B3yond the Report 11.17.09: Final Fantasy XIII Release Date, The Saboteur and Ad Hoc Party Comes to North America

Posted by Jon Seddon on 11.17.2009

Discussion of Final Fantasy XIII’s release date, Ad Hoc Party finally coming to North America, Just Cause 2’s PS3 specific features, October NPD numbers with Uncharted 2 taking the top spot, DJ Hero’s failure and more!



If last week was Modern Warfare 2 week, then this was the week that everyone said, "it sold how many?" It's also the week when we get our hands on the last few big games of the year, before we get just a little bit of a break. How will you use your quiet time?

Don't get too complacent though because early next year and earlier than you probably thought will be the JRPG onslaught of Final Fantasy XIII.

Top Stories

Final Fantasy XIII Release Date

Square Enix like a good countdown, but you've have to be a bit shortsighted not to see that a countdown that ended on November 13th wouldn't have something to do with Final Fantasy XIII. As expected the announcement was the release date for what Square called the most anticipated game of all time was a little bit more than just a press release. Square posted a video from the Final Fantasy team and they are a pretty scary bunch of people as you can see for yourselves.

Video Games | Final Fantasy XIII | Dynasty Doc

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Oh yeah that release date. Probably sooner than anyone thought at March 9th on both PS3 and 360 in both America and Europe. The video also featured some new footage of the combat system if you manage to get that far and also the announcement that Leona Lewis is providing the theme song for the game. Apparently, it's off her highly anticipated second album, ECHO and is called My Hands. She must be an avid fan of JRPGs though because, "When Square Enix approached Leona about including her song, "My Hands," in FINAL FANTASY XIII, she was honored to be partnered with such an iconic and groundbreaking video game series."



The game will release in Japan on PS3 only next month in Japan and expect it to cause the sales of PS3 to go crazy and expect another round of perfect scores from Fumitsu.

As for quite why the game is so anticipated in a world that seems to have by and large moved on from the conventions of the JRPG from the last generation, well each new Final Fantasy has set the agenda for the genre and raised the bar of what to expect. Once again, the production values of this Final Fantasy look set to raise the standard of what to expect this generation and it will soon be apparent if it's done the same for gameplay

Ad Hoc Party finally coming to North America

One of the worst "features" of games like Gran Turismo on PSP is the fact that it's wireless multi-player modes only support ad hoc rather than infrastructure modes. This means that you can only play with people nearby rather than the full online multi-player experience that we've all become used to since the PS3.

As solution to this, called Ad Hoc Party was released in Japan last year and it's finally going to arrive in North America and Europe, although the timeline given is soon rather than any specific date.



This means that you can connect to your PS3 from your PSP over a wireless connection and then use the PS3's capabilities to connect to other gamers around the world. This will also support the PS3 wireless headset or the microphone on PlayStation Eye to enable voice chat. The best part is that it's going to be a free download.

This has got the potential to unlock many more hours of gaming from those games like Phantasy Star Portable that were made to be played together but only supported the rather limited Ad Hoc mode.

More info through the link

Just Cause 2 has PS3 Specific Features

If you've seen the videos of Just Cause 2, then you're probably reasonably excited about this open world adventure that's due to arrive from Square Enix early next year. The original Just Cause was an early XBox 360 game, that whilst amazing from a technical standpoint when it was released boiled down to a big empty world that got pretty dull to explore.

For the sequel Avalanche Studios have tried to pack in variety giving you not only one of the most interesting virtual spaces around but filling it with interesting things to destroy. Destruction and mayhem seem to be actively encouraged in this game and you're given plenty of toys to help achieve that end. If you want to see for yourself how amazing the setting of Panau Island looks then take a look at this video.

Video Games | Just Cause 2 | GC 09: Trailer

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Your most versatile tool is the double ended grappling hook, which allows you to attach one thing to another, which sounds okay until you make the leap of attaching crazy bad guy to passing truck and watch as he's catapulted through the air. As you can imagine, it'll be a while before you've got bored of attaching A to B and watching the result.

The other tool that you're going to make use of on a regular basis is your parachute. With a world that's so vertical, you will find great joy from leaping from tall building and gliding down and landing on passing vehicles or even grappling and then being taken along for the ride.

At a recent London event, a few PS3 exclusive features were revealed, which will help capture the carnage you unleash and share this with the world. The game will automatically record the last 30 seconds of gameplay, so if you accidentally do something truly great, then you can watch it again and again. You will also be able to manually record up to 10 minutes of footage, giving you the chance to set up the world's biggest pile up. Once you've recorded this then it's an easy transfer to You Tube to share your filthy deeds.

