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'Mortal Kombat 11' DLC trailer shows Shang Tsung, confirms Spawn
Mortal Kombat 11 players have already been awaiting the return of Shang Tsung, and to control the character now modeled on the man who played him in the first MK movie, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa. A new DLC for the "Kombat Pack" DLC not only shows off Shang Tsung -- complete with shapeshifting that extends all the way through his fatalities and a slick "Your soul is mine" reference -- but also confirms a few more fighters on the way. Those include Spawn, Sindel, Nightwolf and two still-unnamed additions. Fans have focused on some sound details at the end of the trailer to guess that the last two new fighters will be familiar faces Ash -- actor Bruce Campbell tweeted the trailer last night -- and Terminator. The $40 add-on pack brings all six new characters as they roll out, a week of early access starting with Shang Tsung on June 18th, plus access to new skins and gear.
Twitch Plays Pokemon levels up to 75k concurrent viewers, learns democracy
Last week, the chat-controlled Twitch Plays Pokemon grabbed our attention, as ten thousand people were able to simultaneously control the lead character in Pokemon Red/Blue. In the near five and a half days of the stream's existence, it's crossed 75,000 concurrent viewers, though Twitch says that the number of unique visitors to the chaotic game tallies over 300,000. Given the madness of Twitch Plays Pokemon, the stream's creator implemented a new system for the crowd-controlled game: a democratic voting system. Now, those that type commands are essentially casting their vote for the next action in the game, which goes into effect after a couple seconds. It also allows voters to add a number after their desired command to indicate how many times the action should be performed, such as "right3" being used to tell our hero to go right three times. As expected, not everyone is on board with the new voting system, so the command "start9" is gaining traction to stall the game's progress. That's why the creator also added another voting system, allowing viewers to push a meter to either "anarchy" or "democracy," presumably to decide the future format of the game. Twitch Plays Pokemon has also amassed plenty of extra attention in the form of its own observational Twitter account, Subreddit and even public Google Doc status tracker. Among the noteworthy activities on the stream since last week, the community opted to throw away two Moon Stones and its starter Pokemon Charmeleon, relied heavily on its "Bird Jesus" Pidgeot and has earned four badges in the game. [Image: Twitch Plays Pokemon]
NASA's Robonaut 2 shown pushing buttons, firing lasers on the ISS (video)
Robonaut 2 is the International Space Station's friendly 300-pound killbot android assistant. It's there to assist the team with science experiments and probably capture alien life at the expense of the crew. After being fitted with more heat-sinks to enable its delicate machinery to work for longer, it was given the job of monitoring the on-board air velocity to ensure the humans didn't choke to death. Since it doesn't have legs (they're still being built on the ground), it was only able to monitor the air in the Destiny Laboratory, but the test proved so successful that NASA hopes future robots will take over the more dangerous or mundane elements of space work -- at least until they become self-aware and unionize.
Massively interviews Jagex on RuneScape's clan citadels
In July of this year, browser MMO RuneScape celebrated the launch of its latest blockbuster expansion, Clan Citadels. RuneScape has been home to clans for most of its current 10-year run, but until recently they've always been unofficial groups organised using external websites and mutual friend lists. In the absence of game mechanics to support competitive gameplay, clan leaders even organised wars and other competitive games with other clans. The Clan Citadels update changed all that by introducing the infrastructure clans need to support their in-game endeavours. Clans can now build huge floating cities to be used as a place to meet, throw parties and discuss organisation. The expansion was sweetened by the addition of a completely new free-form battlefield creator, allowing players to develop custom minigames with hand-designed maps. Clans can even invite other players to their battlefields or challenge other clans to a match on their own terms. Massively recently caught up with two of the developers behind the Clan Citadels expansion to find out how it has been received by players and what we can expect in the future. In this in-depth interview, Senior Content Developer Ashleigh Bridges delves into RuneScape's innovative battlefield creator and Senior Game Designer Chihiro Yamada gives us the lowdown on the future of clan content.
TUAW Giveaway: Ash, classic-style RPG for iOS
You probably already have plenty of iOS games to play, given how many crazy good releases we've seen in the past week or so. But there's always room for one more, right? Ash was chosen as our Daily App a while back -- it's an iOS game that hearkens back to the classic 16-bit RPGs of my youth, the old Final Fantasy games on SNES and Phantasy Star on the Sega Genesis. It's currently US$2.99 on the App Store, but apparently you've all been very nice this year, because SRRN Games has passed along 10 promo codes to get the game for free. We're giving those to 10 lucky commenters. Hit the "Read more" link below to see the official rules, and enter by leaving a comment on this post.
