2011 was an awesome year for video games. A lot happened and many great games were released this year that even I couldn’t keep track of everything. And then, big boss asked me to write about my Game of the Year.

Really? Game of the Year?

I bet ten thousand bucks that at least one of my fellow writers will pick Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition, Dark Souls, L.A. Noire, or one of those popular and shiny first-person shooters as their GOTY. And the aforementioned are great games. I am even tempted to give GOTY to Atelier Totori: The Adventurer of Arland due to its unique take on RPGs, where the story isn’t epic or about saving the world, and where your character’s level doesn’t ruin the game for you, but instead makes you depend on your ability to cook up the right items and use them when needed. Or Catherine due to its nostalgic Q*bert-inspred mechanic, with a plot that puts the real M on Mature. Or maybe Star Wars: The Old Republic because I friggin’ love Wookies and lightsabers.

I found it difficult to choose my GOTY so what I did was I listed all of the games released this year that I was able to play across all platforms available and then spent the days-off playing them for 15-30 minutes each just get a hang of each game’s mechanics. And guess which game, I thought, was the most skill-dependent and mechanic-driven?

I’m a game mechanics guy. If I find a game’s mechanics interesting, I will give it a go. If there’s a genre where mechanics make or break a game, it’ll be fighting games. A shining example of a great game mechanic is found on Arcana Heart 3.

A game with good mechanics gives the player three things; diversity – the trait which gives the player a huge variety of challenges to surmount; replayability – which provides enjoyment to the player for extended amounts of time repeatedly; and technical adeptness – where the player use the acquired skills to play a game in ways no one can ever imagine. Arcana Heart 3 hit the cherry on all three, and no AAA one-player title released this year matched its depth.

529 Ways to Rock the Other Girl Senseless

Diversity is one of the strongest points of Arcana Heart 3. With 23 characters, 23 Arcana, hundreds of moves and strategies, the possibilities are endless. A certain character using a certain arcana played by a certain opponent will always play differently. It’s as if Examu studied each fighting game playstyle out there and integrated them into the Arcana to enhance the players already high efficiency levels in a match. This in turn blurs character tier lines, which are apparent in its more popular fighting game contemporaries, allowing players to literally head to the lab and experiment, get creative, stick to a style for a certain character and formulate strategies when engaging certain types of players.

The possibilities are endless.

Plays Well with Others

With such diversity, the window for replayability and competition is so huge, it’s like breaking through your condo unit’s curtain wall and leaping out to feel the excitement of being pulled down by gravity to the surface. A fighting game with a diverse playstyle environment is worth playing over and over. Competitive nature will always inch in as the player dives into a fray of fellows of varying skill levels, hoping to be the best and the most unique among the bunch of seemingly ‘individual’ players. Think of the Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 community, but a lot more diverse. This is evident in the thriving community where I personally encounter a lot  of different characters and Arcana being used. The netplay is also seamless and smooth, so you can be sure we won’t be dropping those combos.

Say cheese for the camera!

Form of…Me Kicking Your Ass!

As a player, knowledge of mechanics is needed to play a game pretty well and use these mechanics to reach the goal quickly and efficiently. Arcana Heart 3‘s strict input method encourages the player to become precision machines, knowing when to push the right button at any given instance. A skilled player utilizes the Homing mechanic to his advantage, either by creating space or opening up opportunities for combos. Choosing the right Arcana for a certain character guarantees victory too, as there are Arcana which are just too good for a character and effective against other Arcana. Breaking off potential lethal combos through bursting gives players a second to breath and plan for the next move, but denies them of Extend Force, the game’s reusable but short-lived ‘X-Factor’ mechanic.

What’s wrong with the sidebars anyway?

Not Enough Love to Go Around 

Many fighting game fans are put off because of Arcana Heart 3‘s all-female roster and anime aesthetic. It’s disheartening to see that players judge games by their presentation and not by their mechanics. It’s disheartening too that a lot of fighting game fans are missing out on a solid, fun game due to their disgust for dated, low-quality 2D sprites and animated sidebars. Games without great mechanics are just interactive movies after all. Shiny games with awful mechanics are still awful.

I really wish people would just see beyond presentation and dig deeper into games with great mechanics. With Arcana Heart 3‘s success in North America and Europe (with the game being one of most downloaded PlayStation Network games last summer), I expect Examu to pull the stops again with their next fighting game project. Currently they’re promoting the new ground-based fighter AQUAPAZZA in Japanese arcades. Developed together with eroge company AQUAPLUS, it looks closer to a current-gen 2D fighter. This makes me wish they get on with a new Arcana Heart game sooner with high quality sprites. It is their flagship fighter after all, and its been two years since the arcade release.

The game may not have a neat catchphrase, but I’m pretty sure this game got me in the knee.

 反重力少女 by itou

This year’s Tokyo Game Show is the most exciting in recent years. Check out the latest game offerings from Japan after the jump.

[3DS] Beyond The Labyrinth ( tri-Ace × Konami )

[Vita] Gravity Rush (JAPANStudio)

[???] Asura’s Wrath (Capcom)

[PS3/Xbox 360] DmC (Ninja Theory × Capcom)

[PSP/Vita] Lord of Apocalypse (Square Enix)

[Vita] Army Corps of Hell (Entersphere × Square Enix)

[PS3/Xbox 360] Dragon’s Dogma (Capcom)

[3DS] NEW Loveplus (Konami)

[Vita] New King’s Story (Konami)

[Vita] ASPHALT : INJECTION (Konami)

[PSP] Final Fantasy Type-0 (Square Enix)
You can download the trailer here.

[PS3/Xbox 360] Final Fantasy XIII-2 (Square Enix)
You can download the trailer here.

