Atlus announces the coming of Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard for Nintendo DS.  Expect more dungeon crawling exploration filled with fiendish FOEs as well as new character classes and improved mapping system.  The odyssey resumes June 17th.  Read more about the game after the jump.

Press Release:

Atlus U.S.A., Inc., preferred publisher of adventuring duo Fight and Heal, today announced Etrian Odyssey™II: Heroes of Lagaard for Nintendo DS™. Continuing one of the genre’s purest experiences, this sequel builds upon the original cult classic with more diverse areas to explore, new character classes, more fiendish FOEs, and an improved mapping system.

Etrian Odyssey II boasts an all-star development team, led by director Shigeo Komori (scenario designer – Etrian Odyssey, Odin Sphere). Composer Yuzo Koshiro (Actraiser, Streets of Rage, Etrian Odyssey) returns for Heroes of Lagaard, in addition to character designer Yuji Himukai and monster designer Shin Nagasawa, who both worked on the original Etrian Odyssey.

About Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard

In the Grand Duchy of High Lagaard, it is said that the Duke is descended from inhabitants of a castle in the sky. When an unforeseen crisis befalls the nation, it is decreed that the first explorer to retrieve the Grail of Kings from that mythical floating palace will be rewarded with wealth and fame beyond imagining. Enter the central city of Lagaard and begin your journey to the clouds!

Key Features

• Make the adventure yours – Rediscover true role-playing as you build your party of stalwart adventurers from 12 different classes. From basics like name and sex to advanced settings like combat formation, skills, and spells, every detail is yours to customize!

• The Odyssey continues – Experience an all-new story, more classes, improved mapping capabilities, new Force Skills, and over 100 side-quests.

• Chart your progress through the dungeons – Etrian Odyssey’s innovative mapmaking tool returns with more options and features! Use the touch screen to map out the halls, chambers, treasures, and dangers of the realms you explore.

Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard has not yet been rated by the ESRB.

Visit the official Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard website: www.atlus.com/etrian2

A new Street Fighter IV character has been revealed: Abel! Described as “a man without a past,” he searches for clues from the remaining members of Shadaloo. Abel, along with the rest of the already revealed cast, will be playable at this weekend’s AOU 2008 Expo in Tokyo, Japan.

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Source: IGN

The new World Warrior is Abel. Described as “a man without a past,” Abel has gathered what little clues he can as he searches for remaining members of Shadoloo. As his tag line suggests, he has a terrible case of amnesia.

All the characters announced so far, including the original SFII cast and newcomers Crimson Viper and Abel, will be playable in the game’s demo build this Saturday at the AOU Amusement Expo.

Happy Valentine’s Day Gifts! The Patapon demo for PSP goes live today on the PLAYSTATION Store for PC.  Check the jump to see how to set things up.

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Source: Official PlayStation Blog

Goodbye sadness, hello Patapon (demo that is).

This is an official announcement for the Patapon demo, and yes, this isn’t Groundhog Day; and no, you didn’t just have a Memento moment.

So, what’s all the fuss about? Well since Valentine’s Day is coming up, we decided that instead of sending each and every one of you heart-shaped candies and sappy cards, we’d provide you with something you’ve been asking for… so to keep the Valentine’s theme going:

Patapon + Interwebs = BFF’s 4-ever.
(Translation: Patapon PSP demo goes live on the PLAYSTATION Store for PC this Valentine’s Day; *hearts* for you)

Yes, it is true. After reading some of your comments (you know who you are), we decided to extend the demo to all corners of the North America, thanks to the powers of the interwebs, so come February 14th, 2008, you will be able to score the free Patapon demo online over the PLAYSTATION Store for PC.

But wait, there’s more! For an unlimited time only, you’ll also be able to download the Patapon PSP demo over your PS3 as well! Oh Pata-SNAP! So make sure your PSP’s Memory Stick Pro Duo is good and ready to download and transfer the demo from your PS3 over to your PSP.

So to summarize:

• Patapon PSP demo to launch over both the PlayStation Store for PC (http://store.playstation.com) and PS3 on February 14th, 2008
• Patapon PSP demo will have the same save-to-final feature as the UMD version.
• Memory Stick Duo needed to transfer the demo to your PSP. Your PSP does not have telepathic powers nor does it learn through osmosis (yet).
• Patapon PSP demo will complete your life and fill you full of hearts and French stuff (you know, like Rolito).
• You know what to do on February 26th

Happy Valentine’s Day!

