August 2005

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

KOF going 3D again
Posted by White_Pointer at 19:35:13 CST
SNK have recently announced that a sequel to last year's King of Fighters: Maximum Impact is currently under development for the PS2. It looks like it'll be a while coming though, as it seems to only be in early stages. The game will be on display in some form (but probably not playable) as part of SNK's lineup of games to be showcased at this year's Tokyo Game Show. Looking through the list of the rest of the games they'll have on show, nothing else really stands out, apart from The King of Fighters: Orochi Story, which is a compilation of KOF 95, 96 and 97 redone with updatd sprites and a bunch of other new features in a similar way to the remake of KOF 94 (titled Re-bout).

The full list of games SNK will have on show is as follows:

Garou: Mark of the Wolves (PS2)
The Last Blade 1 & 2 (PS2)
The King of Fighters: Orochi Story (PS2)
The King of Fighters Neowave (PS2)
The King of Fighters: Maximum Impact 2 (PS2)
Twinkle Star Sprites: La Petite Princesse (PS2)
King of Fighters: Maximum Impact Maniax (Xbox)
The King of Fighters 2003 (Xbox)
Metal Slug 5 (Xbox)
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Street Fighter 4? On the Atomiswave?
Posted by White_Pointer at 15:10:45 CST
Arcade game news site insert credit has recently posted up a list of games that will be on display at this year's AM show. Here it is:

Taito
Battle Gear 4 (TypeX+)
ZOIDS Infinity EX (TypeX)

SEGA
House of the Dead 4 (LindBergh)
GunDam 0079 (CHIHIRO)
Sega Network Pro Tour Vers. 2005’ (CHIHIRO)
NeoGeo Coliseum (A-Wave)
Samurai Spirit: Tenkaiichi (A-Wave)
Fist of the North Star (A-Wave)
Under Defeat (Naomi GD-ROM)
AfterBurner Next (LindBergh)
Virtua Fighter 5 (LindBergh)
OutRun Coast-2-Coast (LindBergh)
SEGA Rally 3 (LindBergh)

Namco
Tekken 5.1 (System 258)
Cobra: The Arcade (System 258)
Mario Kart: Arcade GP (TriForce)
Counter Strike Neo V2 (Namco N2)
Druaga Online: The Story of Aon (CHIHIRO)

Banpresto
Chou DragonBall Z (System 246)
GunDam 0079 Card Builder (Naomi 2)

Konami
Paintball Mania (Pysone)
Beatmania IIDX12: Happy Sky (System 572)
Battle Climaxx 2: Wrestling Arena (Pysone)

Capcom
Street Fighter 4 (A-Wave)
Donkey Kong Jungle Fever (System 246)

Cave
Shoot’em-up X (Proprietary Hardware)
Online Tank Battle (Proprietary Hardware)

While most of these games we are already aware of, there's one that stands out in that list...Street Fighter 4, and that it will be on the Atomiswave hardware.

Is SF4 really in the works, to be shown to the public very soon, or this this just wishful thinking? We hope it's the former! Thankfully we won't need to wait long to find out the answer.

Thanks to forum member Master swordsman for this news!
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Possible Bandai Namco logos?
Posted by White_Pointer at 23:46:22 CST
You might remember that we reported back in May the fact that Namco and Bandai are currently undergoing a merger, with the new company name being (wait for it), Bandai Namco. The reasoning behind the merger was of course to maximise profits for both companies in a similar way Sega and Sammy merged last year. In case you have forgotten, Bandai is the company responsible for many Japanese toys, including the infamous Tamagotchi.

They've released and trademarked two logos showing the name of the new company with the Japanese Patent Office. We don't know at this point whether these will be the final logos but it looks interesting nonetheless. Check them out.

Soul Calibur III release dates set, more characters revealed
Posted by White_Pointer at 21:30:58 CST
The release dates for Soul Calibur III have finally been set in stone, according to Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu. The US will actually get the game before Japan, on the 25th of October. Japan will need to wait about a month later as it's scheduled to hit shelves over there on November 24th. We don't however have a release date yet for the PAL version, but we'll let you know as soon as the information is available.

