French company DotEmu brings word and video that the ghost of Jaleco shooter Earth Defense Force rises again to hit the Apple AppStore in the “forthcoming days,” joining Avenging Spirit in their line of Jaleco titles for iPhone.
The company pr also teases a clue about a third title still to come from the Jaleco library hidden on their website, hats off if you can find it.
Arc System Works is bringing another dose of elaborately costumed female fighting to home consoles in Japan with Arcana Heart 3 hitting the 360 and PS3 there on January 13th.
I rather enjoyed the one dose available on the PlayStation 2 here, and at no extra charge gained an anecdote involving an gamestore employee convinced that surely Kingdom Hearts was what we meant to say, but no in fact, Hearts differ from Highlanders in that there can be more than one.
Cave’s bullethell blast from the past hit Xbox Live Arcade with all the trimmings this week, plus a few features I wouldn’t have anticipated. Running through modes and stages, I can’t shake the thought that Guwange would make a spectacular Wii title. That isn’t intended to veer completely off topic, but has just been floating around in my brain while tackling the core of this game – controlling two physical objects on screen simultaneously.
Each of the game’s three playable characters is linked to a shikigami, an entity that player’s can summon at their leisure, and also one that each character seeks to free themselves from, the driving bit of narrative beneath the barrage of bullets standing between the player and that goal. At first this can result in several shades of retina overload, keeping track of two objects on-screen while Cave’s fine sprites vanish beneath the chaos of color changing bullets and loose change, until survival seems like sheer luck while pushing the analog sticks of the 360 controller in all directions. But a one size fits all difficulty setting, generous screen display and co-op options, as well as three modes to suit all possible tastes should help the uninitiated quickly discover an elegance at work that speaks to Cave’s well earned legacy as shooter royalty.
Taito’s latest cabinet for the continuing saga of blasting the life robotic aquatic reminds me why it’s miserable living in a place where you’ve got better odds of being struck by lightening than finding an arcade.
Darius Burst Another Chronicle goes uber-wide for four players later this year in Japan according to the official site.
Add this to the list of reasons it may finally be time to organize a very long Gamesugar super-shmup-friends trip overseas.
After Burner Climax has finally made the migration from the arcade to the consoles, serving up visuals in shiny HD that make me use silly two-string words like “retina-melting,” along with twitch reflex action that couples some nostalgic memories of the series with a new trick that really makes the game less of the trip down memory lane you might expect, and much more of a 21st century arcade love song.
The view from the cockpit is a mix of familiar Top Gun styled vistas and arcade fantasy that leaves players buzzing by volcanic islands, city skylines, and through mountainous pathways – all of it at speeds that seem ludicrous at first sight.
On my first run through I felt a bit like a high school lover again, wondering how I’d burnt out so quickly after all the pent up anticipation.
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