Screen Test: Ni no Kuni: The Another World
Level-5 and Studio Ghibli are making a DS RPG together. This is kind of a big deal.
Level-5 developed the Dark Cloud and Rouge Galaxy games, as well as the past two Dragon Quests, soccer RPG Inazuma Eleven and the beloved Professor Layton series. Studio Ghibli are the animation studio behind anime classics My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle (as well as my personal favorite, Porco Rosso). Their first (of hopefully many) project together is the DS RPG Ni no Kuni: The Another World. Continue reading »
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Tags: anime, dark cloud, derrick sanskrit, dragon quest, howl's moving castle, inazuma eleven, level-5, my neighbor totoro, ni no kuni, nintendo ds, porco rosso, princess mononoke, professor layton, rogue galaxy, rpg, screen test, spirited away, studio ghibli, the another world
Screen Test: Lunar PSP
Bob is not wrong. The world does not need a fourth version of Lunar: The Silver Star. The first version was a-okay, but inaccessible because no one owned a freaking Sega CD. The Playstation and Saturn remake was even keener. Victor Ireland and the rest of the Working Designs crew did a swell job of translating them both for an American audience. The Ubisoft Game Boy Advance version was less than ideal. You want to put Lunar out again, dump it onto the Playstation Network. Don’t pump out yet another PSP RPG. The system has plenty. Stop it.
That’s what I was thinking earlier today. Then I saw some screens of the remake. Got to admit, I’ve been charmed.
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Tags: eternal blue, game arts, game boy advance, john constantine, lunar, lunar 2, psp, screen test, sony, the silver star, ubisoft, victor Ireland
Screen Test: Punch-Out!!
Looking at these screens for Next Level Games’ remake/boot of Punch-Out!! makes me wonder why multiplayer wasn’t a part of the Punch-Out!! formula from the beginning. Maybe not in the arcade. Them beasts were pretty advanced for their time. This splitscreen set up looks like an ideal fit for what’s essentially a twenty year old style of viddiergame fisticuffs.
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Tags: disco kid, john constantine, little mac, next level games, nintendo, punch out, wii
John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself. 
Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.
Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.
Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines.
Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.
Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.
Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.
