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“At the farthest reaches of the solar system, a collection of the craziest criminals in the universe are incarcerated on a remote prison planet with no walls and forgotten by society. In this long-abandoned world, the only rule is anarchy, as each faction fights in a bloodthirsty race for survival, power and freedom. Through several seven climate zones and numerous stylized maps, players must fight through the ruins of the world’s previous civilizations, taking on each region’s inmates in a frantic and frenetic struggle to survive.

Featuring third-person, sprint-action shooter gameplay, players can assume the roles of unique and memorable characters in a game that redefines the run-and-gun shooter. While pursuing enemies and being chased by their opponents, players must make use of the sprint-action play by running, jumping, ducking and vaulting, using the environments to their advantage. With a powerful arsenal of weapons at their disposal, each character comes complete with their own kill move, coupled with a mocking take-down taunt to ridicule their victims. The frenzied and furious comic style gameplay comes into its own with full 12-player online multiplayer matches across the planet, with a range of game modes and multiplayer arenas.”

As a big fan of Final Fantasy XI, I was disappointed to discover that the second online edition of the beloved franchise would be skipping the Xbox 360 this time around, instead landing on the Playstation 3 and PC. Jolly and I got our hands on the upcoming MMORPG and we were extremely pleased with what we saw. The new rpg addresses many of the complaints raised by players of the predecessor, but why is it avoiding the 360?

Eurogamer reports that creator and director Hiromichi Tanaka stated at E3 that “The main reason why we couldn’t go with Xbox 360 was the Xbox Live system. [Live is] different to the normal internet environment, so when we wanted to introduce this game in the same environment as Windows PC it had to be PS3, so that was our choice…Microsoft has a different point of view: they want to have a closed environment for Xbox Live. We’re still talking to… We couldn’t come to an agreement on Xbox Live.”

Other sources have pointed to Microsoft’s grabs at subscription fees as another possible deterrent. As most Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game subscribers know all too well, fees for playing their games of choice often run $10 to $15 a month, with a wide variety of payment plans besides that. Were MS to have its way, these prices would be jacked up even higher, in a way levying a tax on the players themselves just to have the game on Microsoft’s console.

Is this right? I don’t think so. Is it fair? As a veteran of many MMOs, I don’t think so, but Microsoft is entitled to it, I suppose. Were the games properly ported over to the home console, I wouldn’t mind dishing out an extra buck or two for the convenience of playing Final Fantasy XIV on a device that, in theory, could easily invite friends to my game, party, and maybe even location in-game, all while using hardware I’ve already purchased.

How, then, did Final Fantasy XI slip through the net so long ago? I’ve come across a variety of explanations, but two in particular seem more likely. One write-off claims that FFXI made it to the Xbox before the aforementioned restrictions were put into place. Another (and perhaps more believable) reason as to why FFXI was lucky enough to make it to the video game console points to the prestigious franchise itself. Microsoft wanted (needed?) a Final Fantasy on its console, a system that was becoming increasingly famous for its shooters and less so for the other genres of video games. Now, a video game console should have a healthy library of games, spanning across the many flavors that have sprouted up over the years, n’est-ce pas? Perhaps MS made an exception JUST THIS ONCE in order to give the console a booster shot that it rightly needed in order to live up to its name as a video game system. Not so hard to believe, is it?

I, for one, will be watching Final Fantasy XIV, perhaps even upgrading my years-old gaming PC just to play the damned game. I don’t think I’m alone in this either. Time to raise another Tarutaru (Lalafell) Black Mage!

E3 2010 is almost here, which means anxiety levels are high over at 360 Rant Rave. Do we have everything we need? What are we wearing? Can we get to each appointment on time? Should we stop in and check out Leonard Nimoy? These and many more questions run through our heads, but perhaps chief amongst all these queries, is how we will pay for it all.

