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.

Er, well, that's how it used to be anyway. The purity of fun has a new benchmark - and its name is Super Mario Galaxy. Super Mario Galaxy sees Mario return to top form in the three-dimensional realm. As can be immediately concluded from the title, this game has Mario soaring in the cosmos attempting to - what else - save Princess Peach from the clutches of Bowser. Along the way he'll defy gravity with the help of a seemingly Peach replacement space "princess" named Rosalina. Rosalina and her gaggle of star people called Lumas inhabit the hub world that Mario will use to explore the galaxies that make up the gameplay of Super Mario Galaxy.

• 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.

Ubisoft has signed on action/shooter developer Red Storm Entertainment who plans to bring the Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2 engine to the game. The title will feature single and multiplayer modes and give players the option to battle it out with a variety of fighters including snipers, rifleman and grenadiers. Meanwhile, the multiplayer will include eight maps for Xbox Live.

No date has been announced yet, although True Soldier is expected to release in September.

The game is expected to include 40 songs as you battle it out from a first audition up to becoming an American Idol. The title looks to include hit songs from the show along with the celebrity judges including snap remarks from Simon.

Karaoke Revolution: American Idol is scheduled to release in December 2006.

Gaming Horizon will have a full review shortly.]]> Mon, 27 Mar 2006 10:58:00 -0600 The Gaming Horizon Archive http://www.gamebump.com/go/mega_man_maverick_hunter_x__released http://www.gamebump.com/go/mega_man_maverick_hunter_x__released http://www.gamebump.com/go/mega_man_maverick_hunter_x__released#

“The Mega Man X series combined top-notch play control and invigorating gameplay experiences that helped define the platform genre,” said Todd Thorson, director of marketing, Capcom Entertainment. “By introducing innovative ways to experience the original classic, both new and veteran gamers can enjoy side scrolling action at its best.”

Mega Man Maverick Hunter X is now available at retailers across North America and carries on E10+ rating by the ESRB.

“Tony Hawk’s American SK8Land illustrates how the brand is continuing to grow and innovate,” said Will Kassoy, vice president of global brand management, Activision, Inc. “In addition to incredible gameplay, for the first time ever, fans will be able to create and become part of a handheld wireless Tony Hawk’s American SK8Land community that spans the globe.”

Tony Hawk’s American SK8Land has a suggested retail price of $39.99 and has been rated “E” by the ESRB.

The Tony Hawk series is back again for another year. This time around, it’s been dubbed as Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland to signify that the series is heading in an all-new direction and has a number of new features to substantiate that. Included are new “old” moves, a revamped story mode, the ability to use BMX bikes, and of course the one thing Activision and Neversoft have been ramming down our throats – no loading.

The tried and true gameplay that everyone has come to expect from the series returns, which is always good since it’s so great in the first place. You’ll see plenty of melon and indy grabs, kickflips and heelflips, as well as a variety of grinds. The hardest thing to do with a system like this is to keep it fresh by adding new things. THPS2 introduced the manual, THPS3 gave us the revert, and THUG finally gave us adventures off of the board. This time around, Activision hasn’t added anything as game-altering as those things, but instead adds a couple of new minor moves. The first is the bert slide, which resembles flatland surfing – the move was made popular to this generation by the “Dogtown and the Z-Boys” movie or for the more mainstream audience, “The Lords of Dogtown”. It doesn’t add much of a dimension to the gameplay, but it is kind of cool pulling it off the first couple of times. The other newest addition is the ability to shuffle into new moves during a natas spin. Now, just like when in a manual, you’ll be able to pull handstands or sit-downs while spinning atop a pole or sign.

The story itself actually resembles a story again instead of just a bunch of random Jackass-like moments strung together as was the case in THUG 2. You’ll start out as a Midwestern “farmer boy” escaping his cheating girlfriend, overbearing dad, and generally crappy life in order to gain fame under the lights of L.A. as a skater. Of course, as soon as you get off the bus, you’re punched in the face and all your stuff is stolen. Luckily for you, a kindred soul in Mindy befriends you and shows you the ropes around the big city, sending you on your way towards achieving skating bliss.

In story mode, the entire city of L.A. is skateable, though it’s separated into five sections – Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Downtown, Santa Monica, and East L.A. The sections will open up in that order as you progress through the story, and surprisingly all the sections are teeming with life and skating isn’t the only thing that can be done. You’ll find different shops in each of the sections. These shops are where you can customize your character’s appearance and decks, though unfortunately, the number of options has decreased dramatically since THUG 2. Another oddity is that you can’t use the story mode created character in any other mode defeating the purpose of really wanting to deck out your character the way you want.

The catch to all this customizing is that you’ll need money to purchase items and luckily for you there are random people scattered all over the city that are willing to pay money as long as you pass the goal they want you do. Most of these are very easy – even first-time players should have a cakewalk with them. So obtaining the money you need to buy something that’s out of reach isn’t hard; it’s just time-consuming because the pay offs max at about $50 most of the time.