The magazine also pointed out previously-unknown-to-be-returning characters Maxi, Seung Mina, Xianghua, and YunSung will in fact be in the game. Good news for old school SC fans!
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Tekken 5 update announced
Posted by White_Pointer at 22:12:39 CST
No, this isn't the news on Tekken 6 that you might have been hoping for. Instead, Namco have announced that they are releasing an update to Tekken 5, titled Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection. This information was revealed on the cover of next month's issue of Japanese gaming magazine Arcadia. Unlike the small free update released for Tekken 5 already, this new version seems to indicate that there will be new items, re-worked stages and quite possibly a bonus character, either a new one or returning one.

As far as we know this update is only for the arcade version and should be hitting Japanese and US arcades within the next couple of months. We don't know whether Namco will decide to bring this to console yet.
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Nintendo bundling SSBM
Posted by White_Pointer at 04:25:33 CST
In what seems like an odd move, especially considering the game's age, Nintendo have decided they will be offering a Super Smash Bros Melee Gamecube bundle, starting as early as next week. For US $99.99, you get both a Gamecube and the game. SSBM is easily the most popular game on the Gamecube, selling over 2.9 million copies in the US alone, but why package it with the Gamecube now? Only Nintendo knows, but this seems like a good deal, so if you haven't got a Gamecube and SSBM yet, now is the best time to acquire them.
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New fan art
Posted by White_Pointer at 04:11:45 CST
Effix has sent us an awesome new piece of fan art for our ever-expanding galleries. It's a hand-drawn image of Lei Fang from the Dead or Alive series and looks fantastic. Check out the eye candy in gallery 7 of our fan at section. If you also have your own fighting game fan art you would like the world to see on this site, then visit our fan art section for the submission instructions!
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Tekken characters officially announced to be in Urban Reign
Posted by White_Pointer at 04:22:49 CST
Remember when we reported not so long ago that two characters from the Tekken series will be appearing in Namco's upcoming brawler Urban Reign? Well, in what seems like a somewhat late announcement, Namco have officially confirmed this report. They have reaffirmed the fact that both Marshall Law and Paul Pheonix will be making guest appearances in the punch-fest, and will be playable characters in the game’s free and challenge modes as well as the multiplayer modes. They'll also have their classic moves kept intact as well.

Urban Reign is scheduled to ship next month. Be on the lookout for this, it looks like it's going to give MK: SM some stiff competition.
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New content added to the official MK: SM site
Posted by White_Pointer at 04:44:11 CST
The official Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks website has been officially launched today, and to coincide with this there's a lot of new stuff on there. On the site you will now find new storyline details, game features (with the full features to be revealed soon), 4 extensive game videos and a ton of new screenshots. There's also a forum on there which will give you access to concept art and some other cool stuff.

The url is http://mkmonks.com/, so if you're interested in the game, be sure to check it out. It's due to ship on the 19th of September for the PS2 and Xbox.

Thanks to Kung Lao from Midway Games for giving us this heads up.
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More old school fighting games coming to other systems
Posted by White_Pointer at 21:51:03 CST
Midway have announced that a compilation pack of Midway Arcade Treasures 2 and 3, called Midway Arcade: Deluxe Edition, is coming to the PC. This, of course, will feature the fighting games that appeared in MAT2, including MKII, MK3, Primal Rage and Pit Fighter. The decision to port these games to PC seems like a strange one, but we welcome Midway for doing it.

There's also a version of MAT on its way to the PSP, called Midway Arcade Treasures: Extended Play, which seems to be comprised of a mixture of games from MAT 1 and MAT 2. Although we don't know the final list of games for this one yet, we do know that at the very least MKII will be featured on it as it is shown in the new trailer for the compilation.

We'll bring you more news on both of these, including expected release dates in the near future.
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New info on new Budokai - Part 2
Posted by White_Pointer at 04:28:07 CST
As promised, today we give you some new information on the various gameplay modes that will be available in Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi, the upcoming fourth interation of the DBZ: Budokai series.

The main single player story mode is now called Z Battlegate instead of Dragon Ball Universe. You play through a series of a sequence of 10 set tasks called a "Battlegate" (each set of 10 is a battlegate), as different characters to progress the story. There's 18 battlegates in all, meaning there's 180 tasks you need to complete.

New in the fourth installment will be what will be called Ultimate Battle mode. In this special single player mode, the player starts out ranked 100 with a bare bones character. By gaining powerups and customising their character, the player will need to try and fight their way up to be number 1 using a points based ladder system, which definately won't be an easy task.

And just for the hell of it, here's some more miscellaneous information for you.