Don’t you fret, for we’ll figure it all out somehow. We’ve got a gameplan set up on the new forum (which should go live once the diligent Jolly gets the style and chat in place), so we’ll not be spending our first E3 looking like chocobos with no heads. The funding, however…well, we won’t turn down donations

Here’s a list of who is bringing what to the video game potluck going down in just a few days:

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As previously mentioned, Final Fantasy XIII has been hyped on Twitter with xbox.com’s mystery promotion, promising a surprise that would only be discovered when enough fans espouse the game via the popular social networking site. That threshold has been crossed, apparently, and xbox.com made good on their word.

Thanks to an unannounced number of Twitter users following the promotion, now anyone who has signed up with a gamertag at xbox.com can register the preferred contact email address in order to receive a code in December. What will this code net you? Why, nothing short of a Chocobo!

That’s right, the famous livestock/steed/accessory can be yours with minimal duty, even if you (unlike the author) did not help fill the Tweet Progress meter. It is currently up for speculation what can be done with the Avatar item, whether it will be worn in the hair of your Avatar or if it simply “warks” happily at your side. The item codes are due out in December, but the game itself arrives in the states on March 9th, 2010.

Although the Final Fantasy XIII Premiere was last week, Gametrailers has just uploaded footage of the announcements made at the event. Almost all of the information shown in the videos was covered by the livebloggers at the event but they serve as official confirmation.

One of the major announcements Kitase confirms in the video is that Final Fantasy XIII should hopefully be released overseas 3 months after the Japanese release. They don’t mention specifically which region they mean but we should expect to see it released outside of Japan in March 2010. This upgrades the liveblogger’s impression that it was coming out 6-8 months from now to a more specific timeframe. If you want to view the videos of the event, follow the links below.

Source

It will release this December in Japan on the PS3 only but in March it will come to the rest of the world on 360 and PS3.

Introduction:
The moon is chained. Monsters terrorize the free and a tyrannical order of knights seeks to destroy everyone. The only thing that stands between this world and certain destruction is an unlikely group of hero’s and a look-a-like to a living legend.

Gameplay:
Real time combat – when I heard this I immediately thought of games such as Kingdom Hearts and dot Hack, and this game definitely has some fast paced combat. It’s so fast that you don’t even have time to go into your menu to heal yourself. If you are at that point where you need to use a potion; by the time you can navigate to it you are dead. The AI of your comrades is questionable, considering the monster has ~100 hit points remaining but they decide to all hit it with their most powerful attack instead of using a quick normal attack (thus consuming valuable mana points). Though, in the end, this can be forgiven because of some of the commentary that the cast provides.

Eventually, like all RPGs, you will find yourself just using the same moves over and over. For a while, at least, this new combat system works and you can use almost all of the colorful cast. The characters can also get up to level 200!

Bosses: every RPG has epic boss fights, right? Well, this game just has a bunch of them and if by epic you mean ridiculously easy or stupidly hard, then that hits the nail on the head. With 200 levels of grinding you’d think that the game would take a long time to finish, but the main quest is only ~20 hours. However, there are tons of things to do on the side. After you finish the main dungeon there is a bonus dungeon, and thats where your characters and skill will eventually be tested by even more bosses, loot and powerful enemies.

Undiscovery tries really hard to be innovative, but it eventually falls flat on its face and its innovations seem to hinder more than help. The game tries to do too many things at once and as a result ends up doing several of them poorly. While it does manage to do a few things well, the game could have been so much better than it was.

Extras:
Story, Story, Story – isn’t that the reason most people play RPGs? Infinite Undiscovery’s story is not lacking; it is quite good and one of the better things about the game. Though it starts off slow, after the first few hours its moving along at a clip familiar to most RPGs if not faster than on average. The game does not feature play on Xbox Live.

Conclusion:
In the end, Infinite Undiscovery is a bit of a let down. The story is above average when compared to other 360 RPGs, but the combat and some of the sub systems are lacking. While the game is ok it could have been so much better, and this has to be the biggest complaint about it. We expect better things from companies that have already proven themselves the way Square Enix and Tri-Ace have in the past. The game is a rent if you’re into RPGs. If you are not, do not look this way unless you have money to burn.

Score: 6.0