Where "No! Don't! Stop!" becomes "No, Don't Stop!"
Nippon Ichi, its Japanese for ‘What The Hell’
There are two things that Nippon Ichi does well: Disgaea games and confusing the hell out of foreigners, and that former is debatable. The latter, however, is proven by the latest series of screenshots and game information regarding the upcoming Disgaea 4. The latest entry to the long-running series will incorporate a new method of getting characters to cooperate with you: torture. In a dark room that could either by Abu Ghraib or Lusipurr’s basement, unruly characters are chained up and the players is presented with many option of what to do to them, including smacking them with money, forcing them to sign documents, or even making the character talk dirty or give a massage. Other screenshots display an upgradable ship, though it purpose is not well detailed. If Disgaea and/or torture chambers are not interesting for you, then NIS America has decided that they do not need a specific game to confuse and astound you, they can simply use the idea of gaming itself to amuse and baffle. Hyperdimension Neptunia was released this past July in Japan and it was announced this week that it will make making its way to North American and European shores, but what do you do in this oddly named game? You control your XBox, PS3, or Wii and fight the DS. Confused? Exactly. As Japan requires everything be a beautiful woman, these four systems and the never-released Sega Neptune are personified as Goddesses that protect their specific regions of the Gaming Industry world. Disgaea 4′s current release date is set for Spring 2011 in Japan and Summer 2011 for NA/EU markets, while Hyperdimension Neptunia will be hitting outside markets in Spring 2011.
Every morning at Julian's house. Not pictured: Foster's.
But The Nintendo DS Is Not All Evil!
If there was ever a need to reinforce the idea that all of Australia is drunk on Foster’s twenty-five hours a day, this story fully satisfies that need for at least the next month. While driving late at night down a country road near Heathcote, Victoria, the family had an unfortunate meeting with a kangaroo. Yes ladies and gents, someone had to call for help after ramming their car into a kangaroo. The car veered off the road and rolled multiple times before coming to a stop. Luckily, of the car’s five occupants, seven-year-old Christopher Miszkowiec had his Nintendo DS with him and used the light from the handheld to unbuckle his seatbelt, then those of his unconscious mother and five-year-old brother while his father retrieved their six-month-old son from his seat. The boy’s mother had previously disliked the gaming system, but now swears he is allowed to play it whenever he likes. Presumably Julian ‘SiliconNoob’ Taylor avoids this situation entirely by not ramming his vehicle into large marsupials.
INDUSTRY!
Because Throwing Money Is Awesome
Several weeks ago, when I was on a trip and confined to my Android phone, I gave all of our lovely Lusi-sprites an atrocious news post with no pictures and very little to read. But one of those articles was regarding the industry hints that Sony was looking into an Android-capable PSP. Those speculative whispers have proven to be not just rumor but an actual device being planned by the console company, though many of the details of the device have now been clarified. A PSP this is not, but based on reliable information obtained by Engadget, the PlayStation Phone (with the still unconfirmed name of “Zeus”) appears to have taken various elements from the handheld as well as other devices on the market. Like the Go, the gaming pad slides out from the rest of the unit and features a D-pad as well as a multi-touch area in the center of the controller. It is not clear if the 3.7-inch screen is also touch sensitive like many other smartphones currently on the market, but it will run either Android 2.2 or 3.0 and comes equipped with 512 MB of RAM, 1GB of ROM, a 5MP camera, and support for microSD cards. Little else is known about the device, and its speculative release date is not until Q1 or Q2 2011. So if you were one of Sony’s biggest video game competitors and the only one currently without a handheld on the market, what would your response be? Microsoft’s is to spend $65 million on something completely unknown. In their Q3 financial statements, the R&D department had a dramatic increase in spending, and while some are willing to attribute this to the Kinect, the timing does not entirely fit with the development and release of the peripheral. Some feel it could be a Windows Mobile device, so as one handheld gaming rumor gets confirmation, it seems another one has come to replace it. Thanks M$!
Red and blue bricks were shat.
TF2 Most Uttered Phrase: “EFFING GHOST!”
