Hideo Kojima and Yoji Shinkawa attending UK launch of Metal Gear Rising

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is one of the most hyped titles of this 2013 and Konami is putting a lot of effort in the UK launch. As we already told you, a series of giant Raiden murals has been created in three UK cities and every single bus in London has its own MGR advertisement on it.

But that’s not all, indeed Hideo Kojima and Yoji Shinkawa will be visiting London video games store GAME (the one in Westfield Shopping Center, Shepherd’s Bush) to attend the launch and sign some copies of the game.

The legendary @hideo_kojima_en will be at @game_westfield on 22nd Feb to celebrate the launch Metal Gear Solid Rising Revengeance! @konamiuk

— GAME.co.uk (@GAMEdigital) 06 febbraio 2013

But wait, there’s more! @hideo_kojima_en and Yoji Shinkawa will be personally presenting the first 200 people in line their copy of the game

— GAME.co.uk (@GAMEdigital) 06 febbraio 2013

GAME has also sent a press release for the midnight event:

“KOJIMA COMES TO TOWN FOR REVENGEANCE LAUNCH

Celebrate the launch of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance in the company of gaming legends Hideo Kojima and Yoji Shinkawa

On 22nd February GAME will host legendary videogame director Hideo Kojima at Westfield White City to celebrate the official UK launch of the long-awaited Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.

Not only will the living legend be present at the event – Mr. Kojima will also be taking part in a Q&A in front of the crowds at the White City GAME store before the clock strikes twelve.

After satisfying the crowd’s curiosity about the inner workings of one of the most successful franchises in videogame history, Mr. Kojima will be joined by Konami lead artist and series creative director Yoji Shinkawa to serve the first 200 people in the queue their copy of the game. That’s right: 200 lucky gamers will receive their copy of Revengeance straight from the hands of the two men who created it! Gamers will then get the money-can’t-buy opportunity to have their picture taken with Hideo Kojima and Yoji Shinkawa; a great souvenir of the night to make them the envy of all their gaming friends.

Fans who have been working on an exoskeleton suit on their day off, have a kickass Gray Fox costume ready in their wardrobes, or want to crawl around Westfield in a “clever” cardboard box disguise are encouraged to arrive in cosplay to show Mr. Kojima and Mr. Shinkawa their inventions brought to life by their British fan base.

GAME is taking questions direct from the UK gaming community for Mr. Kojima. Gamers can tweet @GAMEdigital with their questions using the hashtag #GAMEAsksKojima and the best questions will be answered on the launch night by the man himself.

Dave Howard, Stores Director at GAME said: “We are over the moon that Hideo Kojima and Yuji Shinkawa are joining us for the launch of Revengeance at GAME, White City. They are legends in the gaming world and it’s going to be an unbelievable night for the gaming community. Mr. Kojima and Mr. Shinkawa have been the driving force behind some of the most high-calibre and forward-thinking games to grace our screens and it will be a real privilege seeing them up-close and personal, answering our community’s questions. It’s all set to be an unforgettable experience for our Metal Gear fans and one which is not to be missed!”

Customers who pre-order the game before the night will receive a GAME exclusive Steelbook Cover illustrated by Mr. Shinkawa, plus the download code for an in-game bonus available at no other European retailer: Raiden’s Inferno Armour. The in-game bonus increases the number of throwing weapons that the character can carry. All copies of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance purchased at GAME also include the character Gray Fox, the original Cyborg Ninja from the hugely popular Metal Gear Solid, as downloadable content.“

Looks like a good opportunity to meet two of the greatest game designers of all time. If you’ll be around London tomorrow, don’t let this chance go.

As you can see, after travelling from USA to France and Italy, Kojima is heading to London

Now head off to London.

— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) 21 febbraio 2013

**UPDATE (21 Feb 2013, 18:04)**

Well, it seems that if you want to attend the event you have to actually move your ass NOW and get there.

