konchuuwars

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  • Bus-y bees advertise Insect Wars' release

    by 
    Eric Caoili
    Eric Caoili
    07.30.2007

    We grew up terrified of bees, our fear multiplied tenfold after witnessing Macaulay Culkin's demise in My Girl, so we never imagined just how rippin' rad they could be when militarized. Seriously, guys, wouldn't a huge robot bee with a metal spike stinger and two gatling guns be awesome? You don't need to answer that question; we already know it would be. Nothing could convince us otherwise.The bee image we've featured comes from a bus that Success Corp. decorated to promote this week's release of Konchuu Wars (Insect Wars) in Japan. It's unlikely that North America will ever receive this niche title, an SRPG filled with war machines fashioned after bugs, but we have dreams of someone being tricked into publishing it here someday. A 50-inch plasma television has been installed on the side of the transport, playing battle scenes from the game during the bus' route through Tokyo's Odaiba and Shinjuku districts. The bus will be in operation starting today until August 12th. You can check out a few more photos and see what the buzz is all about after the post break. Success Corp. also added a developer's blog and new description pages for three units to its site over the weekend, one of which is the winged terror pictured above, the other two being an armored pillbug and a blades-for-arms mantis. It's like they're lifting ideas right out of our fifth grade composition notebooks!

  • Insect Wars is the bee's knees

    by 
    Eric Caoili
    Eric Caoili
    07.09.2007

    We shooed Insect Wars (Konchuu Wars) away when the game's beetle-filled screenshots first flew into our periphery, believing the bug to be an uninspired pest. "Go away," we said, "and bother us no more." In our defense, language barriers kept us from understanding what the Success Corp. title was trying to communicate with its antennae and movement patterns. Having studied its habits, we found that the game isn't a Mushiking clone as we'd originally assumed, but a tactical RPG where you command an army of customizable, mechanized insects. Our mouths were agape, monocles falling from our faces when the truth was revealed. Below is a sampling of Insect Wars' creepy crawlers: a rifle-mounted praying mantis with buzzsaws -- my god, buzzsaws! -- for arms a lightning bug that terrorizes foes with its beam cannon tail a heavily-armored, treaded snail (pictured above) which acts as a transport for other units while healing them Not since Puzzle Quest have our loins ached for such a game. Insect Wars swarms into Japanese stores this August 2nd. Head past the post break for a minute-long trailer.