Hands on Castlevania Lords of Shadow

During the Japan Expo event at the early July in Paris, a demo of the PS3 version of Castlevania Lords of Shadow was playable at the Konami booth.

Developed by MercuryStream and produced by Hideo Kojima, “father” of Metal Gear hero Snake, this game is the first instalment of the series as an action game with some RPG elements. We were able to play the first stage of the game, more like a tutorial, to learn the basics of the game: the different attacks with the whip, the secondary weapons (such as daggers), how to dodge or to unlock combos and other attacks.

The game truly is an AAA title made like a movie with some incredible cinematic scenes as good as Hollywood movies, as usual with Kojima productions. Graphics are smooth and pretty good, but darker than usual. The game takes place (as usual) in the surroundings of Dracula’s Castle, in a village by a stormy night. This game surely looks like a mature one. There’s a new hero, Gabriel Belmont, who looks like a virile and muscular men breaking with the “tradition” of young and quite androgyne men. Gabriel just want is sweat heart to be brought back to life. As Gabriel arrives at the village, villagers are all afraid of something scary and the village is soon attacked by werewolves.

So you can jump into the action. The whip has a wide range, is easy to use and can maintain enemies to distance. So werewolves are very easy to whip off. There’s just one annoying thing: graphics are so dark that enemies aren’t easy to find. Fortunately, you can see the red spots of their eyes, the only way to spot enemies! Gabriel gains XP points by defeating enemies and can unlock many things later on. The game is very fluid, easy to pick up and fun to play. But when killing enemies, it is hard to try and read all the indications that pop up, informing you of how to use items, heal, grab the enemy and so on. At the end of the stage, there’s a huge beast to defeat as you can see in the video (and the cinematics too).

I had no time to play the second part of the demo version, where Gabriel rides a horse to escape. I just wanted some impressions on this game and it looks really promising. Sometimes, villagers will come and try to help you, but don’t expect too much of them!

Castlevania Lords of Shadow is a very pleasant game and has everything gamers ask for a good title: good graphics, good scenario and realisation, good music and dubbings, very mature background. Let’s hope this game won’t be too easy: the Castlevania series is famous for being difficult but this demo version seemed less difficult than normal. Gamers have to play this game when it is released for the XBOX 360 and PS3 by the end of the year.

New arcade shooter from Konami

Konami Digital Entertainment announces a new all-action shoot ‘em up titled Hard Corps: Uprising (working title) for the PlayStation Network and XBOX Live Arcade, release date TBA.

The game is developed by ARC System Works, the same guys behind BlazBlue and Guilty Gear. Hard Corps: Uprising looks and feels really great, it features beautiful 2D art and animations and the game is all about fast-paced shooting action. The game feels like the old classic shooters such as Super Contra and the Metal Slug series, but done with a little twist.

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Konami E3: Castlevania: Harmony of Despair

Konami Digital Entertainment announces an exclusive Castlevania title to be released as downloadable game on XBOX Live Arcade, entitled; Castlevania: Harmony of Despair.

This game is created by the producer of the Castlevania series: Koji Igarashi, and the game will be the last title of the franchise. Players will recognize a familiar character; Dracula, who appeared in almost all of the Castlevania games. The game will also feature familiar controls, fluent 2D-scrolling action, and a new 6-player multiplayer mode.

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Konami at E3: Silent Hill 8

Konami is planning on giving gamers another installment in the long running Silent Hill series, Silent Hill 8. The game will come on both the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2011.

The game puts players back into the shoes of a psychologically terrorized character who has wound up in the most surreal and horrific location in in gaming history: Silent Hill. This time, the player controls an escaped prisoner by the name of Murphy Pendleton; his prison transport crashes, leaving him stranded in the quiet town of Silent Hill. The game will stil be about flashlights, exploration and puzzles like it has been in the past, and will, according to Konami, appeal greatly to the fans of the original Silent Hill games.

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New IP for Konami: Neverdead

Konami Digital Entertainment has announced that there is a new IP called Neverdead coming to the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.

Neverdead is a third person action title under the genres of fantasy and survival hoorror. The player has access to a unique sword, whose abilities have yet to be seen, as well as a large arsenal of assorted weaponrywhich they will use to decimate the demonic forces. In the trailer, the main character, Neverdead, is seen weilding dual handguns, which provides for an action experience seemingly similar to bayonetta or Devil May Cry.

