Ace Combat: Assault Horizon Makes Death at Mach 1 Look Good

I've always been a sucker for the Ace Combat series. Something about majestic metal birds soaring above the clouds at 1195 kilometers per hour, shredding the bloody hell out of each other with various high tech armaments floats my sails, man.

Though the story is never very riveting, the franchise has dog fighting down to an arcade art form, and that fact is just grossly exaggerated in this Ace Combat: Assault Horizon trailer, which focuses on close range combat. Laying back and locking on is a bore. Why let the missiles do all the work? Wouldn't you rather put your nosecone up a fighter's afterburner and pump the damn thing full of 30mm depleted uranium armor-piercing shells at a cool 3,900 rounds per minute? Of course you would.

Buildings taking damage from errant missiles, damaged aircraft splintering to oblivion as your vulcan viciously rips their fuselage apart, close calls, and the camera work! Whew, I'm feeling faint. No release date yet, but you can expect Namco Bandai's high-flying adrenaline rush sometime in 2011.

via VG247

Ridge Racer Unbounded Burns Out

As a PlayStation launch title, the original Ridge Racer was not only a technical and visual marvel, it was awesome fun. The series has been pretty hit-or-miss since then, with the only truly fond memories I have of the franchise after the first entry being the surprisingly good Ridge Racer Type 4.

Fast forward to today, where it's been announced that Ridge Racer is making a comeback and is apparently pissed off. Why else would Reiko, the adorable face of the series, plow through two cars and one brick wall on the way to destroying a city block?

Ridge Racer Unbounded, targeted for release way off in 2012, seems to be taking the franchise down the aggressive, reckless racing path that seems to be fairly popular these days. I've always been a fan of the Burnout series, so if Ridge Racer Unbounded can capture that type of enjoyable destruction and put a unique twist on it, this might be a title to watch.

Upon Further Inspection, Dark Souls is Demon's Souls

Yesterday's Dark Souls information-blitz was a short lived bit of fun, because now we've got screenshots and a big, beautiful trailer. Who needs information when we have pics and flicks! 

By looking at the aforementioned media, it's quite easy to see that Dark Souls is Demon's Souls, basically. And, call me a masochist, but I could not be any more excited. 

Dark Souls Screenshot Gallery

Demon's Souls Successor Project Dark Becomes Dark Souls

Demon's Souls is an incredibly challenging role playing game which released in late 2009 exclusively on PlayStation 3. While it never became a household name, Demon's Souls has a pretty large and extremely dedicated cult following who still play the game to this day, because it's fun to get the shit kicked out of you and lose all your 'souls'.

Well, not too long ago, a spiritual successor to Demon's Souls was announced. Developers From Software didn't release many details aside from the working title, Project Dark. As of today, we can begin filling in some of the details we never received.

The project is now rightfully named Dark Souls. It will maintain the level of frustratingly delicious difficulty its predecessor had. The premise of the game remains, though the story and the world have no tie in with Demon's Souls. Instead of being broken up into different areas -- which required zoning and a nice, long load time -- the world will be one, big, open playground of the dead.

Character creation is intact, however choosing a job when creating your character doesn't make the jump. No big loss there, the job system didn't seem to make much sense to me anyway. As with most sequels, the selection of weapons, armor, and magic skills will be expanded. I expect all good treasure to be almost impossible to acquire, in classic Demon's Souls fashion.

The online aspect of Demon's Souls will carry over, though in what capacity has yet to be finalized. You will still be able to leave notes to warn future adventurers of forthcoming dangers. However no mention was made of player summoning or PvP world invasion. Also it seems like the world tendency changes have been scrapped.

Dark Souls is slated to release later this year, as a PS3 exclusive in Japan, and for both PS3 and Xbox 360 in the west. 360 owners can thank Namco Bandai for finally being able to get in on the anger-inducing fun.

via Siliconera