Video game movies are still big business, and rightfully so considering the success of the Silent Hill and Resident Evil film franchises (among others). And despite the director of the first Silent Hill film, Christophe Gans (as well as that movie’s screenwriter Roger Avery) leaving the Silent Hill film franchise, Sony Pictures will still be making a Silent Hill 2 movie (This in addition to the Tekken movie).
Gans however will not be leaving the realm of video game movies entirely. It has just been announced that Gains will be adapting Capcom’s Onimusha game series into a new Onimusha flick, thanks to his successful work on the Silent Hill movie.
Production on Onimusha is reportedly scheduled to begin in April, and movie website ComingSoon.net has been fed the synopsis for the series’ big screen debut. Check it out:
In feudal Japan, 1582, the warlord Nobunaga is ambushed by ninjas, led by the brave samurai Samanosuke. Trapped, Nobunaga commits seppuku, but two sinister sorcerers reanimate Nobunaga’s corpse with a half-human insect larvae. The resurrected Nobunaga orders the capture of two very special women to fulfill his evil plans.
When Britta, the daughter of a Dutch merchant, is abducted on board a ship by seemingly invincible warriors, her tutor and confidant Jacob pursues her captors, vowing to rescue her at all costs. Meanwhile, the beautiful Princess Yuki is also kidnapped, this time by ninjas that reveal themselves, incredibly, to be part spider. In search of Yuki, Samanosuke joins forces with Jacob to vanquish their common foe. In the Cave of Elders, he receives a magical sword that will slay all within its reach-friend or foe-and learns of a sinister ceremony at Inabayama Castle intended to blot out the sun.
Performing a dangerous, stealthy invasion of the castle, Samanosuke and Jacob find the women they love dressed as Moon Princess and Daughter of the Sun, ready to be wed to and ravished by Nobunaga. Aided by their allies, the two warriors attack the insectoid hordes, but Samanosuke falls in battle, seemingly dead. In a mystical encounter, he is given the option to survive and fight-but it comes at a terrible cost . . .
Video game movies are still big business, and rightfully so considering the success of the Silent Hill and Resident Evil film franchises (among others). And despite the director of the first Silent Hill film, Christophe Gans (as well as that movie’s screenwriter Roger Avery) leaving the Silent Hill film franchise, Sony Pictures will still be making a Silent Hill 2 movie (This in addition to the Tekken movie).
Gans however will not be leaving the realm of video game movies entirely. It has just been announced that Gains will be adapting Capcom’s Onimusha game series into a new Onimusha flick, thanks to his successful work on the Silent Hill movie.
Production on Onimusha is reportedly scheduled to begin in April, and movie website ComingSoon.net has been fed the synopsis for the series’ big screen debut. Check it out:
In feudal Japan, 1582, the warlord Nobunaga is ambushed by ninjas, led by the brave samurai Samanosuke. Trapped, Nobunaga commits seppuku, but two sinister sorcerers reanimate Nobunaga’s corpse with a half-human insect larvae. The resurrected Nobunaga orders the capture of two very special women to fulfill his evil plans.
When Britta, the daughter of a Dutch merchant, is abducted on board a ship by seemingly invincible warriors, her tutor and confidant Jacob pursues her captors, vowing to rescue her at all costs. Meanwhile, the beautiful Princess Yuki is also kidnapped, this time by ninjas that reveal themselves, incredibly, to be part spider. In search of Yuki, Samanosuke joins forces with Jacob to vanquish their common foe. In the Cave of Elders, he receives a magical sword that will slay all within its reach-friend or foe-and learns of a sinister ceremony at Inabayama Castle intended to blot out the sun.
Performing a dangerous, stealthy invasion of the castle, Samanosuke and Jacob find the women they love dressed as Moon Princess and Daughter of the Sun, ready to be wed to and ravished by Nobunaga. Aided by their allies, the two warriors attack the insectoid hordes, but Samanosuke falls in battle, seemingly dead. In a mystical encounter, he is given the option to survive and fight-but it comes at a terrible cost . . .