After the success of last year’s Halloween promotion, the guys at Valve have prepared some spooky surprises for their Team Fortress 2 players again for this holiday weekend. Players will be treated to a new map, the Mann Manor, which is haunted by the Horseless Headless Horsemann. There is a special bonus item that can be won on this map, as well as another gift for defeating the Horsemann. There is a new achievement for defeating him, in addition to three other new achievements and the ability to gain last year’s achievements if you missed them. Finally, a new item can be crafted, and while it is not a hat, the reward is equally awesome: a Saxton Hale mask. So if you ever had any interest in being a fantastically mustached Australian, please join us tonight and every Saturday night at 9:00 PM Eastern Standard Time for Team Fortress 2. And remember kids, the only thing scarier than the Horseless Headless Horsemann is when Grandpa Lusipurr gets out the Huntsman.
JAPANDUSTRY!
I saw the Disgaea 4 story…”somewhere” and I definitely WTF’d. I hate fanservice just for the sake of fanservice.
Man, I love ridiculous game premises!
Ridiculous game hardware? Not so much. Not sure I really like the PSPhone idea. I smell N-Gage.
-Disgaea 4 has a punishment mode?!!! http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v642/shakespeares_sister/shakes2/gayestlook.jpg
-@Jenifer: My vehicle runs on large marsupials!
-@Dan: A lot of people seem to be tarring the Playstation Phone with the Ngage brush, but even if all else fails it is an Android phone with a d-pad, that’s useful.
So this is your vehicle?
Also, while searching for that, I found this one, which I am now assuming is a picture of you. From your current tiny picture, I can’t verify it so until you actual have a better site picture, I will now operate under the assumption that this is actually your high school yearbook photo.
Nah, I drive one of these: http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/08/20/article-1304462-0AD7F28E000005DC-467_634x473.jpg
To be fair, these days the only thing more terrifying than the HHH is when Lusipurr takes out the ROCKET LAUNCHER.
Soldier Lusi is probably the most fearsome thing in the game, and certainly more terrifying than Pyro or Sniper Lusi.
This may be a silly question, but has anybody verified that the PSP phone actually plays PSP games? Or will it just play standard Android games (and possibly some custom Sony-published titles)? If it’s fully PSP-capable, then I’d certainly, at the very least, see this as a more desirable handheld than the PSP Go (since it presumably would have all the PSP Go features, only running on Android as well).
Also, like SN said, even if it doesn’t play proper PSP games, it’s still a phone with a D-pad and buttons. I doubt it’ll be the next DS or anything, but I remain cautiously optimistic for the device.
Also also, rocket launcher Lusi is terrifying.
Sony have not yet announced the device (LOL @ Sony leaks) so there is no official verification to be had. Unofficially it is said to be compatible with both Playstation Minis and Android games.
In terms of fully fledged PSP titles I’m not sure. The device hardware is significantly beefier than the PSP hardware, but not so beefy as to be able to emulate most PSP games, I should think. In all likelihood Sony will port a couple of their more popular titles (GoW), but it will be predominantly Minis, Apps, and new PSP software which has been designed from the ground up to straddle multiple hardware configurations.
It won’t be a platform of hardcore experience, but it will be a better platform for hardcore experiences than a touchscreen smartphone.
*experiences*
Yeah, the hardware’s beefier, but like you said, probably not beefy enough to do full-on emulation for the PSP. I think the only hope of natively supporting all PSP games would be if they used the same processor type in the phone. I believe the PSP is MIPS-based, like the PS2, and I think Android supports MIPS phones, but it seems like there would still probably be too much wiggle room for software that was specifically designed with (more or less) exact PSP specs in mind. The more I think about it, the more I realize just how difficult it might be to get PSP games to run natively with the phone-based processes running in the background. Kind of disappointing, since I’m much more interested in a PSP that makes calls than a phone that can play PSP minis. Still, the buttons will certainly be a nice addition. If it’s got buttons and a standard touch screen, it could certainly support games that other smartphones wouldn’t be able to handle well.
The PSP only has about a year of life left in it, there isn’t really much point in Sony dating their phone by relying on that library, and the PSphone isn’t beefy enough to run PSP2 software, so I think they made the right decision.
Once the PSP2 supplants the PSP however, I imagine that the PSP Minis will begin straddle the middle-ground between the PSP2 and the PSphone (similar to the way that many apps are available for multiple iDevices, with resolution being the only real point of difference).