Games

[icycalm]

Tactics game set in the Zoids universe, about which I know nothing. Looks really nice, though. And it comes out only a week after the even-more-tasty-looking Operation Darkness. With these two and Culdcept Saga the 360 is officially the best current-gen console for turn-based strategy (barring handhelds of course, which are inundated with them). I fucking love these games.

http://www.takaratomy.co.jp/products/gamesoft/zoid_alt/




http://www.xbox.com/ja-JP/games/z/zoidsalternative/

And a couple of previews:

http://www.famitsu.com/game/coming/2007 ... 2,0,0.html
http://www.dengekionline.com/data/news/ ... 36cad.html

[icycalm]

In honor of this game's release in Japan in, uh... a few hours, I uploaded two 720p trailers:

http://insomnia.ac/archive/games/xbox36 ... ternative/

Looks much less interesting than Operation Darkness -- not much going on in terms of story and variety of environments, etc. -- but still nice graphically, at least in some respects, and the combat mechanics seem quite involved.

[TOLLMASTER]

I half-want someone to bring this over to American shows, just so I can find out what Zoids is doing looking gritty and realistic. I watched two of the animes based on Zoids when I was younger, and it seemed geared to a much younger market than this game is. Perhaps they're trying to reinvent the series for older fans? Either way, it's good to see a franchise get more serious as time goes on, when it seems to be the opposite as a general rule. And I love gritty mecha.

[icycalm]

I watched two of the animes based on Zoids when I was younger, and it seemed geared to a much younger market than this game is.

Well, just as you grew up so did the audience the anime had back then... Perhaps that's the kind of people this game is targeted to. And like I told you on SB, there are at least a couple of "gritty" arcade Zoids games, and I bet if we looked at more console titles we'd find at least one or two. There's another Zoids game on 360 you know:

http://www.xbox.com/ja-JP/games/z/zoidsinfex/

But yeah, I wouldn't call it gritty...