GAME! Magazine » Handheld Gaming

Dracula: Undead Awakening now on WiiWare and DSiWare

irenemikaela — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:38:19 +0000

Press Release from Chillingo Press

Dracula – Undead Awakening is an addictive top-down shooter. Players control a grizzled Hunter of the Undead who chooses weapons and abilities, and then battles legions of undead foes including zombies, ghouls, werewolves and more. An arsenal of jaw-dropping powerful weaponry can be unlocked including such as Machine Guns, Buzz-Saws and Flamethrowers. Players can even earn upgrades for their weaponry and unique new perks for their character, all while their gruesome enemies increase in number and ferocity.

The Hunter of the Undead is a tough customer but players must beware – Lord Dracula is always on the hunt and looking for prey! Gory in-game action can be seen in this action-packed gameplay trailer. The full image asset pack is available here

Dracula – Undead Awakening is available now in all territories. The WiiWare version costs just 1,000 Nintendo Wii points, while the DSiWare version is priced at 500 Nintendo DSi points.

Dracula – Undead Awakening Nintendo Channel Links
-        USA: WiiWare, DSiWare
-        Canada: WiiWare, DSiWare
-        UK: WiiWare, DSiWare
-        Australia and New Zealand: WiiWare, DSiWare
-        Belgium (French): WiiWare, DSiWare
-        Belgium (Dutch): WiiWare, DSiWare
-        Germany: WiiWare, DSiWare
-        Spain: WiiWare, DSiWare
-        France: WiiWare, DSiWare
-        Italy: WiiWare, DSiWare
-        Netherlands: WiiWare, DSiWare
-        Portugal: WiiWare, DSiWare

Dracula – Undead Awakening for WiiWare and DSiWare has been developed by Abstraction Games and is published by Chillingo.

Natsume Brings Harvest Moon: Sunshine Islands to the DS Next Month

rubs — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 02:17:26 +0000

Everyone’s favorite chore simulator not called Animal Crossing lands itself a release date. November 10 is when Natsume’s bringing out their new Harvest Moon title, and here’s what the nice people at Natsume have to say about the game’s plot:

In Harvest Moon: Sunshine Islands, players rejoin all of the beloved characters from Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness, and meet some new faces as well! Years ago, a powerful earthquake struck the Sunshine Islands chain, and most of the islands sank forever…or did they? It’s up to the player to find the magical Sun Stones and raise the sunken islands. As they do, they’ll meet new characters, harvest new crops, and befriend animals such as ducks, monkeys, and badgers. Players will grow their farm, care for animals, mine, fish, and compete in festivals in their quest to restore the Sunshine Islands to their former glory. With a little luck, they may even find true love and start a family along the way.

“Just in time for the holidays, Harvest Moon: Sunshine Islands is a wonderful game for players of all ages. You get to meet some great new characters, train your pets in fun minigames, and grow a huge variety of crops. It’s the best Harvest Moon yet!” said Hiro Maekawa, President and CEO at Natsume. “Whether someone is new to the Harvest Moon series, or a long-time fan, Harvest Moon: Sunshine Islands is a great game with tons to offer.”

Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman! Goes UMD

rubs — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 02:13:24 +0000

Due to incessant public demand, NIS America has announced that they will be releasing a limited run of the previously digital-distro only PSP release, Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman! through online retailer RosenQueen.

NIS PR dude (dood?) Nao Zook chimes in, “We have received lots of emails from our fans about the UMD version of Badman, and we did a poll for it. Turned out, lots of people are still interested in Badman UMD. So we decided to support their needs. (And, we really REALLY wanted to make the UMD version of Badman, too!) We’ve decided to start the preorder, and if we get 1,000 orders we will go ahead and manufacture the UMD version of Badman. We are also trying to get support from retailers. If they support us, we’ll create the UMD even if the preorder doesn’t reach 1,000.”

I never got around to getting the PSN release (I did import the original Japanese title, however), so this upcoming UMD release is great news for folks like me who held out. And of course, great news overall for the boxed-copy brigade.

Homebrew Handhelds Roundup: Linux on Dingoo, Wiz at GCO

rubs — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 17:32:41 +0000

Pretty sure I’ve talked about the Dingoo Digital A320 elsewhere on the Internet, citing its potential, okay looks and great D-pad/face button placement, only hindered by its closed-source nature and that its parent company, Dingoo Digital, doesn’t seem to give a damn about its fanbase. Over the past couple weeks however, developer support has been building for the little handheld, and now fans have built a Linux kernel around the little system, opening the floodgates for games and emulators to be ported on the system. A couple of videos after the cut!

