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San Goku Shi DS 3 (NDS, Koei): 8 / 7 / 7 / 8 - (30/40)
Nodame Cantabile: Tanoshii Ongaku no Jikan Desu (NDS, Bandai Namco): 8 / 7 / 7 / 8 - (30/40)
Konami is going to keep raking in the cash from LovePlus for as long as they can. With the announcement of LovePlus + looming on the horizon, Konami is giving one last LovePlus push with a special Valentine's Day bundle. The details of that bundle are below.
- LovePlus game
- pocky
- augmented reality card with a Valentine’s Day greeting
- one greeting from each girl
- costs $58
Level-5 is a pretty hot developer right now. How are they going to make their name even more well known? They're going to open up an office in North America. Level-5 CEO Akihiro Hino has stated that Level-5 will be branching out into North America in order to easier publish titles in the states. Perhaps if/when Inazuma Eleven comes out here, Level-5 will be publishing the title on their own.
Mr. Hino also discussed the branching out of their games into other mediums, just like we've seen with the Professor Layton series.
"A major goal for Level-5 is to expand into the entertainment industry. The staff is working hard to make it so that we become not just a single game company, but a major entertainment brand. I don't know if it will be five or ten years later, but the staff has started to believe that we can really do this."
A portion of a CVG interview with Peter Moore...
CVG: What do you expect from E3 2010 after last year's return to form - and what have you got planned?
PM: There's nothing I can say because I don't know. You would be shocked-slash-horrified to see how close we as publishers get to E3, still not really clear what we're going to say. So much of this stuff comes together so late: The development teams have to work on demo levels - it's non-trivial work.
I echo the sentiment that E3 was a lot better last year; a lot more like 'the old days'. It captured the excitement that the industry's feeling about three platforms that are competing very aggressively with each other with differing experiences. Secondly, it really show the magnitude of who we are versus movies and music, to which we have always had a slight inferiority complex.
E3 is our way of showing - particularly right there in LA - the entertainment mediums we compete with for the same dollar how big, how immersive, how enthralling and how on the edge of the future we are.
Those couple of years when we weren't able to do that [in 2007 and 2008], when we didn't have the full 'E3 experience', they were probably a couple of tough years for the industry, in terms of maintaining its place as a mass-marketing entertainment medium. Now we're firmly back in the saddle - and the future looks very bright indeed.
"It's a complex problem. We do have the five-minute rule: if you find your connection's poor you can drop out within the first five minutes. After that there should be a penalty; just in the online world there are complexities that mean by the time the data comes back to our servers, something there means it doesn't award the win to the right person. So we're always looking to improve that." - 2010 FIFA World Cup line producer Simon Humber
If I have one pet peeve with online games, it's the rage-quitters out there. I've actually played an online game with someone that is tied to Nintendo, and they rage quit during a Diddy Kong Racing DS game! I won't give out there name...I'll just hope that they read this and feel the shame!
Would it really be a Penny-Arcade Expo without an appearance from Wil Wheaton? I guess not, because Mr. Wheaton has confirmed that he will indeed be giving a keynote address at PAX EAST 2010.
"We've always considered Wil as the keynote speaker for PAX, so it's only appropriate he kick off the first PAX East. Wil is one of us. We accept him. Wil speaks to all gamers, from the console jock to the keyboard fanatic to the pen-and-paper devotees." - Robert Khoo of Penny Arcade
Insight Media predicted 15-25 console games will be released in 2010 supporting stereoscopic 3D, growing to 35-50 in 2011. [Insight analyst Dale] Maunu also predicted that console gamers will enjoy a fairly consistent 3D experience no matter what 3D compatible TV they use, unlike what computer gamers have found with their monitors. That's one benefit of a closed system like what the console makers use, he said, saying nothing can be published for a console unless it's approved by the console makers. "That's how they maintain a consistent user experience," he said.
I don't know about all this 3d stuff. If you have to wear glasses, it's going to kill the experience for other people. Show me some 3d where I don't need glasses...something everyone can enjoy without the use of additional peripherals.