Alone in the Dark 5 is the latest game in the long-running series (which was the first 3D horror game, preceding Resident Evil) and will be hitting Wii, PS3, Xbox 360, PC and DS in early 2008.
Details on the game are still relatively scarce. It will however contain an open-world, set in modern day (and at least partially in New York as the trailer below reveals) where players, as series protagonist Edward Carnby, can undertake a variety of activities. Including stealing cars (via a hotwire mini-game, succeed and the car is stolen, fail and it will alert nearby enemies), instead of being confined to a narrow path. The game will also make extensive use of physics for gameplay, something the survival horror genre hasn’t experimented with to a large degree. New mechanics and a different play-style will also separate the new installment.
Developer Eden Games has mentioned that they want the structure of the game to be similar to television shows like 24 and Alias and that the storyline will be presented as “episodic content completely structured to the gameplay.”
This new trailer is very cinematic, and definitely creepy, but sadly shows no gameplay footage.
Condemned 2 is the sequel to the Xbox 360 (and PC) hit-launch title and this time will be coming to the Playstation 3 as well as the Xbox 360. The game previously had the subtitle “Bloodshot” but that’s inconspicuously missing from this debut trailer, which shows the first gameplay footage of this horror follow-up which is being published by Sega just like the last title and is scheduled for release in early 2008. (The first game Condemned: Criminal Origins made my list of the Top Scariest Games)
The plot has players assuming the identity of Ethan Thomas, the former Special Crimes Unit investigator, who’s been called back to duty to track down his missing partner. The disturbing events from Ethan’s past have left him a broken man – a desperate, drunkard, homeless burnout, drifting aimlessly through a society in inexplicable decline. Fighting inner demons throughout his one-man investigation into a sinister conspiracy, Ethan will need to use anything and everything in the environment to survive as he unravels the mysteries shrouding the city in darkness.
Condemned 2 features include:
* All-new fighting system with defensive and offensive combo chains
* A variety of new firearms and blunt instruments
* Rumored to contain new grapple moves
* Four layers of combat: Fist fighting, melee weapons, firearms and over 40 finishing moves!
* Upgrades can be bought with points earned by being creative in your destruction or by using forensics in your investigation
* Known upgrades include brass knuckles, steel toed boots and a shoulder mounted flashlight
* Multi-player mode features death match and “Circle of Death” modes as well as “Hobo Fighting” arena/Fight Club. Playing through single-player will unlock new guns and weapons to use in multiplayer. Enemies from the single-player will also be transferred over for use in multiplayer
Contra 4, release date November 13th (US), will be packed to the gills with extras and special features in celebration of Contra’s 20th anniversary announced Konami.
So what features will be in the latest game in the action-packed side-scrolling shooter series? Everything from unlockable characters to a Contra virtual museum with info on every game in the series to the complete NES versions of the original NES Contra and Super C! (We reported on Contra and Super C being in Contra 4 back in August actually).
Check it all out in the bulleted list below!
Bonus Features in Contra 4:
* 20th Anniversary Virtual Museum – This museum provides a virtual history of the Contra franchise since the early 80’s, including box art, screen shots and information on every version of Contra from the US, Japan and Europe. The museum also features an unlockable gallery of bonus art.
* Unlockable Games – The NES versions of the classic Contra and Super C are now unlockable.
* 5 unlockable characters, including the Probotector from the European version of the Contra games
* 2 unlockable digital comic books from longtime Contra artist, Atsushi Tsujimoto
* An interview with noted Contra Producer Nobuya Nakazato
Sounds awesome. I will DEFINITELY be getting this game as I am a huge fan of the series. Can’t wait!
If you haven’t seen footage of the new Contra 4, check it out in this gameplay video from E3 2007.
— Via AZNightBuzz
TimeShift comes out today for Xbox 360 and PC in the U.S. and in Europe & Australia on November 2nd, with the PS3 version releasing on November 19th in the US and December 15th in Australia (no Euro date yet).
