When Arkham Asylum was first released back in 2009, it was riding on the renewed rising popularity of the Batman franchise thanks to Christopher Nolan and his movies, specifically The Dark Knight. Arkham City is the sequel to the acclaimed hit (which scored 91/100 on Metacritic), and things have largely remained unchanged. The developers,  Rocksteady Studios, who was near unheard of prior to the first game, did everything right.

Both Arkham Asylum and Arkham City were written by Paul Dini, who wrote a good amount of episodes for several Batman animated series, as well as many other notable examples such as the Superman series and He-Man. Batman and Joker were voiced by Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill respectively, also from the animated series and widely considered the best voices for the characters. Character designs were done by WildStorm, a subsidiary of DC. All of these remained the same, but they almost couldn’t do it.

Did I mention Mark Hamill was voicing the Joker?

The main antagonist for most of the game is Dr. Strange and the Joker, with appearances from many other important villains that were absent in Arkham Asylum like Penguin, Two-Face and Ra’s Al Ghul. Penguin and Two-Face, in particular, are in a turf war with Dr. Strange and Joker, and you can see henchmen of different villains wear different outfits to best represent their loyalty.

Arkham City is significantly larger than Arkham Asylum geographically, which means more space to glide around and more hidden Riddler puzzles to solve. Batman now comes with so many gadgets it’s hard to access the one you want sometimes.

My favourite part could be that encounters aren’t limited to boss fights and in big rooms with 6 gargoyles anymore. The entire game world is littered with henchmen, and since Batman never kills anyone, it makes sense that they regain consciousness at some point so I can smash their faces in again.

Lawful Good isn't Lawful Nice

But what’s the thing that I think makes it the great game that it is? Rocksteady managed to do what many developers failed with sequels, and that was to not fix what wasn’t broken. Perhaps the most important and prominent gameplay feature was the fluid combat mechanics that allowed the player to take out groups of enemies efficiently and with style. This was improved in Arkham City to allow players to chain combos much smoother among large groups of enemies. More gadgets were added to Batman’s arsenal, the world is bigger, there are more bad guys to pound, what more do you want?

Play as another character, of course. Back in Arkham Asylum, PS3 players of the game could get the DLC to play as Joker for free, and this time round, everyone gets to play as Catwoman, and for free too… If you bought the game first hand.

Instead of making everything available for free forever, either Rocksteady or publisher Warner Games decided to make the Catwoman DLC redeemable through a code for first time buyers, leaving gamers who buy secondhand or rent out unless they paid $10. This is a rather controversial issue, and a story for another time.

Problems arose since the first day. Numerous people complained about the DLC after some found out their codes that didn’t work and some didn’t even have codes. Warner Games adopted a “please standby while we think of something” stance, and up to when they actually released a statement, all they had said was “Catwoman isn’t even 10% of the content, and not having it isn’t going to prevent you from finishing the game” and “it only affected a small fraction of people who bought the game, no big deal” and then told anyone affected to either send them an e-mail or call their service line in the US.

Was it handled poorly? Most likely. Would I still tell you to buy the game? Definitely. The DLC hiccup doesn’t change that this game will be taking its place among the greats of action games, and I look forward to more in the future.

Here are some details:

• Use the same engine that Final Fantasy XIII and adapted to PSVita.
• All that is made ​​from scratch with the new engine is the design of the characters, the aeons and stage elements.
• The sets and scenes in HD remasters CGI will implement a “filter” FFXIII Engine.
• The magic and some lighting effects are achieved with the new engine “Luminous”.
• The Blitzball undergo small changes.
• Online options will include (not yet known details).
• The release date in Japan in fiscal 2012.

Now while we don’t want to hope to much lest we get all disappointed, I am definitely too excited if this should happen, especially with the character design. As you might know, I am a huge Yuna fan. Having already hyperventilated seeing glimpses of her in Dissidia Duodecim, the chance to see her again in this potential remake just makes me all jittery to replay the game all over again. I’m not all too keen on the online options, but the rest looks all good.
What about you? Are you excited? Or maybe you just want them to remake Final Fantasy VII already…

The pictures are just the general gamers’ reaction to the news of Street Fighter and Hello Kitty teaming up for a new merchandise.

Of course the actual merchandise won’t actually look so awful. Godforbid, I don’t doubt macho hello kitty will sell like hot cakes just because it seems like the best joke ever and well, granted, it makes a funny deco for your bedroom (or the perfect item to make them Hello Kitty fans scream like the subject of Edward Munch’s painting) Sorry Hello kitty fans, the doll could be cute, but a kitty with no mouth nor expression kinda makes for a creepy doll.