The inbuilt hard drive on PS3 should give developers more flexibility on the system and it's a shame that so often it doesn't get used, other than to cache large amounts of the game data. Avalanche is building something that looks really special and you should keep your eyes on it until its release in the first half of 2010.

Source: PlayDevil.

October NPD Numbers

Another month and another list of sales figures that show that the games industry is still in recession. After last month's growth blip, due mainly to the PS3 price cut, this month sees a reduction in year on year sales. It's not all bad news though with the PS3 taking second place behind the Wii, which retook its top spot in the console charts. A lead of 80,000 on the Xbox 360 is encouraging after it's initial sales spike and hopefully the momentum will carry through the holiday season, forcing Microsoft to work even harder next year.



It was also good news for software sales with Uncharted 2 taking the October top spot and Sony have announced that sales are now past the 1 million mark, which is always an important milestone for a PS3 exclusive title. It was also really pleasing to see Borderlands taking the number 3 position with sales of 418K but shame on you PS3 owners that only made up about 150K of that total. Borderlands could well be a bit a quiet hit for Randy Pitchford, proving that he's either lucky or knows how to make great games that sell. Ironically, if it sells past the million mark, Take 2 will consider it a success, but if it were an EA game (like Dead Space), 1 million copies sold would have been considered a bit of a failure.

Brutal Legend missed out on the top 10, selling just 216K copies and perhaps justifying Activision's decision not to publish it. Analysts are still expecting sales to slowly grow till the end of the year, but Double Fine were probably hoping for more, given the relatively big marketing push.

Biggest failure this month has to go to DJ Hero, which only managed to shift 123K copies, although releasing October 27th didn't give it many days to sell. It may also be something that sells well as a festive gift, given its high price tag. Unusually, Activision don't seem entirely driven by sales, promising that we will see more DJ Hero next year. Hopefully, not 5 iterations of it though.

The Saboteur

If Pandemic aren't careful, The Saboteur really will be going out there to die in early December, when most of the gifts will have been already picked up and people are just too chock full of the October/ November games to consider picking this up. To try and drive some momentum, Tom French has been active in last few days talking about why this World War 2 open world game should get some of your attention.

If you remember this game has a black and white look to it, which is supposed to represent the occupied areas of Paris, which is where the game is set. You play the role of an Irish race driver who decides to join the resistance and take on the Nazis to liberate the city whilst looking for the individual that murdered his friend.

Tom French said that you will be looking at 20-25 hours of gameplay and promises plenty of side missions, which if the recent trailers are anything to go on will involve visiting Paris night clubs to see all the pretty ladies or visiting German anti-aircraft batteries and leaving them little presents. When I saw this at Gamescom in the summer, it didn't look too hot, but closer to its December 8th release it's starting to show some promise.

Rumor of the Week - God of War III to feature online co-op

According to The Gamer Access, God of War III is going to feature online co-op, which they gleaned from apparently looking at Sony's information for retailers. This sounds extremely unlikely for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the game just wouldn't suit multiplayer in the sense that it's a narrative driven adventure that focuses on Kratos, who just wouldn't suit the buddy system. Secondly, would the game be more fun in a multi-player setting with enemies that almost line up to take it in turns to hit you? I can't imagine it would, so perhaps there are some specially designed levels that make co-op feasible? This would probably require a whole new set of game mechanics to inject any fun into it.

Chances of this being true - Not likely.

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It would have been a pretty poor week this week, if not for one game. Braid is a mind bending time traveling game that was in serious danger of getting a lot of people's game of the year award when it was released on XBLA a year and a bit ago. In it's simplest sense, it's a platformer, but you have to use mind manipulation tricks to solve the ever more fiendish puzzles within the game. Some of them will have you thinking for a good long while, making the asking price of $14.99 well worth it.

Other than that things aren't so good with Star Trek DAC also vying for your attention, but probably best avoided. There is a demo available so you can make up your own mind and there are also demos of Inferno Pool, NCAA Basketball and MX vs. ATV Reflex.

PSP gets a bunch of pinball games that are themed on other games such as PAIN, the crazy Kenka Bancho: Badass Rumble and a new Minis game called Bubble Trouble at $4.99.

Full list at the PlayStation Blog

PlayStation at Retail

One of those very rare weeks where there isn't much out for PS2, but for PS3 and PSP there is plenty to get excited about and of course the usual shovelware to catch those holiday season dollars.



