Remember Bladestorm?

Let me tell you a story long ago before there was a Dyansty Warriors 6 and the idea of a "Warriors" game featuring anything but Japanese and Chinese historical warriors (let alone giant robots, pirates or Zelda) There was Bladestorm.

Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu has sent out word that Koei Tecmo are taking another crack at Bladestorm. However it wont be a sequel KT hasn't given any details but they say its a reboot more than a remake or another entry. The game entitled Bladestorm: War & Nightmare will have new features and seems to be them trying to "do it right" this time.

For those who don't know Bladestorm was Koei's attempt at blending Dynasty Warriors high actions and it's far more strategy focused sister series Kessen. The game was set during the 100 years war featuring famous warriors from Europe from the time period e.g. Joan of Arc. The games basic gameplay looked like Dynasty Warriors but your character had commender other units on the field to do anything that the most basic slash. so for example before you could attack an group of French soldiers you must first find an cavalry unit or an group of knights to join. When you did you would magically gain that units equipment until it was defeated or you left.

Abe's Take
I tried the Bladestorm demo several times and although i thought the concept and setting had potential it was always held back by how useless your "legendary hero" was with out another unit glued to their spine.
I'm hoping it returns with a better combat system and it's unit based strategy giving us the real balance between dynasty action and Kessen strategy

Harmonix looking at Rock Band

It's been a while since activision completely killed the music came genre by releasing 6-8 different Guitar (and other) Hero titles in one year.

Harmonix is wondering if enough time has passed and is seeking your thoughts on the matter, Which you can do by completing this Survey. Considering they have at least 4 projects on the way (that we know about) It seems unlikely there will be any to announce for awhile.

The survey wants to know stuff like what system you used, if you still have any instruments and a list of 5 things for you arrange in most wants to least wants; like if you want a new game on old-gen or new-gen and if you want new controllers.

Abe's Take
I loved Rock Band and when the mood is right we brake out the plastic pretend instruments to relive our (faux)glory. I would gladly buy another... but there would be conditions. Like having the option of using instruments we still have, would be amazing if we could import our song library from last-gen to new-gen. Personally I wouldn't mind either RB4 or an new-gen complete edition.

DOOM Revealed

Bad news friends! Doom 4 is no more. Gone is the sequel to the mildly warm reviewed Doom 3, Gone is the slow paced narrative lead horror. Good news friends DOOM has be revealed.

We knew Bethesda kicked Doom 4 back for failing to live up to the franchise and now we know what that means. DOOM is returning to it's roots, gone is the "CoD style horror" now it's the mother of violence!


Back is the gore, the fantastical weaponary, back on Mars fighting the (always a good idea-that-never-backfires) "unholy union" of (demon) flesh and machine.

Not that you'll be underarmed in anyway players will be treated to weapons like the Plamsa Rife, all heat sinks and fans that will (thanks to next gen only power) have a devastating effect on enemy flesh but also give you some form of seizer

The main selling point of the recent wolfenstien was its DOOM beta access so we can assume some multiplayer will be involved, possibly readying us for a quake game.

No release date is given for DOOM and as of yet can't be preordered however... Wolfenstien is current £31.85 for the Next Gen versions and still comes with the Beta. (Game itself is also and fantastic selute to classic shooters

Ubisoft Creates Epic Job title

The games industry isn't like other industries. It likes to think it's as young as it consumers and they like to reflect that in strange ways, such as the hiring of Michael "Frosti" Zernow

Michael "Frosti" Zernow has joined Ubisoft's team his function should be obvious once you hear his title. Drum roll please.... Chief Parkour Officer.

Yeah that's what it will say on his pay check. Zernow's no stranger to video games, having done motion capture for various titles in the past  "I've been a long-time fan of the Assassin's Creed franchise," he said. "It's one of the few highly visible examples of parkour that attracts younger athletes to the sport every year."