In any case, it would be interesting if they made Street Fighter Hello Kitty THE GAME – STREET KITTEH maybe. Perhaps a squish sound when Hello Kitty falls on the ground and a squeak when she gets punched?

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Start by resizing [this] image from Odin Sphere. This icon was largely inspired by the game title.

	Ignore the image first. Let’s start off with this off-black color layer [#041123] as your base. Next, use this texture by me and remember it is positioned slightly to the right.
	Duplicate the texture THREE times on screen. On the 3rd screen layer, set the opacity to to 35%. You should get something like this
	Next use this <— [It's just the original texture with bits I erased], set that on Soft Light. Duplicate and then set on soft light as well. That means, both layers should be on soft light. Your results –> (just trying to balance out the surface)
	Where does the image come in? Not yet.. be patient. Next, mess around with these 2 light textures by la_bellivie. For my icon, I set them on screen duplicated/rotated/erased bit here and there…
	Next use this scratch textures and set it on screen but erase any bits covering the insides of the sphere. After all that messing around, you get something quite like this –>
	Hooray! We can finally use the image! Paste the image and set it on soft light. Duplicate and set on soft light again. So you have TWO soft light layers of the image.
	Duplicate the image one more time, but this time, set it on screen @ 90%
ERASE YO~!	Using the erase tool, erase anything outside of the sphere. You don’t have to do a very clean job, in fact, being able to see bits and pieces of the original picture has a nice effect.
	SHIFT-CTRL-ALT-E to copy current icon. Set that on SCREEN @ 70%
ROUND SELECT	SHIFT-CTRL-ALT-E again to copy current icon. Then using your round select tool, select the sphere and copy it. Then paste that layer on top, set on SCREEN to get something like this –> You don’t have to be very accurate with the round sphere. In fact, being messy has a nice effect.[In the original,notice how the body and hands seems to join more, that's because I made another icon with the character slightly moved down before using the round select tool on it]
ERASE AGAIN!	Erasing time again. Erase any bits covering his face. After you’re done, duplicate that layer and set it on screen again so that it’s bright and shiny!
	We’re basically done here since images differ and I’ll leave you to your own coloring methods. For this image, I used an exclusion layer [#001b76] and duplicate the bottom layers and set them on soft light twice. Then I just messed around with the brightness, increased the blue colors and saturation for some bits of the icon. Added tiny text, sharpen etc.

For this method, I’ll just like to say that you might have to do heavy adjustments depending on the image you use. So don’t follow it exactly, experiment =)

If you would like to download other sphere textures like this, there is a whole file of them for download at the Resources page.

RULES

-One request per person
-Video games graphics only
- Proper credit must be given to gamearia, with a link back to our site when graphic is used.
-If you promote us somewhere, we will throw in a matching avatar (if you requested a signature)

We will fill request on first-come, first served basis. We’ll give your request priority if you have promoted our website at 3 different sites (eg: Facebook, game forum, blog)  Kindly provide links so we can take a look

-your links must be your personal sites or a related game site/forum. If your comment contains spam link (viagra, seo companies, affiliate links and all that nonsense, you can be sure we will ignore you)

WHAT YOU CAN REQUEST:

1) Request for text of your choice to be inserted into an existing image on our gallery. (Provided the image is customizable)
2) Request for an avatar or sig. You can provide an image and the text you want. We will take creative direction from there. If your instructions is not clear, we’ll just do what we deem fit.

We are not taking wallpaper requests due to time constraints. But if you would like to “inspire” us with some images, or leave some suggestions for what you’d like to see in the future, feel free to leave your thoughts, who knows it might appear in the gallery when we have time…

The graphics take effort to make, so be kind and let other folks know where you got it.

Since the advent of the Wii, followed by the Kinect, Playstation move, yadayada, the big discussion has always been about how video games are no longer couch potatoes and that games are revolutionizing the way people exercise. But truly, really? I’m not talking about most casual gamers here who rarely play games in any case. I’m talking people who spend 30 sleepless hours beating their new copy of take-out-that-badass-gun-and-let’s-kill-some-creatures. We’re still couch potatoes when it comes to gaming.

