Posts Tagged: Videogames

Videogames

Dragon Quest VII coming to Nintendo 3DS

By Aidan Moher October 30th, 2012
Dragon Quest VII coming to Nintendo 3DS

Art by Akira Toriyama

Dragon Quest VII coming to Nintendo 3DS

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The best news last week was that a 65 year-old Arnold Schwarzenegger is reprising his role as Conan the Barbarian in an upcoming film. The best news this week? Dragon Quest VII, a much debated and eternally long volume in the much-loved RPG series, will be coming to Nintendo 3DS early next year. In Japan.

Even the synopsis, taken from the original Playstation release, is charming:

You play the role of a 16 year old boy who lives in the village of Fishbell and aspires to be a great fisherman, like your father Borkano. Once The Hero and his friends Keifer and Maribell start exploring Estard Island, they discover that there used to be more to the world than just their small piece of land. The trio will have to collect ancient tablet shards and use them to revive the lost continents, uncover why they were lost, and who erased them to begin with.

This immediately leaps to the top of my list of most anticipated games. Based on the above scan, the release appears to be a full-on remake, much needed for one of the ugliest (if charming) games of all time. Though this has only been announced for a Japanese release, the previous Nintendo DS remakes of Dragon Quest‘s 4-5 were well received in North America and sold respectably, suggesting that an announcement of an overseas release is likely an inevitability. At least, that’s what I like to tell myself.

Videogames

Telltale Games breathing digital life into Bill Willingham’s Fables series

By Aidan Moher October 15th, 2012
Bill Willingham's Fables

Through their official website, Telltale Games announced a videogame based around Bill Willingham’s popular Fables series of comic books and graphic novels. Not much is known about the game beside a short description, which serves more as an introduction to Willingham and the Fables series than the game itself:

Created by Bill Willingham, the Eisner award-winning and chart-topping Fables re-imagines classic characters from fairy tales and folklore, spinning their stories in wild, brutally violent, mature, and often un-expected [sic] directions.

I think it’s safe to assume that the game will feature gameplay and storytelling similar to other Telltale adventure games, such as Jurassic Park, Monkey Island and The Walking Dead. Like those other games, you can expect that Fables will not cover the stories already told in the Fables books, instead tackling new scenarios in Willingham’s world. More information will be available through the official Fables website.

Videogames

EA Announces Dragon Age III: Inquisition

By Aidan Moher September 17th, 2012
Dragon Age III: Inquisition

EA has announced the next game in the Dragon Age series, and done so in an interesting way. Generally, for announcements of this calibre, EA will wait for one of the several large trade shows that happen throughout North America, Europe and Japan, like, E3, Leipzig Games Convention, or Tokyo Games Show respectively. This time, however, EA, through one of the Dragon Age series’ Executive Producers, Mark Darrah, they announced the game through their website.

The announcement explains why they’ve chosen a non-traditional method for the announcement:

Recently, I said that we didn´t want to talk about Dragon Age III unless we had something to show. I´m trying to stick to that plan and won´t be revealing much today. That said, a lot of information and rumors have surfaced recently and we don´t want to hide from them. There are a BUNCH of things that I really want to share with you but I want to do this right, and doing it right requires some more time.

This decision appears designed to foster goodwill with a fanbase grumbling with discontent at the recent handling of the Dragon Age franchise, including the dramatic changes introduced to the series with its second volume, many of which appear to have been made to speed development of the game, following on the unexpected success of Dragon Age: Origins, rather than to improve the series’ gameplay and storytelling through natural evolution of the game systems. Read More »

News

These noir portraits of Mario characters freak me out.

By Aidan Moher June 28th, 2012
Noir Mario Portraits by Anthony Jones Noir Mario Portraits by Anthony Jones Noir Mario Portraits by Anthony Jones

Anthony Jones, a concept artist and faculty member at Red Engine Studios, is the man behind these creepy (awesome) noir-ish portraits of that classic Mario characters we all know and love (well, I dunno whether I love Wario, but, yeah…)

Jones explains the project:

I’m developing a story for a spin off of Super Mario Bros! So far I’m calling it “Mario”

Mario – Is a beat down Plumber and leads a lonely but modest life. He can barely pay his rent and is coming off a drug called “Star.” little does he know that he is destined for great things

Peach – She is a successful actress/model and is working her way to the top! unfortunately most of her fame has been due to the help of mob boss Bowser, which leads her into some trouble later on down the road.

Luigi – Is the brother of Mario. They used to work together until something took a hold of Luigi. Although Mario was able to control his addiction to “Star” Luigi couldn’t. Now living in the streets lost and confused he has forgotten who he is and where he comes from! Always finding the next fix Luigi slowly deteriorates.

Mario Portraits by Anthony JonesMario Portraits by Anthony Jones

More of Jones’ artwork, including more Mario portraits and a lot of tremendous concept art (some of which is inspired by John Harris, one of my favourite Science Fiction painters), is available on Robot Pencil, his official website.

Videogames

Agni’s Philosophy, a peek at the future of Final Fantasy

By Aidan Moher June 6th, 2012

Behind closed doors at E3, the largest videogame conference and tradeshow in the world, currently going on in Los Angeles, Square Enix, makers of the popular Final Fantasy series, debuted a stunning new game engine. The engine, dubbed Luminous Studio, was showcased in the form of a real-time short film inspired by Final Fantasy. The four minute film is a marvel of tech, art and sound design.

Keep in mind that what you’re seeing is being rendered in real-time, meaning that, if Square Enix’s projections for hardware specs are correct (and, to be fair, they’re probably optimistic), this is the potential level of quality that we could see in gameplay sections of videogames developed using Luminous Studio. It’s a little astounding. I remember, watching Toy Story, that I marvelled at the time when videogame graphics would surpass Pixar’s efforts. Watching this, I think it’s fair to say that real-time graphics have long ago left those films in the dust, even if they still can’t compete with Pixar’s latest films.