Over 100 people have already secured their place in the queue! Get here now for your chance to join the lucky few! #metalgearwestfield

— GAME Westfield (@GAME_Westfield) February 21, 2013

Queue starts 8pm outside Burger King, pick up your ticket from the store now! @gamedigital #metalgearwestfield

— GAME Westfield (@GAME_Westfield) February 21, 2013

Memorable Video Game Advertisements | 2 – Microsoft // Nintendo

Welcome back to our MVGA column. As usual we selected two great video games advertisement for your entertainment.

FORZA MOTORSPORT 4 TRAILER

Date: 2011

Country: USA/UK

Comment: Did you think that good ads are dead? No way! This spot is from 2011, but it’s something epic, we mean, if you love cars and/or racing games this is the perfect advertisement. Do we need to mention Jeremy Clarckson (from Top Gear TV show) doing the voiceover? EPIC, JUST EPIC

NINTENDO GAMECUBE WAVEBIRD WIRELESS CONTROLLER AD

Date: 2002

Country: USA

Comment: Why stop playing while taking a shit? Not even nature comes between a man and his game. Just awesome, nice hob Nintendo

New trailer for JoJo’s Bizarre Adventures: All Star Battle

As every well respectable nerd on the planet, beside video games, we also love manga and anime. So when a new video game based on a manga series comes out we are even more excited! Especially if we’re talking about Hirohiko Araki‘s masterpiece: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventures.

You might have noticed that there’s a new game scheduled, it’s JoJo’s Bizarre Adventures: All Stars Battle, and it looks pretty awesome.  The fighting game is being developed by CyberConnect2 (known for the .hack series and its not-always-good fanservice products, as all Naruto fighting games) and will be published by Namco Bandai Games only for PlayStation 3 on August 2013 (fuck, this is an exclusive!).

Earlier this week, Namco Bandai released a new trailer for the game, featuring most of the playable characters (from all the 8 JoJo’s series) and quite a lot of gameplay footage. Enjoy.

It’s a real shame this game won’t be multi-platform.

 

Team THQ UK is still tweeting from the grave

You all know what happened to THQ. If you don’t, let’s sum up just saying that it went bankrupt, closing down and selling all its IPs and studios to other software house all around the world.

But we’re quite happy to see that something is still alive (kinda). Indeed, the THQ UK twitter account is still online, tweeting about stuff. They’re quite self-ironic, talking about themselves as a ghost team. Keep it up guys.

We don’t know until this thing will last, but if you want you can follow them here.

This new Bioshock Infinite trailer tell us something about the plot

Today Irrational Games released a new trailer for their upcoming Bioshock Infinite. The trailer, called “Lamb of Columbia” seems to explain a little (very little) of the story behind the game, but mostly it looks totally epic!

We quote from the description given with the video:

“To clear his debt, Booker DeWitt must rescue a mysterious girl from the sky-city of Columbia. But who is this girl? What makes her so powerful, and why are so many willing to do anything to keep her from escaping? More importantly… what price will you pay to set her free?”

Bioshock Infinite will be released on March 26th (hopefully)

**UPDATE (19 Feb 2013)**

No more delays! Ken Levine from Irrational Games just confirmed the release date, declaring that the game has gone gold! Here the announcement:

“You, the fans, have been incredibly patient with us. You shared your hopes and wishes for the game with us, and you kept the faith.

Today, I’m happy to announce that the game has gone gold. What that means is that it has been approved by both Sony and Microsoft (and the PC Gods, natch) to be sent to the manufacturing guys to load up fleets of trucks with BioShock Infinite and be driven to a store near you on March 26th.

The total cost of the game was five years, 941 billion Klingon darseks (plus tip), 47 camels, a cranberry flan, and the blood, sweat, and tears of the Irrational Team.

Nobody has ever built a game quite like this. It’s a shooter, but a shooter that brings you to very uncomfortable and dangerous places. I can’t demand that you play the game; I can promise you, however, that once you have, it will be an experience you won’t soon forget.