- Chris “Candy Heart” HM.

Super Smash Bros. X sells one million it two weeks! It took Wii Fit seven weeks to hit a million while Wii Sports took eleven weeks. This makes Super Smash Bros. X the fastest selling Wii game!

Source: Famitsu

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Even Netflix knows what’s up with the HD-DVD format going dead. The online movie rental service has announced that they will now be stocking high-def DVDs exclusively on the Blu-ray format only.

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Official Press Release:

With the industry now having picked a winner in the face-off between the two competing high- definition DVD formats, Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX), the world’s largest online movie rental service, today said that it will move toward stocking high-def DVDs exclusively in the Blu-ray format.

Citing the decision by four of the six major movie studios to publish high-def DVD titles only in the Sony-developed Blu-ray format, Netflix said that as of now it will purchase only Blu-ray discs and will phase out by roughly year’s end the alternative high-def format, HD DVD, developed by Toshiba.

Since the first high-definition DVDs came on the market in early 2006, Netflix has stocked both formats. But the company said that in recent months the industry has stated its clear preference for Blu-ray and that it now makes sense for the company to initiate the transition to a single format.

“The prolonged period of competition between two formats has prevented clear communication to the consumer regarding the richness of the high-def experience versus standard definition,” said Ted Sarandos, chief content officer for Netflix. “We’re now at the point where the industry can pursue the migration to a single format, bring clarity to the consumer and accelerate the adoption of high-def. Going forward, we expect that all of the studios will publish in the Blu-ray format and that the price points of high-def DVD players will come down significantly. These factors could well lead to another decade of disc-based movie watching as the consumer’s preferred means.”

Added Mr. Sarandos: “From the Netflix perspective, focusing on one format will enable us to create the best experience for subscribers who want high- definition to be an important part of how they enjoy our service.”

While only a portion of Netflix subscribers have elected to receive high- def DVDs, a majority of those subscribers have chosen Blu-ray over HD DVD. As part of the transition to Blu-ray, the company said it will acquire no new HD DVDs but that its current HD DVD inventory would continue to rent until the discs’ natural life cycle takes them out of circulation in the coming months.

When Warner Home Video announced last month that by the end of this year it will release high-def titles exclusively in the Blu-ray format, it joined fellow majors Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment and Buena Vista Home Entertainment in endorsing Blu-ray. Currently, the two remaining majors, Paramount Home Entertainment and Universal Studios Home Entertainment, publish in the HD DVD format.

Netflix currently stocks over 400 Blu-ray titles, having recently added popular releases such as “Across the Universe” (Sony), “Gone Baby Gone” (Buena Vista) and the Academy Award nominated “Michael Clayton” (Warner Bros.). Blu- ray titles scheduled for release in the next month or so include the Academy Award nominated “No Country for Old Men” (Walt Disney), “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story” (Sony) and “Alvin and the Chipmunks” (20th Century Fox).

The first look at The King of Fighters XII is to be unveiled (in video-form) at this weekend’s All Nippon Amusement Machines Operators’ Union (AOU) 2008 Expo in Tokyo, Japan.

Source: Taito – AOU 2008 Expo

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Koei has announced plans to restructure the company in order to better focus on different videogame markets.  To do so, they’ll be forming two business divisions, one to concentrate on Western audiences while the other on Asian audiences.

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Source: GameIndustry.biz

The Dynasty Warriors publisher has formed two business divisions at its headquarters in Yokohama, Japan, to concentrate on the Western and Asian regions.

Naoki Katashima has been appointed to the role of executive vice president of Koei UK, Koei France and Koei North America, managing sales and marketing in each of these territories.

“This new mid-term plan is a very significant development for Koei,” commented Katashima.

“The plan demonstrates our renewed commitment to our western businesses and the importance with which Koei views the markets outside of Japan. This plan establishes an entirely new division that unifies all of Koei’s western territories, and represents a substantial part of the company overall.

“Now more than ever, Koei’s development studios, and sales and marketing teams around the world are working more closely together to develop remarkable entertainment experiences for videogamers across the globe,” he said.

Katashima will be based in Hertfordshire, UK, and will also serve as general manager of Koei’s Global Business Division for North America and Europe.

