Brace yourselves. The upcoming port of Phantom Brave won't possess Wii consoles in June as expected. Now, assuming you survived that Prinny Bomb, NIS America says in its press release (PDF link) that the delay will allow the niche publisher to put the oft-requested Japanese voice-over track back into the game. It's a gift, however, that requires some "extra programming and debugging," and players looking forward to the moody strategy game will now have to wait until August 4 to get their grinding fix.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Once the most feared warriors in all Japan, Ninjas have been made incredibly cute and cuddly just by shrinking them down. Yes folks, it's Mini Ninjas. Tiny little ninjas that can weave magic spells, possess animals and defeat evil. While utterly unlikely to instill fear into the hearts of rival feudal lords, they sure do make an adorable subject for a game.We've finally gotten to play the game, which has been veiled in shadowy secrecy since its January announcement. You'll find our impressions, new details, videos and an extremely versatile hat beyond the break.

Continue reading Hands-on: Mini Ninjas (Xbox 360)

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When playing Saints Row or Red Faction, did you ever wish you could smash up buildings or conduct drive-by shootings with a porn star while waggling a Wiimote? Even if you answered "no" to that question, developer Volition says it may one day be possible. During the Red Faction: Guerrilla launch event in New York City last night (held at the red planet-themed tourist trap/night club known as Mars 2112), we asked senior associate producer Jeff Carroll if the THQ-owned studio ever considered making Wii versions of their popular franchises. "Though [THQ] may do Wii versions of [our games] in the future, Volition won't be doing them -- at least for the next year or so," Carroll said. "We actually talked about whether we were going to become a partial Wii developer," he explained. "Then we talked it over with THQ and they had enough studios that were going to be Wii-specific. But we really wanted to focus on the technological advances [in console development], especially for Red Faction Guerrilla." When asked if these Wii titles were in the works, he replied that he didn't know but that they were "within the realm of possibility." The real question is: Will Gary Busey be involved? For insanity's sake, we hope so.Permalink | Email this | Comments

Square Enix's E3 lineup features two surprises, in addition to the expected Final Fantasy stuff: Front Mission Evolved and NIER. While we may have suspected that some kind of Front Mission game was coming, we wouldn't have guessed that it would be a third-person shooter instead of a strategy game, nor that it would be developed by a Western company (Silent Hill: Homecoming's Double Helix Games, specifically). The E3 lineup press release highlights SE's efforts to become a more "global" company, and it hardly gets more "global" than handing one of its existing IPs over to a Western developer to be made into a PS3/Xbox/PC shooter.NIER is a new PS3/360 action game developed by Bullet Witch/Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles maker cavia. Players control NIER, who fights in a "crumbling world" to find a cure for his daughter, who is infected with the "Black Scrawl virus."The announcement also provided a firm release date for DISSIDIA Final Fantasy and its PSP bundle: August 25. The first episode of the WiiWare Final Fantasy IV: The After Years was also dated -- for this Monday! See the whole announced lineup in our gallery.
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