Arc System Works to release BlazBlue: Continuum Shift II this winter

Despite all the love that fighters get with 3D graphics these days, there are a few games which still stick to the genres 2D roots and it’s even better when they stick to the genres arcade roots as well. One of those games is the BlazBlue series by Arc System Works. I’ve actually had a number of requests for a BlazBlue arcade title at my own arcade as the there is one decent side-effect of an arcade game getting the console treatment and that’s potential player awareness. So it won’t be a surprise when Arc System Works takes their latest arcade announcement and gives it all sorts of love and support in a console release just a short time from the arcade release. That release would be the new Blazblue: Continuum Shift II which will making it’s first public debut at the JAMMA show next month. While few details have been given on the new title, we know it will still run on Taito’s Type X2 hardware; it will keep the 2D graphics style; it will have an 8-way joystick w/ 4 buttons and it comes out this winter at an undetermined price. They also will be including a new character that has been released as DLC for the console versions of the game.

I wonder what kind of support the company will be giving the game internationally as with the first BlazBlue they had sent kits to sell in the US and Europe but with Continuum Shift I didn’t hear of the same effort being put forth for the arcade version. It’s one of those things we’ll have to wait and see on.

[BlazBlue: Continuum Shift II anouncement]

Source: AM-Net

UPDATE: Also more at Japhei Game Blog

EVO Championship Series 2010 ends today; Updated with pics

I have to apologize for forgetting about EVO – it’s only the world’s greatest tournament for fighting games out there – but better late than never so here we go. If you want to catch the tournament live, you can click here. A schedule is here, where they will end the night with some Street Fighter and players will get a look at Marvel Vs. Capcom 3. I can partially say that I forgot about the tournament as it’s pretty console heavy but seeing how every arcade fighter out there is being brought to consoles, it’s not terribly surprising. Too bad KOFXIII won’t be there as that comes out tomorrow in Japan, that certainly would have made for a nice surprise to players there, even if most of them prefer Street Fighter and Tekken.

UPDATE: Chris Ainsworth is there and has been snapping some pictures, a couple of which I’ll share here, the rest you can find by clicking on these links: Link 1 / Link 2

So Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 is being promoted for use with arcade sticks yet there is no actual arcade version of the game in sight. Oh well.

Arcade machines weren’t completely absent from EVO .

Get a look at Galloping Ghost's Dark Presence at the upcoming GarasuNoShiCon 2010 Anime Convention

[Thanks to contributor Aaron Auzins for the info]

It’s been a long time coming but the independently made arcade fighter Dark Presence will finally be going public on July 18th at the upcoming GarasuNoShiCon 2010 event, in Perrysburg, Ohio. According to Aaron:

“…Galloping Ghost Productions will kick off the start of GarasuNoShiCon’s Sunday panels with “Independent Video Game Development” from 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. The team will allow attendees to get an inside look at Dark Presence by showcasing the filming and development process. Attendees will be able to talk with the team and ask question to the creator, actors and developers about the process of making an independent video game.”

This will include a small green screen setup for a demonstration along with a possible prototype cabinet. Galloping Ghost isn’t saying yet if they will have a playable build running on this cabinet (it probably depends upon how they feel about the build around the time of the event) but there is a chance that it will be a demo version with a small handful of playable characters. Most of the recent work on the game has involved audio development, which I will post some more details on after the break. To further show their arcade love (and to promote the opening of the Galloping Ghost Arcade)

The daytime view of Treton's level in Dark Presence (click for full view)

GG will also be bringing some arcade cabinets for people to play, along with their vendor table. A little more on what to expect from the guests at the show can be found here. Also in case you are wondering more about what events can be found at the show(there are actually several video game related panels that will be taking place), check out Glasscitycon’s Events page here.

In case you have missed our previous coverage on Dark Presence, click here. The game is slated for a launch sometime this year. Galloping Ghost’s website is here.

