and what, oh what could we possibly have to talk about? Let’s get right to it:

• Microsoft: KINECT KINECT KINECT KINECT!  KINECT? KINECT!! Also, shooters, most of which you already knew about.  That said, the Tomb Raider game looks right up my alley.
• What MS didn’t say: cloud storage for Live data, profiles available through any 360, and Blackwater (yes, that Blackwater) is getting a Kinect-equipped shooter.
• Sony: Sorry for the inconvenience of having your data stolen of the outage.  We hope you’ll accept this modest 3DTV bundle price as compensation.
• More Sony: PSVita revealed, priced at $249-299 US dollars.  Let the handheld wars recommence!
• Nintendo: ZELDA ZELDA ZEL- okay, enough about the Wii.  Here’s some 3DS stuff.  Alright, enough of that.  New console time!
• Wii U: See all the stuff you can do with the controller?  No, the controller’s not the console.  No, we don’t have anything ready yet.  Look at the controller!
• EA and Ubisoft’s conferences, notable absences, and more!

Continue reading ‘What Happened This Week – Weird Acts of Corporate Theater: 2011’ »

With E3 winding down, it tends to be the tradition of gaming news outlets to look back at the show, to reflect on megaton announcements and deride the goof ups and failings. Though this year had its share of both — like many, I fear I may be seeing Mr. Caffeine in my nightmares for a long time to come — it displayed a disturbing lack of the one thing our readers had been most anticipating: Role-playing games.

Continue reading ‘Editorial – E3: Where Are the RPGs?’ »

Square-Enix announced in a press release today that a demo of Dungeon Siege 3 is currently available on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Windows via Steam. The full version of the upcoming action RPG will be available on June 21st, 2011.

George Kamitani, director of the upcoming PS3/PSV RPG brawler Dragon’s Crown, spoke with Famitsu Magazine this week and laid bare a few new details about the game. Amongst the gameplay details and design notes comes the unexpected tidbit that Dragon’s Crown was in fact initially slated to appear on the Dreamcast, but that the developer could not find a publisher for the title.

Continue reading ‘Dragon’s Crown Details Emerge’ »

After causing some surprise by appearing in the Playstation Vita’s coming attractions reel, Vanillaware has announced a new title called Dragon’s Crown. A 2D brawler RPG for both the PSV and the Playstation 3, Dragon’s Crown supports cross-platform multiplayer for up to four people. The game’s official site opened earlier today, and there’s a fancy trailer available for viewing on YouTube.

Close on the heels of Devil Survivor Overclocked, a remake of the first Devil Survivor game for the 3DS, comes the revelation that its sequel, Devil Survivor 2, will be seeing the light of day in North America in 2012. Further details about the game’s plot and characters have also been released, as well as some info about the creative team behind the title.

Continue reading ‘Atlus Announces Devil Survivor Release Date, Details’ »

Square-Enix announced a general release date for Final Fantasy XIII-2 today, saying it will see the light of day in December 2011. This coincided with the opening of the game’s official site, which sports info on the game’s characters, music, and numerous other goodies.

Alongside this, Square-Enix also announced that the PS3 version of Final Fantasy XIII would see an update. This update will add the Easy Mode that the Xbox 360 version of the game received last year, and will be free of charge.

At Nintendo’s E3 conference today, Shigeru Miyamoto outlined the company’s future plans for The Legend of Zelda series. Alongside the release of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening through the 3DS e-shop, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time will hit stores  worldwide next weekend. Nintendo will also be releasing a free download version of The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventure over DSi Ware. Finally, Mr. Miyamoto announced that The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword will be available worldwide this holiday season, along with a golden Zelda-themed Wii Remote.

Continue reading ‘Legend of Zelda Gets a Birthday Party’ »

Speaking at Sony’s press conference, Ken Levine, creative director of Irrational Games, announced that an unnamed title in the Bioshock universe will appear on the NGP/PS Vita.  Levine indicated that this would be a new story, although little else was revealed.

During its press conference earlier today, Electronic Arts spilled the beans on Mass Effect 3‘s release date. Previously scheduled for a release during the 2011 holiday season, the final entry in the space shooter/RPG series will now see the light of day on PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 on March 6, 2012.

Lionhead Studios gave gamers a glimpse of Fable:The Journey, starting off with an impressive video showing how the new game begins. Of course, the game runs using Kinect. The controls appear smoother than some of the other games featuring motion controls, but it will be up to gamers to decide if they prefer standard or motion controls. The short demo showed off a little of the combat before ending with a release date of 2012.

At Microsoft’s press conference today, it was announced that Mass Effect 3 will have voice recognition support via Kinect. Players will be able to call out strategic moves to teammates, such as directing movement and telling them to use skills.

Mandatory viewing for all Deus Ex fans.

Howdy folks!  Getting busy around here before E3, but we still have time to wrap up the news. Let’s break it down:

• Groupon joins Zynga, PopCap, etc. in preparing to go public, despite not actually making a profit.  We should make a drinking game out of this.
• A huge preview build for Deus Ex: Human Revolution got leaked to the internet.  To everyone’s surprise, nobody minds.  File that under “did not see coming.”
• Interplay teeters on the brink of bankruptcy, as they seemingly have for years now.  But don’t worry, Fallout Online is gonna be here any day now!
• Dueling digital distribution services: Gamestop automatically charges for re-downloading “insurance,” which its competitors give away for free…
• …while EA launches its own DD network coincidentally named after one of the studios it absorbed.  Oooh, awk~waaard.
• E3 pre-conference projections: Nintendo’s new hardware, Sony’s image problem, and Microsoft’s Kinect… stuff.

In addition we have some late-breaking news that didn’t make it into the recording: NPR and NECN.com reported that not only was Nintendo hacked, but they were hacked by the same group that’s been plaguing Sony recently.  No data was stolen in the Nintendo hack, but the group, calling itself Lulz Security, has claimed responsibility for an attack on Sony Pictures that resulted in a million more users’ personal information.

From where I sit there’s actually a fairly clear line between exposing a company’s lackluster security procedures – which Sony is clearly guilty of – and releasing sensitive information for all to see.  The second Robin Hood starts shooting random people and telling them to blame the authorities for failing to protect them, he’s lost the argument.  I don’t see the Nintendo hack changing the game much, although I’d put money down that these ongoing hacks are going to draw more attention than LulzSec might like.  Much as it pains me to admit, life isn’t Shadowrun, and when the feds come knocking the game’s pretty much over.

And now, on with the actual episode.  Enjoy!

Continue reading ‘What Happened This Week – Pre-E3 Warmup With Electronic Old Men’ »

Final Fantasy is a series well known for its ports and remakes, but out of the series, one game stands above them all as one of the most frequently remade games of all time.  Final Fantasy IV has seen six iterations over the years appearing on the SNES, PlayStation, WonderSwan Color, GameBoy Advance, the Nintendo DS, and finally the PSP as Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection.  Along with an updated Final Fantasy IV, players will also get Final Fantasy IV: The After Years and a new mini-story titled Final Fantasy IV: Interlude which helps slightly to tie the two main games together.  It’s a lot of game in a very small package, so the question becomes is there still life in Final Fantasy IV?

Continue reading ‘Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection — Staff Review’ »

Evening, people! No fanfare this time around, just the media. Here’s what we have today: Atelier Meruru, Dai 2 Ji Super Robot Taisen OG, Growlanser 4: Overload, Half-Minute Hero: Super Mega Nero Climax, and Tales of the Abyss 3DS.

Continue reading ‘Mass Media 06/01/11’ »