Author Archives: Steven

About Steven

Editor-In-Chief of The Wired Fish since 2010. Suggestions, praise, and hate mail can be sent to steven@thewiredfishnetwork.com

Nintendo Direct UK: Release Date Narrowed Down For Fire Emblem Awakening, Guild 01 Games Coming To eShop

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From left to right: Liberation Maiden from Suda51, AeroPorter from Yoot Saito, and Crimson Shroud from Yasumi Matsuno

Today Nintendo of Europe held a Nintendo Direct Press conference for European fans focusing primarily on 3DS software. It touched on a few things like New Super Mario Bros. 2 add-on content, Virtue’s Last Reward, and a new Pushmo game. I won’t cover the whole thing, but if you want, you can see the entire presentation here. One of the more notable announcements is that Fire Emblem Awakening now has an approximate release date of Q2 of 2013. Another bit of awesome news is that three of Level 5’s Guild 01 games are coming to Europe. They are Suda 51’s Liberation Maiden, Yoot Saito’s AeroPorter, and Yasumi Matsuno’s Crimson Shroud. Many had doubts that the games, or Guild 01 for that matter, had little chance of coming westward due to the quirkiness of the project. It’s nice to see that the download space is still a viable venture for these types of games.

Again, watch the video for the full lodown for things to come in Europe. Just remember that not all your hear may not apply to the U.S. And… real quick for us in the U.S…. Pullblox is Pushmo, Style Boutique is Style Savvy, New Art Academy is just Art Academy, and that Koopa Shell trophy is awesome.

Nintendo UK Announcement [UStream]

Ain’t No Love Lost Between Oddworld Inhabitants Founder And EA

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In an interview with GamesIndustry International, Oddworld Inhabitants founder Lorne Lanning dished some dirt about his company’s fall after the release of Stranger’s Wrath, and the poor marketing and business choices made by the game’s publisher, EA. In the interview, he mentions how the money made on games EA publishes don’t go back to making more games and funding developers. “Our agreement is, you won’t be seeing our profit being spent on Ferraris and shit like that… Our profits are going back into games so we can ultimately raise to the point where we can grow our audience…” He went on to state, “The owners [EA] are flying jets, do you think they care about the customers just one fucking per cent? Not at all.”

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Project Giana Title Finalized, Release Date Announced, And A New Trailer Is Up

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Previously on Project Giana news, I made a small mention about Black Forest Games letting the fans decide on the project title. Well lest week, voting ended, and the game will be called Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams. They even showed off their snazzy new logo for the game as well. Along with this reveal, they announced that Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams will be released for PC on Tuesday, October 23th. The game is still vying for a Steam release through Steam Greenlight.

Moving on to the trailer, we can that some elements from Giana Sisters DS are coming back, like the bubblegum power-up and those weird, snake-y suction-cup vines. And it looks like Machinae Supremacy and Chris Huelsbeck will be providing more than just that one song heard in the initial trailer and demo. A couple of bosses and a snow level is also showcased. There’s even a swimming section in the game, which is surprising considering all water in Giana Sisters DS was instant death.

Still no word on any other platforms Giana will be launching on.

[Via Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams Facebook page]

Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams – Available October 23rd [Youtube]

Hurst And Kirkhope, Among Others, Want To Make A Real Banjo-Tooie Successor

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Once again, Rare is in the spotlight over something fans are just clamoring for since the lukewarm release of Banjo-Kazooie Nuts & Bolts. A small group of former Rare developers (who run game developer Crash Labs), including Steven Hurst and Grant Kirkhope, want to make a new Banjo-Kazooie game, or at least somewhat. The Twitter account MingyJongo was started to gain support for the idea from fans. In the profile, it states that they want to create a “spiritual successor” to Banjo-Tooie, the second game in the series. So this may or many not be an actual Banjo game, but play very similar to one. Maybe it could be a Sabreman game? Who knows. One Twitter user asked why these guys don’t use Kickstarter instead to bring the project to life, to which Mingy replies “You’re spending other peoples money & what happens when you need more time/money? We’ll worry about funding when we know exactly what IT is.” A good point. The other question would be that IF they do make a Banjo game, is Microsoft going to keep it or let it go? Maybe those rumors a while back might mean something…

For now they only need support on Twitter. So if you want to see something happen with this idea, go there and hound them!

