Not to be confused with Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus, which is coming to Japanese PS3 and XBLA sometime this October, Accent Core Plus R is the revised version of Accent Core Plus will hit Japanese arcades near the end of this month.
I played a quick round of Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R while visiting Arc System Works' booth at the Tokyo Game Show and am thrilled to report that the port feels very solid. Framerates were consistent and my old Sol Badguy bread-and-butter combos came off without a hitch. As is the case with Guilty Gear announcements these days, no information was available regarding a North American launch. Time to write another letter, I guess.
Spoiler: I'm giving Torchlight 2 a half-star less. The game makes some minor missteps in design, and I don't think the pacing or the scope matches up to that of Diablo 3.
I say that right here in the beginning so I can move on to a different point: Ratings and comparisons aside, Torchlight 2 is an accomplishment by this studio of less than 30 people, a feat that's impressive regardless of any other long-awaited dungeon crawlers that arrived earlier this summer. It's an excellent follow-up to the popular first game in the series, and at a ridiculous price of just $19.99 it demands to be played both by fans of the genre and of great PC games.
"While we have no plans to begin work on an MMO, that's partly because we have no plans, period!" Runic CEO Max Schaefer told Joystiq today. "We're waiting to do the Mac port of Torchlight 2, and fix whatever launch issues we have, and then decide after we've had a good night's sleep or three. It is likely that nothing that would be called an MMO is the next thing we do, though, but that's not 100 percent certain."
Runic president Travis Baldree said something similar today on Reddit: "I'll be frank, we have no plans to jump into that right now. The landscape is a little different than a few years ago, and creating the amount of content we did for Torchlight 2 was a supreme effort with a team this size. Taking on an MMO immediately afterward is not our current desire."
There had been previous allusions, along with expectations of Runic parent-company Perfect World, regarding the Torchlight MMO, but our attempts to further clarify were not answered by publishing. Torchlight 2 launched today on PC.
Richard and Jordan made the booth rounds, and plenty of games were played, including Dead or Alive 5, Soul Sacrifice, Resident Evil 6, Lost Planet 3, and Phantasy Star Online 2 for PS Vita. And it wouldn't be TGS without plenty of Japanese flavor, and the anecdotes are plentiful.
On-tap for tomorrow's show: impressions of the full Sony booth tour, and the thrilling reveal of whether Richard and Jordan kiss each other ... with their BRAINS!
Listen to the Super Joystiq Podcast:Details about each segment are available after the break.
This revamped re-release -- of a revamped re-release of a revamped re-release -- will be available for ¥1,500/1,200 MS Points, depending on your platform of preference. Our booth visit also yielded this collection of screenshots, which conjures up nostalgic memories of after-school Grave Digger loops, mini-Faust hijinks and I-No's provocative finishing pose.
The new, slimmer PS3 comes in two forms in the US, 250GB for $270 and 500GB for $300. Europe gets the 500GB model and a 12GB Flash-based system. All of these consoles support Flash storage expansion via USB, and the US version allows internal HDD replacement.
The US gets two larger systems because its consumers demand more "out of the box," according to SCEA VP of marketing, handhelds and home consoles John Koller, speaking to Engadget.
"The smaller Flash drive isn't coming to North America, and a lot of that reason is the digital consumer," Koller says. "We really want to make sure, out of the box, that there is an option for them to be able to download that content. That is really critical for us, very very important."
Nintendo is taking a different approach to storage with the Wii U, launching 8GB and 32GB models with the ability to easily attach any form of external storage, even "a full-on three terabyte hard drive," says Nintendo America CEO and president Reggie Fils-Aime.
"The reason we did it that way is that the cost of that type of storage memory is plummeting," Fils-Aime continues. "What we didn't want to do is tie a profit model to something that's gonna rapidly decline over time. We'll let the consumer buy as much as they want, as cheaply as they want."
Sony sees US consumers are more willing to buy a new console with a larger hard drive than to purchase external storage.
"When you look at some of the earlier chassis, and the really early adopters – the 20GB, and the 60GB – that consumer had a choice," Koller says. "They could either go out and buy another hard drive – and it's an easy install, so we make it easy for the consumer if they want to take a hard drive off the shelf and plug it in, they can do that. They had a choice of doing that, or purchasing another PlayStation 3. And what's been happening is we're seeing a lot of adoption of second consoles in-house."
Besides, Sony doesn't make any money if you buy a Western Digital hard drive. But neither does Nintendo.
"There's no price drop formally, but the thing that's been happening in the market over the last year or so is that there's been so many retail price promotions, and so many different gift card offers and all those things, being done by all of us [Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony], that we've heard from our consumer, 'Enough with all these weird price moves. What we really want is content and games and value,'" Koller tells Engadget.
Most consumers we can think of (ourselves included) love having great content, but hold an equal passion for cheaper consoles. Koller says his answer is "kind of a long way of saying, 'No, no formal price drop.'" Besides, there are only so many older PS3 models on the shelves, he points out.
At the Tokyo Game Show, Sony Computer Entertainment president Andrew House tells Reuters he thinks SCE will be profitable this year. "We have a growing installed base, growing connectivity of the PS3," House says.
