Ni no Kuni Anime Movie Arrives On Netflix Later This Month
Last year, Nintendo fans got to experience Level-5’s beautiful series, Ni no Kuni, for the first time ever, when Wrath of the White Witch was ported across to the Switch. In our review, we said it was a heartwarming experience and a love letter to the golden era of JRPG.
If it has left you hungry to experience more of Ni no Kuni universe, then why not take a look at the Ni no Kuni animated film when it launches on the streaming service Netflix on 16th January. Here’s the official description:
Two average teens go on a magical quest to save the life of their friend and her counterpart from another world. But love complicates their journey.
Studio Ghibli animator Yoshiyuki Momose (“Spirited Away”) directs this enchanting film based on the renowned video game.
This follows on from the release of Pokémon The Movie: The Power of Us, which arrived at the start of this year on the streaming platform. If you don’t happen to have a subscription to this service, you can always try out the free 30-day trial if you’re a first time user.
Do you plan to watch this movie when it is releasd on Netflix? Leave a comment down below.
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When Is More PS5 Info Coming? A Look Back At PS4's Reveal Event
Sony has announced the PlayStation 5 is coming this holiday season, which leaves less than 12 months for the company to announce all the details in preparation for launch. If Sony follows the roadmap set by the PS4, the PS5's big debut could be extremely close.
PS4 Reveal Event's Date, Time, And Location
In January 2013, Sony invited media to attend a special "PlayStation Meeting" to take place on February 20 at 6 PM PT in New York City. The showcase took place at the Hammerstein Ballroom, and it was during the event that the company outlined the PlayStation 4 launch plans.
This event was the first we'd heard of the PS4's tech specs, with a detailed breakdown from hardware architect Mark Cerny. The event also showed the DualShock 4 controller with Share functionality, a PlayStation smartphone app, and promised games would be playable while downloading. It also gave a launch window of holiday 2013.
If Sony follows this timeline, which would allow maximum time for its retail partners to prepare for the holiday season, we can expect a similar rollout of information. The debut would take place in the first quarter, possibly as early as February. The 2013 event was scheduled for the evening, giving US fans who wanted to watch live from home the opportunity to do so after work. That time would be all the more important now, as publishers have increasingly messaged directly to fans.
E3 No-Show?
Alternatively, Sony could hold its announcements for the second quarter, near or even overlapping with E3. The annual ESA event is usually a showcase for new hardware, and will likely be the first public hands-on with Sony's primary competitor, the Xbox Series X. Sony may skip the event altogether, as it did in 2019. It hasn't given any public indication that it plans to come back this year.
Ceding the E3 ground to Microsoft would allow the industry's biggest event to focus almost entirely on Sony's chief competition. Sony may not be keen on giving Microsoft such a gift, so it could counter-program with its own event even if it doesn't attend the show. That could be the reveal of the PlayStation 5, or it could be a public showing that builds upon the momentum from an earlier reveal event.
What We Know So Far
Whenever Sony chooses to lift the curtains, it will add much more to the limited details we have so far. Sony has begun talking about the PlayStation 5, but very rarely and in a tight-lipped manner. In fact, the company only confirmed late in 2019 that the system would be called the PlayStation 5 at all.
We also know the system will use an AMD CPU based on a third-gen Ryzen. It will have eight cores of the Zen 2 microchip. The graphics chip will be a custom version of the Radeon Navi. All that hardware power is said to support 8K resolution, and ray-tracing for both graphical and audio effects. Sony has also confirmed it will include a Blu-ray disc drive, which can play 4K Blu-rays. Finally, it will be compatible with PSVR in some capacity, and Sony issued a statement promising increased energy efficiency as part of a UN initiative.
The PS5 controller will replace the rumble tech from the last several PlayStation controllers with new haptic feedback. It will also include adaptive triggers on L2 and R2, which allows developers to adjust the resistance. Sony says that these two features working in conjunction with each other creates a unique simulation experience. A new UI will allow you to view more details about friends' games without opening the applications.
What We Don't Know Yet
That leaves plenty for Sony to reveal, whenever the company decides to do so. We haven't been given solid information on the price, release date, or launch lineup. We have no information on what the hardware--the console or controllers themselves--will actually look like. And the company's commitment to more nebulous ideas like PSVR aside, we don't know exactly what that means.
