The Cave Shooting Collection

Cave is releasing their entire Japanese Xbox 360 library in one big collector's box with all games, soundtracks, superplay DVDs, and every single piece of DLC EVER for $275 USD on March 28th:

A) 10 Soundtrack CDs
Deathsmiles
Deathsmiles IIX
Mushihimesama
Mushihimesama Futari ver 1.5
Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu ver 1.5
Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu Black Label
Muchi Muchi Pork!
Pink Sweets
Espgaluda II Black Label
Akai Katana
 
B)7 Superplay DVDs
Deathsmiles Official DVD
Mushihimesama Futari Official DVD (Booklet included)
Mushihimesama Futari Black Label X Deathsmiles Mega Black Label Official DVD
Espgaluda II Official DVD (Booklet included)
Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu Official DVD
Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu Black Label Official DVD
Akai Katana Shin Official DVD
 
C)9 Game DVDs
Deathsmiles
Deathsmiles IIX
Mushihimesama
Mushihimesama Futari Ver 1.5
Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu Ver 1.5
Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu Black Label
Espgaluda II
Muchi Muchi Pork & Pink Sweets
Akai Katana Shin
 
D)1 DLC install disc
-Includes all gamer icons, premium themes, extra game modes for every game. 100% complete.
 
E)1 download code for Guwange from XBLA
 
F)All manuals of all of the games bound into one large book 

The only things missing from the list? Ketsui and Daioujou because of licensing issues. It's only available through Amazon Japan and they do not ship to the US, so you'd have to call on a friend in Japan to grab one for you.

EDIT: PS - Don't forget about Saidaioujou coming to 360 in May!

A Very Special Message From Kaz Hirai

          "WE PROMISE THE PS4 WONT SUCK"

I just received a personal email from none other than Sony's own president and most public figure, Kaz Hirai. In a remarkable display of humble and frank words, Mr Hirai went right to the point:

"Chronic, Im here to promise you that the PS4 wont suck. Although with the PS3 you displayed bravery and true loyalty to our PS brand by purchasing an enormous $700 dust magnet with a laughable 20GB HDD and no launch titles to speak of, we acknowledge the epic failure that the PS3 launch was and aim to make the PS4's launch not quite as disastrous. It took us years to attain the basic features and high sales numbers of the Xbox 360, (and even then we are still considered 2nd class), so we felt we needed to bring out the PS4 right now, TODAY to show you how serious and committed we are at Sony to the Playstation brand. We won't be beaten to the punch again by some whiteboys from Seattle who think they are slick. Hell no. We might be hemorrhaging millions on the Vita, but we maxed out all our Bank of Tokyo credit cards and really put a lot of work and money (mostly money) into developing the PS4. It is going to be better! I am sure of it.

Sure, you might remember the PS3 launch with our hollow, empty promises of 60FPS with native 1080P for every game, the 6 years of development it took to finally release GT5, the truly spectacular debacle that PS Home is, or the fact that we allowed Russian hackers to steal your user credentials and download naked pictures of you from your PS3 HDD. We are truly sorry about that. But we know you will forgive us, Chronic, because we know you are a real Sony fan. We know that you will be thrilled about exciting, new features, like Amazon Video and Netflix Instant coming to the PS4, or exciting, all new games like Killzone, God of War, Little Big Planet, Infamous, and Gran Turismo - which while they likely wont be available for launch, should be coming anytime in the next few dozen months or so.

There are some great features we cant fully talk about yet - like "True Game Security" - which prevents anyone from ever stealing your games and playing them on their system. THAT wont be possible on the PS4, haha!!! The only person who can ever play your games is you Chronic, on your own PS4 console. This represents a true breakthrough in user game security, because we know the only person who deserves to play the great products we create is the very first person who buys them. I'd love to tell you more, but I have a press conference to go to. Thanks, and give all your blog readers a big high five from Kaz!!!"

Retro 2013: Russian Spectrums and Nomad Souls

Thinking of the imminent PS4 launch I happened to be looking back at "Omikron - The Nomad Soul" on the Dreamcast, which I only just realised was Heavy Rain developer Quantic Dream's first game. They are rumoured to be announcing something at the launch.

Probably not a sequel to this, but it was a really atmospheric game. From the intro you see above, it broke the 4th wall from the start and asked you to give them your soul just to begin playing. And you thought having to sign up to an EA/Ubisoft account was bad?

While looking I ended up finding some videos from the ZX Spectrum (Timex Sinclair in America) which was one of the very first home computers. It was a games driven device but once you had one, you could start programming your own stuff too and 'poke' around to see the innards of games.

In Russia and Eastern Europe the Spectrum obsession never really died and people would retro-fit all kinds of crazy stuff to run on them, so we get things like this:

Just a demo of what is possible, not the full game. The reason I've posted it though is the music, also the music on the Spectrum 128k version of Wolfenstein 3D is equally awesome.

GT Antichamber Review

Antichamber

Rather than waste your time by posting an Aliens: Colonial Marines review (cliff notes: it blows monkey chunks), I am posting GT's review of a game I havent played yet but will shortly: Antichamber. This is a Portal like 3D puzzle/platforming game for the PC with a spartan, yet visually compelling graphical style and brain twisting game mechanics. The game has scored very highly on Metacritic and it has tons of people playing it now on Steam. My advice is rather than wait for it to go on sale next December, plop down $20 now and support the guy who spent years of his life making this totally unique experience.

The development started out as an accident: "The developer, Alexander Bruce, hit upon the idea when making a rookie coding error while making [another game]. The error resulted in a geometry far more abstract than a 2-D plane. Bruce said in a 2011 interview with Kotaku that 'the game started off as being all about geometry...I needed to find a way to represent that [non-physical geometry] to players...so I needed to work out why we would need this non-physical geometry in the world and it took me a couple years but after combining geometry and space and perception, I realized that the real reason that this game is interesting and is working is because it's about psychology.'" - from the Antichamber Wikipedia page

PS4 & Xbox 720 To Launch with Exclusive Racers

"Exclusive next-gen racing games could be set to launch with PS4 and Xbox 720, along with a new project from Killzone devs Guerilla Games to be revealed at Sony’s PlayStation Meeting event on February 20. The rumour suggests a team of ex-Bizarre developers – the studio behind Activision racer Blur – has been picked up by Sony’s Evolution Studios to make a next-gen PS4 racer similar to Project Gotham Racing.

The team is said to include Ged Talbot, lead designer of Blur and several PGR games. The rumour comes from STFUandPlay and a Polygon author posting on NeoGaf. It also states several members of the now-closed Studio Liverpool studio (of WipEout fame) have also joined Evolution to work on the game.

This title is said to be similar in style to Xbox series Project Gotham Racing. The team had allegedly wanted to make it part of the Gran Turismo series (like Forza Horizon), but Sony Japan refused. Internally, the title is being referred to as Europe’s biggest racing game in a decade – and is set to be shown off alongside a new title from Guerilla Games. Microsoft also has plans for a Project Gotham Racing 5 for Xbox 720’s launch, helmed by ex-Bizarre and Criterion developers."
- Nowgamer.com

Ken Block's Gymkhana Five

Some of the best and most bat shit crazy driving you will ever see in your entire life.