Konami recently held a hands on event in NYC for some of their upcoming games. And to my surprise and many others, there was the latest installment to the Suikoden series. And it wasn’t for the PS3, Wii or Xbox360, it was on that little beast of a system the Nintendo DS. After waiting for what seemed like hours to finally get my hands on Suikoden:Tierkreis, I immediately turned the DS off then back on. Call me a freak but i wanted to see this game right from the beginning, opening logo credits and all. Once the credits were finished your treated to a nearly 2 min anime intro with an excellent score to back it up. Now I don’t know about you guys but it still amazes me to this day how much video plus the full game these guys manage to squeeze onto them little ds carts. Especially when the videos aren’t compressed to high hell.

After the intro is done and you input your desired name the game starts you out (or atleast in this demo) as the main character in a hut talking with your friend at which you’ll notice is fully voiced over with crystal clear sound. The characters are 3d polygon models layered on top of 2d hand drawn backgrounds, a technique not uncommon with rpgs. These backgrounds are beautifully drawn and detailed as hell. So far what I’m seeing I’m liking, good job Konami! You can control movement of the main character by either using the d-pad or stylus. Both control well and will just be a matter of user preference.

Now on to the nitty gritty of every rpg, the battle mode. Just like traditional rpg’s you don’t see the enemies on screen instead as you walk about the environments you’ll encounter random battles at which the screen will flash a bright white light and then the battle screen would show. Your parties level, HP and MP stats are conveniently displayed on the top screen of the ds. On the bottom half you’ll have the choice of using your stylus or d-pad to enter your commands. Which at first seems like a lot of inputs. Thankfully there’s an auto fight button you can press which will help speed up those fights when grinding for higher levels. The character models during the battles are on point and the animations are tight. From some hands on time with this demo it looks like Konami is in the right direction for delivering another solid rpg to the Nintendo DS. And it also got me thinking about something, why is the ds getting all these good rpgs? This system has more rpg’s on it than all the bigger consoles have combined. Not that i’m hating on the DS or anything, i just thought it was worth mentioning. Anyways will keep you posted on the latest info for Suikoden:Tierkreis.

Here’s a little something something for all you folks out there who can’t get enough of the Afro sportn’ samurai himself. I had the pleasure of attending Namco Bandai’s 2008 press tour here in NY. I was able to get some hands on time with the game and

I have to say things are looking up for this title as the controls feel on point and the look and feel of the series has been translated well. And the music doesn’t disappoint either! Take a look at the video preview as I think you fans of the show will be very pleased with what ya see! AYO AFROOOOOOO!

The no sh*t taking cool as hell samurai with the biggest ‘fro ever is about to cut it up on the Ps3 and Xbox360 come January 2009. From the manga and anime based of the same name, Afro Samurai tells the tale of a wondering samurai out for revenge against the murderer of his father and the holder of the coveted number one headband.

This headband is said to give it’s wearer unlimited power and is the envy of warriors through out the land. So you could imagine the types of nasty guys trying to get this thing!  What’s hot about this series besides it’s tight art style and sick action sequences is it’s infusion of hip-hop culture and everyone’s favorite onscreen bad ass… Samuel L. Jackson. Not only is he the executive-producer he also voices the main character and his sidekick Ninja. The gameplay is said to be a highly stylistic hack and slash with beats provided & supervised by Wu-Tang Clan’s very own The RZA! Consider me interested, as the anime series was hot and the beats were sick! It was natural that a game would be made and so far from what’s been shown it looks very promising. I can also say it’s nice to see a lead black character in a different type of game where he isn’t either playing sports or acting ghetto while shootin’ it up in some hood!

Unit out…