Review: Shadow of the Beast - PS4

Shadow of the Beast
Playstation 4
Developer: Heavy Spectrum Entertainment Labs
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment

I am a big fan of the classic Shadow of the Beast trilogy from eons ago on the forgotten Commodore Amiga computer.  These 3 games are to me the pinnacle of Amiga gaming.  Challenging game design, beautiful graphics and an amazing alien world.  The first was the one I played the most and probably the second hardest of the trilogy but that hasn't stopped people from beating it in 30 minutes.  However to this day the first game has been remembered as one of the hardest games of classic gaming lore.

DHGF Review: R-Type Dimensions (PS3)

"I LOVE R-Type. It has been one of my favorite space sidescroller shoot-em up franchise for decades. I played it in the arcades, on my Commodore Amiga, Sega Master System, the Super Nintendo, and on Playstation. Irem, the company that created the franchise, was able to create new games in the franchise and somehow keep the series from going stagnant as the years went by. In 2009, we were graced with the release of R-Type Dimensions on the Xbox 360, but I never got around to buying it. R-Type Dimensions is a remake of the first two games in the series, following in the vein of other upgraded classics like Bionic Commando."

DHGF Review: R-Type Dimensions

GVN Quick Review: Ducktales Remastered (Multi)

Ducktales Remastered
Publisher: Capcom
Developer: Wayforward Technologies
Genre: Adventure
Release: Aug 13th, 2013(PSN, Wii U, Steam) Sept 11th, 2013 (XBLA)

As a child growing up, Ducktales and the rest of the Disney Afternoon shows, were ingrained in my mind.  The cartoon was fun, adventurous and creative with memorable characters.  To this day, I look back at this show with fondness.  The original game was also stellar as well, doing a great job of adapting characters from the show and putting them into a well made platformer that required quite a bit of patience and memorization to beat.

GVN Review: Dead Or Alive 5 Ultimate (PS3/Xbox 360)

Dead Or Alive 5 Ultimate
Publisher: Tecmo Koei
Developer: Team Ninja
Release: September 3rd, 2013

It's been almost a year ago that Team Ninja released Dead Or Alive 5 to the masses.  It's been almost 7 years plus since the console release of Dead Or Alive 4, which graced the Xbox 360 as an exclusive title nearly missing the launch window.  Since then there was not a peep about a sequel for many years because Mr. Itagaki considered DOA4 his opus to the fighting game world.  In the quiet time since the last iteration's release, we have seen multiple releases and ports in the Ninja Gaiden franchise and Tecmo merging with Koei.  It wasn't until Hayashi (Itagaki's protégé), took the helm of Team Ninja development, that a new DOA game would be released.  What we received was Dead Or Alive Dimensions, a Nintendo 3DS exclusive, which was created as a means to test the waters to see if the franchise still had viability.

GVN Review: Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown

It has been 5 years since Virtua Fighter 5 vanilla was released on consoles.  Since then there have been 2 new updates to the game.  Virtua Fighter 5R was released in Japanese arcades only, never to see the light of day on any consoles.  A valiant effort was put forth by many fans from the USA in the form of a 500 page petition to get the game in some form onto American shores.  I was among the ten thousand plus signatures.  The petition was hand delivered to Sega in person and for a while it seemed like they merely glanced over it and filed it away.  A few months later the announcement of Final Showdown was revealed and that it WOULD see a console release.  A full year after testing in the arcades, Sega revealed it would be a digital download release at the low price of $15 for both the PS3 and Xbox 360.  So 5 years we waited and finally received the latest update for Virtua Fighter 5, but how does it hold up?

Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown drops June 5th

Thats right, Sega finally announced the release of the long overdue Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown. Sega will be releasing the game via download only on June 5th for PSN and June 6th for XBLA. Hopefully this will resurge the scene for the slowly dwindling VF community.

Source: SRK - Sega reveals VF5FS release date