The game is a first-person shooter that looks to fundamentally change, challenge and reinvent one of the most widely played-out conventions in modern action media . . . . altering time. Yes, just as in The Matrix and a trillion other movies, TV shows and video games.
But you have NEVER seen it been done like this before. The TimeShift Chronicles is a series of 3 behind-the-scenes making-of featurettes that take you inside the development studio and show you exactly how labor-intensive it was to create the incredible piece of gaming awesomeness that is TimeShift, a game that saw delay-upon-delay, true to it’s name, and yet came out looking better and cooler than ever could’ve been imagined when the developers first thought of the game and showed it off years ago.
In part one get introduced to the team behind the game and it’s extensive history as TimeShift was remade and improved over and over again.
Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn has a release date of November 5th in North America and is the 10th game in the Fire Emblem series (no date for anywhere else yet, cross your fingers). The game is developed by Intelligent Systems, the same developer that made the last game, Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance for GameCube (they also made Super Paper Mario for Wii and many other Nintendo games throughout the years).
The game is a direct sequel to Path of Radiance and features the same cel-shaded FMV cut-scenes and an upgraded game engine.
Check out this amazing video interview to see the game in action. Looks impressive!
Storyline:
Three years have passed since the Daein-Crimea war, where the mercenary Ike led the Crimean army to defeat Daein’s mad King Ashnard. Both Daein and Crimea are still stabilizing after that war. Daein is ruled by the Begnion occupation forces, after Crimea relinquished rule over their defeated country, and they are oppressed by the imperial soldiers. In the first of the game’s four parts, a group of chivalrous thieves, which includes “the silver-haired maiden,” Micaiah, fight Begnion’s oppression and attempt to liberate Daein and bring back power to the royal family.
The efforts of the Dawn Brigade are the beginning of a much larger conflict. In the next part, Crimea’s Queen Elincia fights against conspiring nobles, who plot to overthrow her. The following part sees the Greil mercenaries assist the united Laguz army as they go to war with the Begnion Empire. The consequences of this war can be seen in the fourth and final part, where the Dawn Brigade and the Greil mercenaries join forces to defeat the Begnion senate and the goddess high above at the Guiding Tower.
Culdcept DS has been confirmed for Japan and will be hitting sometime in 2008, developed as always by OmiyaSoft. Western fans will probably have to wait until mid or late 2008 before it sees release here . . . if it does, but hopefully it will due to the release of Culdcept previously on Playstation 2 in the States. Which even though it didn’t receive strong sales it has regardless built-up a strong fanbase here, which includes one of my friends who raves about the game.
Another entry in the series, called Culdcept Saga, is also set for U.S. release (it’s already out in Japan) on January 15, 2008 at the “budget” price of $39.99 (so far Culdcept Saga does not have a European or Australian release date). That game is published both in Japan and the US by Namco, who hopefully will pick up Culdcept DS for US release since they have taken an interest in the franchise.
If you’ve never heard of Culdcept, it’s an intriguing mishmash of a Monopoly-style board game, Magic the Gathering-style card game (i.e. TCG which stands for Trading Card Game) and the look of Japanese-style RPGs like Disgaea: Hour of Darkness on PS2. The game is extremely popular in Japan where Culdcept games have also been released on the PS1, Sega Saturn and Dreamcast in addition to PS2 and now Xbox 360.
The game itself is played like Monopoly, where you roll dice and move around a game board, attempting to claim spaces and assess fees against other Cepters who land there. Unlike in Monopoly, squares are claimed by summoning creatures (using cards in the deck you build) to guard them, and players who land on them can opt to challenge this creature with one of their own cards from their deck rather than pay the toll. If successful, the challenger claims ownership of the square. The winner of the game is the first player to return to the starting location after amassing a sufficient quantity of magic/mana.
Creatures are summoned from customized decks (”books”) of cards which players design ahead of time from an available pool of cards. Other cards in these decks bestow items to enhance creature abilities, or represent spells which can influence movement on the game board as you’d expect. Although there are nearly 500 different cards in total, players must earn many of these through skillful play and story mode progression before they can be used.