If you are wondering what has been going on recently with the development of Dark Presence (with a couple more pictures) as well as the new Galloping Ghost Arcade and the challenges they have faced in opening that business, hit the break for the details.

Get a look at Galloping Ghost’s Dark Presence at the upcoming GarasuNoShiCon 2010 Anime Convention

[Thanks to contributor Aaron Auzins for the info]

It’s been a long time coming but the independently made arcade fighter Dark Presence will finally be going public on July 18th at the upcoming GarasuNoShiCon 2010 event, in Perrysburg, Ohio. According to Aaron:

“…Galloping Ghost Productions will kick off the start of GarasuNoShiCon’s Sunday panels with “Independent Video Game Development” from 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. The team will allow attendees to get an inside look at Dark Presence by showcasing the filming and development process. Attendees will be able to talk with the team and ask question to the creator, actors and developers about the process of making an independent video game.”

This will include a small green screen setup for a demonstration along with a possible prototype cabinet. Galloping Ghost isn’t saying yet if they will have a playable build running on this cabinet (it probably depends upon how they feel about the build around the time of the event) but there is a chance that it will be a demo version with a small handful of playable characters. Most of the recent work on the game has involved audio development, which I will post some more details on after the break. To further show their arcade love (and to promote the opening of the Galloping Ghost Arcade)

The daytime view of Treton's level in Dark Presence (click for full view)

GG will also be bringing some arcade cabinets for people to play, along with their vendor table. A little more on what to expect from the guests at the show can be found here. Also in case you are wondering more about what events can be found at the show(there are actually several video game related panels that will be taking place), check out Glasscitycon’s Events page here.

In case you have missed our previous coverage on Dark Presence, click here. The game is slated for a launch sometime this year. Galloping Ghost’s website is here.

If you are wondering what has been going on recently with the development of Dark Presence (with a couple more pictures) as well as the new Galloping Ghost Arcade and the challenges they have faced in opening that business, hit the break for the details.

Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown adding Twitter support

I saw this on a few sites this morning and there is just a tiny correction that needs to be made to what is being said. First off, Sega is getting into the social networking game with their new Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown update in Japan, by adding Twitter update support to the game. Players will need a VF.Net account that they link to their Twitter account. The updates will occur as you play the game although you can manage what will be tweeted so it doesn’t clutter up your feed with too much stuff. Players will also be able to easily find other people who are linked in the same manner so they can follow each other and compete in that manner if they wish.

Overall it’s a great idea, as it helps spread the word of people playing an arcade title, promotes some friendly competition and has a little bit of that “fame” aspect as it tweets the accomplishments you make in the game.It will be great to see more arcade titles making use of such online features although there is the question of complexity – ask too many questions or put too much text on an arcade screen and your average player will not pay any attention to what it is doing and end up confused.

Onto the thing I think needs to be corrected in the coverage out there about this. Another arcade game allowed players to update their Facebook and Twitter accounts already (the claim being thrown around is that this new VF is the first game to do this) and that is Golden Tee 2010. The feature is primarily focused on Facebook but where you can link your Facebook feed to automatically post to your Twitter feed as well, that would technically make GT2010 the first game to do this. It is the first time a fighter has used such features though.

Here is the game in action in case you haven’t seen it yet. I have mentioned previously that Sega did release the original VF5 to US arcades and it’s a shame they haven’t released the updates here since the original also made it to consoles.

[Via Kotaku and Versus City]

KOFXIII gets a release date

Newsfeed 841 via

King of Fighters fans mark your calendars. It has been announced that the latest installment of the game will be released on July 14, 2010. They are already scheduling tournaments in Japan for the game, I wonder how widespread imports will be to the US and Europe. Will the game manage to overcome some of the mediocre reception that KOFXII had? I’m sure that the inclusion of player favorite Mai will go a long way towards that, otherwise we’ll just have to wait and see. It will probably have a console release by the end of the year if they follow the pattern most fighters follow these days but perhaps we can hope for a decent period between the releases.