Evidently Zernow is the one responsible for the shake up of Assassin Creed Unity's parkour as can be seen in this new trailer



Abe's Take
i suspect we'll start seeing more job titles like this now. However I would like to bring up that trailer for a sec. Assuming that is Arno (ACU's player character) he sounds awfully English for a Frenchmen, this wouldn't be the first time this has happened Patrick Steward played a Frenchmen for 20+ years with his classically trained English accent on display. I suspect this will follow Next Gen's technique of all the "French good Guys" will have English accents whilst the "Bad Men" and women will have French accents

Cat Mario Hits eShop

Seems nowadays simply having games on a games console isn't enough. MS has several programs in development, Sony has got their ball rolling with the long dormant Powers TV show and now has Nintendo has thrown their hat in the ring. Well near the ring anyway. Well towards the ring.

Introducing "The Cat Mario Show"

As you can tell by the title this will be a hard hitting drama detailing the political strife in the mushroom kingdom and it neighbours, think Game of Thrones but with cat suits and denim dungarees... Oh wait it's a puppet show to help the newest generation of gamers with Nintendo games. The first episode is available now on eShop and covers Super Mario 3D World. The plan is to release new episodes for new games for both Wii u and 3DS... I suspect it's presenters will get Amiibo that will act as the Super Leaf (and other low difficulty modifiers 

Abe's Take

I suspect this will get watched over and over in our household, that number will increase tenfold if it hits YouTube.

Fatal Frame Wii U Footage Appears

Well we told you we'll be back like some ghostly visage of an long departed ancestor, which brings us nicely to this.

First check out the trailer. WARNING trailer is Japanese


Well what to say about that? It doesn't appear that Nintendo gave any restrictions to Koeo Tecmo and looks like how any classic Japanese horror movie should - Dark and kinda grainy.

It also looks really good, graphically speaking when I watching the trailer I got flashes of the recent Tomb Raider which is rather high praise.

We've got some gameplay details as well! The navigation will play out like any game from the last 10 years, however the combat will be handled exactly how a game about a camera exclusive to Wii U would. You'll be using the Gamepad as the camera and you'll will be able to rotate and look about separately to the screen (think ZombiU/Lego City scanner). Much like the "VR" systems doing the rounds and the 3DS book game combo of Fatal Frame.

We don't know of it'll launch westward as only one of the last 2 Wii Fatal Frames was released (and only in Europe at that) but the Wii U has different challenges to Wii and lack of constant games is one so it is possible.

Abe's Take
It looks like this is shaping up to be worthy addition to the series, the Wii U and the genre.

We've Been Gone

Some folk might have noticed a certain lack of... activity around here and well you'll be right.

There have been various shake ups here at the GK-UK Moon Base that has greatly altered my timetables and the site is not easy to do anything worthwhile  with using the mobile app but now a routine has been found and site should return to "normal".

You'll notice that it looks a little different around here. I've played around with the colour scheme, some folk (you know who you are!) complained about the old one "burning the Retina from their face" which isn't too helpful for reading. I'm currently experimenting with different layouts and page styles so nothing set in stone (which is why the reviews page is still in "eye bleed classic" for now), if you see anything you like/don't like make sure to tell and we'll see what we can do

Which brings us nicely to another change. We've switched the comments system over to DISQUS. The Google comments was great for established Google users and spread it around G+ nicely but wasn't that great for non-Google members, new visitors and quick commenter. It should now be possible to post using your Facebook/Google/Twitter details or as a named guest. The Disqus system  will send you an email if someone replies to your or an comment you've replied to so you can keep up with the conversation with little effort. It is the hope that we can build a community of awesome gamers.

We've got some stuff coming up which includes Destiny Beta plans, A feature called "Did they fix That?" where we try out games deemed unfinished at launch now to see if they can in-fact be played and reviews should start appearing more often and be branching out to more than games.

We hope to see people around and we'll catch you soon
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                                                                                        The Game Knights - UK team

The Game Knights UK Team.... Looks not.. like this