Ex-Rare Developers Join Forces To Create A Spiritual Successor To Banjo-Tooie [Nintendolife]

MingyJongo Twitter account

Night-Time Listenings Wrap-Up: Week of 9/24/12

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Another Weekend is here, and it’s time fro another Night-Time Listenings Wrap-Up. This week we covered originals and remakes. The way it worked was that I talked about the first appearance of a song and put it together with its most recent version. Only the recent versions got the embeds, so I can still showcase the originals on their own in the future. This week we met Gilgamesh on the Big Bridge. Then we had a Deadline to meet in Revelations Persona and Persona 2: Eternal Punishment (PSP). We explored an endless battlefield in the World of Mana with Final Fantasy Adventure and Dawn of Mana. We went underwater in Mega Man X2 and X5. And finally, it was a throwback day with Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Galaxy 2.

If you want to see the music as it goes up (and not wait every Saturday for these wrap-ups), remember to go to our Tumblr page and follow it. Music for Night-Time Listenings goes up every weekday at 10PM

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Tekken Producer Proposes Project X Zone Localization, Cross Your Fingers

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Ever since the news of Project X Zone‘s small chance of localization caught steam, the efforts of the PXZ Localization Community have picked up. According to an FB post, the leader of the Facebook Group, Anthony, took to Twitter to ask Katsuhiro Harada, the producer of the Tekken series, what it would take to convince Namco (the game’s devs) to bring the game Westward. His response was “I think they don’t localize that. That is unpopular out of Japan.” Not a good sign, but it almost echoed the statement from that Namco rep in the previous article. However ten minutes after that, Harada came back with this tweet, “I’ll ask project marketing team. ‘Let’s localize.'” Things were starting to look up. Finally several hours later, Harada did the deed and followed up with, “I proposed localization of Project X Zone.”

This is an unprecedented move in the efforts of the PXZ Localization Community. Harada is a well respected man in the videogame business, especially in the eyes of the Tekken community (and harbinger of shuttin’ fools down). Not sure how much involvement he has in the project, but his characters are in the game. Not that his characters in the game might matter, but his position in the company might have some kind of impact. Still, there is a chance that is proposal may not be considered. But the fact that it’s even being proposed in the first place by someone in the company might give Namco enough of a hint that people outside Japan want the game as well. It could be the beginning of something big. Fingers crossed guys!

PXZ Localization Community (aka 100,000 Strong to Localize Project X Zone) [Facebook]

Night-Time Listenings Wrap-Up: Week of 9/17/12

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After a one week break, Night-Time Listening made a comeback. This week was the week of Remixes. We kicked things off with Stickerbrush Symphony remis “Brambles in the Breeze.” We then battled to the bitchin’ riffs of S.S.H. and his remix to Final Fantasy VI’s Boss Battle. Vincent Rubinetti makes his second appearance on Night-Time Listenings with his remix of DKC3’s Nuts N Bolts, “Grinding Gears”. We played some demonic pinball with Sword of Justice’s remix of Devil’s Crush’s main board theme. Then we wrapped up the week with a trio of remixes from three unlikely sources. What were the? Well hit the break and check it out!

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The Breakdown: Eryi’s Action

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System: PC/Publisher:Nyu Media/Developer: Xtal Sword/Players: 1/Release Date: 9/14/12

Around the beginning of my college years, I was introduced to a romhack called Kaizo Mario. I wasn’t playing the game, but we were watching someone else play the game. Basically Kaizo Mario took Super Mario World and made it extremely hard to the point of parody. To a select few, this was a good way to test one’s gaming mettle. To the rest, it was comedic! I Wanna Be The Guy, an indie game, took things to the next level by incorporating assets from old games like Kirby, Castlevania, and MegaMan, and making the game downright sadistic. Then came Syobon Action, which was a re-imagining of the first world of Super Mario Bros. and added some twists to intentionally kill the player. This one was more parody/puzzle than actually difficult. That brings us to today’s game, Eryi’s Action, one of the first (if not, the first) officially published game from this ilk of games. Is it worth buying just to die, or are you better off watching another schmuck die constantly and just laugh at him? After the break, I review Eryi’s Action.

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Missed Module’s Shatter Live Performance? Watch It Here!

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Last night Jeremiah “Module” Ross performed at the San Francisco Bath House in New Zealand. He was doing the music from Shatter, which was rife with Electronica goodness. Since the concert was in New Zealand, the time difference was pretty immense, and most of use were either sleeping or at work. But Module was nice enough to archive his performance on YouTube for the public that missed it. The actual performance begins around the 1 hour mark. Before that is the opening act. So have a listen and enjoy. And remember that Shatter is available on PSN, Steam (I believe), and is part of the current Humble Indie Bundle.

