bugsonglass said:

I think it's kinda tacky and new agey personally.  but i'm very fussy about art

Buzzkill

Foolz said:

If you do get it frame it. If a triptych is going to be broken up don't break it up with a wall FFS.

I have no idea what you just said.

This is the artwork for Square Enix's new UE3 game

Ryutaro Ichimura is heading up development of an action-RPG, using Unreal Engine 3, for publisher Square Enix.


Ichimura, co-producer of 2009 DS RPG Dragon Quest IX, told Famitsu magazine that the un-named project is being made for a worldwide audience; 1UP's report says that concept art shown in the magazine more closely resembled Elder Scrolls than Final Fantasy.


"We do have a worldwide market in mind with this title, and we're prepared to deploy along those lines," Ichimura said. "However, we're not trying to make a game for overseas gamers - the challenge we're undertaking here is to present a fun game to the entire world that only Japanese people like us can make."


Ichimura is clearly mindful of Dragon Quest IX's performance overseas - where it sold less than a quarter of the 4.3 million it sold in his native Japan - and says he has taken his time to ensure he understands overseas tastes.


"I think Japanese studios have a tendency to make these 'good enough' imitation backdrops when they're making a game set outside of Japan," he said. "We're working closely with our overseas staff to keep this game from winding up that way.


"We're not trying to push what we want to do on others - our approach is to gauge what gamers want right now and take that one step forward. That's why I've been travelling around the world for the past two years to fully investigate our potential userbase.


"If anything seems off to the gamers in terms of art style or the test gameplay, we write detailed reports and rework the problem area. Now we're finally at the point where the foundational research and technology is pretty well set in stone. It's a new experience for me, but this trial-and-error approach is what I've set out to do from the start."


Square Enix is increasing headcount as work on the project begins in earnest, and despite the atypical, customer-focused approach to development, Ichimura has been pleased with the speed at which progress has been made thanks to the use of Unreal Engine 3. The publisher announced that it had licensed Epic Games' platform for multiple projects earlier this month. No name, release date or target platforms were announced, though Ichimura apparently hinted that the game could be released on next-gen consoles.

I like that top pic....reminds me of the Plane Crash level in Perfect Dark where you're out in the snowy wastes looking for Elvis and the President.

Dear god.... I am just destined to never beat Devil Survivor. I'm stuck in the exact same battle now on Overclocked that I was in the original DS version. Gahhhh........

I have to resist taking a hammer to my 3DS.

So Square is making Castlevania now, going by that art, lol. Shame it aint Capcom.

I decided to shelve Skyrim for awhile to focus on finishing other games. Its almost a shame they put a game like that out this time of year....really its much better to have a giant epic in the dead months when not much worth playing is out, such as when Oblivion came out in March of 2006. As much fun as I'm having with it, I came to realise that, for the amount of time I want to delve into this game fully, it will prevent me from making ANY progress with my backlog at all for a long time.

So last night I finished Modern Warfare 3's campaign....which was the typical on rails shooting gallery. I'd give it around a 7.5 rating. Took me a whole 5 hours to complete. Still gotta do the Spec Ops missions, but will hold off on that for awhile.

Also finally finished Halo Reach on Legendary, which turned out to be not as much of a pain in the ass as I thought. No special ending though...fuckin' lame. This really was the best Halo since Combat Evolved.

Now, I'm gonna go back to God Of War 3 and Fable 3 and try to finish those up, as well as maybe start Rage.

Looks like Xenoblade is getting a US release. NOA's facebook page added some art too. No excuses now.

Meh, I wasn't following Assassin's Creed Revelations closely at all and I just played a bit of it last night, they've gotten their story a bit too real-world-yet-twisted this time... Killing Templars is one thing, having Templars be leftovers of the Byzantine Empire, swearing by the last late emperor, all speaking Greek, and helping these poor Turks in a recently taken over by the Ottomans Constantinople is another matter. It's the first time their disclaimer about having the game made by a multi-cultural team etc seems like a needed excuse I guess. I read that they also humiliate certain historical people... Oh well... Also, I'm not sure I like some new elements like the bomb crafting and tower defense, I hope I don't have to do the latter much... The hook blade is too weird too. They've made the actual city pretty sweet though, and the story seems to have better production values than 2 & Brotherhood. Ezio's (ugh, not again!) story that is, Desmond's parts so far are all bleh, with Sixteen or whatever that guy who probably betrays you before too long is... Also, way too many cut scene interruptions all over the place, hopefully they take a back seat as you progress in the game.

SteelAttack said:

Yeah, Reach's campaign was very very good. I never played ODST, though, so I wouldn't know if it's actually the best Halo game besides CE.

Well maybe you should stop being an asshole and play ODST.