3/09/07 - Daily Links

Plenty of noteworthy articles across the internet today. Hellgate: London is definately the game of the day...


PC Gamer Shivering Isles Preview - A positive look at the upcoming Oblivion expansion.

Hellgate London at 1UP - A preview of the highly anticipated RPG from Flagship.

Gamespot's Hellgate London Preview - More coverage of the game.

Gamespy's Hellgate London Coverage - A THIRD preview today

IGN's Hellgate London Preview - Can't get enough of this game. I've had hands on time with this game and it's looking really nice.

Fable 2 Preview at Next Generation - More information about the infamous dog.


Thanks to RPGdot for providing some of these links.

Atlus Announces Luminous Arc

Atlus U.S.A. has just announced that they have acquired North American publishing rights to Luminous Arc for the Nintendo DS!

Luminous Arc is an isometric strategy-RPG that allows gamers to create new weapons, compare strategic prowess using wi-fi multiplayer, and promises unique characters and an epic story. Luminous Arc is developed by Image Epoch and produced by Marvelous Interactive, producers of the Harvest Moon series and the smash DS hit Contact.

3/08/07 Issue at Just-RPG!

We've posted a new issue on Just-RPG! This is the last week to sign up to win a copy of .hack//G.U., so make sure to enter.

• Final Fantasy III Review
• Viva Piñata Review
• .hack//G.U. Giveaway
• Silverfall Screens

3/08/07 - Daily Links

Here's the daily linkage from the Web. Plenty of GDC coverage, specifically from IGN. Considering all the hype and rumours out there now, I'm sure I missed something, so be on the lookout for further posts.

Titan Quest: Immortal Throne on Atomic Gamer - They award the expansion an 88%. Seems to be getting really high marks so far.

Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja Reviewed at Atomic Gamer - This game has the best name ever, and also pulls off a decent final grade of 75%.

Silverfall Interview on Shacknews - Interviews with the development team have been all over lately, but it's still a good read.

Gamespot's Fable 2 Impressions - Finally, a playable version is shown. Fable fans had better check this out. A lot of info on the recently announced pet dog.

IGN's Heavenly Sword Impressions - Impressions of the upcoming action game for the PS3, straight from GDC!

IGN's Phantom Hourglass Impressions - Another GDC article, this time covering the highly anticipated Zelda title on the DS.

IGN's Mass Effect Impressions - These are a few days old, but I missed it somehow. All these GDC articles are making me wish I would have gone...

IGN's take on Fable 2 From GDC - Yep, more about the dog.

Pokemon Diamond impressions on IGN - Pokemon!!! First impressions of the English build.

New Aedis Eclipse Trailer

NIS America has released a new Aedis Eclipse: Generation of Chaos character trailer. The trailer shows some gameplay footage and gives a little introduction of the characters for those RPG fans that simply can't wait!

Aedis Eclipse: Generation of Chaos goes on sale for the Sony PSP in April, 2007.

Check out the new trailer here.

Zelda Grabs GDC Award

At the Game Developers Choice Awards, Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess walked away with an award for writing, which is probably no suprise to gamers who have played the popular Wii title.

In other Nintendo news, Wii Sports picked up an award for innovation and game design. In total, Wii Sports and Twilight Princess had five nominations in four different categories.

Legendary Nintendo video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto was also honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

New Oblivion Trailers

Bethesda has just released two new trailers for the Oblivion games that are scheduled for release this month.

The first trailer is for The Shivering Isles, an expansion headed for PC and Xbox 360. The game will be available March 26th for $29.99 on PC or 2400 points on Xbox Live.

The second trailer is for the upcoming PS3 version of the game, which will be released on March 19th with a retail price of $59.99.

Head on over to The Elder Scrolls site to download the new trailers.

3/07/07 - Daily Links

Here are some of todays RPG-related findings on the Web. Titan Quest: Immortal Throne and Silverfall seem to be the popular games of the day!

1Up reviews Titan Quest: Immortal Throne - This expansion receives an impressive 9 out of 10 from 1Up.

Titan Quest: Immortal Throne on SI - Another positive review of the game.