Another section is the skate ranch, which is what you’ll consider home. It starts out as a hole in the ground with a half-pipe in the middle of it, but as you wreck havoc in all the parts of Los Angeles, you’ll gain those parts to add to the ranch. If you get all the available parts, it turns out to be one of the most fun and exciting levels in the Tony Hawk series.

The biggest thing that’s been hyped is that there are no load times. This is a blessing considering that traveling between all five sections is a must and will be done very often. The thing that bothers me is that, while there isn’t a distinct loading screen per se, the way they circumvent the loading and hype it as “no loading” is totally cheap and in fact still shows signs of loading. I’ll get to this in the Bad and Ugly section.

In addition to the story mode, THAW also offers classic mode, in which it turns into one of the Pro Skater series games with a time limit and a number of goals to achieve. There are six levels in classic mode - five of which are pulled from earlier games and one all new to the series, the Ruins. The other levels are Minneapolis, Chicago skatepark, and the Mall from THPS1 and Santa Cruz and Kyoto from THUG 2: Remix. Thus this is the first console incarnation of these levels and they turn out quite well, though they aren’t in their original forms. Santa Cruz is missing the arcade boardwalk and Kyoto already has the massive “Godzilla” footprint in the road and is missing all of the blowing airvents. Speaking of Remix levels, the Casino is the last story mode level, but that too is missing stuff, most notably, the central elevator and the maintenance shaft.

Graphically, it doesn’t look like much has changed, but they’ve upped the polygon count on the non-playable characters so they look better than ever. Unfortunately, they still get stuck in those distracting generic arm-waving motions when not talking.

And on the audio side, there’s a new interesting twist – Tony Hawk talking on Sirius radio. Unfortunately, all of these instances are scripted and always occur after certain parts in the story. Still, it’s something new. The soundtrack is pretty good with the general theme being newer bands covering old punk songs. There’s still a good variety amongst the different genres, so there’s something for everyone. Though with the Xbox version, I went with custom soundtracks since my tastes differ greatly from what’s offered.

Ok, now that we’re in the Bad and Ugly section, it’s time to talk about those “no loading” boasts. Yes, technically there aren’t any true load screens or load times, but what they did to avoid doing so feels cheap. What separates all the sections are long tunnels – long boring tunnels. There are a couple of things to grind here and there through all of them, but it’s nothing exciting and performing a combo within them doesn’t do much of anything, unless of course you’re trying to hit the entire city in one combo. And the biggest gripe I have about these tunnels is that you can still tell that the damn thing is loading. When the screen freezes or the frame rate hiccups, you know what’s going on – that’s right, it’s loading. And when the loading can’t catch up, it gets even cheaper by switching to this slow-motion security camera angle.

Another way to travel amongst the sections is to take the bus, but even then all you see is the inside of the bus for about five to ten seconds and then you instantly appear at your destination’s bus stop. If staring at the inside of a bus for a few seconds isn’t a “load screen” then I don’t know what is.

And while we’re on the subject of over-hyping a part of the game, let’s discuss the skate ranch. In the weeks leading up to the release, we were given the idea that the ranch would be customizable by adding parts to the ranch. Technically, you can choose what parts you want for the ranch by choosing not to do those missions. Well, you can add whatever parts you desire to the ranch, but you can’t put it where you want and you can’t choose what type of object it is you wish to place it as, whether the part fits as a rail or as a quarter pipe, etc. Instead, you do just the mission to gather whatever it is for the ranch then it magically appears back at the ranch and is integrated into its environment. So no personal customization there.

The story mode is also sickeningly short and at times more outrageous than some of the things in THUG 2, and that’s saying a lot. The story mode should run average Tony Hawk-ers about 7-8 hours, and that’s if you take your time. I’ll give you a more solid example of how short this game is. I was able to 100% story mode on normal in that time. I got 100% on the sick difficulty in less than that because I knew exactly what to do, and then 100% on easy in half that time. Classic mode is even worse. With only six levels to go through, I got 100% everything in both normal and sick classic with max stats in about two sittings. Yes, you heard right, two sittings and each of those barely lasted three hours each. Now, I only consider myself an average TH player, though I’ve played every single TH game and I can do 500,000 point combos in my sleep. Imagine what seasoned veterans of the series can do and how short the ride will last for them.

The reason why THAW is so easy is that all the missions tell you exactly what to do. In fact, it goes a step further and actually lines you up for what you need to do. The game will line you up on a rail or ledge and sometimes even tells you where to grind, where to jump, when to acid drop, etc. Vets will be terribly disappointed with this, but it’ll definitely help out newcomers. I wish there was an option to turn off these hints.

As easy as the story mode is, another part of it that will bother long-time fans is that you start out missing your entire arsenal of tricks. No spine transfers, no manuals, no reverts, no flatland. You get manuals and reverts very early, but you’re without special and focus for about a quarter of the story and missing some of the newer and effective elements like flatland tricks and transfers restrict the combos you can pull off at the beginning. At least the point totals you need to accomplish goals are very low at that time, so it’s nothing you can’t overcome. I appreciate them trying to give it an RPG feel by having you gain “experience” and learn these things, but it’s a little too late in the series to be doing that, considering this is the seventh go-round.