Main competitor Gamepark Holdings, furthering its bid to take over the world/get the word out on its own handheld, the GP2x Wiz, just sent us word about their trip to Leipzig at Games Convention Online. Tony Han, Overseas Sales Manager for the Korean-based company, had this to say on the company’s presence:

“The main reason why Gamepark Holdings Co., Ltd attended at Game Convention Online was ; they have started in producing the Wifi adaptor, which with the Wifi adaptor network games will be supported. For the beginning short distance network games will be available, however starting from year 2010 Gamepark Holdings Co., Ltd is going to bring out online games. The online games will be able to be play from one country user to another country user which means it is played internationally. Many games will be supported by the Wifi adaptor and many distributors who have attended at Game Convention Online were really interested in the future plan of Gamepark Holdings Co., Ltd.”

The big news is that Gamepark is actually pushing for its own wireless gaming infrastructure (coming by way of a rather clunky adapter, but hey, it’s something!), not bad for an independent manufacturer. It’s always awesome to see more competition in the handheld space, barring the charred remains of the Wonderswan, Lynx, et. al. The folks at Gamepark were also nice enough to share some snapshots of their presence at GCO for us, so here you go!

UPDATE: Gamepark sent out this press release today:

Gamepark Holdings Meets Ralph H. Baer.

At Game Convention Online 2009, recently held in Leipzig, Germany, Gamepark Holdings Co., Ltd had the pleasure to meet Mr. Ralph H. Bear. As most of you might be aware is, that Mr. Ralph H. Baer is known as “the father of video games”. He was responsible for the development of “Brown Box”, which started in 1966. The “Brown Box” got released as what we all know as Odyssey 2 game console nowadays. The Odyssey 2 had its official release in 1972.

While Mr. Tony Han (GPH Overseas Sale Manager) had a discussion with Mr. Ralph H. Baer about the GP2x Wiz, he showed a lot of interest, because he sees great potential. Mr. Ralph H. Baer was pretty much sure, that many developers will enjoy the inside technical aspect of the GP2x Wiz, which will cheer up many developers, but also users. He compared the GP2x Wiz with the Nintendo DS and a PSP and just smiled and said: “The GP2X Wiz is small, but also big, compared to the other handheld consoles”.

Mr. Tony Han and Mr. Ralph H. Baer had a great time and also captured the moment in form of a picture.

Gallery: Gamepark at Games Convention Online

Catch-up gaming!

master_ryu — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 14:15:38 +0000

The influenza A (H1N1) craze finally bit the fine educational institution I’m currently teaching at so that gave me some much-needed time to catch up on some personal gaming. I have a pretty big catalog of unfinished games I’m currently grinding my way through for both Wii and DS and I thought I’d share some impressions. So here:

Lock’s Quest (DS) – Just finished this overlooked gem a few hours back and I’m really itchin’ for a sequel. Basically a variation of the famous tower defense style of gameplay found in PC sharewares with the added hook of being able to control a character while waves of enemies come at you and your structures. Good solid fun that lasts quite a while.

Age of Empires: Mythologies (DS) – I spent an ungodly amount of time in the previous Age offering for the DS (Age of Kings) so I was way excited for this sequel. Appropriately enough, this mythological gods-infused iteration made me spend an even more ungodly amount of time with my DS. Oh, the hand cramps! Fans of turn-based strategy games should look this one up.

de Blob (Wii) – IGN Wii almost made me puke blobs for their inordinate coverage of this game, but it turns out that the all the coverage was well-deserved. de Blob’s simple premise of painting the environments with your wee ‘lil blob is both charming and way addictive. I’m constantly annoyed that the jump mechanic is tied to a waggle motion (why can’t there be an option to map it to a BUTTON? Argh!), but I can live with it. I’m four levels in and can’t wait to get back to it.

Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles (Wii) – Darkside Chronicles, the sequel, is looking more and more amazing the more I see of it, so I was curious about the original. Traumatic memories of the Gun Survivor series aside, I find Umbrella Chronicles to be quite the ride. It sucks that that very little of the environment is interactive and the cursor isn’t as tight as I’d like it to be, but going through the old Resi stories in an on-rails experience is pretty darn fun. Replay value abounds as well, it looks like.

It begins? PSP Go Images Leaked — UPDATE!

rubs — Sat, 30 May 2009 15:58:15 +0000

It’s pre-E3 time kids! High time for all the leaks, rumors, and of course, fake news to come out of the woodwork. Sighted at GAF are these images allegedly from the June issue of Qore — reprise with a ubiquitous watermark that took us to a suspended site. It comes without saying, but take this news with copious amounts of salt. Shown on the leaked Qore slides is a slide-out unit with HDMI-out and seemingly no UMD slot. Allegedly, the unit will come with 16GB of built-in memory (plus a Memory Stick Pro Duo Micro slot) and will be released Fall 2009. Interestingly, the PSP Go will not supplant the current PSP-3000: they will both be sold on retail channels simultaneously. Nintendo already gave us the same song and dance with the DS Lite, so I’m fairly confident that the PSP Go! will actually replace current PSP models in the end.