There's plenty of powerups and items for you to find, which are scattered throughout each of the expansive levels, and this will be the game's primary way of unlocking content. A total of seven characters, 210 items and 140 power-ups will be waiting for someone to find them, and you'll be able to kee track of everything and fuse items through a feature called Evolution Z. In a really cool idea, players can import their characters from Budokai 3 into Tenkaichi.

DBZ: Budokai Tenkaichi will be exclusive to the PS2 and is currently scheduled for a November release.
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New info on new Budokai
Posted by White_Pointer at 04:51:17 CST
As we reported some time ago, a new entry in the DBZ: Budokai series, titled Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi is currently under development, and we now know a bit more about the game. In fact, we'll be giving you the new information in 2 parts, half today and half tomorrow.

First off, we have a new developer, and with that comes some big changes, not the least of which is the new graphics engine. It's more refined now than it previously has been, and now, more than ever, it looks like an anime cartoon. You can see for yourself in our screenshot gallery. Things are much more detailed this time around as well, as the characters take body damage and their clothes rip and tear as the fight progresses.

The controls have also been given a rework, which should result in some pretty insane combat. Players can now explicitly control the height of the character during aerial combat using the shoulder buttons, creating a whole new tactical dynamic. As far as the gameplay goes, most of what made Budokai 3 so good is back in the fourth installment, including ultimate attacks, reversals, teleports, Hyper Mode and Beam struggles, although it has been made more casual-gamer friendly this time around. However, there is still plenty of depth if you are willing to look for it, with increased maneuverability allowing the player to move just about anywhere. Every one of the 11 environments are huge and are fully interactable.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's update where we'll give you the run-down of all of the new gameplay modes. In the meantime don't forget to check out the new screenshots!
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New Fan Art
Posted by White_Pointer at 04:18:38 CST
Joe Ikey has sent us some great new fan art which we have added to our galleries. They are two different pictures of Street Fighter characters, and one of Cody and Guy from Final Fight. Check them out in Fan Art Gallery 7.

Don't forget to also chck out our fan art section if you are a budding artist yourself and would like to submit your own fighting game artwork for the world to see!
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New fighting game controllers on the market
Posted by White_Pointer at 04:26:20 CST
It's been brought to our attention that two new Playstation 2 controllers have recently been released that are designed specifically for fighting games. The first is the officially licensed King Of Fighters controller, promising genuine arcade control.

Another death due to excessive gaming
Posted by White_Pointer at 04:16:41 CST
Not fighting game news strictly, but something that should be reported on regardless.

You might remember the reports of two Korean men last year who died after spending an excessive amount of time playing games. Now we get the story of another Korean man who has done the same thing. The 28-year old played Starcraft for over 50 hours straight, taking only brief toilet stops and very brief nap sessions. Police say his heart failed due to excessive stress and exhaustion.

You'll be able to read more on this story everywhere, but here's a couple of links for you if you're interested in finding out more:

BBC News
MSNBC

Note to gamers, take breaks during your gaming time.
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More Soul Calibur III details, Part 2
Posted by White_Pointer at 04:52:00 CST
As promised, today we bring you new information on Soul Calibur III's quest mode.

This new quest mode is called Chronicles of the sword, and it allows the player to explore and conquer a vast world. Using an overhead, real-time map, players can command small armies of different "units" (with varying strengths and abilities) to take on specific tasks (almost like a hybrid RTS), and team vs team fights occur when one army meets another. An interesting new concept, for sure.

In addition to this you have the Tales of Souls mode, which is essentially the same as the Weapon Master mode from the previous games in the series. You choose a character, pass a series of tests and progress the story, only this time, you'll have interactive cut-scenes along the way, and each character will have their own unique story.

We'll bring you more information on SCIII when we can. Don't forget, you have a chance to win yourself a copy when it releases later this year if you vote in our top 20 fighting games of all time!
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New details on Soul Calibur III
Posted by White_Pointer at 04:20:47 CST
More information has surfaced on Namco's upcoming Soul Calibur III, namely, information on the character creation and quest modes.

Today, we'll give you the run-down of the character creation, and tomorrow, we'll cover the new quest mode.