Neverdead takes place in an alternate future, where the world has been overrun by hordes of demons. The protagonist, Neverdead, has been given the power to transcend death, making him unable to die. You play as an undead hero who makes use of his regenerative abilities to fight off the evils and rid the city of the demonic plague.

The big thing about Neverdead is the unique healing system that it offers, which also has yet to be explained in detail. What can be seen in the trailer is similar to something like rewinding time, but it is most likely just putting your head back on once you grab it. Could be interesting, having to put yourself back together in the midst of battle, we will see.

With Neverdead, Konami and the team behind the title want to provide the player with a new IP that sports all kinds of interesting gameplay and frightening worlds to explore and decimate with deadly weaponry and exciting swordplay. Read more

Konami E3: Adrenalin Misfits for Kinect

The big news from Konami on Monday during the Microsoft presentation at E3 has left tons of fans applauding and cheering, which is the new Metal Gear title from Konami Digital Entertainment: Metal Gear Solid: Rising. But there is more…

Adrenalin Misfits will be released as a Kinect-only title for the XBOX360, the game was shown on several play booths at the convention and it features board-riding monsters battling each other on seven different locations in the virtual world. It can be on snowy peaks, stormy deserts, limestone grottos etc. The style of art will be a mix of cartoony characters and realistic environments, somewhat similar to Sonic the Hedgehog.

With the motion capture technology of Kinect, players can practice their skills as if they are snowboarding in real life. The characters can do jumps, turns and flips like real pros. Players can choose between in-game characters, their customized characters or their XBOX360 Avatars.

The game features multiplayer function, where you can battle each other or race each other to the finish. However, the game looks fun in single player mode as well, trying to beat the game or beat your own record.

Adrenaline Misfits has several game modes, such as Downhill Slalom where the player can beat his opponents or his personal record. Read more

Nintendo’s 3DS and Third Party Lineup (Incl Remakes)

• The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D ™
• Animal Crossing™
• Kid Icarus™: Uprising
• Mario Kart™
• nintendogs™ + cats
• Paper Mario™
• PilotWings Resort™
• Star Fox 64™ 3D
• Steel Diver™
• Golden Sun: Dark Dawn™ Read more

Volcanic ash might disturb European Distribution of games.

All over Europe hangs a thin cloud of Volcanic ash. Canceling all planes from flight. only highly needed products take flight every once in a while. But games are most likely not one of them. This might mean that some games that are on their way to Europe have no place to land. Up to now we do not have any word of the developers that something might fall out of date but it might be just a question of time.

What games or what developers are hit by this inconvenience is yet to be seen.

Nintendo only has trouble true meetings. But as for the games they travel by water and land so do not worry about your Monster Hunter Tri game.

Iceberg-Interactive “The only trouble we expect is for the review and preview disks that will be send out to the magazines and websites. since these are packages that travel by air mail.”  As for meetings “We can still move them around relative easy so no trouble there.”

Konami: “Luckily, we transport our games mainly via road and ship transport, since our games cannot spoil like food or flowers. So with respect to distribution we do not face major problems. With regards to our meetings however, we pray that the airlines will be open soon. We have a few press conferences this week and in the near future and  we very much would like the journalists to attend. So for that we cross our fingers and hope that all will be back to normal soon..”

Southpeak Games: “At the moment, we’re not having too much trouble – although a couple of people from our American office are currently stuck in the UK. Hopefully everything will be sorted for the release of 3D Dot Game Heroes on May 14, even if it means me standing on the coast of Scotland and blowing into the general direction of Iceland”

Japan Ninety-Nine Nights II Dated for Japan

Xbox 360 hack-and-slash exclusive Ninety-Nine Nights II has been  finally dated for Japan.

According to the official site, the game will be out this spring — expect the exact date to be announced later. The game is developed by feelplus, a Japanese development studio with close ties to Microsoft Game Studios.

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker dated for North America

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker on the PSP, the sequel to Snake Eater has been dated for release in North America on May 25th, 2010.

The game based in the 1970′s, 10 years after Snake Eater, follows the continuing adventures of Naked Snake as he fights an unknown military on the shores on Costa Rica. You can team up with 4 friends and play co-op together.

You can also download the game to your PSPgo.

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