I’m all for smaller portables (still play my Game Boy Micro during office breaks), but I’m still not too hot on this alleged redesign. For one, the controls look painful as heck; the analog nub seems to be in an awkward location on the unit. Not to mention that the thing looks more akin to Sony’s myLo than a gaming device. No sense getting worked up on this “leak” however — I’ll wait ’till E3, or at least until we get more confirmation.

Update: Reports have been trickling in that the June Qore episode is now up on the PlayStation Store. I’ll go ahead and check!

Update 2: More crazy stuff’s been leaking out of the Qore episode — Gran Turismo Mobile, Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops 2 and a new Jak and Daxter title are confirmed in the show.

Update 3: Yup, confirmed — these images are legit. That’s the final design, for better or for worse. Also of note was the snippet of impressive LittleBigPlanet PSP footage shown for a bit.

Update 4: New screencaps added. Check it out!

Read: NeoGAF Thread

PSP Go Qore Leak Image Gallery:

Pahil p0h plz: Ragnarok Online DS coming to US

Shin — Sat, 16 May 2009 00:29:35 +0000

Remember when the Japanese version came out and you thought “I’d gladly give my Ghostring card and my +20 slotted weeaboo just to have this come out in English”? Give them to me because I commanded XSEED to bring Ragnarok Online DS to the ‘States and they agreed! Well not really. (They actually beat me to it by reading my mind and claimed the idea as their own.)

Based on the insanely popular Korean mumorpeegee, Ragnarok Online DS is an action RPG on the DS which retains the character designs and feel of the online PC version. You still get to grind killing porings and fabres and stuff as well as change jobs, but understandably the Massively Multiplayer aspect of the original game will be absent. There is still a wireless party feature where you can team up with friends to complete quests and collect items though — yay.

According to details released, “[...]the player takes on the role of the orphan Ares, who heads out to seek his fortune. He runs into a young girl with mysterious powers who has lost her memory”.

Wow. Generic plot is generic.

Anyways, judging from available (and unauthorized) fan translations of this game I suppose it is safe to say that people want this game. So XSEED might be on to something here.

Ragnarok Online DS is scheduled to be released in the US this winter.

New PSP Package Alert: Dissidia: Final Fantasy

Cheena — Fri, 15 May 2009 03:26:27 +0000

For those fans who missed out on the Final Fantasy: Crisis Core PSP bundle released eons ago, August 25’s your lucky day.

Sony announced that there will be a Dissidia PSP pack that will retail for $199. The bundle includes a silver PSP-3000 unit, the Dissidia: Final Fantasy game (in UMD), a copy of Final Fantasy: Advent Children UMD and a 2 GB memory stick.

This package is exclusive to Gamestop stores only so if you want your hands on it, pre-order now.

Knights in the Nightmare Tutorial Demo Now on Nintendo Channel

rubs — Thu, 14 May 2009 19:52:14 +0000

Atlus just sent us word that a Knights in the Nightmare limited-time tutorial demo will be out on the Nintendo Channel starting today. Developed by Sting of Riviera and Yggdra Union fame, it is a real-time real-time strategy/role-playing game and has done very well in Japan. While I know that a good chunk of our readership isn’t very fond of SRPG games (believe me, I used to loathe the genre till recently), I think everyone needs to give Nightmare a fair shake. Why not hop on the Nintendo Channel yourself and give this game a whirl to see if it’s right for you?

“Interactive, educational, and lengthy, this tutorial demo is the perfect step-by-step introduction to the unprecedented game design of Knights in the Nightmare. Learn about the game’s core mechanics, the importance of properly shifting between law and chaos modes, weapon management, special moves, and much, much more! Hurry though, because the demo is only available for a limited time!”

Knights in the Nightmare Screenshot Gallery:

Metaforic: The R4 ‘killer’?

Cheena — Thu, 14 May 2009 03:26:38 +0000

Pirates beware (?)

A newly-developed technology called Metaforic for the Nintendo DS claims that it can supposedly block the use of flash carts in the said handheld. DS piracy has been steadily going on for four years, since the release of the flash cart pioneer, Revolution for DS (widely known as R4).

At its very basic, Metaforge ‘detects the form of patching that the R4 cards use to play ROMS, and then proceeds to “kill” the ROM.’ CEO Andrew Mclennan further explains that ‘We take any DS game and inject a security scheme into the game itself. It turns each game into its own security system. Every time we apply it to a different game, it’s a different security system.’ He also claimed that the Metaforge is firmware patch-resistant so R4s will not be able to easily introduce a patch that will kill it instantly.

Mclennan says that the Metaforic is not 100% hack-free (duh, nothing is) but it will seriously give pirates a hard time hacking and coding (slowly and manually, since there’s ‘no way to automate’ the hacking for this new tech) and hopes that it will deter them from releasing ROMS at a rapid rate.

Nintendo has launched DSis laden with Metaforic in Japan last year and is slated for a Western release later this year.

Interesting to note however that that some flash carts already out in the market claim that they can bypass the Metaforic security system, but we’ll see what happens.

GAME! Magazine » Handheld Gaming

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