A full ten minutes of gameplay footage from Dark Souls 2 has surfaced online, as part of an IGN interview with game co-director Yui Tanimura and publisher Namco Bandai’s global producer, Tak Miyazoe.

The footage has landed alongside a leak  of 10 gameplay screenshots on NeoGaf, a selection of which is below. Suitably impressive graphics are on show in both still and moving showcases, as well as little in the way of changes from the original Dark Souls atmosphere. Motion-capture for animations and equip-able torches for dark areas are some of the few truly new elements, but by and large the iconic formula seems to have been left well alone.

You can check out the full video – along with the developer Q&A session – over at IGN. As of writing, no release date has so much as been hinted at, but the official window is somewhere in 2014. The game is being developed for PC, PlayStation and Xbox (technically 360, though that assumes that Microsoft will forget to release a new console later this year).

Alongside the gameplay footage and screenshots, a brief trailer is also available to keep our appetites whetted while we wait for more news:

Source: Eurogamer

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In case you guys didn’t know, Namco Bandai released a new trailer for Dark Souls 2 called ‘Despair. This trailer showcases the graphical prowess and the variations of environments that will be included in Dark Souls 2.

Dark Souls 2 was revealed on December 7, during the 10th annual VGA’s. There hasn’t been any confirmation on whether this game will be officialed released, Darks Souls 2 will be released on the PC, Xbox 360, and PS3. Also no word on whether  Dark Souls 2 would be on the Next-Gen consoles.

Stay tuned for more news regarding Dark Souls 2.

Namco Bandai has confirmed via the Project X Zone European trailer that the game will launch in Europe on July 5th. This means that North American Nintendo 3DS gamers will get the game slightly earlier than those in Europe. North American gamers can expect to get their hands on the game on June 25th. Will you be purchasing Project X Zone?

When it released last August, Graces f came with a paperback artbook, soundtrack CD, behind the scenes disc and various DLC – I even made an unboxing video about it! This August, Xillia will be upon us (August 9th, to be exact), and we’re getting the same treatment this time – minus the making of disc, by the looks of things.

The Day One Edition was first uncovered by enterprising posters on NeoGAF, and then picked up by Operation Rainfall (both linked at the bottom of this piece), but it’s now been confirmed by Namco-Bandai themselves, alongside an extra-special Milla Maxwell Collectors Edition, which you can see below.

The Day One Edition will effectively be the standard edition, as was the case with both Graces f and Dark Souls, and the Collectors Edition will be priced at £85.99/€99.99 and includes a 100-page artbook (expanded from the Day One’s 50-page book), the OST disc, the DLC and a 21.5cm figure of main character Milla Maxwell. It will be available in the following countries: France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Holland, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the United Kingdom.

I think it’ll be the standard Day One Edition for me. Much as I love a nice art book (and the expanded version in the Milla Edition is tempting), it’s a bit out of my price range. Plus, I just got something yesterday…
Oops!

Who else is in? And what edition are you going for? Here’s a short Milla battle video to get you in the mood. The animation looks lovely and fluid.

Tales of Xillia releases exclusively for PS3 on August 9th 2013.

Links:
NeoGAF thread: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=538413
Op Rainfall Story: http://operationrainfall.com/tales-of-xillia-collectors-edition-eu-preorder/
Namco-Bandai Pre-order page: http://www.talesofgame.com/uk.html
My Graces f unboxing: http://pushstartgaming.wordpress.com/2012/08/30/unboxing-tales-of-graces-f-day-1-edition-push-starts-first-video/

Namco Bandai have put out an English trailer for their upcoming cross-over-athon, Project X Zone.

It fulfils the requirements of big, flashy and absolutely nuts. July 5th release!

Namco Bandai has just released the first English trailer for the highly anticipated Project X Zone for the Nintendo 3DS. The game brings together over fifty characters from Sega, Namco Bandai, and Capcom games. Project X Zone also features Japanese voiceovers and English subtitles. The game is due to be released on June 25th in North America.

The new studio in British Columbia will be opening its doors in June, and Namco says it wants to be able to derive content from local cultures and trends to establish themselves as a company that can work outside of the bounds of Japan.

It’s a move that has been supported by the government of British Columbia that provided significant funding so the company can open the new location.

“With the opening of a NAMCO BANDAI Games studio in Vancouver, British Columbia continues to see progress in this industry,” Pat Bell minister of jobs, tourism and skills training said in a statement.

“Our province offers a competitive tax credit, access to a highly skilled workforce and supports post-secondary digital media education, training tomorrow’s creative talent right in our backyard,” he added.

However, some figures from DigiBC in 2012 imply all’s not so well in the Vancouver video game development market. According to BC Business, in the summer of 2012 Vancouver lost about 1,400 jobs in the province.

According to Polygon, Vancouver-based Slant 6 Games, developer of SOCOM and Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, has temporarily laid off an unspecified portion of their workforce. In March, the company released Galactic Reign for Windows 8 mobile devices.