Stay tuned the whole weekend for more of Tokyo Game Show 2011.
Videos care of Gematsu and Andriasang.

Upcoming XBLA game Crimson Alliance show’s it’s last trailer before release, this time the trailer focuses on the Assassin class, Moonshade. Moonshade focuses on fast attacks with close ranged moves to deal out damage just like your typical assassin class.

The game is set to be released this coming September 7 so watch out for it!

Crimson Alliance, the upcoming action RPG from Certain Affinity has released it’s latest class, the Wizard, which is named, Direwolf. The class is your typical explosion causing, elemental dishing mage class. The game is set to be released this coming September 7, so if you want to know more about the game you can visit the official Crimson Alliance site.

Viper with Optic Blast? Doc Doom with a new toy gun? Wolvie with an awesome killer move? She-Hulk with a Focus Attack? Dr. Strange meeting Nemesis? Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 has you covered.

The reveals just keep on coming and this time around, be dazed by the magic of Dr. Strange:

And be terrified by the abomination that is Nemesis from the Resident Evil games:

Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 will be unleashed coming 15 November in NA.

Ten years ago, American McGee made a re-telling of the classic novel “Alice in Wonderland” wherein the heroine was immersed in a dark wonderland due to an unfortunate accident. Later, a sequel is made and Alice must re-visit old nightmares she thought she has defeated. This is the premise of the sequel “Alice: Madness Returns”.

The new game immediately takes place a year or two after the first game. Alice has defeated the Red Queen, left the mental asylum she was held in and seemingly regained her sanity back. Alice now resides in an orphanage where she continues to get psychiatric help. Just when Alice thought she could finally forget her past and move on with her life, her family’s death haunts her more than ever and she is sucked back into a deteriorating wonderland with new monsters she hasn’t seen before. Now Alice must battle through unknown enemies and finally solve the puzzle of her past.

It is expected that Alice 2 would have breathtaking graphics and it does deliver that. You can feel yourself engrossed to that twisted wonderland and it is evident that the creative team worked hard on that. The little design quirks were pleasant as well. With every level Alice progresses, her outfit also changes to match the theme of the background. There are also available downloadable costumes from the developer’s website that have special cheat abilities on them. The weapon designs were also a nice touch using seemingly ordinary items warped into tools of destruction. Who knew a pepper grinder would be a handy machine gun? Attention to detail like this certainly put a smile on the player’s face.

It is quite obvious that most effort was put on the game’s aesthetics. This time around, Wonderland’s scenic views and landscapes, whether surreal or majestic, would always be a visual treat at every turn. The rest of the game play however, was left quite mediocre that it doesn’t stand out from your usual platform genre. Though the combat system is pretty smooth and the difficulty level has good standards, most of the game is pretty much a sequence of jumps. It can be quite a challenge to navigate through this rendition of Wonderland. This can be so much of a challenge that death by falling off ledges or cliffs can prove to be a major peeve among gamers. If you aren’t a seasoned gamer, you will surely die by falling more than getting killed by combat. A lack of boss fights is also pretty unnerving. In the first game, the major characters are usually the ones Alice needs to defeat but in this sequel they left little presence in the game. It is quite disappointing that the characters who gave a lot of impression during the first game ended up quite forgettable in this. Another feature I’m personally quite sad the developers removed from the first game is the ability to summon Cheshire Cat anytime at the game to give “sound advice”. I loved that cat.

So in conclusion is the game worth getting? If you are a long time fan of the game like me yes it is. It is pretty enough to get plus the conclusion isn’t something to be missed. The twist is somewhat comforting to know after quite a dragging game. It wouldn’t win any awards like its predecessor, but the game is still seems to be a fitting sequel for a ten-year long wait.

I just got word that Certain Affinity has released more screenshots for their upcoming Action RPG Crimson Alliance to know more you can click on the MORE button and see what’s in store for you Xbox live users this coming September!

You can also see the previous Crimson Alliance screenshots we posted before:

So without lengthening things more I’d like to present you her Catherine cosplay gallery from American Cosplay Paradise! Oh yeah you can see it after the jump (so keep calm boys!)

12►

San Diego Comic Con sees the unveiling of Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Feels good to be a fighting game fan.

Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is the refined release of MvC3 with 12 additional characters to its already robust roster. Strider Hiryuu and Firebrand joins in Capcom while Hawkeye and Ghost Rider joins in for Marvel. The aforementioned four were the first four to be announced, but leaks are coming out revealing the new characters:

 Capcom: Strider Hiryuu, Firebrand, Vergil, Phoenix Wright, Frank West, Nemesis

Marvel: Hawkeye, Ghost Rider, Dr. Strange, Nova, Iron Fist, Rocket Raccoon

Is this new game gonna nerf the characters that needed to be nerfed (like Phoenix, though she’s pretty easy to deal with or Zero, because he just plain pain in the ass) and buff those who need them (like Morrigan with the original game’s damage scaling working against her multiple hit combos) or create the same problems the original game had?

Check more stories on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Capcom, Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3.

The header and the accompanying image are magazine leaks announcing the idol-raising simulator’s jump to PS3 with the release of THE iDOLM@STER 2 on 27 October. Namco Bandai tweaked the game’s difficulty to suit new and beginner players while adding in a ‘hyper mode’ for those familiar with the game. Some DLC from the original Xbox 360 game will also be included on-disc.

THE iDOLM@STER 2  will be bundled with the first Blu-ray volume of the anime, currently airing this season, with an OST and a copy of an Idolm@ster magazine. A standalone game will also be retailed on street release.

Namco Bandai has tied up this game with another title, Tales of Xillia, through im@s-themed costumes. A precursor to an English release of THE iDOLM@STER franchise? Let’s hope so.

Check back for more news on PlayStation 3, Namco Bandai, and Idolmaster.