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Ash
Being a giant, beloved video game site has its downsides. For example, we sometimes neglect to give independent developers our coverage love (or loverage, if you will) as we get caught up in AAA, AAAA or the rare quintuple-A titles. To remedy that, we're giving indies the chance to create their own loverage and sell you, the fans, on their studios and products. This week we talk with SRRN Games co-founder Aujang Abadi about his company's recently released iOS RPG, Ash. How did you or your company get started? I went to grad school to (theoretically) go work for a big video game company. I'd written a bit about the gaming industry -- particularly the philosophy of game design --and was talking to a few of my professors about it one day when co-founder Tyler Carbone overheard me. I sent him what I wrote, and he came back the next day and said he wanted to be a part of it. Up until that point these were just thoughts floating around in my head, but Tyler really wanted to start a company and thought this was as good a reason to try as any. We brought in Nathaniel Givens, one of my closest childhood friends, after we realized we desperately needed some technical expertise. Soon after, we started recruiting developers. Coincidentally, basically everyone involved in the day-to-day affairs of the company was or is still a student of the University of Virginia. We didn't plan it that way, but that's how it worked out. %Gallery-109461%
easyJet airline plans to fit its planes with ash detectors
UK budget airliner easyJet unveiled a plan last week to install ash detectors on its fleet of planes. The radar devices will be fitted to the tail fin, and should be able to detect ash clouds within 60 miles and will work like other weather-detection systems already in use to pick up on thunderstorms in advance. The new ash cloud system is being dubbed the Airborne Volcanic Object Identifier and Detector, A/K/A AVOID, and it'll provide both pilots and air traffic control to see an ash cloud at altitudes between 5,000 feet and 50,000 feet, and easyJet's CEO Andy Harrison thinks it could have the power to "make large-scale ash disruption history." easyJet will have to have the devices approved by European regulators and widespread adoption across the airline to have much effect. easyJet is spending around $1.46 million to research and outfit its planes with the systems.
The Digital Continuum: My only problem with Free Realms, part 2
Bruce Campbell has consistently displayed the essence of being a 100%, all-around bad-a** dude in his many film and television performances. Whether as Ash proudly displaying his boom stick for all to see, or as Autolycus showing Hercules how a real man gets the ladies, this Bruce never falters. Campbell (in any of his various famed roles) would be my prime avatar choice for prospective players to mine, deliver mail and fight cute goblins in Free Realms.
Archaic Sale Heat: SRPG import for $11
Now might not be the best time to order a Japanese copy of Archaic Sealed Heat, what with E3 right around the corner and a U.S. localization likely, but Play Asia is doing its best to convince us otherwise! The import online shop is selling copies of the gorgeous Mistwalker-developed title for only $11.90 (plus s/h). The deal lasts until next Monday, too, so they're giving us a lot of time to talk ourselves into it.As far as SRPGs go, you really can't find anything cheaper! Well, unless you pick up Square Enix's iPod-exclusive Song Summoner for $4.99.
ASH pops up on ESRB's site
Tactical title ASH, short for Archaic Sealed Heat, could be headed to the North America. It recently popped up on the ESRB's website, which, as you all know, pretty much means we can expect to hear news confirming our suspicions soon. The question is, though, do any of you still care about it, since it wasn't received with wide, open arms abroad?Any of you interested in ASH? Did you already import it when it was on sale?
The writer for Champions Online is awesome
Yet another 'Meet the Team' article has gone up on the Champions Online official website. This time around we meet the man responsible for making the the story for Cryptic's upcoming superhero MMO -- John Layman. The most important thing to know about Mr. Layman is other than being able to weep ultra-luminous tears he's also an bonafide comic book writer. His works include Marvel Zombies vs Army of Darkness and House of M: Fantastic Four, which were both great reads. We're expecting some very entertaining writing in Champions Online, especially from a guy who got to write a character like Ash.When Jack Emmert said that Cryptic wanted to push the importance of story and character in CO, he wasn't exaggerating. The act of hiring John Layman speaks a lot for what we can expect from the sure-to-be-crazy world of Champions Online. He wrote a scene with a zombie Howard the Duck chomping the brains out of Ash for crying out loud -- we mean, come on! This game had better have a great story.
Import your games for cheap during Play-Asia's Easter Egg Sale
If you're keen on importing games, it seems like there's no better time than now. Play-Asia is having an "Easter Egg Sale," which means that all in-stock items that weren't released in the past thirty days are 20% off. The sale ends on March 31st, but you might not even want to wait that long, as items are going out of stock quickly. Some games that might be worth picking up: Ouendan 2 -- $24 (it's been on sale before, but $24 is the cheapest we've seen it) Taiko no Tatsujin - $39 (you've gotta love the cute little Taiko drum) Arkanoid DS w/ Paddle Controller - $39 (yes, this is being localized for Europe and likely NA, but it's not too bad of a deal if you're impatient) Paddle Controller - $16 (or, you can just get this -- currently only available in pink) Archaic Sealed Heat - $16 (not the most import friendly, but you should be able to get by on a tactics title -- especially for this price) Power Pro Kun Professional Baseball - $23 (one of the best baseball options for the DS) Choushoujuu Mecha MG - $16 (mmm, mechas) Daigasso! Band Brothers - $39 (another good rhythm game, with lots of instruments included) Feel free to add any of your own import recommendations in the comments below.[Via CAG]
ASH wins over Siliconera
After hearing some negative impressions about Archaic Sealed Heat, the beautiful-yet-apparently-flawed SRPG from Mistwalker, Rolando of Siliconera approached the import with some understandable trepidation. He tried it anyway, however, and that worked out -- it seems ASH wasn't as bad as he expected. While he promises a full review later to come, for now he talks about the interesting combat system and the heavily stylus-dependent gameplay. It seems that if you're not a fan of stylus-based title, ASH is not for you ... but if you like SRPGs and don't mind the language barrier, this could be an import worth spending a little time with. Late game, he added later in the comments, things really pick up.