Much of the loss Vancouver has seen is due to competition in markets like Toronto and Quebec that also have incentives and tax breaks for video game developers who open studios in their provinces. As well, the move from console development to mobile development has proved problematic for large developers.

Vancouver has always been an enticing location for video game developers, especially ones from Japan due to its proximity to the country. With the addition of Namco Bandai in Vancouver, it looks like Vancouver could be coming back strong in 2013.

“British Columbia has demonstrated a deep understanding of the digital media and game industries, especially in Vancouver, which has a long history as a pioneer in game development,” said Hajime Nakatani, CEO, NAMCO BANDAI Studios Inc. in a press release.

“This makes it a perfect choice for our first step forward in establishing our global network.”

Namco Bandai’s new studio will be opening at the Centre for Digital Media. The centre offers students a rigorous work environment where they can live and study to work on game development projects.

“The Centre for Digital Media, a collaboration of UBC, SFU, Emily Carr and BCIT, is thrilled to have NAMCO BANDAI moving into our facility,” said Richard Smith, director, master of digital media at the facility in a statement.

“The connections with our students – and project and educational opportunities that we are exploring – are already paying off. As with the other digital media companies here, NAMCO BANDAI is a great addition to the mix of researchers, studios and industry practitioners at The CDM. We look forward to working with them as we build the digital media industry here in B.C.”

Today, Namco Bandai announced that Project X Zone is coming to North America, Europe and Australia. The game will be fully translated but will still have Japanese voice acting which makes sense as the game is a handheld title. If your not excited you suck and shouldn’t be allowed to be a gamer. Please buy this game guys, that is all.

ERMAHGURD! (@GamerBites)

In summary, Ni no Kuni is a wonderful game. You’ll spend many hours playing this game, but you won’t get bored. You’ll grow fond of the characters and probably at some point you’ll be moved.
And in the end, you’ll miss it.

Crossovers are a trend nowadays, so after Project X Zone (fighting/action/RPG crossover among SEGA, Namco Bandai and Capcom) and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure All Stars Battle (fighting with all the characters from the eight JoJo’s series), now it’s time for J-Stars Victory VS.

The game, exclusive for PS3 and PS Vita and now only announced for a Japanese release, should be a fighting game featuring characters from four of the major Shonen Jump series. So it won’t be like Jump Ultimate Stars, but it will feature warriors only from One Piece, Naruto, DragonBall and Toriko.

The game is still in TBA release date and probably will never see the light outside Japan (mainly because of the west-unknown Toriko), but for now enjoy the trailer.

Project X Zone first came out for Japan 3DS owners last October. The game is a strategy role-playing game featuring many faces of famous gaming franchises like Street Fighter, Mega Man X, The Tales series, and many more. The Namco-Bandai website is allowing people to pre-order the game through Gamestop or Amazon right now.

For those wanting to know what Project X Zone is; here is what the official site had to say:

For the first time ever, characters from some of the most historic franchises in video game history come together in one epic adventure! Play as over 50 of your favorite characters from NAMCO BANDAI, SEGA, and Capcom and watch them interact in dream scenarios. Project X Zone is the ultimate strategy RPG that combines the greatest collection of characters ever seen in a video game!

 

The ancient treasure called the “Portalstone” has been stolen and a rift in time and space has allowed crossovers from various universes. The ambitions of various people, organizations and creatures have become intertwined, turning this incident into a great source of turmoil. The past, future, and even distant worlds from other dimensions have been drawn into what will be become a long journey for our heroes.

For more news and details go to Namco’s site here

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Michael Troina writes features and reviews Nintendo games for Analog Addiciton. When he’s not writing or playing games or sports, he’s out at his job at the Daily Bugle taking pictures as the web-slinger we all have come to love…either that or he’s getting sandwich saving one world at a time. Find him anywhere with this flavors.me/michaeltroina

Originally released in Japan  during 2011, Tales of Xillia will finally make its way to American shores. However, no release date for the European version has been announced at this time.

Getmasu originally reported on the release date, also pointing towards an article on Kotaku regarding the Tales Vita remakes that have been released in Japan. Tales of Innocence R and Tales of Hearts R are both Nintendo DS remakes. Producer and Director of the Tales series Hideo Baba states the games are not currently planned to make their way overseas, due to poor Vita sales in North America.

“Unfortunately, at this present time we don’t have any plans to release any of the Vita titles [in the west]. One of the main reasons is, unfortunately the PlayStation Vita is doing relatively poorly in North America, so it’s one of those things that if the numbers increased considerably, then it’s something we could consider.”

With localization of JRPG’s usually taking a few years time, don’t count the Vita remakes out just yet.

Source: IGN

Jamie Briggs manages Analog Addiction and you can like them on Facebook, follow his daily life on Twitter @JamieAA and his videos on YouTube.