Most significantly, we haven't seen any of these hardware or UI features in action. Hearing about features like ray-tracing is one thing; seeing the difference it can make to an environment in a real game is another one entirely. Seeing the PS5 load Spider-Man much faster than usual was nice, but a new console launch demands some graphical "wow" moments. Sony is sure to provide those with a look at next-generation software running on the PlayStation 5.
Review: LastFight – A Weak Clone Of Capcom’s Legendary Power Stone
Piranaking’s LastFight attempts to recapture the crazy multiplayer chaos of Capcom’s classic Power Stone series, lifting its signature chaotic gameplay wholesale and transplanting it into the world of cult comic book Lastman. All of the most recognisable elements of Power Stone – small 3D fighting arenas, numerous objects and weapons that litter stages to fling and fire at your opponents and the ability to transform into a temporarily hulked-out version of yourself by collecting and holding three power stones – are present and correct here. While Piranaking has managed to inject its game with a decent sense style and a unique identity through the use of characters from the Lastman universe, all of its good work is almost entirely undone by clunky, unsatisfying gameplay, disappointing enemy A.I, a severe lack of modes and a bizarre lack of any online co-operative play.
Although the moment-to-moment gameplay in LastFight, at its most basic level, is heavily reminiscent of Capcom’s classic party fighter – and fans will immediately feel at home – at every conceivable turn, it’s the fourteen-year-old game that outdoes this latest attempt to revive the popular genre. The campaign mode here – which is inexplicably only playable in solo – lasts all of thirty minutes and features a nonsensical, barebones story about a bunch of fighters who’ve gone a bit mad on a drug called Anitrans and kidnapped the girlfriend of Richard Aldana, the hero of the Lastman comic series. It’s a total waste of the golden opportunity to set the game in an established comic book universe, which should have given the developers an engaging and fun backdrop to the heart of the game – and does absolutely nothing to give its characters any sort of identity or personality.
Speaking of the characters here, the roster of ten available fighters – each with a name that very lamely seems to be referencing some sort of illegal drug or other – may all look unique, but in practice, they control and fight so similarly that, besides a unique special attack, it really doesn’t matter who you choose to take into an arena. Adding to this disappointment is the fact that the enemy AI is disappointingly one-note and bizarrely easy to overcome. We found that, for the most part, simply running around arenas in a circle and throwing objects at your adversary when you have space is enough to deal with everyone we encountered during the campaign.
In Versus mode – where you can choose to fight 1v1, 2v2 or in a 4-way free-for-all – it’s entirely possible to just let the enemy AI to scrap it out until there’s only one remaining, who you’ll then likely have no problem overcoming. It’s a disappointing situation that’s exacerbated by the fact you can’t change the game’s default difficulty setting; there’s no way to make any aspect of this game more challenging, no options to add random fun variables to stages or remove or limit the various throwable objects at your disposal. What happened to the idea of having rocket launcher-only matches or duking it out in a fists-only affair? On top of this, as we already noted, there’s no online play, meaning that if you don’t have a bunch of pals to play local co-op matches with, you’re stuck with a game that struggles to provide much more than an hour’s worth of entertainment across its paucity of game modes.
Besides that short campaign and versus battles you’ve got just ranked battles – a strange faux-online mode that pits you against an endless ladder of opponents who are actually AI-controlled – and Pinball mode, which sees you stripped of the ability to do damage with your regular attacks in favour of throwing large balls at each other – and it’s every bit as bad as it sounds.
If LastFight had managed to make its central gameplay less clunky and provided some more options, online co-op and reasonable AI for the solo player to pit themselves against, there is a decent little party fighter here and – especially against a couple of friends – it is capable of providing some entertainment. We like how a perfectly-timed block regains a little of your character’s health or how dashing at just the right moment provides you with momentary invincibility, but, overall, there’s just not enough polish here. Attacks don’t feel reliable, stages are constructed without much in the way of ingenuity and the whole thing just ends up feeling like a quickly slapped-together version of a vastly superior old classic.
