Saturday, February 5, 2011

Namco Bandai's Big Game Announcements Continue (Ridge Racer Fans Burning Out On Forums Worldwide...)

This weeks winner and new champion of cool game announcements (at least for a day or so more), Namco Bandai, continues to shake things up with even more new (and slightly surprising) game announcements. In addition to the one-two punch of Dark Souls and Armored Core V, expect to see Pac-Man & Galaga Dimensions on the 3DS, two all-new separate titles on one 3DS cart. The company is also set to produce a totally new current-gen Ridge Racer that's already been a huge source of controversy amongst some hardcore fans of the franchise. (More on that in a separate posting).

In other 3DS news, the oddly (yet precisely) titled DualPenSports looks to train players in dual stylus wielding in a series of mini-games and sports-based challenges that offer, according to the press release, "a stimulating mental workout and improved hand eye coordination". Sound like a mix of the DS games Brain Training, Left Brain/Right Brain and one of the company's Active Life titles on the Wii, so it should be fun for all.

Namco Bandai has also acquired the rights to publish Power Rangers titles in North America for consoles and handhelds, which means we'll be seeing those characters start popping up on a regular basis in a bunch of slickly produced
Power Rangers Samurai games. Given Bandai's long pedigree of generally high quality Mobile Suit Gundam, Naruto, InuYasha and many more franchise titles geared toward younger gamers, I'd say the Power Rangers are in pretty good hands.

Speaking of Gundam... two words: Omega Force. Two more words: Tecmo Koei. Yup, that means we'll also be seeing Dynasty Warriors Gundam 3 (Gundam Musou 3) hit the PS3 and Xbox 360. While some folks hate the Musou franchise for its seemingly simple hack & slash combat, I'm a longtime fan and happy about this news. I'll be running updated info, trailers and screens on these new games as they come in.

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