Dood, Get Ready to Play Cave Story on the 3DS

That's right, if you are like me and have missed the recent release of Cave Story, well fear not as you will soon get to play it on the go, in 3D, without glasses. Expect to see this gem on store shelves in the states come August 9th.

Aksys announces limited edition of naughty SRPG

Some may remember last year's Record of Agarest War, the Strategy RPG with naughty trailer. One of my first reviews and I still feel that same about it a year later. Well Aksys has announced Record of Agarest War Zero in Limited Edition form. Though there is no release date, we do have the contents of the package, a soundtrack, character data guide, card box, playing cards, and collectible skill cards, seen above.

Zircon’s Gladiator Begins Review

"I AM SPARTACUS!!!" Okay, so I have yet to complete my Cos-play Spartacus Outfit...but, I have the next best thing, Gladiator Begins on the Sony PSP. So if you have ever wondered what it would be like to be a Gladiator Slave working your way up from common labor slave to the pride of the Roman combat arena well, short of a weekend Cos-play Session this is your means to rise up and be called the glory of the coliseum!

Your Career starts with you being a common slave sold to a gladiatorial ludus and after a long series of training exercises you win your chance to fight in the largest venue of Rome, the Coliseum and soon your skills will begin to draw the Eyes of many a Slave owner and Roman dignitary's. As in ancient Rome, You earn a meager salary to pay for many things such as many trips to the area doctor to be sewn up after a bout or to buy and trade weapons and armor upgrades which will help to advance you to the next level of fighting in the blood and sand.

Then as the legend of your name and accomplishments waft into the ears and eyes of the higher elite class of roman citizens you find that many have ulterior motives and use of your skill at the sword and blood letting. In one case the Wife of a Roman Dignitary reveals to you that she has had many a late night encounter with the gladiators that you will be fighting and now they are blackmailing her with the threat of revealing her well, let’s call it indiscretion. So if you kill them in the arena, those tongues will be silenced and your purse will grow accordingly. Debauchery in Ancient Rome...I love it.

The game play is the typical sword swatting, head bashing, and exercise as well as learned defensive posturing. You will quickly learn the moves as well as new ones as the game progresses. My personal favorite is the tried and true sword to head routine but that means nothing if you don't have you defensive moves ready to employ at a moment’s notice.

And there you have it, Gladiator Begins is up to you and your skills to take you to the top and wear the mantle of ultimate fighter glory. Are you up to the challenge? So prepare your battle cry, don your loin cloth, and become the treasure of the Roman battle circuit. Just don't stand on the coffee table while doing so, I have found out the hard way those tables are not that strong.

This is Zircon, no Sparticon!! (Wow, sounds like a Transformer) and I have left the Blog.
_Z_

Deathsmiles | Review

Synopsis: Cave, one of the biggest names for shmup or bullethell titles has released a new entry for their fans, Deathsmiles. Those new to the term shmup are most likely familiar with the genre and have played their fair share of these whether killing time in an arcade or devoting hours into getting the high score or playing cooperatively. Deathsmiles takes you to the world of Gilverado, a land full of monsters and tortured souls, while your role of course is to rid the land of the baddies with one of five available gothic Lolitas, each with their own unique abilities and demon familiars. Aside from the single player gameplay, players are able to save, playback, and download the top 20 scoring runs from the leaderboards, along with online coop to see how you rank with players worldwide through Xbox Live.

Praise: There are a few things a shmup needs in order for me to have a lot of fun with, mainly bright crisp looking environments, lots of bullets and enormous boss fights. Cave has delivered these prerequisites and then some. Gameplay is very fluid with the occasional slowdown, which some would see as a bad thing, but in these kinds of titles I see it as a blessing in disguise as the slowdown often times helps keep me from dying. A new feature to this shoot em up is the shooting mechanics, where you shoot left with the left trigger and right with the right trigger, requiring a new strategy from the gameplay I’m used to. Mega Black Label seems to be an additional game mode on the disk that includes an additional character and level to add to the replay value. Lastly, you WILL get a handful of achievements from this game as they seem to be thrown at you left and right.

Gripes: First and foremost, this would be a great game to play online coop, the problem is, there doesn’t seem to be anyone playing this game online any longer. I have tried multiple times on multiple days and waiting 5-10 minutes each time for someone to join me, but nothing. The three graphical modes, from arcade to Xbox 360 are a nice variety, but after playing on Xbox mode, I had no intention of going back to play the others as it looks visually better. Other than that, my only complaint is the length of the game as it takes about 30 minutes to play through all the levels and complete the story mode, making it harder to justify the full retail price as opposed to the Xbox Live Arcade game prices as it feels as if it is the same size, if not smaller than the downloadable arcade titles.