Join Luffy and the rest of the Straw Hat Pirates as they search for the ultimate treasure in a brand new adventure exclusively for the Nintendo Wii. We check out Namco Bandai’s One Piece: Unlimited Adventure. Read more after the jump.

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When Luffy finds a mysterious orb, the crew crashes onto an equally mysterious island. They find that the orb re-enacts memories of the characters’ past (through flashbacks of scenes of the anime re-enacted in 3-D). The bad guy seen in the flashback ends up the boss that they would have to fight! They soon realize the orb holds the power to unlocking the secret the island contains.

Unlimited Adventure is a pretty cool action adventure title. It does well to bring the One Piece world to life, from the characters’ attacks and mannerisms to scene references from the anime and manga. You’ll see Luffy as always the adventurous type, Nami as always the one in it for the money, Sanji and Zoro always up in each others’ throats, Usopp as the “scaredy cat” and then “bad ass” when it counts, and so on… Accompanied by a well-done American voice-over, beautiful graphics and animation, and a fantastic musical score, the game is quite the experience fans will love.

The Straw Hat gang features a party of eight, of which you can switch between freely. If one character dies, you can switch to another to continue fighting. It’s only when all characters die do you get the unfavorable game over… With this in mind, expect quite the challenge from powerful enemies and brutal encounters.

Each character has a unique set of attacks, from Luffy’s “Gum Gum Storm” to Nami’s “Cyclone Tempo.” By repeatedly using attacks, they would level up, which in turn unlock new attacks. As you can assume, you can gain a good majority of your attacks early in the game. What keeps your attack pattern fresh is a checklist of attacks to perform shown on the side of the screen. When you’re down to the last attack to perform, it creates the opportunity to do a “Break Shot.” Obviously, landing a Break Shot will do significantly more damage. If it kills an enemy, however, it’ll also drop restorative HP and SP pellets to keep you going — Theoretically, you can fight forever as long as you don’t get knocked down to break this cycle and reset the checklist.

Along the way, you’ll gather various raw materials which can be used to create new items. You’ll have Sanji cooking new food and Chopper creating new medicine while Usopp and Frankie build new tools and enhancements. Like a skill tree, some of these creations will be ingredients to creating newer items. To gather some of these raw materials, you’ll swing the Wii remote to capture insects using a net, reel aquatic wildlife in with a fishing pole, or knock through particular rocks and walls with a pick axe. The game features quite the emphasis on hunting-and-gathering which can end up as a daunting task to some players. Rare items can usually be a requirement to unlock the seal leading to the next area. If you can get past this, however, you’ll notice this steady progression of what you’ll need to do next helps make it the interesting experience that it already is.

With the “unlimited adventure” to keep you going, there’s also a small versus mode, to match your favorite characters (there are 40 featured in the game!) against a computer or friend, and a survival mode where that Break Shot method is sure to come in handy.

All in all, Unlimited Adventure is a very fun game with an original storyline that could’ve also done well as a standalone OVA. Fans should definitely give this one a try. The game is already set to see a sequel by a two-part episode set entitled One Piece: Unlimited Cruise. We enjoyed playing through this one, and hope you will too, and are definitely looking forward to the next two.

Attract Video For One Piece: Unlimited Adventure

MTV and 1UP are having live Rock Band competitions on Feb 13th at the Virgin Megastores in New York, Los Angeles, and Orlando. Contestants are to form their own band and battle against other bands for a chance to win a bunch of prizes including a $500 Virgin gift card! Read more after the jump.

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Source: Kotaku

For all you living room rock stars out there, Virgin Megastore along with MTV Games and 1Up is presenting the I Love Rock Band Valentine’s Day Bash. If you live in NYC, Orlando or LA, you can bring your self made band to the Virgin Megastore to battle against other bands for your chance to win a bunch of prizes including a $500 Virgin Gift card and other unannounced gifts from Dreamauthentics, Sprint, MTV GAMES, Logitech and EA Games. The tournaments will take place on Feb. 13 at the Virgin Megastores in the Disneyworld Resort in Orlando, the Union Square store in NYC and the Hollywood and Highland store in LA. Starting times vary at the different locations so be sure to check out the official contest page for all the info.

The guys at Racoon City Times have put together a small interview they conducted with Silent Hill V co-writer Patrick J Doody. They discuss his involvement in the game’s development and venture into getting some hints of the game’s storyline. Check some of it out after the jump.