[KOFXIII Official site] [Via Dengeki Online]

The latest update to Virtua Fighter 5 in motion

Stinger Newsfeed 825

While many companies in Japan continue to pump out new fighters or updates to games already in their line-up, Sega isn’t far behind. With Virtua Fighter 5, Sega maintains at least one game on the list of high profile fighters. The latest update, Virtua Figher 5R Final Showdown or VF5RFS for short, continues to tweak the VF5 formula for fans although I admit that I am not familiar enough with how VF5 plays to tell you what it is that this will add beyond some of the mentioned features of special costumes (which doesn’t affect anything other than aesthetics). This is an update for arcades and while I know of this being available internationally there is no word on how available this update will be to arcades who own the game outside of Japan, in part due to the usage of ALL.NET. The game continues to look quite good, which is a great way to draw in new players although I know that some fans in the realm of fighters have their preferences for one particular game over another no matter what new features is thrown at it

Super Street Fighter IV arcade listed for sale at the end of August UPDATE: Make that October

While I had thought that the impending release of Super Street Fighter IV in arcades would be happening in the winter of this year(the always reliable AM-Net lists it as such), importer Coinopexpress.com has listed both the cabinet and the kits for SSFIV as becoming available on August 31st, 2010. I won’t bore you with details on what SSFIV adds to the original game as you can already find that out there since the game is available on consoles but COE adds this: “The Windows version of Street Fighter IV includes all the features found in the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, plus some extras, which Capcom representatives say could make it “the definitive version” of the game.”

I assume that they are calling it the Windows version as Taito’s Type X2 hardware is a PC. No official version of SSFIV has been announced for PCs that I know of and the only way to make a fighter definitive is to put it on an arcade machine so I will hope for now that Capcom will actually reward arcade players for their patience in this case with extra content. COE also states under products details that the cabinet version handles one or two players, which I greatly hope means that Capcom has pulled their heads out of their rear ends and will give operators a chance to get a two player version of the game without having to invest in two expensive cabinets as opposed to one.

UPDATE: Not long after we posted this Coinopexpress changed the date to October 31st, putting it closer to AM Net’s winter timetable. They also changed a few things in the description, such as changing it from “Windows” version to the arcade version and removing the language about the arcade version being the definitive version of the game. Hmm…

[Super Street Fighter IV cabinet listing @ Coinopexpress.com] [Kit listing]

Enter the world of 2D fighters with Pixel Kombat: The Hadokumentary

Not every genre found in gaming is as suited towards competitive gaming as fighters are and that important aspect of such games is the new subject behind a documentary film, Pixel Kombat. The film (or Hadokumentary as the filmmakers Jac & Johan like to call it) follows some of the worlds best fighting game players, covers five years worth of tournaments and covers events in France, Japan and the US. There is currently no release date set for the film, but they have a trailer out for it so it shouldn’t be too much longer. You can follow news for Pixel Kombat here.

[Via GameSetWatch]

“Enuain Perfect World” joins the chorus of 2D fighters

While 2D games aren’t impossible to find anymore, they certainly aren’t as common as they used to be. It seems like one genre that happily embraces the old art of using hand-drawn characters is fighters. SNK is still doing that with the King of Fighters, Examu’s games are all pretty much 2D affairs and now a new fighter from Subtle Style is looking to throw it’s chips into the game with Enuain Perfect World. I have a feeling that the title isn’t translated correctly but that’s the best we have for now. As you can see from the video below, the game has huge character sprites, tons of effects and a level of speed that zips along at a pace that should keep players happy.

EPW is scheduled for a release in June in Japan. It makes use of the System Board Y2 hardware, which was first shown off at AOU 2009 and so far has been used primarily for 2D fighting games.

[Enuain Perfect World site] [Via  Small room Aries]