After announcing the Vita "may be trending behind in certain territories," and a projection for the company's largest-ever yearly loss, $6.4 billion, it looks as if SCE is relying on the new (and old) consoles to boost finances.
War of the Roses, FatShark's multiplayer melee combat game set in the Middle Ages, launches on Steam on October 2. Today, we're sitting down with Paradox Interactive senior producer Gordon Van Dyke to talk about the famous conflict that inspired his new game and his transition from working on big-budget Battlefield games at EA to his first project at Swedish publisher Paradox Interactive.
From 10am until 11am PT (1-2pm ET), we'll be streaming some multiplayer matches with the QA team and Gordon Van Dyke. Feel free to lob some questions at us and Gordon by following Joystiq on Twitch, or you can drop your questions right into the comments section of this very post.
You can watch the stream on the Joystiq Twitch page, or in an embed after the break. Follow our Twitch page for future streams and giveaways.
Update: The stream is over. Watch the replay above.
Concerning exactly what sort of project he'd like to pursue, we asked if Level 5 has had any discussions about adapting existing Studio Ghibli properties into video games. Hino said that he would love to but, naturally, Ghibli would have to approve any such projects. Corporate approvals aren't a very entertaining topic of conversation though, so we just went ahead and asked which Studio Ghibli film he would like to adapt. Given the opportunity, he said, he would adapt Castle in the Sky.
That strange rustling you just heard was the sound of millions of fingers being crossed.
Earlier today, we had a chance to get our grubby little mitts on the PlayStation Vita version of Street Fighter X Tekken during a Capcom event held concurrently with the Tokyo Game Show. Specifically, we pit the Vita version against the PlayStation 3 version to not only test the port's crossplay functionality, but to also determine which is superior: Bear, or Robot Chainsaw Lady?
Place your bets, then find out in the video above!
Mizuguchi's game development career began at Sega in 1990. There he created Sega Rally, Space Channel 5, and Rez, before moving to Q Entertainment in 2003. At Q he designed Lumines, Ninety-Nine Nights, and most recently Child of Eden. While Mizuguchi didn't oversee Q Entertainment's latest game, Lumines Electric Symphony, he was heavily involved with its development.
In normal Metal Gear games, you get by cameras by sneaking under them, or deploying a chaff grenade to disrupt their electronics. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance's idea of "stealth" just involves jumping up ten feet in the air and cutting the security camera in half. Why didn't Snake ever think of that?
Along with this trailer, the Japanese website reveals that the game will be released as both a retail game and a PSN download in that region. It won't be available through Xbox Games on Demand, of course, because there is no Xbox version in Japan.
Level-5 showed off its wide variety of Professor Layton material at TGS, releasing trailers for Professor Layton vs. Ace Attorney (above) along with Professor Layton and the Legacy of Super Civilization A, Layton Brothers Mystery Room, and Professor Layton and the Century of the Seven Phantom Thieves.
The only thing that could make this TGS trailer for Ace Attorney 5 – which features the new 3D models in motion for the first time – any more interesting is if you could understand the dialogue. And now, thanks to YouTube user and subtitler Bolt2nd, now you can totally understand what's happening.
And what's happening is a new system that lets you watch for contradictory emotional responses during testimony. To help with this, new partner Kokone appears to have some kind of empathic ability. It's not an Ace Attorney courtroom without psychic powers!
Capcom announced an October 30 North American release date for Okami HD, with Europe following the next day. The remastering of the already beautiful 2006 game hits PlayStation Network next month for $19.99, and comes with Move support. HexaDrive (with Capcom's assistance) is the studio in charge of the 1080p update, with Rez HD sitting pretty in the Japanese studio's résumé.
Capcom sends us a new trailer and screenshots to commemorate the announcement. If you deem your eyes deserving of a treat, feel free to check them out.
With Tokyo Game Show in full swing, the publisher also shot out a new trailer and screenshots of the DC Universe fighter, being developed by Mortal Kombat studio NetherRealm.
The roster, though, is a bit sparse at the moment. There are ten fighters, five from Tekken and five from Street Fighter. The Tekken quintet includes Kazuya, Nina, King, Paul, and Hworang, while the Street Fighter line-up has Ryu, Chun-Li, Dhalsim, Guile, and Hugo. That's quite the drop from the other versions, but then again so's the price. The addition of further characters down the line is likely, but in what form remains to be seen.
The Vita version of Street Fighter X Tekken arrives in North America on October 23.
Aw, we're only teasing. While its North American release remains uncomfirmed, the 3DS XL's newest attachment is likely to arrive on Western shores. As for when and how much, there isn't even word on either its release date or price in Japan yet - so don't make a big deal about it.
Quotable
We always respect the law and we've never instructed anybody to violate the laws of any country. The same is true for Arma 3."
— Bohemia CEO Marek Spanel on two Arma 3 developers arrested in Greece on suspicion of espionage
The Joystiq Podcast
Super Joystiq Podcast Special: TGS 2012 Day 1
Latest episode: Thursday, September 20th, 2012