Talkman is trying to do more than just translate languages … it’s moving on to travel! The newly announced Talkman Travel will provide maps and helpful phrases to those that travel abroad … in Asia. The Japanese-only game currently supports three locations: Taiwan, South Korea and Shanghai. Ideal for Japanese businessmen, but not really for anyone else.
The last time we delved into the great mysteries of Rock Band, no other stand-alone accessories had been announced for the game. Now, Harmonix has confirmed that the music game will come in only bundles until 2008, with no individual guitars this year. We’ll wait for the implication to sink in. Yep, that means that if you want the full guitar/vocal/drum/bass experience in 2007, you’re going to have to buy a Guitar Hero controller. That seems kind of silly to us, but, hey, we’re not the one’s losing money.
Also, Harmonix says that the game will ship with between 40 and 50 songs. That, however, doesn’t include unlockable tracks, so the final song count (like so many things Rock Band) is anybody’s guess.
Sony and LucasArts’ new white limited edition PSP system is certainly getting a lot of attention (even from us). This brand new ad uses the same “Get Your Own” slogan that SCEA has been utilizing, and the same good ol’ annoying prick from the previous ads. It’s an effective, hilarious way of hitting home the point: get your own. With a stellar line up of games this holiday season, we think a lot of people will.
Our favorite kind of rumors to post are the ones that make perfect sense to us and this nugget from Indian gaming site Game Guru is just such a rumor. Apparently, the author’s “sources” are telling him that Rare is hard at work on a sequel to Perfect Dark. Apparently, in this chronological follow-up to the N64 title, Joanna Dark is, well, darker, and the game has a new built-in morality system to match.
Though completely a rumor at this point, this makes a lot of sense. With no Halo (save for the RTS) title, Gears of War 2 is going to need a little help holding up the tent pole. As far as action titles go, we’re not sure there’s a more logical successor than Perfect Dark. And hey, maybe this one will even be fun!
Blizzard says we do, and it’s an old standard of the MMO genre that someone stands up front and annoys the monster into hitting him, so that healing can be concentrated and DPS doesn’t have to take a beating that would likely kill it. But do we really need tanks, or should the game move away from emphasis on the tanking/DPS/healing troika?
Everyone in the game can DPS and many choose to: DPS classes seem to be the most popular. We could debate why all day, but at the end whether it’s ‘big number syndrome’ or it comes from a desire to feel more like you’re actually hurting the monster than simply poking it with a sharp stick and calling it names (or any other reason) the facts remain clear. Now, removing tanking from the game would mean many, many changes. Healing would have to become much more dynamic and would need the ability to either switch targets more rapidly or more area of effect utility. DPSers would need to be able to take more of a beating, making the cloth DPSers more vulnerable. Raids encounters would in many cases have to be entirely rethought.
As someone who spends about 75% of my time in World of Warcraft tanking, it would be a big change for me. I’m PvPing more and more now than I used to (especially now that there’s actual, honest to murgatroyd players standing in my way in AV… I spent an hour in one match today crawling up to that flag over hunter bodies, it felt like) but I still tank and frankly enjoy tanking when I’m with a good group. I don’t think I would like to lose that role from the game, even if I do sometimes wish I’d rolled a mage or warlock instead.
Generally my answer to the question is yes. Not only do I personally like tanking, but I think the game has been designed and has evolved around the tanking idea: the paradigm shift would require too much alteration to the game at this point. What do you guys think? Should WoW move away from the three role mindset or should we keep on tanking?
We’ve mentioned the idea of setting up a gaming night numerous times on our Fancast and even promised that we’d do something soon. But, sadly, we’ve haven’t lived up to our word and nothing has been organized. So, tonight on a mission to right our wrongs. It’s with great pleasure that we here at X3F announce one of our first organized gaming nights that we’re calling X3F Live and we’re kicking off the festivities with some Halo 3 custom game fun.
If you’re available this evening, log onto Xbox Live at 6:30PM eastern (3:30PM pacific) and look for Richard (SenseiRAM), Dustin (SuperDunners) and David (Knuckles Dawson) on Halo 3 and join in on the fragging fun. We’re not sure how long everyone will be able to stay online, but we should be able to get in an hour or two of game time and we can 100% guarantee that there will plenty of fun, fanboys and madness … with free refills to boot! Remember, 6:30PM eastern tonight on Xbox Live for X3F Live Halo 3 fun with your favorite bloggers Richard, Dustin, David and your fellow fanboys too. We can’t be certain when the next organized X3F Live event will go down, so take advantage of tonight’s possible fluke and play Halo 3 with us. See you online!
He doesn’t know why, but he chases it anyways. Any questions can be referred to Slackerz, winners (or is it winnerz?) of this week’s webcomic wrapup. Second place goes to Penny Arcade(Awesome. Slide. Evar.) while third place is a near tie between Dueling Analogs and Hijinks Ensue. Thanks to everyone who voted and be sure to let us know of any game-related webcomic you stumble upon this week!
More Rock Band news today as the full achievement list has been revealed by DaKing240.com. There are 49 achievements in all, ranging across the various instruments and game modes. The most obvious are achievements for completing each instrument tour on each difficulty. In other words, you’ll have to complete the easy, normal, hard, and expert difficulties with the drums, guitar, and vocals. It’s unknown whether or not completing a certain difficulty will unlock the achievements from a lower difficulty. The list also reveals the various locales that will be featured in the game (good evening, Reykjavik!). There are a smattering of online achievements too, such as winning 20 ranked Duel matches.
Gamers with commitments like, say, a job, will be happy to hear that there are no “five star all songs” achievements. There are achievements for hitting 100% of a song’s notes with each instrument on expert, but that’s not nearly as taxing. Our favorite achievement has to be beating the drum tour on expert, which is labeled “AN-I-MAL!!!” Head over to DaKing240.com for the full list.
When you’re buying Contra 4, you’re not just buying a game. You’re buying a lifestyle. You’re saying “Hey, world! My name is [insert your name here] and I really enjoy Contra. I celebrate the entire canon! Why, right here for instance, I have a cart that features features a new game, plus the NES versions of Contra and Super C! Also, there’s a “20th Anniversary Virtual Museum” and two digital comics from Contra artist Atsushi Tsijumoto. Oh, and five hidden characters, one of which … is Probotector.”
Though the list of goodies is exciting, we can’t help but wonder: Exactly how much room is there on a DS cartridge? Have we been getting ripped off all this time? Well, we think the bar has been raised. From now on, we won’t even think of buying a DS game unless it includes at least two games. … Probotector is optional.
Square Enix is bringing yet another remake to the PSP. The First Departure is a revisited version of the first Star Ocean game, and as seen in these new screenshots, it’s getting more than just a cosmetic facelift. Two new characters can be spotted, both donning angelic wings. How these angels, Rei and Erisu, fit into the storyline is unclear for now, but we do know that they will be quite powerful.
Do we need tanks?
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