Conclusion
LastFight lifts the classic gameplay of Capcom’s Power Stone series and dumps it into an established comic book universe which it then entirely fails to utilise. It’s sorely lacking in game modes and inexplicably fails to provide any online co-operative gameplay options. The AI here is pretty dumb, stages are bland and the central gameplay aspects are hampered by a lack of polish, from attacks that don’t feel satisfying to long loading times between every bout. If you’ve got a bunch of pals who like to get down and dirty with a party brawler you may be able to knock more than a handful of hours of fun out of this one, but if you’re playing solo, you’ll genuinely struggle to stick with it for any reasonable amount of time.
2020 is here, and with the new year, Sony has announced the first month of free PS4 games for PlayStation Plus subscribers. January 2020's lineup will go free beginning on Tuesday, January 6, so be sure to snag December's games--Titanfall 2 and Monster Energy Supercross--before then.
Starting January 6, PS Plus users with a PlayStation 4 can claim Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection and Goat Simulator. This effectively gets you four games, as The Nathan Drake Collection is a remastered compilation of the first three games in the series: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, and Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception (although only the single-player components are included in all three). Both of the PS Plus titles are free until February 3, and you'll have access to both of them for as long as you're subscribed to PlayStation Plus. Once they become available, you can claim them through the links below.
"Uncharted: Drake's Fortune was a fine game in 2007, but its wrinkles are deeper now, its age more apparent," critic Mike Mahardy wrote. "With Uncharted 2 and 3, though, Naughty Dog transcended Drake's own small beginnings. The Nathan Drake Collection is a firsthand account of Naughty Dog's growth as a storyteller, and this collection is the best way to relive that history, and witness its transformation up close."
Goat Simulator, on the other hand, is a hilarious romp through multiple open worlds that each offer ample opportunity for goat shenanigans. There's no denying it's a weird game, but if you're the kind of person who likes to mess around, inadvertently cause explosions, and stick your goat tongue to things to see what happens, then Goat Simulator is absolutely worth trying when it goes free with PlayStation Plus.
– Fixed a bug that caused Frostivus chat wheels and consumable items to not be usable. – Fixed a bug where some neutral creeps would not correctly de-aggro. – Fixed a bug where the armory UI would not scroll to a typed hero name. – Mouse clicks are now lower priority on friendly wards than enemy wards. – Labels for items on the ground now appear after a short delay when holding Alt. – Add an alias “Inai” for Void Spirit so that you can search for that on the hero grid. – Turbo: The neutral item drop schedule is now 7 minutes earlier in Turbo games.
Before we drop into a new year of Fortnite, there’s still plenty of holiday cheer spreading across the Island.
The fun begins with Winterfest. Between now and January 7, every time you fire up Fortnite on your Xbox One you’ll have a chance to unwrap free rewards in the Winterfest Lodge. In total you will be able to open 14 presents, including two outfits, two gliders, two pickaxes, two wraps, one emote, and more. The Lodge also features a special stocking where you’ll receive daily challenges that reward you with prizes and XP.
Outside of the Lodge,
you can showcase your holiday style with the upcoming chill new outfits with the
Polar Legends Pack available on December 23. The pack includes:
The end of the year also
marks the perfect time to celebrate all things Star Wars, including the release
of “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.” Your favorite characters — including
both Kylo Ren and Zorii Bliss — are available in the Item Shop alongside Star
Wars-themed gliders, back blings, and emotes. Once in battle, be sure to grab a
blaster and your favorite legendary lightsabers made popular by Rey, Kylo Ren,
Luke Skywalker, and Mace Windu.
But there’s more! To
wrap-up the year, we’re also letting you jump in with some of the year’s most
popular LTM gameplay modes, including Zone Wars. You can also grab a friend and
be among the first to try our new split-screen mode in Duos and Squads.
Also, Save the World
Founder’s Packs are now 50% off until January 17. Save the World is a co-op,
looter-shooter, survival mode with hundreds of hours of content. Level-up your Commanders,
expand your collection of unique weapons, and build the perfect Hero loadout to
fight back the Husks!
From everyone at Epic
Games, we hope you have a wonderful holiday. Happy Winterfest!
Respawn co-founder Vince Zampella steps in to head DICE LA
Respawn co-founder Vince Zampella has been tapped to head up DICE LA as the EA-owned studio undergoes a rebranding to take it from DICE Stockholm’s support studio to stand-alone developer.
