July 19, 2006 1:19 pm - MULTI, news

July D3 Monthly: SWAT teams, gang bosses, stinging reviews, HD bikinis

While there haven't been many releases in the past month or so, D3's kept up a steady stream of information and media regarding its upcoming titles. Some updates, some review scores some announcements, lots to get through. So!

Simple Series

• A full-color booklet with information regarding D3's upcoming releases - the June edition of it, that is - leaked to the net, and I made a PDF out of it. It's 3MB, so beware the download time and/or the Acrobat loading time. It's got information on and images of The Maid Uniform & Machine Gun, The Let's Make a Robot, and a new kanji quiz game for PSP.

• Vingt-et-un's newest project has been revealed to be Vol. 108: The Japan Special Forces. Here's a Famitsu scan, and here are some screens from Famitsu.com. It looks like it's going to be VSC's take on Western tactical shooters, and it seems that it'll mostly take place from a third-person perspective. The environments have a clean, simplified look to them that almost looks intentional as much as it's probably a necessity given the budget. Rakuten have some more screens, showing a ranking screen and the solidly manga-style character designs.

The focus seems to be on SWAT-style missions, with the player being evaluated on factors like whether suspects are arrested or killed, how many hostages survive the situation, and whether team members survive the situation. Apparently there's no right or wrong way to resolve a situation - how things are handled is up to the player. The player can assemble a team from several types of troopers, like a "charge type," "leader type," "sneaking type," and "sniper type," and instructions can be given to them in real time. There's a variety of weapons to equip troops with, too, like assault rifles and stun grenades. There's a total of 37 missions in the game, with situations like a convenience store robbery, a hijacking, and protecting a VIP. It's due out on September 14.

• Opus's next project has been revealed, too, as The Honoo no Kakutou Banchou, or The Blazing Fighting Boss. Rakuten has the cover and some screens, and ITmedia has a video. It looks like it uses a reworking of the engine they used in their manga-based brawler Garouden: Breakblow, and as such it looks much nicer than I'd expect a Simple 2000 fighter to look. Some Famitsu scans (1 2 3 4) illustrate the point. They've done a nice job of choosing a character lineup that feels comfortably typified and distinct, yet not too bland, and there's enough variety to please most anybody who might be interested in the game. It seems like sort of a nice return to the common theme of street punks in fighters and brawlers, without diving off the deep end into modern "urban" catastrophes like Final Fight Streetwise. On the technical end...there's not much I can say yet, but Garouden had some interesting ideas and wasn't terrible, and Opus has put out some decent UFC-related games in the past. So, this is probably worth looking forward to in some respect. Plus the character-building minigames (geta kick!) and what looks like a well-developed story mode look neat. It's also due out September 14.

• The Earth Defense Force Tactics, due out in just a few days, was reviewed by Famitsu, only to receive a 3/5/6/5, a 19/40. It stings. Maybe we can hope that they dismissed it because of ugly graphics and a lack of story? In the meantime, visit its dedicated website.

• The Men's Machinegun Platform was released to a Famitsu score of...6/4/3/4, 17/40. Ouch. Oneechanpon doesn't seem to have been reviewed.

• The Infantryman was delayed slightly, until August 3.

• The official, dedicated site for The Let's Make a Robot! is live. They're clearly playing up the anime and character-specific aspects of the game, but there's some bits of gameplay to be found there. In the trailer available there (click the second button from the right), there are a couple of tiny snippets of match footage. It does look a little slow-paced, but hopefully it'll stick with theme of realistic, tiny fighting robots without being too dull.

• Daikai-6 put up an interesting comparison of pre-release and final Simple-series covers. A few of them aren't too different, but several of them show a pretty marked switch from 3D models used for in-game graphics to 2D art. It's an improvement in all cases. It might only be a slight one in the case of The Kung-Fu, but The Kyonshii Panic went from something quite dull to one of the best and most stylish Simple-series covers I've seen eyt.

• Retailer release lists have yielded a couple of upcoming titles, one of which should be familiar to many. Vol. 109 is The Taxi 2, the sequel to one of Tamsoft's (apparently) better titles, while Vol. 110 is...The Escape From Los Angeles. What can this be? A faux eyepatched Kurt Russell dispatching street punks and grinding up experience levels while using an ambulance to escape from a hilariously inaccurate L.A.? We'll see.

Full-price

&bull Oneechanbara X, the long-announced Xbox 360 sequel to Tamsoft's PS2 series, has finally reared its head in Famitsu (scans: 1 2 3). Aya's 3D model looks cleaner and more attractive now, but the game doesn't look too incredibly different from the PS2 games just yet. Nicer textures, shaders, slightly more detail...and? Not much else. Will this really be worth the full price they'll be asking?

• Machi-ing Maker 2's official site has gone live (and Indi Software's site was updated, too). The game was released this month and very coolly received by Famitsu - they didn't see fit to give it more than a 20/40. Daikai-6 seems to be enjoying it, though.

As far as editorial content regarding these games goes: I've got a copy of Genshijin that needs playing, and I'll have a few things to say about a couple of Simple Mahjong games soon. EDFT will get a proper rundown in due time, as well. Keep an eye out.