The Xbox 360 version, Culdcept Saga, adds support for online multiplayer play against up to three other players via Xbox Live, complete with leaderboards and rankings, in addition to card and rule tweaks and upgraded high-resolution (partially 3D) graphics. Also new in the Xbox 360 version is the ability to unlock various items that players can use to customize their in-game avatars.
Here’s a developer walkthrough of Culdcept Saga from E3 ‘07. For the DS version you can likely expect to have the same basic gameplay with stylus controls tacked on. But hopefully there will be some unique DS features as well as online play via Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection.
Mario Party is tackling a new frontier, the Nintendo DS!
The extremely popular party game that originally launched on the Nintendo 64 in 1999 has been going strong for nearly a decade now but it finally is ready to pounce on the two-screened hand-held with all the mini-game fun you come to expect from a Mario Party title, but this time it makes use of all the DS’ special features for a new way to play!
Mario Party DS features single-card play for 1 to 4 players to play off of with only one copy of the game but will feature no support for the online Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection (why is beyond me). It will however feature comic-book style cut-scenes to spice things up.
Modes include:
* Story Mode: A single player must defeat the CPUs in several boards.
* Party Mode: Up to four players play a game on a chosen board.
* Mini-game Mode: The player plays mini-games in which they have unlocked.
* Puzzle Mode: The player plays one of five Mario-themed puzzle games.
Mario Party DS has a release date of November 19th in North America, November 23rd in Europe and December 6th in Australia.
Atari has announced Neverwinter Nights 2: Mysteries of Westgate, an all-new expansion pack that will be available exclusively by digital download this fall.
The game is set in the Dungeons & Dragons: Forgotten Realms universe by Wizards of the Coast. Developed by Ossian Studios, Mysteries of Westgate is the first fully featured Adventure Pack for Neverwinter Nights 2.
Set in the infamous Forgotten Realms city of Westgate, players find themselves in possession of a powerful but cursed treasure that threatens to destroy them. Linked to the underworld organization known as the Night Masks, the treasure will draw players into a city-spanning clash between warring factions. Players must choose their allegiance in order to break the curse and ultimately uncover a plot that threatens Westgate itself.
From the creators of the critically-acclaimed Neverwinter Nights module, Darkness over Daggerford, Neverwinter Nights 2: Mysteries of Westgate will feature a non-linear, open-ended single-player campaign with numerous side quests covering more than 15 hours of game play. Atari’s new Adventure Pack will also feature 3 new companions; an entirely new underground sewers tile set themed after the seedy underbelly of Westgate; a host of new monsters to do battle with, including some truly epic foes; an exciting new and original musical score; as well as thousands of new lines of professionally recorded dialogue.
This game and future “Adventure Packs” require the original game to play. (more…)
Video game movies are still big business, and rightfully so considering the success of the Silent Hill and Resident Evil film franchises (among others). And despite the director of the first Silent Hill film, Christophe Gans (as well as that movie’s screenwriter Roger Avery) leaving the Silent Hill film franchise, Sony Pictures will still be making a Silent Hill 2 movie (This in addition to the Tekken movie).
In feudal Japan, 1582, the warlord Nobunaga is ambushed by ninjas, led by the brave samurai Samanosuke. Trapped, Nobunaga commits seppuku, but two sinister sorcerers reanimate Nobunaga’s corpse with a half-human insect larvae. The resurrected Nobunaga orders the capture of two very special women to fulfill his evil plans.
The plot has players assuming the identity of Ethan Thomas, the former Special Crimes Unit investigator, who’s been called back to duty to track down his missing partner. The disturbing events from Ethan’s past have left him a broken man – a desperate, drunkard, homeless burnout, drifting aimlessly through a society in inexplicable decline. Fighting inner demons throughout his one-man investigation into a sinister conspiracy, Ethan will need to use anything and everything in the environment to survive as he unravels the mysteries shrouding the city in darkness. 