Zampella discussed the move in a recent chat with the Los Angeles Times, noting that the shift doesn’t mean he’s cutting ties with Titanfall developer Respawn. Instead, his head coach-like role at the studio will remain largely the same while his day-to-day duties shift to leading its sister company DICE LA.
Along with the new leadership, DICE LA is set to undergo a rebranding in the near future. The nature of that change is still under wraps, but Zampella notes its new name and focus will be completely separate from both DICE and Respawn.
Electronic Arts studios chief Laura Miele tells the Los Angeles Times that the move aims to help DICE LA switch gears and work on a full project of its own, rather than its previous task of providing development support to other studios.
“I genuinely believe that [Zampella] is going to help guide them creatively. He’s going to help them further fortify and build out their talent and their team. I think we’re going to have a really strong studio out of our Los Angeles location,” says Miele. “They can go from a support team to a full stand-alone studio to create a new game offering.”
Love It Or Hate It, Fortnite Made More Money Than Any Other Game In 2019
Fortnite might not be to everybody’s tastes, but there’s no denying how successful it is – in fact, last year it made more moolah than any other video game – a feat it achieved in 2018, too.
According to Superdata, the game was the top earner in 2019 with a whopping $1.8 billion in revenue – although it’s worth noting that it suffered a 25 percent drop on the $2.4 billion it made in 2018. Superdata feels that the drop reflects the stabilisation of the game’s revenues after a sudden spike in popularity in 2018.
Here are the top 10 earners in full:
As you can see, Pokémon GO is also raking in the cash, bagging $1.4 billion in 2019 – an increase over the previous year. Interestingly, the report also found that free-to-play games accounted for 80 percent of all digital games revenue during the past 12 months.
By comparison, spending on PC and console ‘premium’ games – ones you actually have to pay for – dropped by 5 percent year-on-year. Here are the top earners:
The drop, according to Superdata, can be attributed to more big-hitters launching in 2018 than 2019.
We’re back and we’re going to start as we mean to carry on – by rounding up random stories I never got around to covering properly during the week. 2020 is going to be a big year for Pocket Tactics and I can’t wait until you see what the powers that be have in store.
In the meantime, I’ll be watching over the shop in my usual fashion, so don’t expect much to drastically change over the course of this month. Got a couple of games I want to get get reviews going for, and we’re going to publish a new guide that looks at what 2020 has in store for mobile games, as a follow-up to your now ended 2019 guide.
This was the only game of the past couple of weeks to catch our eye, but we haven’t had a chance to delve into it ourselves. It reminds me of the Kairosoft game Dungeon Village, just made by Tinybuild. This is from the same people that also did titles like Graveyard Keeper, so it’s got some pedigree behind it. If you end up checking it out yourself let us know how you found it, otherwise we’ve added it to the list so will review it as soon as we can (pictured above).
News & App Updates
Android users will pleased to know that you can know pre-register for Space Grunts 2 on the Google Play Store. We didn’t think it was as good as the first game, but it’s still a pretty decent experience and so worth signing up if you’re a fan of Orangepixel’s work.
Black Desert Online’s mobile adaptation seems to be doing pretty well for it so far. The tips guide we put together for it has proven very popular so far (so I’ll be pushing through some updates for it), and the developers are moving quite quickly on adding new content to the game.
The Node War ‘PVP’ mode isn’t due until mid-January officially, but Pearl Abyss have already introduced and early version of it so players and guilds can start practicing. Here’s a quick overview of what it entails:
Guilds can participate in a Node War through a bidding process, where three guilds with the highest bids will be selected as participants. Participating guild members must attack the opposing guilds’ Holy Artifacts while defending their own to win. Guilds that win the Node War will take possession of the Node for seven days and receive large sums of silver collected as tax from the areas surrounding the Node. During the pre-season, Node Wars will take place from 10 PM to 12 PM (server time) on Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Sunday.
Best App Sales
We mentioned Kairosoft above, we’ve spotted a couple of their games on sale on iOS, although none of the goods ones. Other sales of notes include:
We’ve got a belated review of that last one coming next week, so keep an eye out for it.
Seen anything else you liked? Played any of the above? Let us know in the comments!
