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King of Fighters XII punches through with a new video
If you had told us five years ago that 2009 would be a year to remember for 2D fighters, we would've called you a crazy person and erased you from our buddy list. Sure enough, with solid releases Street Fighter IV and BlazBlue already dropping this year, and Marvel vs Capcom 2, Tatsunoko vs Capcom and, as the above video shows, King of Fighters XII awaiting release, we would've been the crazy one. If you're a fan of the occasional bout of two-dimensional fisticuffs, then you've got a lot to choose from this year. It's as if millions of piggy banks suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced ... by giant hammers.
King of Fighters XII trailer shows us combos are king
Another brief snippet of gameplay arrived on our digital doorstep today, showing off some super combos and other asskickery in the upcoming King of Fighters XII. In the above trailer, we're presented with some beatdowns courtesy of Joe Higashi, Kim Kaphwan, and fan-favorite Kyo Kusanagi. Sadly, there's no Iori, but we'll have all of the time in the world to watch him mess folks up when the game releases later this month.
New Muramasa trailer makes with the slicing and dicing
There's no better way to fully appreciate the wonderful artistic style and furious action of Muramasa: The Demon Blade than to see it in motion. And, thankfully, that's just what we got for you right now. Above, you'll find a near-minute of fabulous Muramasa gameplay footage for your eyes to drool over, and if you're wondering what all of the fuss is about, you really should be keeping up.%Gallery-33431%
Muramasa: the GameStop preorder bonus
Click to Marvelous-sizeWe didn't dare think it could happen, but when we saw the pre-order bonus for Japanese copies of Muramasa: The Demon Blade, we secretly wished for Ignition (well, XSEED at the time) to bring something half as awesome to us here. The bonus is a five-foot-long scroll featuring a series of amazing pieces of character art from the game.GameStop has just revealed the North American pre-order bonus, and it's exactly that! We couldn't be more thrilled. Well, we could be more thrilled if two things happened: We confirmed that the back of the scroll had the same enemy and stage artwork as the Japanese version We found out that GameStop's September 1 release date (a Tuesday!) was the real release date for the game. We've contacted Ignition about those two points. In the meantime, we can all enjoy the prospect of getting a really nice-looking free thing by buying another thing.%Gallery-33431%
King of Fighters XII trailer explores the triumph of combat
This latest trailer for King of Fighters XII makes with the pummeling, as trailers for fighting games are wont to do. We've said it once, and we'll say it again: Pretty sprites these be. The game just looks great, plain and simple. And on top of that, the gameplay is something we know we'll enjoy, because, well, it's King of Fighters, and King of Fighters doesn't really change.Oh, and we totally love watching Kim Kaphwan get the business. He's such a goody-two-shoes jerk.
Metal Slug 7 ain't shooting up XBLA until 2010
Metal Slug 7 on XBLA was originally slated as a 2009 title; however, the latest reports say it'll be pushed back to 2010. Speaking to Siliconera, Ignition Entertainment's acquisitions manager, Robert Macchiaverna, says the side-scrolling shmup won't make it out this year."It is still happening," said Macchiaverna. "But, I believe that's scheduled to be a 2010 title." Instead, Ignition will be working on The King of Fighters Ultimate Match '98. On the bright side, you can play Metal Slug 7 right now ... just, unfortunately, not on your 360.
Interview: Vanillaware's Jouji Kamitani on Muramasa
Jouji "George" Kamitani is the person most responsible for Vanillaware's signature look. Not only is he the company's president and director of its games, he's also in charge of the art. We were able to pull him away briefly from his busy day of signing Muramasa posters at Ignition's E3 booth to speak about action games on the Wii, selling a very Japanese game in America, and why we won't see the quirky DS title Kumatanchi in North America anytime soon. As a bonus, we were treated to an enthusiastic live demonstration of Kamitani's dream Wii minigame.%Gallery-33431%
Hands-on: Samurai Shodown: Edge of Destiny
Samurai Shodown: Edge of Destiny, the latest in SNK's long-lived weapons-based fighting game series, feels totally different from its predecessors. The K2-developed fighter doesn't just add 3D graphics to the series more successfully than the version on the short-lived Hyper Neo Geo 64 system -- it adds some 3D movement as well, in the form of a dodge move. During our quick match, Ignition's Shane Bettenhausen described it as "Samurai Shodown meets Soul Calibur meets Bushido Blade," a classification that aptly encapsulates some of the changes in the game.%Gallery-65488%
King of Fighters XII tourney in LA this Saturday, May 30
A King of Fighters XII battle to the death tournament will be held this Saturday in a little burg known as Los Angeles. The event will be held May 30, from 12-7PM at Element (location details after the break). Cosplayers are welcome and there will be "goodies" on hand.Want to compete? The first 100 folks to RSVP to Paul[at]ignitionusa[dawt]com with their name and email address are good to go. We'll be covering the tournament this weekend in hopes of kicking our Iori Yagami addiction, so stay tuned for more.