The newest and largest gameplay addition – the BMX bike – is hit or miss. Riding and tricking on the bike is pretty fun and adds a new dimension to the gameplay because it controls completely different from a board. You can only control it with the left stick. The right stick is what enables tricks such as tailwhips and barspins. The left trigger is used to speed up flips and spins so that you can complete them and you can also toss in tabletops and X-ups with the X and B buttons respectively. However, using the bike isn’t necessary in story mode, save for one mission, and even then it spells out exactly what to do so you’ll know how to complete it. What keeps the BMX from being truly fun is that the controls are a bit buggy. I can’t count the number of times I mysteriously fell off the bike when traveling over a curb or a small lip. That got really annoying especially since getting back on the bike takes forever.

Sadly, the on-foot controls are still not up-to-par with the on-board controls. They still aren’t very responsive and now that they’ve included more moves such as hitting people with your board or throwing it, the controls get even further muddled.

The new gameplay additions like the bert slide, nata spins, and the BMX bike really don’t make the game any deeper than the other recent TH games. Add to that the short story and classic modes and some disappointing and over-hyped features and what you have is a Tony Hawk game that fails to live up to the expectations set by its predecessors. Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland is a fine game, but when you compare it to the others in the TH line, you’ll see that the series is starting to lose that magic – the magic that made it must-play for fans. I think the Tony Hawk franchise needs to take some time off.

Still solid as ever, but it’s getting stale and the new additions don’t solve that problem.

Better than in recent years, but no large improvement.

Same recycled sounds, but the soundtrack is nice and the voice acting isn’t all that bad.

It’s just way too easy and at times repetitive.

Story and classic modes are extremely short. Online play is what saves this score.

]]> Thu, 10 Nov 2005 11:48:00 -0600 Brian Mohr http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_preview_tony_hawks_american_wasteland_3601 http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_preview_tony_hawks_american_wasteland_3601 http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_preview_tony_hawks_american_wasteland_3601# This preview was originally published on Gaming Horizon, GameBump's predecessor. Its format does not match our own but we support its content.

Tony Hawk American Wasteland is looking to take skaters to a completely open-ended experience through the city of Los Angeles. The concept of the title is that you're a kid from middle America who meets up with a girl named Mindy who writes an underground magazine entitled American Wasteland.

The slightly scaled -down city features all the landmarks including the walk of fame, metro and more. Players can even use the metro or bus to get around the city without skating. Another bonus is that there are no load times in this version. The game features multiple modes of play including story mode, classic mode, two-player, free skate, cooperative classic and online mode. The biggest addition of any is that now you can ride a BMX bike as well. The controls for this are completely different as you use the left and right analog sticks to balance your weight and do tricks.

Overall the controls for skating are very similar to the previous Tony Hawk titles. Graphics are also pretty close, although they are slightly finer-tuned than in Underground 2, especially considering it's an Xbox 260 launh title.

The game looks to feature some new moves including bertslides, wall runs, ledge climbing and hanging and even the ability to throw or hit people with your skateboard. The missions for the story put you in Hollywood at first. Each mission affects the city you're in and the city changes around you. Over the game you'll also be able to pick up cash goals and get sponsorship which can help you increase your abilities even more. Finally, the game looks to go the way of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas by setting up stores in the city which will include barbers, tatoo parlors and more to change the look of your character.

Overall, Tony Hawk American Wasteland looks to be a nice change of pace from the previous Tony Hawk titles as you'll have a completely open-ended experience through the massive city of Los Angeles from Beverly Hills to Santa Monica. The story develops over time and you'll even collect items to put at your skate ranch which in turn will make the world evolve too. Graphics and controls are still similar to the previous titles which is good, but the fact that you'll have more options to change your character should make this another top-notch Tony Hawk title. ]]> Sun, 22 May 2005 16:02:00 -0500 Shiva Stella http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_preview_american_conquest_divided_nation_pc1 http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_preview_american_conquest_divided_nation_pc1 http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_preview_american_conquest_divided_nation_pc1# This preview was originally published on Gaming Horizon, GameBump's predecessor. Its format does not match our own but we support its content.

CDV Software's American Conquest: Divided Nation, being developed by GSC GameWorld, is set in the 19th century and as evidant by the title, focuses on the American Civil War and other great battles that altered the course of the United States, including the siege of the Alamo and the battle at Gettysburg.

All battles are based on actual topographical data and authentic historical sources, and the game features 45 scenarios, the blue and grey uniforms of the time, and various campaigns that lead the gamer to take control of generals, commanders, and militia leaders. Some of the more touted features include pioneer troops, advanced formations, submarines, timed explosive charges, barricades, railway stations, horse artillery, and heavy static artillery.

Look for more information as Divided Nation approaches its Q3 2005 release date.

If GSC GameWorld gets the gameplay nuances right (and, of course, the visuals) then this'll be a good one for history buffs and those intrigued by the Civil War. ]]> Mon, 16 May 2005 14:48:00 -0500