Overall, as a fan of shmups, I enjoyed this title playing in one hour increments for about a week. Without being able to find anyone else online, it does reduce the amount of replay value to continuously playing; however couch coop would be a lot of fun if I had others in the house into these types of games. The nice part about this release is that the limited edition includes swag, consisting of Deathsmiles Xbox 360 faceplate, CD soundtrack and special box art. Unfortunately, for the price I would like to have more content to keep me engaged, but is a blast to go back and play for a half hour or so to work your way up the leaderboards.

Mashbuttons.com gives Deathsmiles a 7 out of 10.

Deathsmiles is available now for the Xbox 360.

Time to break out the fight stick, Continuum Shift shipped today

Thats right joystick junkies, it is that time again to pick your fighter, master their moves and take this fight online. This time there is no Ken, Ryu, Cammy, or Bison because BlazBlue is back with a sequel to last years blockbuster, toting the name Continuum Shift. Unique features to this release is beginner, tutorial, and challenge mode along with creating your own army in legion mode, and lastly the new characters.

Record of Agarest War | Review

Synopsis: Aksys provided me with a review code for the PlayStation 3 version of the recent racy Strategy RPG, Record of Agarest War. Although it isn’t the limited edition with all the creepy goodies the Xbox 360 version got, it is downloadable via PSN to save the embarrassing look you would get for the store clerk. Though not your typical strategy RPG, RoAW also brings in a dating simulation element and a story that varies on your interactions and how you choose to play through the story. The story is based on your typical light vs. dark and good vs. evil, but each section or record is referred to as generations and each generation is determined by your actions in the previous generation. This title also boasts over a hundred hours of gameplay so let’s get to the review and see if this is your next title to pickup and play.

Praise: To start, I am not a huge fan of strategy RPG’s but have been known to spend a ridiculous amount of time with Disgaea and Final Fantasy Tactics, so I am pretty familiar with the genre. What I do like about this title is that grinding is helpful and you aren’t able to just blow through the story on normal without thought and effort. Also being able to level up your character’s attribute the way you want and equip them as you see fit custom tailors the gameplay to your liking. The gameplay is turn based and focuses strongly on placement of your characters, you can place your character in specific formation for joint moves to take out the larger or more difficult enemies, but so can your opponent, so come prepared and bring your “A” game. The soul breed system is very unique and I think it may bring the most to this title as I was able to start a relationship with a selection of women and was able to see how they felt about me based on my actions and was given the choice of who to have a child with that possesses the abilities of the two parents for the next generation to continue the story along.

Gripes: For starters, having to download the title and the size of the download. To download you need ten gigs of free space, and to install, you need an additional 8 gigs free. This mainly affects those without an internet connection and low hard drive space as you need to purchase over PSN and are unable to purchase a retail copy that includes a disk, like it is sold on the Xbox 360. The gameplay and controls take a few hours to get used to as the hand holding tutorial is rather lengthy and takes about five minutes to get through before every battle in the beginning. You are also able to go back and view the notes and tutorials as there are many aspects to the gameplay that I did not retain the first time it was explained and as the battles get more difficult I had to go back through them to make sure I was not missing anything as there was a lot to take in over the first few battles and quests.

Overall, I had fun with the fifteen plus hours put in so far. Being someone that wants to complete and find everything, there will be a lot of time spent looking at scantily clad anime women, breeding new generations, and grinding. This is a unique game that may not have the replay value other titles have, but with the amount of content Record of Agarest War offers, it will take a long, long time before being done with it. Also the good thing about having to install this game to the console, you don’t have to get up off your couch to change disks and launch the game. Strategy RPG fans won’t be disappointed as it focuses a lot on character development but unfortunately not as much on variety.

Mashbuttons.com gives Record of Agarest War 7 out of 10.

Record of Agarest War is available now for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Blazblue announces sequel by announcing joysticks

The sequel to last year's ground-breaking fighter Blazblue has been announced for release in Fall of 2010. While additions have been announced such as new characters, moves, and game modes such as tutorial and beginner mode. While this sequel is being released on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, here comes the big news...Blazblue joysticks. With a limited amount, 1,500 individually numbered joysticks, they can be pre ordered from Aksys' website at the price of $199.99.