The Gaming Vault

The Dragon Ball franchise have always been synonymous with money in the bank for Atari, but it seems those days are over.

Namco Bandai has recently announced that it has secured exclusive North American rights to publish all future Dragon Ball titles across all major consoles and handhelds. This exclusivity last for the next five years.

The deal begins officially in January 2010, but Namco Bandai are getting a head start later this year. Dragon Ball: Rising Blast for Xbox 360 and PS3, Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Piccolo for the Wii and Dragon Ball Z: Attack of the Saiyans for the DS are all being published by Namco Bandai in 2009.

Atari has been facing some tough times lately, with the withdraw from E3 and selling off its European publishing arm. Hopefully this isn’t going to be the end of Atari.

The final product of Square Enix' countdown drawing

Square Enix’ mystery countdown has suddenly lost all of its mystery, thanks to scans from the latest Weekly Shonen Jump.

The magazine revealed a new Final Fantasy game for the DS titled: “The Four Warriors of Light: A Final Fantasy Anecdote”. This title isn’t official, but a translation by Kotaku’s Brian ashcraft.

The Four Warriors of Light is a traditional turn-based RPG, featuring the same graphics previously seen in FFIII and FFIV. There are scant details on the story, merely mentioning it’s about a boy trying to save a princess.

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Who here has honestly never wanted to play karaoke to the legendary Sir Mix-a-Lot’s Baby Got Back? You’d have to be a crazy man not to want to!

Catch the full list of July releases below.

July 3

• “Baby Got Back” — Sir Mix-a-Lot
• “The Next Movement” – The Roots
• “Shut Up” – The Black Eyed Peas

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Those looking forward to a radically different Zelda game for the next Wii title in the franchise, along the lines of the Wind Waker major graphical shift, are going to be sorely disappointed.

The only information we have about the next Wii Zelda game so far is this Zelda concept art from E3 2009, earlier this month.

“I don’t think it’s going to be that radically different,” Shigeru Miyamoto told Nintendo Power in their latest issue.

So there you have it, straight from the man himself.

That god amongst men, Suda51, has told Edge Online that No More Heroes really needs to move past the Wii in order for it to flourish as a franchise.

“I really want to make NMH a big franchise,” he told the website, “and with this second episode have bigger success. I’m putting a lot of care into developing this IP, as I feel there’s a lot of potential.”

“I think this is the last NMH that is going to be developed on Wii. To expand NMH to new possibilities, we need a new platform. Wii is a great platform, but we’ve done everything we can with it now.”

High definition No More Heroes? Yes please!

Chatting to Famitsu recently, Kojima explained his “support” role in the involvement of the new next-gen Castlevania, and discusses the reasons for some of the decisions behind the game’s design process.

“Kojima Productions is playing more of a support role,” Kojima told to Famitsu. “Castlevania is one of Konami’s most important brands, one that’s seen many releases since the original, and they’ve all been received warmly, but there’s never been a Castlevania created to really satisfy Western gamers. People like Dave were influenced by Castlevania to become game designers, and now they’re making titles like God of War.

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I remember quite vividly when Guitar Hero first burst onto the scenes here in the UK. I’d never seen it before, and it was launching here sometime after it had already become hugely popular in the US – so I’d heard all about it on gaming message boards, with the US hardcore raving about the new, revolutionary rhythm game.

At first I found it fiendishly difficult, but after some time I’d worked my way up to hard and then even expert – and I was having amazing fun. I was in love from there, and I’ve been with the rhythm genre for many years since.

In recent years my allegiance has switched to EA, MTV and Harmonix’s Rock Band franchise – but perhaps a collection of the tracks I love most from the first three Guitar Hero titles is enough to draw me back?

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Talking to Gamasutra recently, EA Games president Frank Gibeau stated that the company still has solid plans to promote new franchise every year, with as many as 3 new franchises being launched every 12 months.

“It’s hard to forecast, but I think we’re probably looking at two to three new IPs a year,” he said, a level “I feel good about,” the exec added. “We’re looking at a three-year SKU plan right now. Between EAP and our internal studios, both of which are in our group, I can safely say it’s at least two to three new IPs.”

Gibeau believes that some mistakes were made by the company in regards to launching new IPs in 2008.

“I think we launched too many new IPs all at once in Q3,” he said. “I would have spread them out and found better windows for them. I would have had longer marketing for them. The marketing cycles were fairly short.

“We didn’t have enough assets to really build the fanbase, build the community, and get that long lead demand built.”

It’s finally happened! European gamers and Otaku’s rejoice, as Fragile: Farewell Ruins of the Moon has finally been picked up for release in Europe. Rising Star Games confirmed today they’re bringing the much anticipated Tri-Crescendo title to Europe. Fragile is scheduled for a Q1 2010 release.

“Fragile has a great team of creative designers who in turn have brought to life a beautiful art style that pushes the limits of the Wii console without compromising on gaming quality” stated Tyrone Walcott product manager at Rising Star Games.

“This announcement will delight European gamers and the Otaku community. Rising Star Games has again shown its commitment to bring the best games from Japan.”

“We’re incredibly excited about bringing Fragile to the PAL territories. There’s been a massive upsurge of interest for this title since being showcased in Famitsu (Japan)” explained Simon Alty, Rising Star Games’ Head of Brand.

Fragile tells the story of Seto, a young boy exploring a desolate and abandoned futuristic world with a flashlight, trying to figure out the truth behind the disappearances.

After this year’s E3, the big three console manufacturers brought out new hardware in the form of motion control. Microsoft revealed Project Natal, a camera peripheral for the Xbox 360 with face and voice recognition and full body motion controls, while Nintendo updated everyone on what their Wii MotionPlus peripheral can do.

Sony didn’t want to be left out of the bandwagon and showed off yet another camera based motion controller, with two wand like objects. Much like a Wiimote with the MotionPlus attachment, the PS3Wands feature 1:1 movement in a 3D plane and seems tailor made for rail-shooters and sword fighting.

While all three kinds of motion controls were lauded by most fans and critics alike, it does raise one question: are montion controls really a good thing? Sure it can help with immersion in certain types of games, I for one felt Twilight Princess was even more fun to play with a Wiimote, but what about games that actually require buttons and analogue sticks?

Can you imagine playing Gears of War with the Natal, or Uncharted with the PS3Wands? Sure it helps the casual crowd experience gaming without the controller being a barrier, but most of us play games to unwind. I can’t imagine playing Ricochet on the Xbox 360 to unwind, seeing as most hands-on features have all said the same thing: that it’s a tiring and sweaty experience.

- Are motion controls the future of gaming?

- Will you be getting Project Natal, a PS3Wands or a Wii MotionPlus?

- Do we really care what the bottom of an Avatar’s shoe looks like?