Decorative Sealed Heat
With Archaic Sealed Heat out in Japan, we're entering the "dead zone" for news about the game. Japanese sites will no longer be posting screens or video with their previews, and American sites won't start previewing the game until a localized version is at least announced, meaning that unless the Japanese reviews all have new screens and video, we may be saying goodbye to Mistwalker's pre-rendered sprites for a little while.What better way to keep ASH (painfully) fresh in your memory than by putting some of the game's character art on your desktop? Gpara has three different wallpapers, each in four resolutions, to keep the game on your mind in the slow ASH news season.[Via GoNintendo]
ASH media blowout: trailer, scans, and more!
For those of you who've been starving for more Archaic Sealed Heat media, we have a veritable feast for you to gorge on today, sumptuous meats piled atop each other, loaded plates threatening to slip off of the banquet table's edges. Above, we have Mistwalker's newest trailer for the SRPG mixing CG scenes with some in-game (!) combat. Past the post break, we've crammed the page with a Japanese commercial, more official video clips, and magazine pages scanned from the latest issue of V-Jump. Try not to choke while you consume these treats we've laid out for you.Read - Ash videosRead - Ash scans
ASH boxart seals the deal
It's fitting that one of the most beautiful games for the Nintendo DS receives the same attention to aesthetics with its Japanese packaging design. Even if we hadn't already seen Archaic Sealed Heat's gorgeous prerendered CG scenes, spotting a cover like this on a shelf would've compelled us to pick the box up and study the screenshots on its back.The posture and headdresses of the characters lined up in the background make us think of chess pieces, an apt comparison considering ASH's SRPG trappings. Now let's just hope that Nintendo of America keeps the same arrangement for the boxart when if it brings the game to the US.
ASH still pretty, still sans motion
There's no doubt about it -- Archaic Sealed Heat continues to be one of the prettiest DS games we've seen in ... well, maybe the prettiest game we've seen ever, at least in stills. Everything from character art to the pre-rendered scenes that make the game unique looks fantastic, and obviously, Mistwalker has put a lot into the art direction in their effort to create a fully-realized and immersive world. But with less than a month to go until the title's Japanese release, we can't be the only ones burning for a little video. Even our trust in Mistwalker head Hironobu Sakaguchi only goes so far.Jeux France has a few fresh images, from character art to screens, that may be worth a moment's perusal ... and comments there indicate that we are not the only ones waiting impatiently for something more.
ASH: Class breakdown
Prepare for a megaton: in Archaic Sealed Heat, black mages cast elemental spells and have low defense. Also, they wear hats. We hear white mages hang around healing people as well. Clearly, RPGs will never be the same.Siliconera has the full goods on the character classes in the upcoming Mistwalker title, and if you've ever slipped a roleplaying game into your system of choice, it looks like you will find familiar territory here. There are some slight changes; for instance, thieves here are "stealers" (brilliant), and itemers rely on -- can you guess? -- items. When this one gets localized, we may skip the instruction manual. We must say, if the jobs are so aptly (and obviously) titled, we can't wait to see the game's dialogue. "What is this thing what has scales and breathes fire? I shall call it 'Scaly Firebreathing Thing.'"We'll be here all week.
Archaic Sealed Scans
Alright, Mistwalker. We've seen the scans, and even these beautiful portraits of mages, thieves and more can't tempt us from our real desire. We want video on Archaic Sealed Heat. We want website updates. We want more! But at this rate, with the game less than two months away, we may not get much more than we already have -- and that makes us very sad. We need more opportunities to express our need for this game (and to make sure we do need it) so that someone starts localizing it. The sooner the better, we say. In the meantime, we'll just have to make due with the latest from Famitsu. Hit the jump to check it out.
JRPG scan-splosion from V-Jump magazine
A NeoGAFfer called king zell was apparently trying to level up his "Scan Posting" skill, because he created a thread packed densely with all kinds of new images of DS role playing games. There are multiple Final Fantasies, Tales of Innocence, Archaic Sealed Heat, and even an extended preview of Summon Night: Twin Age, which we haven't heard from in quite some time.Be sure to pace yourself and enjoy every thumbnail-sized halftone screenshot, because this is a lot of RPG news to take in at once. There's bound to be something here for you, unless you hate RPGs, at which point you should stop clicking all those image links. We've mirrored the scans after the break, just in case the originals get stricken with a status ailment.