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Source: Racoon City Times

Whats been your role in 5’s creation?

- My writing partner, Chris Valenziano and I were hired as the game’s writers. Now, that term “writer” has a different meaning in electronic gaming than it does in television or film. On a game, the entire design team has a large hand in doing much of the writing. Even before we knew that there was a Silent Hill 5 happening, The Collective had broken story and compiled a summary of the game’s events – all of which were written by the lead designer, the lead artist and the lead level designer. So, when Chris and I came on to the game, our first task was to look at that summary — which is several pages long and very detailed — and start to poke holes where needed. Now, this process began almost two years ago. Since then, the story has changed in several places, which is due to the collaborative efforts of the whole team. As you start to produce the game, you realize that certain story elements don’t really gel with game play or you might discover that we can’t really make more than a dozen separate heads for characters, so you start to whittle down the NPCs in the game. It’s a very delicate balancing act between your narrative and all of the elements that go into production.

Unlike writing a movie script, a process in which the writers generally work on their own to produce a 100-page screenplay, writing Silent Hill 5 was a written over a series of months, working with the whole team to make sure that the house of cards wasn’t going to fall down! Now, on top of all that work, we had to be very conscious of the entire Silent Hill mythology, so everything we worked on as a team, would then go to Konami to make sure that any references to previous characters or any rules regarding the Otherworld shifts fit in the overall lore of Silent Hill. And believe me when I tell you that rules do exist and you can’t break them.

On top of working on the story, we had to write all the cinematics, environmental signage, hundreds of dialogue slugs, journal entries and the game manual. All in all, it was the most writing we’ve ever done for a project (and we’ve written a 300-page novel).

Have you played the games and if so whats your favourite?

I think one of the reasons Konami hired us was because I was such a huge fan of the series, was very knowledgeable of the game’s lore and wanted the game to have continued success. I played the original Silent Hill the WEEK it came out and it was the scariest game I had ever experienced. When I started playing that game, I knew I was seeing the future of horror gaming and I couldn’t get enough. It’s actually an amazing experience to now be a part of the series after having been a fan for so long.

Now, regarding my favorite, I know the fans love Silent Hill 2, and Silent Hill 2 certainly elevated the game to the direction that the series has gone. However, I’m a big fan of Silent Hill 3. I love all the characters – Heather, Cartland, Vincent – they are all so colorful and have great motivations. I also like that installment for its expanding history of The Order. Overall, Silent Hill 3 really feels like a complete experience for me – from great game play to fantastic story.

Since its a survival horror game would you say Silent Hill 5 is the scariest narrative in the series so far?

I think when we talk about Silent Hill and a “scary” story we are talking about two different things. Overall, the game’s scares will be the biggest we’ve had, and that’s not just jump scares – the eerie feeling of dread will be heightened because the designers can really immerse you emotionally through amazing environments and wild-looking demons. However, story wise, Silent Hill hasn’t typically been “scary,” as it’s more about the depths of madness and terror it takes the player. Clearly I can’t talk about the story of the game, but I can say that we have worked very hard on making it the most disturbing drama of the entire series. My hope is that players will be affected by the game’s end.

without giving away any spoilers will we learn anything more about the history of silent hill?

Hmm…tough question because I would love to spill the beans on some of the story, but that would ruin the fun! Here’s what I can say about Silent Hill and this installment – you will discover some new secrets about Silent Hill by way of how its history has influenced a much larger society than you may have previously thought. And that’s almost saying too much!

how would you describe the protagonist of silent hill?

Alex Shepherd feels very new to the series. He’s less a victim of circumstance and more a man of action. Now, I know people are worried that having a soldier as the star of the game means he is somehow Rambo, let me assure you that he is not. However, he does take a much more proactive approach to the world around him. We tried to make him more aware of the strange events that unfold in the story, so if you believe in the theory that the player is the character, then I think he’s going to feel more relatable to someone who would make rational decisions based on what he sees in front of him.

Thanks for the questions! I’m sure I haven’t really explained much more than what is out there, but I was happy to throw in my thoughts. Good luck with your blog! I believe in horror gaming and hope that continued success of games like Silent Hill can keep horror fans entertained and terrorized at the same time.

Patrick J. Doody