Right then, the character creation. There's two basic categories, colour edit and custom creation. The colour edit is just that...take a pre-exising character and give them their own colours. The custom creation however is where you get to have the real fun, where you'll be able to select your character's look, personality, gender, outfit, hair and fighting style (in which you can choose from a variety of presets, check out our previous coverage in the news archive for more information on those). The personality of the character is actually determined by the clothes you give them (for example, dress a character all in black with a mask and they lean towards an evil personality)...pretty cool stuff.

You can unlock more options for your character creations while playing through the new quest mode...but you'll need to wait for tomorrow to know more about that! Stay tuned!


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Mortal Kombat 7 revealed?
Posted by White_Pointer at 03:32:23 CST
Previously, the possibility of a seventh MK title was only confirmed by the fact the MK team said there was a seventh title in the making just after Deception's release. Well, it seems Ed Boon has given a bit of a teaser snippet about the next fighting game in the MK series. The September issue of the Official U.S. Playstation Magazine contains a demo for the upcoming spinoff MK: Shaolin Monks, and there's a short sound file that contains some quick comments from Ed Boon about a seventh MK title:

"We're actually very excited about the next Mortal Kombat fighting game that we're doing. Like before we are introducing, you know, two or three very huge elements to the fighting game that haven't been done before. So, we're really excited about that. I think you can expect to see the biggest roster also of Mortal Kombat characters ever in this next fighter as well."

Midway still in the red
Posted by White_Pointer at 04:25:15 CST
Despite a couple of big game releases this quarter, Midway are still reporting a net loss as they made less than expected and lost more than expected. The loss for the quarter totaled $29.9 million (compared to $11.2 million during the same period last year). Taking into account their upcoming game releases, including MK:SM, Midway have adjusted their financial forecast in this statement:

"With that move, the Company now expects [full-year] net revenues of approximately $200 million, as compared to the company's previous estimate of $225 million," execs said in a statement today. "Additionally, the company now expects a net loss of approximately $60 million, an increase from the company's prior expectation of a net loss of approximately $47 million."

Fighting games in IGN's top 100
Posted by White_Pointer at 03:08:27 CST
IGN have just completed their top 100 games of all time, and in the list, we do some some fighting games featured, and fairly highly ranked, at that. Soul Calibur made number 43, Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution came in at number 40, and Street Fighter II was the highest ranked fighting game coming in at number 8.

To read the complete list, visit IGN.
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Blind Teenager is a MK and SC whiz
Posted by White_Pointer at 04:03:36 CST
USA Today has published a report on a 17 year-old named Brice Mellen, who happens to be extremely good at Mortal Kombat: Deception and Soul Calibur II. Sure, heaps of kids his age are good at these games, what's so special about this guy? Well, he's blind.

That's right...this guy has been blind since birth, but has apparently been playing games since he was 7 years old and is now quite proficient at MK and SC, amongst other games.

It's doubtful whether he'll be able to match it with the pros at high levels of play, but still, this is a pretty amazing feat. For something which requires so much visual attention, one wonders how he pulls it off.

To read the article in its entirety, head over to USA Today.
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Top 20 fighting games...we want your input! (And win SC3!)
Posted by White_Pointer at 04:13:24 CST
Later this year, we are going to be publishing a site feature: The 20 best fighting games of all time. Site veterans will probably remember we did something like this a couple of years ago, but this time around it's going to be different. This time around, we are asking YOU, the site visitor, what games you think should make this list.

So how do you give us your votes, you ask?

Send us an e-mail to top20@blood-sports.net, and in the e-mail, clearly identify which games you believe should make the cut and most importantly, why they should be in the list. Any submissions that are just a list of games without any explanation will be ignored, so keep that in mind. You don't need to send us 20 games in the list either, you can send us many as you want.

To show you we are serious about this, after we are done collating all of the e-mails, one lucky person, drawn completely at random, will win themselves a copy of Soul Calibur III when it gets released later this year.

So what are you waiting for? Start sending us those nominations!
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The history behind SCIII
Posted by White_Pointer at 03:54:14 CST
1up have published a feature titled "Retro/Active: Soul Calibur series", where they go back in time and take a look at all of the games that have been part of the Soul Calibur legacy leading up to the release of Soul Calibur III later this year. From Time Killers, probably the first well-known weapons-based fighting game, to Soul Calibur II and everything in between, the feature has it covered. They have both a feature article and a 10 minute movie for you to watch...a warning if you want to download the movie though, it's almost 100 megs for the WMV version (which is the smaller of the two).

Check out the feature over at 1up.
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