Columbia is a city teeming with mystery. I’m glad to say that one mystery is over: On March 26th, you will be able to play BioShock Infinite.”

Resident Evil 1.5 Gameplay | Elza Walker

After our post about the release of an early build of Resident Evil 1.5 and the previous video about the Leon campaign, here we go with a second one! This time we tried the Elza Walker campaign. We use the word tried instead of played because…oh well…watch the video.

Pixels and kitties? Yes please!

Finally some interesting indie (super-weird) game!

Do you like pixels, fast-paced action and cats? Well, if you’re answer is yes, Jones On Fire is your dream game!

Jones On Fire, developed by Glass Bottom Games, is a run-and-jumper about firefighter Emma Jones and kitties (which should be saved). As Jones, you’ll be tasked with running through 10 levels of hilly terrain, much of it on fire, for one purpose only: to save the kitties! Through saving kitties, you’ll gradually unlock the true potential of Jones, which will allow you to save even MORE kitties. Dominate your friends on the kitty-saving leaderboards, and gain the adoration of millions of cats!

Jones On Fire began its life at BlazeJam, a 48 hour charity game jam to benefit those affected by the Colorado wild fire season of 2012. The game has evolved substantially since those days. It’s been rebuilt for mobile devices, all of the art has been redone or replaced, the moment to moment gameplay is substantially changed, a level structure was added, etc, etc. Compared to the alpha, the game Jones On Fire is a whole other animal. That is, except for the kitties. Those are still the same animal.

Jones On Fire will be released on iOS o February 21st. If you’re super-hyped, kill the waiting with the trailer.

Resident Evil 1.5 Gameplay | Leon S. Kennedy

As we already told you here, a build of the long-waited Resident Evil 1.5 leaked, so the guys behind the so-called restoration project have released a playable build of the game. We have played it a bit today, so enjoy our gameplay video for the Leon S. Kennedy campaign.

Yes, there are a lot of doors we didn’t open…why? Because most of them lead to a game crash or to major gameplay issues.

Why we didn’t use the knife to fight the baboons? Because if you press the button for that you can just open the debug menu, so we just enjoyed our death.

A video for Elza Walker gameplay is coming soon, so stay tuned.

**UPDATE 19 Feb 2013**

Here we go with Elza

Resident Evil 1.5 leaked!

Sometimes miracles just happen! And this is the case, because finally, after 17 years, Resident Evil 1.5 leaked on the net!

Resident Evil 2 began development in 1996 shortly after the original game and was originally scheduled for a March 1997 release. However, as the game was approaching its release date, the developers were dissatisfied with the resulting product. Rather than releasing a game they were unhappy with, the developers took the risk of developing the game again from scratch. Resident Evil 1.5 is the name given to that famous scrapped version, and now you can actually play it (sort of).

Basically this is what happened. A team of hackers obtained an incomplete build of the legendary scrapped version of Resident Evil 2, and are working to finish it. However, it seems like a build of their restoration project leaked to someone in the Resident Evil community, who then proceeded to try and sell it around. Due to this, the team have released the same build. That is not the current build on which they’re working on, but still, for now it’s better than nothing.

For now enjoy the trailer released by MrBZork (the guy behind the restoration project), starring Elza Walker (the main character) and Leon Kennedy facing some infected baboons.

If you want to try this build on your modified PS1 or on your favourite emulator you can download it here. But remember that is not representative of the current state of development of the non-profit restoration fan-project.

Sources: The Horror Is Alive and NeoGAF

**UPDATE 19 Feb 2013**

Check out our gameplay video for both Leon and Elza

Aliens: Colonial Marines, all the pretty Easter Eggs

Everyone’s talking a lot about last Gearbox‘s title, Aliens: Colonial Marines, we are not here to discuss how bad or how good it is because we think in the end is up to you to judge.
Instead we decided to put together a short video with all the Easter Eggs you can find in game, some related to the Aliens movies, some related to OTHER movies (see: Space Balls) and some not related at all, but still funny and worth to watch.

Have fun!