Long time Tekken producter Katsuhiro Harada has been extremely vocal over the past year against paid DLC. Harada has spoken up again on the matter and even said something surprising that may eventually result in him choosing to step away from Namco. Check out what he had to say below. Continue reading
Namco revealed four more additional characters that will appear in the console version of Tekken Tag Tournament 2. Prototype Jack returns from the original Tekken, Alex returns from Tekken 2, while Forest Law and Tiger Jackson return from Tekken 3. Continue reading
Thinking about picking up Tekken Tag Tournament 2 in September? Well, here’s a bit of good news. A few online and physical retailers have revealed what DLC characters you can get early for preordering Tekken Tag Tournament 2. Check them out below. Also do note that the DLC characters for this game are not exclusives and will be available for free approximately 2-3 months after the game is released.
Shop.to: Angel, Michelle.
Zavvi: Kunimitsu, Ogre.
Amazon (USA): Angel, Michelle.
Amazon.ca (Canada): Nothing announced yet.
Best Buy: Angel, Michelle.
Gamestop: Angel, Kunimitsu, Michelle, Ogre.
I will add more retailers to the above list as they are announced. Last updated May 25, 2012.
Some nice CAS equipment piece thumbnails were recently data-mined from one of the recent compatibility packs for SoulCalibur V. This is evidence that we still have at least four or five more DLC packs left on the horizon, which is great news for CAS junkies like myself.
Even better news, however, is what we’re getting!
My eyes managed to notice the following CAS pieces:
SoulCalibur Pieces
Astaroth’s 1P and 2P masks from SoulCalibur V.
Edge Master’s 1P costume from SoulCalibur V.
Hilde’s 1P helmet from SoulCalibur V (unconfirmed).
Hilde’s 2P costume from SoulCalibur V (unconfirmed).
Maxi’s 1P costume from SoulCalibur V.
Mitsurugi’s 1P and 2P costumes from SoulCalibur V.
Nightmare’s 1P and 2P costumes from SoulCalibur V.
Raphael’s 1P costume from SoulCalibur V.
Rock’s rhino mask from SoulCalibur IV.
Seong Mi-na’s 2P costume from SoulCalibur IV.
Talim’s 2P costume from SoulCalibur IV.
Yoshimitsu’s 1P and 2P costumes from SoulCalibur V.
Tekken Pieces
1. Asuka Kazama’s Tekken Tag 2 primary outfit.
2. Jun Kazama’s Tekken Tag 2 primary outfit.
3. Julia Chang’s Tekken 6 primary outfit (not confirmed).
Assorted Pieces
Biker’s leather outfit costume
Business suit costume
Casual clothing pieces (baseball cap, shorts, t-shirt)
Denim jackets
Hairstyles (one female, one unisex)
Japanese schoolgirl costume
Nurse costume
Police officer hat
SC4 CAS pieces (only a few, it seems).
The above only counts for at most 60% of what’s in the leaked CAS thumbnails. Expect to start seeing these pieces showing up for download around June 4, 2012!
It’s no secret that gamers have to pay for just about everything in World of Warcraft these days. What do you have to pay for? Well…
1. Initial Game Cost
2. Monthly Subscription
3. Server Transfer
4. Race Change
5. Faction Change
6. Additional Content (Expansions)
7. Micro Transactions
8. Login Authenticator
Almost all of these are not required. WoW could still exist as is without any of the above costing money. Does this sound hard to believe? Well, it shouldn’t and here’s why.
Initial Game Cost & Monthly Subscription
In this day and age, many MMORPGs opt to only have consumers pay for monthly subscriptions. Downloading a client and then either playing a limited free version or paying for a full subscription is the norm. Blizzard forces consumers to buy the privilege to play World of Warcraft and then they must set-up a $15 monthly subscription just to play.
ArenaNet, former Blizzard employees and makers of Guild Wars, have openly stated that developers do not need to charge gamers to play MMORPGs each month and that it is nothing more than a cash grab on the part of the developers. Considering how easily ArenaNet could have fallen apart if the original Guild Wars bombed without including monthly subscriptions, it’s not hard to believe what they are saying. Monthly subscriptions, though common, are NOT required.