I admit that I’ve tried most of the exercise based games or anything really that gets you to move. I don’t doubt their ability to make you sweat, and some are really quite fun. And yes there was a period of time where I played DDR as well and lost a ton of weight.  I think I get a kick out of tracking my progress (which lasted maybe one week before the excitement faded). The funniest experience I had was “losing 10 pounds” on the Wii Fit. Or so my wii fit told me in the morning, only to find out I gained them all back at night. Thanks for all that unneeded excitement Wii Fit.

It’s great for the winter time where I just do a little boxing to keep warm. But in the summer, it’s just unbearable. And in the end, after trying out10 or more games or so, I’m left with a feeling of dissatisfaction after all the novelty has worn out and longing for the sun and some fresh outdoor air.

Cool. But you'll have better luck finding this girl is at the gym or the yoga class.

Again, I emphasize that you can sweat and have great fun. I have lost a little weight playing those games, but they’re not that sustainable. In the end, I would still prefer some real martial arts or maybe the steam room in a gym facility. I must add though, that having not touched my wii in months, I took it out to play some Rayman and got my biceps incredibly sore. Seeing that I swim daily, I’m left to wonder… are my arms just weak or is it because I didn’t warm up?

On an added note, if you live in an apartment, stomping up and down and making your neighbors wonder what in god’s name is going on upstairs is really not all that cool =P

LulzSec, a computer hacking group, has become infamous (and Cole’s not pleased) by perpetrating attacks against various video game companies like Nintendo, Sony, Bethesda and CCP. And, they claimed to do it for the “lulz” or laughs.

Even Princess Peach is sad over the issue...

Just last days back, it has decided to end its hacking spree. Well it is not really over. Hacking has been around since years ago. This reminds me of an old MMORPG that I played in the past. At one point, its server was hacked and the perpetrator posted log-in information of many players on the game forum. It was a horrible experience as I was one of the victims. I lost all of my hard-earned equipment but at least no real-life money was involved.

It’s really difficult to separate gaming from the web anymore. I am sure many of you love the convenience by just paying online and getting your content instantly. Companies will not give up the net as it is the most efficient way to tap the global market. Some say companies were negligent about safety. Maybe now they might be thinking of more secure systems to put in place. I also came across this article here and got reminded how it is easy to learn anything online now (including hacking).

Unfortunately, nowhere is 100% safe. I am not sure how much setting difficult passwords or changing your passwords frequently is going to help if the main system can be breached easily by hacking groups. I guess we really have to be careful of what we share online.

Tera Online joins the list as one of the highly anticipated MMOs this year, along with Guild Wars 2 and Star Wars: The Old Republic. It is first developed by Bluehole Studio, a Korean-based MMORPG developer. It is a fast-paced action MMORPG that requires much aiming and player skill. Like Dragon Nest, you don’t click-and-hit in combat. When I first knew about Tera Online, I thought this is going to be a hit with its awesome graphics and action-packed combat.

You can’t take your eyes off Tera’s beautiful landscapes and cinematics

En Masse Entertainment plans to westernize the game and make it more enjoyable for the English players. But it is definitely taking much time to do so. So far, only some players got their hands-on during En Masses’ community-based testing a few months back and probably some others did so during E3. We know that the biggest attraction of Tera Online is its combat mechanics. The political system has also been introduced during E3 which looks really interesting. Players are given a chance to influence the whole world, e.g. increasing or decreasing the taxes on shops in their regions, disabling PVP in their regions and imprisoning another player. High levelled players can compete for the position, called the Vanarch using a voting system or via PVP. It seems like you can even campaign (using outside means like youtube and websites) to get votes. Oh, and Tera Online has also bagged some awards like “Best MMO” and “Best Combat” during E3.

On the hand, news from Korea isn’t looking too promising. Firstly, they seemed to have rushed on the official release. After months through release, problems like the lack of update and class imbalances have caused a number of players to quit. There is a lack of absolutely fresh news/updates in the web. And it appears to me that the long-distanced classes are going to get the upper-hand in PVP, as compared to the melee classes, especially the slow powerhouses like the Berserker.

Archer to Berserker: You’re not going to catch me!

We don’t know yet when closed beta is going to begin in NA/Europe. It may not be a bad thing that En Masse is taking some time to develop the game. We don’t want to have a rushed, sub-standard translated copy of Tera Online. Still, whether this game can thrive in the long-run remains a question.