RPGWatch Silverfall Interview - Our fellow RPG lovers interview the guys behind Silverfall.

FiringSquad's Silverfall Interview - A second Q&A for the game.

ALLRPG looks at Rogue Galaxy - An 8.3 is the result. I've played through the game and gave it around the same score.

Nintendo Announces Wii, DS Lineup

Nintendo has announced a strong lineup of games heading for the Wii and DS in the coming months. Noteworthy entries to RPG fans include Pokemon Battle Revolution (Wii), Pokemon Diamond/Pokemon Pearl (DS), and Super Paper Mario (Wii).

Pokemon Battle Revolution will be released June 25, 2007 and is being hyped as "a game of remarkable firsts" because it is:

* the first Wii game to include Nintendo(R) Wi-Fi Connection play

* the first Pokemon game for Wii

* the first game to link Wii and the hand-held Nintendo DS(TM)

* and the first Wii game that can be controlled using Nintendo DS

So, uh, yeah... go buy a Wii if you can find one.

LotR: BFME Anthology Announced

While The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle Earth is hardly an RPG, it has many elements of an RPG that I figure RPG fans will enjoy (a fantasy world, unit customization, etc.).

Anyway, EA has announced a Battle for Middle Earth Anthology for PC, containing Battle For Middle Earth, Battle For Middle Earth II Collectors Edition, and Rise of the Witch-King. The three games will sell for $39.99 and hit retailers on March 20, 2007. If you haven't picked them up yet, here's an ideal chance!

RPG Titans Discuss the Genre

1Up.com has posted a really fascinating discussion between three of the RPG genres most prominent figures. First off is Peter Molyneux from Lionhead Studio, creators of Fable and the upcoming Fable 2. Next up is Hironobu Sakaguchi of Final Fantasy fame, who now works at Mistwalker, the developers of Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey for the Xbox 360. Last up is Ray Muzyka from Bioware, the company who has brought us greats like KotOR and is working on Mass Effect.

The article discusses issues such as the changes in the genre over the years, thoughts on MMOs, and Xbox sales in Japan. The original Xbox did very poorly in Japan, but we all know the Japanese love their RPGs, so the games from these three fine fellows could single-handedly save the 360. Either way, I know I can't want to play them!

Read the full article here.

3/06/07 - Daily Links

A few links from around the web for March 06, 2007.

Gamespot Mass Effect Impressions - Gamespot's at GDC and has posted some impressions of Bioware's upcoming sci-fi RPG, Mass Effect.

LotR: Shadows of Angmar Impressions at Gamespot - Gamespot has posted some early impressions of the Lord of the Rings inspired MMO.

Myst Online: Uru Live Review on IGN - Not exactly an RPG, but still noteworthy in my book! As far as I can tell, this is the first review of the game to find its way onto the internet.

Oblivion PS3 Dated

Gamespot has confirmed from Bethesda that Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion will be released on the PS3 on March 20, 2007. The game was initially supposed to be a launch title, but just like the Xbox 360 version, saw last minute delays.

PS3 fans are in for a treat when one of the most highly praised RPGs ever is released on their system in just a few weeks. Assuming it's actually released this time...

Thanks Gamespot.

Webkinz?

This isn't exactly RPG related, but I still thought it was sort of neat. There's a new craze going on with these stuffed animals called Webkinz. They're selling for double their retail value on eBay, and stores are selling out of the popular ones pretty quickly. The cool thing about Webkinz is that each stuffed animal comes with their own code that gives you access to all sorts of games, activities and fun in Webkinz World.

I personally haven't played around in the Webkinz world, but my girlfriend is enjoying it a lot, and it seems perfect for children and fans of virtual pet games. There's a wide variety of Webkinz to collect, such as a koala bear, a tree frog, and a pink pony.

Probably best of all is the fact that you can find these Webkinz for around $8-$12, which gives you both the stuffed animal and virtual pet. If this sounds like something you might be interested in, read more about them here.

Blue Dragon & Lost Odyssey Releases

Two of the most highly anticipated RPGs headed for the Xbox 360 have received release dates, Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey, both from Mistwalker.