Account & Character Services
Want to turn your dwarf into a gnome? It’s going to cost you approximately $15 a pop. That’s right, changing your race in World of Warcraft costs as much as it does to play the game for a month. If that isn’t ridiculous, then I don’t know what is…. especially considering that in other MMOs such as APB or Champions Online you are able to completely change every aspect of your character’s appearance without spending even a single cent. Imagine that! WoW’s faction change is not any different and only takes seconds for the game to process. You are being charged a quarter of a hundred dollars for a five second computer process.
Then there are server transfers. Many MMOs do not tie characters to specific servers and you can instead come and go as you please. Other games, like Rift, will plop your character onto servers of your choosing but you are free to transfer them whenever you want for no fee at all. Whoa. In WoW, if you want to move your warlock from Shadowmoon to Hyjal, it’s going to cost you something like $25 to disguise it as something that actually requires effort on Blizzard’s part… But to play with people from either realms in dungeons or battlegrounds is completely free? Where is the logic?
Additional Content
Pretty much all MMOs will charge for this kind of content except games that have adopted free to play mantras (subscriptions become optional). For example, Champions Online is currently working on increasing the level cap from 40 to either 45 or 50 and an entirely new city will be explorable. Sounds pretty substantial! While expansions are allowed to make money and I don’t view selling them as an evil act, they don’t need to cost as much as full retail games.
Micro Transactions & Ingame Stores
Considering everything that Blizzard forces their players to pay money for, it just seems so insanely wrong that they offer ingame mounts for sale at a price of $25. Yes, you can purchase a digital horse for a digital character to ride on for a whopping $25. You can also purchase vanity pets that serve no function at all for about $10 to $15. Wow. You can purchase thorough DLC for other games at a fraction of that price. For the price of one imaginary flying glitter pony to ride on, gamers could purchase several DLC adventures for Dragon Age: Origins or upgrade their Street Fighter 4 copies and obtain several new characters and stages.
While everything Blizzard charges people for is certainly extremely wrong and unnecessary, I suppose one can’t really speak out about it too much. The players are willing to spend money for these ridiculous services, so why should Blizzard stop? In a way, I suppose it is OUR fault that Blizzard earns money for all of these services which shouldn’t even cost money.
Shame on Blizzard for offering these services and shame on us for utilizing them.
Note: I am speaking my mind with this post, so a bit of foul language will slip through. If you don’t enjoy reading colourful language, click here for something more suited to your tastes.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve spotted a really stupid trend spreading throughout the minds of disgruntled Capcom fans and such. This trend is the belief that the original Marvel vs Capcom 3 was some kind of beta. Um… Am I the only one who fails to see the rampant stupidity in such a belief?
For starters, betas are ridden with bugs, glitches, and many little nuances that will nag at players and interrupt their gaming on many occasions. None of this applies to the original Marvel vs Capcom 3 which is a finely crafted game that happens to be remarkably bug free and insanely enjoyable to play. The game is very polished through and through, and really the only two complaints about the game that I ever see are “boo hoo, no Mega Man” and “whine whine, no additional offline modes.” Sounds like minor gripes to me. Marvel vs Capcom 3 doesn’t smell like a beta at all, nope. Smells like a fully fledged game that is very well developed.
The reason for a lot of people blabbing that Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 is an extension to a beta that we already played is different though. It has nothing to do with how the original game plays or how it feels, no. People are merely pissed off that they have to pay $40 for this wealth of new content which they all assume should have been in the original game… Not because Capcom planned everything from release (they didn’t). It is simply because all of these naysayers are merely greedy pricks.
Let’s look at some other games out there that threw additional content like this at us, shall we? First off, Diablo 2. Remember that awesome PC RPG? I’m sure many people do since, like Marvel vs Capcom 3, it’s pretty darn awesome. Now remember how fantastic the original Diablo 2 was? It was very playable, very fun, very great… And then about a full year later, the expansion was released. It introduced a lot of new gameplay mechanics, new classes, and new locations to play in. How did people react? “THIS IS FUCKING INCREDIBLE!”
Half-Life 2. A different genre, but another game that is right up there with other great games. Remember when Episode 1 was announced and later released? Everyone went batshit insane with joy. Same deal with Episode 2, and we still have people clammering for Episode 3. Both Episode 1 and Episode 2 were well made and exceptionally polished. They introduced a lot of new areas and enemies, and the fans really enjoyed it and appreciated it all. I don’t remember anyone crying that Episodes 1 and 2 should’ve been part of the original game. Valve wanted to continue the story of Half-Life 2 and give gamers more of what they loved. Doesn’t this sound a lot like, uhhh, the same thing Capcom is doing right now?