Pros:
+ Attractive graphics
+ Great voice-overs
+ Battles are more fun and action-packed as compared to usual MMOs

Cons:
+ Cash Shop may cause imbalances
+ Classes are gender specific (e.g. swordsman is male, mage is female)
+ Low variety of classes (only branches out at later levels)

You will enjoy this game if you enjoyed Vindictus.

The long wait is finally over! A year after the Open Beta period in Korea, Dragon Nest is finally going global. Nexon (North America) is currently conducting the closed beta test until 20 June. Shanda/Cherry Credits (Global) is going to begin its closed beta test soon. Have you applied yet?

North American Sever. *Please note that people outside NA may get IP-blocked by the NA server.

Global Server.

Anyway, Matcha was also one of the many curious/excited players. I couldn’t wait (just like I couldn’t wait to get more green tea) so I got some hands-on in a Chinese server (hosted by beanfun) months ago. Unfortunately, Matcha has short-term memory at times. I forgot to save screenshots before uninstalling the program.  Oops.  So the images here are taken from the Chinese and English websites for Dragon Nest.

Dragon Nest uses a non-targeting combat system and players have complete control of all actions (Think fighting games). Overall, Dragon Nest is pretty unique as compared to typical MMOs, in terms of combat and town systems.
In this MMO, you have 4 main classes: swordsman, archer, cleric and the mage (all gender-specific). You are only able to advance to sub-classes later on at higher levels.

Swordsman Class hierarchy

So for example, the swordsman is able to advance to Sword Master or Mercenary. The final classes from Swordmaster are Gladiator and Moonlord. And the final classes from Mercenary are Barbarian and Destroyer.

I have personally played the swordsman and the cleric for a while. The cleric is more kick-ass than he looks. I didn’t reach end game state though. I have only briefly played the archer and the mage. Each class is unique and has its own strengths. I say give all a try if you’re getting into closed/open beta.

You will notice there is quite limited customization in the character creation menu so all of the characters will look similar ingame. If you want to look different, you will have to purchase fashion sets from the cash shop. When you get into the game, it starts off with a voiced cutscene, bringing you and your character into the story. Sometimes, I feel like I am playing a console RPG. As you go on, there will be more cutscenes which will enact the main points of the story.

Characters will look similar ingame

In Dragon Nest, each map is linked with “portals”. You don’t travel world-wide maps like in usual MMOs. It usually works this way:

Town > A non-combat map inside the first portal > Dungeon via another portal

It does make traveling from town to desired destinations faster. However, each portal is individual to each player so you don’t see the other players after you enter it from the town. You can see your party members if you’re in a party though. Before you enter the dungeon, you get to select difficulties. The dungeon is like a “stage”. After you finish, it will show your grade, which if I’m not wrong affects what items you get at the end. You definitely need a party if you want to play high difficulties. There are tons of achievements in this game, and some include completing dungeons in the highest difficulty. So you might have to work in parties often. In fact, it is more fun to play with a party. You get quests from NPCs in town. Sometimes, you will have to repeat the same dungeons a few times to complete quests/to obtain achievements/to level up. So there might be a bit of grinding there.

What I like best about this game is combat! Matcha had fun beating/magic-spamming/slashing evil goblins with combos. In dungeons, you will always get this small target icon in the middle. There is no click-and-hit. You move around the map freely using the keyboard and dish out combos on mobs within the target icon. I did not get to try PVP in this game but it seems to be very fast-paced. Do watch the PVP video in this post.

The combat is not your typical click and hit

I have to say the Korean voice-over in this game is awesome. Besides the 4 main classes, all NPCs in the game are voiced so in a way, it makes the game more interesting.

While I played, I did encounter certain issues with the game itself. The bag space is pretty small and it fills up quickly. The bank has very limited storage space too. So far, I couldn’t find ways to expand the space, other than purchasing expansion stuff from the cash shop. And yes, the cash shop. The fashion sets are indeed attractive and also add additional stats to the characters. I notice cash shop items are not auctioned online. This brings out an issue: Will players who don’t want to spend real money lose out eventually? So as you can see, if you really want to get serious in Dragon Nest, it’s hard to avoid spending money.

I am not sure if the issues will apply to the NA/global servers as well. Nonetheless, it is free-to-play so there is no harm trying. Matcha shall wait for Open Beta!

Back to watching pole-dancing videos while waiting…maybe a Korean one this time? >:D

Check these out:
Character: Swordsman
Server: Korean (with English Patch)

Watch this crazy PVP video
Character: Cleric
Server: Korean