Capcom confirmed today that the next installment in the Ace Attorney courtroom drama series will make its way to North America and Europe this September. The game is going to be called Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice.
This narrative adventure stars beloved defense attorneys Phoenix Wright and Apollo Justice and sees the return of many familiar faces alongside some interesting new additions.
The title will be released as a digital download only in the Nintendo eShop in September of this year. The game will retail for 29.99 USD.
Prepare to join the resistance as Ethan Bradly in the upcoming Homefront: The Revolution on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. Publisher Deep Silver along with developer Dambuster Games have released a new story trailer, focusing on the Philadelphia resistance as they try to free Benjamin Walker and inspire the people of the north eastern United States to rise up after a terrifying invasion.
Homefront: The Revolution has been in development since at least September of 2011, then under the supervision of now defunct publisher THQ at Crytek UK. After financial difficulties at Crytek emerged in 2014 the rights to the franchise were purchased by the parent company of co-publisher Deep Silver and development staff from Crytek UK were moved to the newly formed Dambuster Games.
It has been a long time coming but the revolution will be available on your television screen on May 17th!
It’s terrible for us to be reporting the news that Disney Infinity has been officially cancelled. The worst part of the story of course is the closure of Avalanche Software and the dedicated folks there losing their jobs. After the upcoming Alice Through The Looking Glass and Finding Dory releases, there will be no more Disney Infinity. The further disheartening news is that Disney is ceasing ALL game development. While it’s great that we may see some new content from studios we know and love, it means they’ll be working on something else besides the sequels we want or new IP’s.
In general, the NFC figure craze has been a difficult one for the industry to focus. LEGO has created a smash hit with Dimensions, and hopefully will continue to produce more products for it now that we’re closing in on the end of their last wave. Nintendo has been successful with amiibo but has struggled to find a way to promote the toys outside of eager Smash Bros collectors. Finally Skylanders has unfortunately floundered this year and needs a successful return and revitalization for this years upcoming release which is still to be announced.
Disney Infinity had it’s problems, but somehow the two Star Wars expansion sets worked. Read More
I Want to be Human is a new game from the indie developer Sinclair Strange, over in the UK. It is a run’n’gun 2D platformer with tight jumping puzzles and Super Meat Boy like wall climbing. The game also features a soundtrack from Jimmy Urine, a member of Mindless Self Indulgence and a very unique visual aesthetic with a comic book style and featuring only white, black and red coloring. Out on Windows via Steam at the moment, with major console releases expected as well.
Let’s start with the positives for this game, the joypad controls and movement are tight and easy to pick up, enemies are varied and the electronic punk soundtrack is a joy. The intro song is great, and worth listening to on its own. There’s a lot to recommend this game on those merits. I enjoyed that the main character is a vampire wearing her now bat-boyfriend as a hat. It reminded me of Banjo Kazooie in a good way. There are plenty of levels, giant bad-ass bosses and lots of challenges and collectibles. All that said, the game suffers from common issues of a tiny development team.
To me, the most frustrating issue is frame rate. On Windows 7, with a GTX960 card, I had constant stuttering. Even the level selection area had a lot ton of it, and it seemed to be connected to certain in-game effects as some levels barely stuttered. My system is a solid mid-range gaming PC, and far more intense 2D and not games have given me no trouble at high quality settings. This is something that can hopefully be resolved with some bug fixing and performance patching. I do hope the developer sees that through, but it’s frustrating that these bugs made it through development without being caught.
This should not cause stuttering
There are design choices that were made that I don’t think a larger team would have let through development. For starters, the color palette. The game uses a few shades each of red, white and black. That’s it. I think the intention is to give it a penciled, kids comic book like feel and in that regard it succeeds. The problem is in actual game play. Telling everything apart is difficult at times, which blotch of grays of reds are enemies and which are the level itself? The limited palette, heavy gore and constant effects combine to make screen mush. Even with this, it was easy enough to get through any level with a C on the first try (challenge levels excepted). How to improve my score was never made clear after any attempt, though.
Somewhere, I’m sure, a 9-year-old is giggling
A further issue is the writing. If I were still a kid living in the nineties, I probably would have found it cool or edgy. Sort of like a low quality Invader Zim. As someone over the age of 16, though it comes across as sophomoric, dull and uninventive. Not only that, but there are many basic spelling mistakes littered throughout. Since this is an action oriented platformer, it could have been excused, but there is such constant dialogue and it gets right over parts of the screen I need to see to play. Honestly, I’d prefer the game if it simply didn’t have the running commentary and dialogue between you and your bat boyfriend. The writing is there though, and pretty constant as you mow through enemies. Ironically, the game likes to try and make fun of indie games and the people who enjoy them while falling into almost every trope it mocks. If it were more self-effacing it would be funny, but it’s not. The low quality of the writing makes the jabs at other indie games sad, like you’re trying to piss off your customers.
Not with that spelling you aren’t
This game had a lot of potential for me. I like almost every category it fits in: comics, music, pixel art, punk music, and platformers. I had really hoped to enjoy this game, but simply couldn’t. Some parts of it would be easy enough to iron out. I do hope the poor spelling and random stuttering are worked out before long. The other issues are just too much a part of the game itself to ever be resolved. I respect that the developer stuck with their choices, but it comes out as mush. Graphics that stutter and run together, writing that comes across as insecure for the games’ own genre, and seemingly inconsequential level scoring. All of this leads to me not being able to recommend this game.