Then there are MMORPGs. Monthly subscriptions. This is a pretty crappy way to make people continue to play your games and in most cases it is a necessary evil (I said MOST cases), but nobody really whines about it too much. Heck, nobody even complains about MMORPG expansion packs. What happens when World of Warcraft gets a new expansion? The people who go “lol you have to pay for the game all over again” are few and far between. Most people will instead be analyzing the content and all that, and people will get hyped to visit various new areas, try out new hero classes or races, and so forth. Nobody ever seems to be too bothered by the price at all with MMORPG expansion packs as they instead nitpick about changes that expansions bring to the core gameplay (example: WoW Cataclysm completely changed and simplified talent trees, making people relearn a bunch of crap they already knew).
So if expansion packs are tolerated for higher quality first person shooters, roleplaying games, and MMORPGs… Why are they not viewed in the same light for fighting games? Enter Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3.
We are getting twelve brand new characters and eight new stages. To top this off, there will be new modes to play, tons of new moves for existing characters, and more. The game has even received a completely new look! Such extensive changes prevent Ultimate from merely being DLC or a patch because there’s just too much darn content. There is too much… Expansion. Oh my.
Because of the extensive additions the game is receiving, it is required for it to be distributed in physical disc form only. Essentially we’re getting a $40 expansion pack that doesn’t require the original MvC3. This is where a lot of the naysayers just start plugging their ears and refuse to listen to anything that is said. Look, this is nothing more than a standalone expansion pack to a fighting game. We’ve never had issues with these before, so why now? Just because it is Capcom? Because they cancelled your beloved Mega Man games? What’s the problem here? I played the hell out of the original MvC3 to a point where I justified paying the $60 price tag and then some. $40 more for a wealth of content is just fine in my books.
Look at it this way. Twelve characters. One DLC character usually costs about $5. If we were to receive them all as DLC, it would cost $60. Eight new stages? I’m sure we’d have to pay between $10 and $20 in total for those if they were DLC. Capcom is saving you money, you ignorant fools! People just seem to completely overlook this fact for some stupid reason, presumably because they’re angry that people who didn’t buy the original will only have to pay $40 to get everything (minus Jill and Shuma). So what if new players get the full deal for less money than you did? Street prices of games go down with time after all, and eight or nine months after release I’m sure that MvC3’s price would have sunk by a few bucks at the very least.
So Capcom is saving the money of existing players while also making it cheaper for new players to get into Marvel vs Capcom 3. What the hell is the problem with this? I can answer that. There is no freaking problem!
I didn’t even mention the incompatibility issues that would crop up if Ultimate was DLC. What would happen? Well, for starters, Ultimate players would not be able to fight against Vanilla players and vice versa. There are too many changes to the existing characters, as well as the overall gameplay, in Ultimate for it to ever be a simple DLC patch. Compatibility patches (like the ones Mortal Kombat use) will be 100% impossible. There is just too much data, too many new features. Plus wouldn’t it be unfair for an Ultimate player to go online, fight a Vanilla player, and fight with moves that aren’t even accessible to the Vanilla player? That would be horribly unfair, and it would not be able to be remedied with simple little compatibility patches.
There’s also a ridiculous claim that, because existing characters can refer to the new characters by name when tagging them in and such, apparently Capcom recorded all of these lines from the start and it was all pre-planned. Oh yeah, obviously! Because it is clearly the only possible explanation, right? Capcom decided to do a lot of extra work for content that may not have even seen the light of day. Yeah, that makes sense. “Let’s pay all of these expensive and industry-leading voice actors for extra lines that we may never use.” Great logic guys. Really.
Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 is not “”the full game” and the original was not a beta. This is a standalone expansion that saves ALL gamers money by giving us a wealth of content at a price that is cheaper than we’d see it up for if it were to be offered as DLC (which would be impossible anyway).
And who cares if it is coming out less than a year after the original? Eight months, a year, two years, who gives a shit? Don’t people usually want new content sooner rather than later?
Capcom’s decision to make and release Ultimate are both justified. If you enjoy MvC3 and have played it enough, then there’s really no problem here. Don’t want to fork over $40? Then don’t. The MvC3 fanbase doesn’t need whiners like you. Get lost and go play MUGEN.
The Review Depot 
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