Microsoft made the announcement at GDC 2007 that Blue Dragon will arrive on U.S. shores in August of 2007 and Lost Odyssey will be here sometime this fall.

While the Xbox 360 hasn't exactly been an RPG powerhouse, these two RPGs from Japan will surely help to improve the lineup. Blue Dragon has already been released in Japan with excellent sales.

Thanks to IGN for the info.

RPGDreamers Inuyasha Contest

The fine folks over at RPGDreamers appear to be holding an Inuyasha: Secret of the Divine Jewel giveaway. I'm not sure how long the contest has been running, but it looks like it's ending on March 12th, so there's still time to sign up and win! One lucky winner will get a free Nintendo DS lite as well as a copy of Inuyasha: Secret of the Divine Jewel to play on it.

For those that aren't familiar with Inuyasha: Secret of the Divine Jewel, it's a new DS RPG from Namco Bandai that's based on the popular anime.

Enter the contest here, and good luck!!!

Lego MMO

After the success of such games as Lego Star Wars, Lego has announced that they will be expanding their gaming presence and entering the MMO market.

NetDevil, the developers of the MMO Auto Assault will be behind the new Lego MMO, but no other specifics have been revealed. The project is currently scheduled for release in 2008.

Thanks to Gamespot for the info.

Ranting about Fable

If you don't want to hear me ranting about Fable, the hugely anticipated RPG for the original Xbox, then don't bother reading this post.

---Start Fable Rant

For whatever reason, I never played Fable when it first came out. Recently I've had some free time, so I decided to give it a shot. I've heard it was a short game, so I figured I could fit it in between a few review copies.

Anyway, I was pretty disappointed. I'd heard mixed things about the game, so I sort of knew what to expect... but, I really hope Fable 2 is better than this. For a game that was supposed to be THE RPG, the role-playing elements were really shallow and the game length was tiny.

In all honesty, I liked the fact that the learning curve was small and the gameplay was pretty straightforward. That made it a fun game to play and kept it from becoming too complicated. Still, I would have liked the mechanics BEHIND the gameplay to be a bit deeper (like the character building).

Oh, and the lock on irritated me a lot. Not only was it pretty rough to lock onto a specific enemy in a group, but you lost your lock when they'd knock you over. So every time they'd knock me down, I'd get up and be locked on to some random object in the room, and the camera would have left the enemy and I couldn't see where he was or dodge his incoming attacks.

And the backtracking... aaah! The actual world was so small that you end up having to go back and forth to the same few places OVER and OVER again. It was tedious and boring. There was a lot to do in the game, but very little of it did you HAVE to do. On one hand, it's nice to give gamers the freedom to choose, but on the other hand the game was so short that if you put any side questing off for a little bit, you'd end up beating the game before you got the chance to do any of it. I didn't do much of the optional stuff, but there never really seemed like much of a point. The game did a poor job of introducing the optional stuff, but moreso, I just didn't find the game interesting enough to want to continue exploring. As for the side quests, the only real point in those was to make money, which I had PLENTY of throughout the whole game.

I'll take Oblivion (or Morrowind) over Fable any day. The whole idea behind Fable was "For every choice, a consequence". If you want a game like that, go with KotOR or Oblivion instead.

--- End Fable Rant

Sorry about that. Just wanted to get it off of my chest.

As long as I'm at it, here's a link to Just-RPG's old Fable review. It wasn't written by me, but I agree with the score.

3/05/07 - Daily Links

Here are some links to noteworthy information I discovered on the web today. They're a bit later than intended, but better late than never!!!

Mass Effect Interview on TeamXbox - The article focuses on the 'Art of Mass Effect'

The Witcher Preview on Gamespot - Previews of this game have been popping up around the internet lately. I was shown the game back at E3 and was pretty impressed. This previewer managed to get some hands on time, so it's definately worth a read.

RPGVault's Witcher Preview - A second Witcher preview today. This time over at RPGVault.

IGN's Chulip Review - A mixed review of Chulip, awarding the game a 6 out of 10.


With all of the Witcher previews popping up, I figured I'd throw up a link to Just RPG's preview of the game. It's from back at E3, so it's not up to date, but you can never have enough Witcher info! Read it here.