Module Shatter Live (Archive)

No More Gamefly In My House: What I Rented, And What I Bought [UPDATE]

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Well, the time has come to end Gamefly in our house. We’ve had fun with the service, but due to some circumstances, it was time we ended it (for now at least). I’ve had my gripes with the service, but I got my chance to play games that I would otherwise not consider (or not pay full retail price for). There were some games that were pretty damn awesome, and a few that made me happy that I only went as far as renting it. One thing I wished I would be able to do was to actually review these games within the time I had them. But several things (namely Xenoblade) would come up and I would be unable to review them fully. Other times, I began to forget the premise of the games, the gameplay, the stories, and any specific things that may have occurred while I played. So I would like to take this chance to at least talk about these games and how I felt about them. I would also like to reveal the one game I eventually bought as a result of Gamefly. So after the break, the games I bought.

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New Trailer For Shin Megami Tensei IV Surfaces

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Some time ago a trailer for Shin Megami Tensei IV surfaced. It didn’t show much in the way of gameplay and story, but it did show some scenes that looked to take place in multiple eras. But now a New trailer has surfaced, this time from Atlus themselves. We can see more actions being performed with the armbrace that was shown briefly in the previous trailer. From the looks of it, it looks like a augmented reality device the main character wears to get info on his surroundings.

On the action side of things, the dungeons are your usual MegaTen demonic fare, with battles reverting back to the old-school first person view (instead of all characters being visible like in Nocturne, the 3rd mainline SMT game). Very briefly (around the 1:35 mark), we can see that battles are not random and are initiated by pixel-men. The enemies themselves are sprite based. A little bit after that, we can see what looks to be a fusion taking place, a series staple. The music from the website can also be heard.

More info on Shin Megami Tensei IV will be divulged this Saturday during the Tokyo Game Show.

『真・女神転生IV』セカンドトレーラー [Youtube]

Nintendo Is Publishing Bayonetta 2 In The U.S., Yet…

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Why is SEGA’s logo popping up on the Japanese and European trailers? What is this witchcraft!?

To bring you up to speed, Nintendo revealed this morning that Bayonetta 2 will be coming to the Wii U and Nintendo will be publishing the game (much to the chagrin of some gamers out there). I was very happy to see that the game is very much alive and not cancelled as it was feared before Summer began. I was also happy to see the game in much more capable hands since SEGA has no idea what the hell to do with Platinum’s games lately. This had me thinking that SEGA has let go of the franchise (since they were the publisher of the first game and held the rights to it). Then I saw the European trailer Kotaku used to break the news. At the end of the trailer, you can see SEGA’s logo. Same applies to Japan. So what gives? Update: The U.S. trailer also has the SEGA logo at the end.

SEGA responded to the questions via Twitter, stating that “Bayonetta 2 is developed by Platinum Games and published by Nintendo. SEGA is working with both as an advisor to the project.” So this gets me wondering about the rights to the game if it’s exchanged hands or not. Though we can infer from another tweet regarding potential SEGA references that… the IP rights questioned won’t be answered anytime soon. I guess we’ll know more as development continues.

[via SEGA’s Twitter]

Nintendo New York Press Event Wrap-Up

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The Nintendo Press Event Wrapped up in New York this morning, and some surprises popped up. We now know thew Wii U’s Price… or rather, prices, and its launch date. A New service was revealed for the Wii U. Another attraction was shown for NintendoLand. New modes were introduced for New Super Mario Bros. U. A once SEGA property is now in Nintendo’s hands. Project P-100 gets its final name. Monster Hunter was shown. And Finally Activision showed off what they’re bringing, including its multiplayer powerhouse. Hit the jump for the full breakdown of what was shown at this Press Event.

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Final Fantasy Illustrator To Be At New York Comic-Con

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In a newsletter sent out last Friday afternoon, it was revealed that Final Fantasy illustrator Yoshitaka Amano will be at New York Comic Con next month. If you’ve played a Final Fantasy game ever in your life, you’re probably familiar with this man’s artwork. In recent years he’s mostly done work for the Final Fantasy series’ logos. But back then he was the main man behind the artwork of Final Fantasy and designing many memorable characters like the Warrior of Light, Firion, Cecil, Gilgamesh, Terra, and Kefka. I sure as hell would like to see this guy myself as he was one of my biggest inspirations growing up when I did anime art. Not much else is known as to how people will meet him (if it’s either by a panel, an autograph signing, or running into him). All we know is that he’ll be there both Saturday and Sunday. I’m sure details will be ironed out as the convention draws nearer.

Anime Guests [NYCC Website]

Night-Time Listenings Wrap-up: Week of 9/3/12

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This week was all about intro themes. We flipped dimensions in Chrono Cross. We retold a tale with Soul Blade. We traveled the wasteland with Wild ARMs 3. We schemed with Ishtar in Ninja Gaiden II. And finally, we got all our items with Metroid Prime Trilogy.

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