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Dragon's Dogma: The Kotaku Review newVideoPlayer("TGSOpenew_gawker.flv", 475, 376); While it’s night for most of you, the doors of TGS just opened for the first public day. Was it insane? No, but Japanese etiquette clashing with the longings of fanboys makes for a nice mash-up.
And the rent-a-cops are a nice touch.
I kind of wanted to say “stylus on”, but at least in the demo, there is no such thing—it makes no use of the touchscreen at all. Which is fine in a way, since I’m not interested in a tacked-on touchscreen gimmick. At the same time, it’d make sense on the battlefield for selecting spaces to move to or attack, since tapping the square would be much faster than fumbling with the d-pad. It’s natural enough it’s the first thing I tried to do, actually. That aside, the system’s straight from the rest of the Tactics series, so I jumped right in without bothering to glance at the control layout. The best way to wrap the game in a neat little description is that it looks like FFT; it plays like FFT; it is Final Fantasy Tactics. Just on a DS. And that’s not a bad thing.
To: The Japanese Contingent From: Fahey Re: Friday seems shorter somehow
It’s always a lovely day when you get to watch timely coverage become less and less timely by the hour. The servers were on the blink for a large chunk of this afternoon as I sat in front of my PC and refreshed over and over and over again. Finally somewhere between 4 and 5PM Crecentral time the server gremlins went out for coffee and the snipers we posted took care of the rest. I don’t know about you guys, but it’s been a very busy week in the lonely Kotaku Tower, but I take comfort in the fact that it is my weekend now, and TGS lasts until Sunday. Then Monday morning I hop a flight to New York City (where they make the good salsa) to cover the Halo 3 launch event. For now, two days of sleep.
What you missed: Resident Evil: Extinction Is Out! FLY HOME NOW! Yakuza 2 Heads Stateside Snakes On A Dojo Halo 3 Pirated The Hell Out Of Capcom Mobilises Several Awesome Franchises And Of Course, MGS4 Is A Flop
From Kotaku Tower this is Michael Fahey, signing off.
Is Master Chief coming to the PS3? He really seems to like the console, as seen in this video of the legendary warrior hanging out at GameStop. He note only humps the PS3 once, but later goes back for seconds. Don’t ask me why, but I get the distinct impression the robbery at the end was faked. The employees gave Oscar-worthy performances, but something was off there. This is just a friendly reminder that it’s almost over folks.
It’s time to announce Kotaku’s super-secret, hyper-exciting plans for the biggest game launch of the year! Tada! You can’t see it from where you are sitting, but I just struck a dramatic pose. Yes, our plans for the Halo 3 launch, with the majority of our staff either travelling home from or still in Japan that evening, is me. Specifically me, in New York, attending the official Halo 3 New York launch at the Best Buy at 529 5th Ave, where there will be prizes, giveaways, local athletes I won’t recognise (go sports ignorance!), Major Nelson, and at midnight – “a spectacle unlike any other”. I don’t know, I’ve seen more than my fair share of spectacles, so that’s a pretty tall order there. Meanwhile, my copy of Halo 3 will be sitting in a GameStop in Atlanta, feeling terribly neglected. If you plan on hitting up the NYC launch, I’ll be the 6’5″ man with the shaved head carrying an uncomfortably heavy backpack around, possibly sweating profusely. Me, not the backpack. Hit up Major Nelson’s blog for more details on the New York launch, as well as the official launch events in LA, Miami, and Seattle.
Sure it’s a lovely box, but until they put that little sticker on the bottom left it was merely a curiosity. That little recycled picture of Link is gonna make this puppy sell like a puppy made of gold, filled with chocolate when it hits stores in November. Nintendo has released a little overview of the Zapper and Link’s Crossbow Training along with the image, which details operation of the gun peripheral and an overview of Link’s three game modes. Those modes are Target Shooting, which is a shooting gallery type game, Defender, in which you stand still while assaulted on all sides by enemies, and Ranger, which you have to play while singing “Sister Christian” at the top of your lungs. You’re motoring!
Nippon Ichi Software has just launched the website for the latest game in the Disgaea series, which takes the intense strategy RPG and brings it to the next-generation on the PlayStation 3. The new site contains some screenshots, character and story info, and a whole lot of indecipherable squiggly lines in place of words. Those of you who read squiggly may feel free to translate anything pertinent for us in the comments section, as our normal squiggle-translator is in Squiggle-land.
Disgaea 3 Website (Japanese) [Nippon Ichi Software - Thanks Makaze!]
If you folks are anything like me, reading the headline to this post was like feeling a nice, satisfying sneeze coming on and then having it fade away at the last minute. Capcom is taking some of their top franchises mobile, including my beloved Mega Man Legends series which returns as RockMan Dash: The Great Five Islands Adventure. Also slated for handsets is Resident Evil 4 Mobile Edition, Devil May Cry: Dante X Virgil, Sengoku Basara (Devil Kings) Tactical RPG, and Breath of Fire 4 Action RPG Edition. Looking at some of the screens shown on the GAMEWatch site, it might be time to pick out a gaming phone to tide us over until we get a new MegaMan Legends on consoles. It’s All In Japanese – Capcom Mobile Games [GAMEWatch via NeoGAF - Thanks Archaotic]
With the announcement of Yakuza 3 last week, gamers across the U.S. had one question on their minds: “Where’s Yakuza 2 for the PS2?” Well Sega’s got your Yakuza 2 coming, announcing it and two new DS titles slated for stateside release in 2008. The second game, released in Japan last December, picks up where the first left off, continuing the story of Kazuma as he fights to prevent a war between two rival clans. In addition to Yakuza 2, Sega also announced Dinosaur King and Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer for the Nintendo DS. Dinosaur King somehow involves digging for fossils plus special moves, which sounds… nice? Meanwhile Shiren is a remake on an SNES game using the Mystery Dungeon engine you either love or hate with every fiber of your being, with me firmly in the latter camp. Still, Yakuza 2!
Sega Bringing Yakuza 2, Shiren To North America [Gamastura]
