We had a great time over at Bandai Namco Preview Event 2014, here’s a few games that we got to play! Also, check back with Dual Pixels over the next few days as we roll out more from Bandai Namco.
We first stumbled upon a title that got announced that very day and for North American release in fact, Digimon All Star Rumble for both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. This is not the adventure game we’ve been waiting for, but fans of the series will appreciate all the small touches on your favorite Digimon. The cast ranging from Digimon from every series, each with unique skill sets and appearances.
From what I played of this early build, fans of the series are in for a treat be causes it boasts fast 4-player action with simple controls to get just about anyone playing. Expect at least 20 characters and digivolved evolutions and more than 10 battle arenas. The mode I played dealt with regular health meters and first to K.O, the Bandai Namco rep confirmed other modes will be available and a few other surprises. Digimon All Star Rumble will be releasing November 11th on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
Project Cars: A very interesting title because every time I see Project Cars in new media it looks so realistic, coming from the PC version of course with all the initial bells and whistles. Well, I was wrong; the PlayStation 4 version was shown and it looked outright fantastic. There’s no need to worry; as one of the Bandai Namco reps stated, they want to keep a parity between all versions including the Wii U version. So, we should be getting similar output and they’re targeting 1080p.
Project Cars will be featuring a bit over 50 cars at launch and about 80 tracks including a few go-kart courses (yes go karts are in!). Expect content updates a bit after launch. Getting my hands on with it I immediately noticed the use of the speaker on the dual shock 4 which added immersion. It had a real clean image quality as well and ran very smooth. Not being a big racing fan and blundering my races, Project Cars has a ton of sliders to at least give players options on difficulty. Project cars is scheduled for this fall on PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Wii U.
Ranko Tsukigime’s Longest Day: The guys over at Grasshopper Manufacture, AKA Suda 51, must have the best time at work, and it shows with this very bizarre title Ranko Tsukigime’s Longest Day which is based on a Japanese anime of ridiculous proportions. The actual gameplay can be put into words, but there’s so much more bizarre things that keep you glued to the screen that it makes the gameplay seem bland compared to the story cut-scenes. Ranko is split into a few gaming sections. One involved a running type game where something is behind chasing you, and you must run and attack to get meter to throw missles at the huge monster behind chasing you. The monsters chasing you are in the form of a dog or octopus tentacles, typical Suda 51 fanfare.
The second portion of the build included a 2-d pixel fight with two characters and alot of other crazy things happening in the background, that giant dog returns and barks in the background. The whole point of that segment is to try to get your sister, who is flying around, to capture the other enemies but she can also capture you and hurt you. Next up is the least bizarre gameplay segment which involves you piloting a side-scrolling space ship, shooting and collecting power ups and at the end of this level you fight a dragon. The dragon ends up turning into something extremely out of of this world, I can’t even recall what it turned into, all I know is I wanted more of this. Ranko Tsukigime’s Longest Day will be arriving by the end of the summer on PlayStation3 and Xbox 360.
We also got a bit of time on Sword Arts Online. I enjoyed the battle system and controls, everything was smooth sailing and looked great to boot for a vita title and it’s releasing real soon on August 18th only on the PS Vita. We will have more impressions from our visit at the Bandai Namco Preview Event rolling out,  Stay tuned with Dual Pixels!