Without a doubt, this week's most anticipated game is Assassin's Creed 2, which don't forget gets a PSP exclusive title that grants you extra content in the PS3 version if you get both. Assassin's Creed: Blood lines on the PSP is actually a follow on from the events in the first Assassin's Creed game, so it's a must play for fans. There's even going to be a PSP 3000 bundle for the game, so Sony and Ubisoft are taking it pretty seriously.

That's not the only title to feature on people's most wanted lists, as it's also time for the release of the God Of War Collection, which is as good an excuse to return to these games as you're going to get before May and the release of the third game.

Other than that it's time to see if Tony Hawk: Ride is going to be as big a disaster as people are speculating and whether gamers want yet another piece of plastic in their living rooms.

PS3
Assassin's Creed 2
God of War Collection
Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues
Tony Hawk: Ride
NCAA: Basketball 10
Scene it? Bright Lights! Big Screen!
Planet 51
Chaotic: Shadow Warriors

PSP
LitteBigPlanet
Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines
PSP 3000 Limited Edition Bloodlines Entertainment Pack
Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues
Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's Tag Force 4

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What I've Been Playing

In the week that Modern Warfare 2 hit, you're effectively treated as a social outcast if you don't appear to your friends as if you're constantly playing and ready to play Modern Warfare 2. You'll cycle down your friends list and just see a never-ending list of people playing this game, despite the fact that Sony's infrastructure wasn't really up to the job at the start of the week.

At times, I've even steered clear of PS3 and 360 to avoid the peer pressure of joining someone in a bit of team death match. Everyone knows that I'd sooner be playing Tales of Symphonia on the Wii. I did try out the Wii version of Modern Warfare and despite some major difficulties with the controls it's actually not bad.

Modern Warfare 2. It's no secret that I've been playing this pretty much non-stop over the past week. If I wasn't playing the single player campaign, I was playing Spec Ops with friends and if I wasn't playing co-op, I was being killed (a lot) online. This game is being sold at less than half the recommended retail price in the UK in some grocery stores, so I ended up picking up copies for both the PS3 and 360 to maximize my chances of catching up with friends online.



You can read my full review here.

Jak & Daxter: The Lost Frontier. I didn't' really expect much from this one and to be honest I didn't play very much of it, but as with almost every PSP game these days it surpassed my expectations of how good a PSP game should look. At some point expectations will be reset and then we'll be in trouble. Anyway, I'm not going to say too much more than it looks good, controls well and if you get the chance, you should check out the demo that's available on the PSN.

Call of Duty Classic. This is the original Call of Duty game that up till now has only been available on PC. It formed part of the bundle for people that bought the Hardened or Prestige editions of Modern Warfare 2, although it's available separately on the PSN store. I thought it would be very interesting to see how Infinity Ward started the whole Call of Duty ball rolling and see whether any of their DNA have survived the several years since this was first released on PC.

Starting your career in a shooting range is something that hasn't ever changed, but from that point onwards there's been an enormous development in the genre. Obviously, graphically the games have changed, but to be honest a high def version of the original polys looks surprisingly good. The biggest changes are the controls that are now admittedly tuned for a controller, but in their original incarnation made you feel like you moving on ice. Unreal Tournament still feels like this, but anything approaching a realistic FPS game now has a sense of solidity that aids your suspension of disbelief. I'm not sure how long the campaigns were back in the day, but I'll probably play through it, but the multi-player is a bit of a wasted effort.



Borderlands. This is my current buddy game and forms the backdrop to co-op Thursdays. This Thursday, my brother and I continued to try and subdue the same guy we'd wasted an hour on last week only this time we thought we'd be a bit cleverer and stick together healing each other between shots. Our cleverness did not unfortunately reap any greater reward than our previous dumbness with a constant and costly respawn bringing us to the point of tears. After another 30 minutes of this, my brother had a bit of a eureka moment, " do you think he's just too tough and we should go find another mission?" I hadn't even considered this and so we left this guy to seek experience points elsewhere vowing that one day he'd feel the wrath of my sniper shotgun.

DJ Hero. I'm about done on this game, unless I really want to try and improve my skills and tackle the hard difficulty. Without the cooperative element, I'm struggling to keep playing the same songs over and over to improve my skill levels. Anyway, you can read my full review here.

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Next week is a bit of a welcome lull in the release schedule, but that doesn't mean there won't be news worth reading, but I just don't know what it is yet. I will be able to hopefully share some views on the this week's big releases though.