Help choose The King of Fighters XII box art
Ignition Entertainment is asking for the community to decide The King of Fighters XII's box art for North America. Currently there are polls open on the company forums to decide between the four different covers -- two for each system -- of the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions. In both cases, "Option 1" is the Japanese box art and "Option 2" is the originally-intended North American box art.The fans will decide which graphic the McCountry will be forced to gaze its eyes upon. We know it's supposed to be a battle and all, but wouldn't this be the perfect time to make the argument for reversible covers? Anyway, the PS3 choices can be found after the break.Source -- Rock the Box Round 2 [PS3]Source -- Rock the Box Round 2 [X360]
Ignition and Tecmo localizing 'Winds of Nostalgio'
Hey, remember Winds of Nostalgio, the Matrix Software/Red Entertainment-developed RPG that Tecmo published in Japan last winter? Don't worry, we had forgotten about it too. But Ignition Entertainment didn't -- the publisher is partnering with Tecmo to release the RPG in North America this September, under the simpler title of Nostalgia.Afraid it's just another RPG? Here's the description from the press release. "Set in an alternate-reality version of 19th-century Earth, Nostalgia casts you as Eddie, a headstrong Londoner who amasses a group of memorable companions to traverse the world in his steampunk-inspired zeppelin." It features both turn-based combat with monsters and airship battles.Ignition seems to be stepping up its game with stuff like this and Muramasa. Is this the influence of new Business Development director Shane Bettenhausen?%Gallery-33402%
Muramasa rights picked up by Ignition, due in September
We love it when the wheels of progress turn quickly, but this is a bit much. Just a day after we learned that publisher XSEED had dropped the rights to Muramasa: The Demon Blade, Vanillaware's followup to the PS2's Odin Sphere, we hear from Ignition that it will be scooping the game up for a North American release on Wii in September.Jeez, Ignition, you didn't even give us time to mount an elaborate, multi-pronged effort to take to the streets to save Murasama. Now what the hell are we going to do with all this poster board and puffy paint?%Gallery-33431%
Ignition reveals date, details for King of Fighters XII tournament
Ready to compete in a game you've never played? Ignition Entertainment has officially announced the King of Fighters XII tournament teased last week on the game's website. The tournament, being held in cooperation with the EVO tournament group, will take place at Element in Hollywood on May 30th, during which 128 freakishly talented competitors will pit their stylish, high-resolution avatars against one another in a five-round tournament. If you think you're the king of King of Fighters, you can sign up at EVO's site starting April 6 at 10AM PST. Signing up at Ignition's KOF site could win you a trip to watch the event.The press release teases "special guests and the opportunity to win one-of-a-kind KOF goods" -- not the least of which is a Japanese King of Fighters XII cabinet.%Gallery-47801%
King of Fighters XII tournament to be held in LA
We've come across the North American website for the console release of King of Fighters XII, which features something very exciting: wallpapers! Oh, wait, that's not it, though we like the wallpapers a lot. The website features a signup form to "win a free spot in the KOFXII tournament in LA." Awesome news for those of you confident in your Rising Tackles! That kind of confidence will be tested for most KOFXII players, by the way, because the game supports online multiplayer. We're guessing that the tournament will be held near the July release date.Also seen on the website: potential box art for the game, showing what could possibly be a limited-edition version in a fancy slipcase. Of course, Ignition has been putting all of its games in fancy slipcases lately, so it's not necessarily an LE.%Gallery-47801%
King of Fighters XII screens reveal new anti-aliasing feature
Click to embiggen.We're happy to be able to bring you these exclusive screens of King of Fighters XII, if only because it meant we got to look at screens of King of Fighters XII. Seriously, look at this thing. We couldn't be happier that SNK Playmore got the money together to make an HD fighter. Thanks, Doki Doki Majo Shinpan!As far as we know, these are the first screens of the Xbox 360/PlayStation 3 version, and for the most part, they look exactly like the (amazing) arcade game, with one small difference: the North American console version has an optional anti-aliasing filter for the character sprites, which is enabled in all of these screens. We think that the new art looks wonderful without any extra smoothing.KOF XII is scheduled for a worldwide July release.%Gallery-47801%
Joystiq Review: Boing! Docomodake DS
