NIS America has announced that Disgaea 3 is scheduled for release sometime this summer for the Playstation 3. The company has stated the game "makes a bold new step towards the next generation console with a whole new cast, story and game system."

Those that wish to visit the official site can do so here.

Sega has released a slew of new screenshots of Sega Superstars Tennis for the PS2, DS, Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3. The game is scheduled for a Spring 2008 release.

Check the link to view more images.

• Geo Panel – Is a group of stat altering elemental properties that are placed upon certain parts of the battlefields. When there are one or more colored square panels on the battle grid, it means an element can affect that area. The effect can boost or reduce your unit’s stats.
• Geo Cube – A new addition to the PSP version, Geo Cubes are magic items that add more depth to multiplayer battles. You can use the various Geo Cubes to enhance your abilities, summon monsters, or even attack your enemies with them.
• Demon Gadgets – Are randomly generated items that appear on the battlefield. By acquiring these gadgets, you can power your units up. Some demon gadgets can level your unit up by 30 levels at once.
• Transmigration – A form of reincarnation that allows you to start over from level 1, but your unit will grow stronger than before.

The game is a tennis version of the popular golf Sony golf series and is slated to release in Japan September 14th for the PlayStation 2. According to the article, tennis will feature the same art and simple gameplay that is seen in the golf titles by just featuring a two button system of circle to swing and X to lob.

Currently there is no word when and if Hot Shots Tennis will make it's way stateside.

Virtua Tennis 3 is due for release in Spring 2007.

Astonishia Story is originally a Korean-made RPG released for the PC in 1994. It was a little known game back then, so seeing it ported to the PSP was a surprise. Even more surprising is the fact that Ubisoft was willing to publish it stateside, though I’m sure RPG starved PSP owners aren’t complaining. The irony is that if you paid the money for it, you’ll have plenty to complain about.

Astonishia Story places you in the role not of a naïve teenage boy, but one of a 24-year-old veteran knight named Lloyd. It’s one of the few twists in what is an otherwise very generic story. Lloyd is part of a group responsible for transporting a holy artifact across the kingdom, but of course, the trip is interrupted by a force that wishes to use the artifact for their own selfish gains. The entire unit is annihilated except for Lloyd and he takes it upon himself to take the artifact back while exacting his revenge. That sets up the story, but I’ll get back to how it develops in the bad and ugly section. 

I’m not going to pull any punches – there’s not much here to praise. But thankfully the battle system, which is the meat of any game of this ilk, is plenty fun and somewhat satisfying. Movement and targeting are grid-based, kind of like Final Fantasy Tactics or the various Nippon Ichi games, though height plays no role. Actually, the system used in Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits is a better analog. Once in position, you can either attack physically or use a skill or magic, depending on which character you are attacking with.

AS has element system that can affect damage and critical hits. Each main character is associated with a specific element, meaning that they’ll do more damage if they use a corresponding magic or attack on an enemy that has an opposing element, and vice versa. The field itself can have an inherent element – desert battles will have a fire element, snowy regions have ice, etc. It adds a bit of strategic planning to battles since some characters will be completely ineffective against certain types of monsters or during battles with a specific field element.

While some may not be fond of the graphics, I actually did like them. They aren’t the best, but they aren’t the worse. The sprites are animated well and the bright colors really jump off the PSP’s screen. The general graphical style is rather nostalgic, bringing about thoughts and memories of old SNES role-playing games.

One of the reasons why people play RPGs is to enjoy a good story. Unfortunately, gamers won’t find one here. The overall story isn’t anything you haven’t heard before – protagonist is wronged, seeks revenge and to restore honor, meets people along the way, romantic interest is hinted at, some enemies become friends, some friends become enemies, reach goal, and find some higher more evil entity is the cause of it all. Like I said, sounds familiar doesn’t it? What doesn’t help is that all the playable characters are flatter than paper. Not much is done at all to give the characters some depth or personality. Instead, they all fall into predictable fantasy story archetypes. They even play the “hero dislikes at first, then eventually falls for the brash heroine” card. Been there, done that.

The story is lackluster, but the amount of time it takes to cover it all is criminal. Fifteen hours isn’t too bad for a handheld title, but for a RPG, fifteen hours is more like a halfway point, not the end. Hell, most people can complete Resident Evil 4 on hard difficulty in that amount of time. And the end just sort of comes out of nowhere. When I got there, my first thought was “that’s it?” It didn’t do anything to tie up the overall story even though each character’s personal quests were addressed. And there is nothing offered that will make you want to go through it all again.