Docomodake the mushroom is a mascot for NTT Docomo, a large Japanese cell phone company. In Japan, he's a popular enough character (like, for example, our Noid) to carry his own DS game, which was published by AQ Interactive in late 2007. Ignition Entertainment made the rather bold, baffling decision to release that DS game in North America and Europe, where not only is Docomodake an unknown property, the Docomo company itself is virtually unknown.Why would Ignition localize Pororon! Docomodake DS, a licensed game for an unknown license? After playing the game, the reasoning became clear: because it's a wonderful little game, and because the character is more than charming enough to hold up on its own. Either that or the rights came along with AQ's Blue Dragon Plus. But we prefer the former explanation.%Gallery-28640%
Joystiq hands-on: Blue Dragon Plus (DS)
After departing from Square Enix, Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi started his own studio, Mistwalker. The small company relies on contracted developers to collaborate on projects, while Mistwalker itself remains lean and back-to-basics. Its first project was Blue Dragon, which, despite being released on the Xbox 360, is also back to basics -- a linear, turn-based RPG with (admittedly high-end) Akira Toriyama character designs that recall the Dragon Quest tradition. Blue Dragon topped Japanese Xbox 360 sales charts, but still didn't necessarily achieve Dragon Quest-like success. So, along with a merchandising blitz that includes manga, anime, a card game, and toys, Mistwalker has taken Blue Dragon to a system that is much more popular in Japan, and much better suited to both the JRPG and Toriyama's cute designs: the Nintendo DS. Surprisingly, despite the move to less powerful hardware, Blue Dragon Plus is a more progressive role-playing experience than its predecessor, and offers elements of post-Dragon Quest presentation.%Gallery-15148%
Don't forget about Lux-Pain
With all the stuff coming out in the first quarter of this year, we fully expect Ignition's US release of Lux-Pain to fly under the radar at high speed. As if an adventure game needed help being overlooked! We think it looks really interesting, so we're doing whatever we can to promote awareness of Killaware's graphical text adventure -- where "whatever we can" is defined as "post a trailer on our website".We're left to wonder, while watching this trailer: is that background supposed to be composed of hundreds of "Silent" mind-controlling worms? Because, if so, groooooss.%Gallery-36818%
1UP's Shane Bettenhausen heads to Ignition Entertainment [updated]
First, a confession: our original headline for this post was "Shane turns down Sony PR job, goes with smaller publisher" – that is, until we heard the kids at Rebel FM jokingly suggest that blogs would use exactly that as a headline. Oh yeah, smart guys? Well, we didn't! Moving on. So, 1UP's Shane Bettenhausen did turn down a Sony PR job ... several years ago. [Update: Shane writes that he "misspoke" and "never interviewed for the position" – so you can stop writing those scathing forum posts, platform conspiracy theorists.] Right now, the recently laid-off Bettenhausen has taken a gig as Director of Business Development (we call that BizDev, folks) at "smaller publisher" Ignition Entertainment. Says Bettenhausen: "they're not on the map as much as other big publishers." Then why take the position, when fellow 1UP alums have moved onto places like Bungie and 2K Boston? At Ignition, Bettenhausen would get to "choose which games to publish" – in other words, he'd rather be a big fish in a smaller pond. Not a bad plan. Up next from Ignition: Blue Dragon Plus for the DS.To get the full story straight from Shane himself, tune into the latest Rebel FM podcast at around the one hour 21 minute mark. (Bonus: Listen for Shane's comment that the "rise of blogs – Kotaku and Joystiq – completely reshaped the landscape." Great! Now we can add "landscaper" to the old CV).
Bury the Shovelware: Elf Bowling 1 & 2
It's Christmas Eve, and Santa has come a little early. But apparently we've all been very terrible, for there exists a gift far worse than coal. In fact, coal seems downright awesome compared to this. After all, it's flammable. I am being utterly sincere when I say that I would much rather play Cake Mania 2 than this pile of reindeer droppings. Pedigree Elf Bowling 1 & 2 shares the same developer and publisher: Ignition Entertainment. A quick scan of their products page shows a great diversity in games. Notably but understandably missing is this game. It's difficult to comprehend the fact that the same resources which gave us the excellent and underrated Mercury Meltdown Revolution are also responsible for Elf Bowling 1 & 2. The company also published Metal Slug 7 in North America. The Critics Said ... Metacritic is a great tool to use when I determine the critics' reception of a game for this series. I've referenced the bottom of the list before. According to the "Index of Nintendo DS Game Reviews by Score" page, the worst-received game for the DS is Deal or No Deal with a metascore of 17. Yet Elf Bowling for the DS manages to do that 5 points better -- err, worse -- with a metascore of 12. Why it doesn't appear on the list is because it only contains four reviews and five are needed to appear on the grand tally. The four critics that did review Elf Bowling (the poor, poor souls) are all fairly consistent in stating that this game is the suck.