Adding in some sidequests and other exploration bits would have extended the gameplay a few more hours, but AS plays very linearly with no opportunities at all to sidetrack. In fact, you’ll actually find yourself backtracking more than anything else if you missed an event trigger. However, it is hard to get lost since the NPCs are always telling you where you’re supposed to be going. It’s finding the event trigger that may get some hung up, but once you figure it out, the directions are spelled out quite clearly.

The game itself isn’t overwhelmingly difficult, but it can be frustrating at times. On the world map, you can avoid encounters because they are visible on-screen, but in dungeons, random encounters are employed. What makes this frustrating is that the enemies need a beating to be defeated which will wear your hp and mp down and thus eat at your supplies. So, if you enter a dungeon ill-prepared, you’ll find yourself struggling in regular battles. In some cases, the regular battles are more difficult than bosses because the game likes to throw a large number of enemies at you. It’s also not fun going from one boss fight that drains your party immediately into another one and so you’ll have to waste a good two or three rounds just recovering from the last fight while holding off the current attackers. One last thing is that the first handful of hours has Lloyd all by his lonesome. Again, it’s not terribly hard, but annoyingly frustrating.

Pardon the pun, but Astonishia Story is far from astonishing. Lackluster story, flat characters, and a mere fifteen or so hours of gameplay really make this hard to recommend even to the most hardcore RPG players. If you’re fine with one with little heart and one that can be completed in a weekend, then by all means go for it. But if you want something more for your money, look elsewhere.

Satisfying battle system is easy to pick up, but deep enough to have fun tinkering with.

Not the prettiest game, but has a certain nostalgic flair that makes it appealing.

Seems like it has just 5 tracks – one each for battle, bosses, towns, world map, and dungeons.

Good battle system, horribly cookie cutter story and flat generic characters.

15 hours and it’s over. And there’s nothing here that will give you the urge to replay it.

]]> Sat, 22 Jul 2006 18:47:00 -0500 The Gaming Horizon Archive http://www.gamebump.com/go/rockstar_announces_table_tennis http://www.gamebump.com/go/rockstar_announces_table_tennis http://www.gamebump.com/go/rockstar_announces_table_tennis# Rockstar Games has announced that they are currently developing a ping pong game for the Xbox 360 titled Table Tennis.

Founder and Executive Producer at Rockstar, Sam Houser said, "Our goal is to create a game that is perfectly addictive in its focused simplicity, a game that showcases the true possibilities of the next-gen experience, not just in looks but in feel and pace. We wanted to use the power of the new hardware and the resolution of new televisions to give the game an immediacy, an intensity and a sense of physicality and reality, resulting in a purer, more visceral experience that simply was not possible previously.

Table Tennis already has a release date as it is scheduled to come out for the 360 on May 22nd, 2006 at a price of $39.99.

Virtua Tennis for the PlayStation 2 is easily on top of the competition even a few years after its release and now with the PSP out, Sega is looking to beat the competition to the punch with Virtua Tennis World Tour for the handheld. The game includes various modes of play including Quick Match, Tournament, Exhibition, World Tour, Ball Games and WiFi play for four people. The only new additional mode featured exclusively on the handheld is Ball Games which are mini-games made for the PSP that push you to beat try to beat the high score although this was not on display today.

We were only given the opportunity to play Quick Match instead and just based on the one round match we played the game's controls are very easy to pick up. With the push of triangle players can move from a near first to third-person view or back, with square you can do a lob shot, circle a slice and X a top spin. Serving the ball is very simple by pressing what type of shot you want which starts a meter up and then press it again for the power of the shot.

Graphically the court and players look and feel true to life. The player movements are done exceptionally well and are very lifelike as they will even dive and jump to hit the ball. If they do dive and hit the ball, you'll also notice that they then have to work their way back to their feet which is slow, but realistic. Another great addition to the realism of the game is the sound, you will hear and feel the grunts from the players. It really does make you feel like you're courtside.

With the varying options the game has plenty of replay value, but given that it is also pretty difficult emphasizes that fact even more. The difficulty isn't impossible, but does make you work harder to score and this definitely adds to the realism of tennis.

Virtua Tennis World Tour is approximately 80% complete and scheduled for a summer 2005 release and just based on the demo version we saw, it certainly looks to be one of the top sports games for the handheld. The game looks and feels like real tennis should and if you liked Sega's product for the PlayStation 2, you will definitely be happy with what they are bringing to the PSP.]]> Fri, 20 May 2005 00:12:58 -0500