New Releases for the Week of March 11th, 2012

Players might want to begin gathering their rain gear. With a new release forecast which includes both an Ultimate Ninja Storm (of the Naruto variety) and a Downpour– this week’s titles foreshadow a few days of harsh weather. Hopefully, the situation will improve quickly, otherwise these inclement conditions could put a damper on those spirited FIFA Street and Mario Party festivities.

360
FIFA Street
Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Generations
Shoot Many Robots (XBLA, $10)
Silent Hill: Downpour

PS3
FIFA Street
Journey (PSN)
Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Generations
Silent Hill: Downpour
Tales of Graces f
Warp (PSN, $10)
Yakuza: Dead Souls

Wii
Mario Party 9

3DS
eShop releases announced 3/15

DS
Silverlicious
Xia-Xia

Vita
Reality Fighters
Ridge Racer

PC
Azkend 2: The World Beneath

DesertEagle’s Pick: While I’ve been getting my recommended weekly requirement of role-playing thanks to Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2, Mass Effect 3, and SMT: Devil Survivor 2, somehow I’m going to try to squeeze Tales of Graces f into my grind-time. I’ve always been a sucker for the Tales series’ real-time combat. With the addition of being able to change attack styles on the fly, Graces seems poised for greatness.

SeanNOLA’s Pick: Internet, I’m torn. I love the Yakuza series, and it hasn’t managed to disappoint me yet, but you all know how stale I think Zombies are, and I don’t really feel like I was ready for Yakuza to jump the shark. In fact, I think I would have been happier if they had announced a title that literally saw Kazuma Kiryu jumping over sharks than fighting zombies. Still, as a dutiful fan, I will at least check it out. Who knows, maybe SEGA has done something new and innovative with zomb – oh, I can’t even be that optimistic as a joke. Let’s just hope the fighting is still fun.

Samurage’s Pick: As Deagle mentioned, this week brings a deluge of titles to gamers, but the only downpour I’m interested in is of zombie brains.  Yakuza: Dead Souls is about honor, courage, loyalty, and of course, killing a ton of zombies.  Yes, the graphics look a tad rough, but this game is a marriage of my two favorite things: Japan and zombies.  Plus one of your characters has a gun for an arm.  How can I resist? Yakuza killing the undead–now all this game needs is some Nazis. Wahoo!

BlueSwim’s Pick: NINJA CASH COW JUTSU! Everyone’s favorite Shonen Jump ninja is back for the third installment of the Ultimate Ninja Storm series. The appropriately-titled Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Generations brings together ninja from both sides of the story’s time leap. For example, young Naruto can square off with his older, Shippuden self. CyberConnect2’s Ultimate Ninja Storm games have a reputation for being among the best looking cel-shaded games ever and Generations is no exception. This is one beautiful game that just so happens to have a great gameplay engine backing it up. There’s a demo out now that’s just waiting for you to give it a look.

About Robert Allen

Since being a toddler, Robert Allen has been immersed in video games, anime, and tokusatsu. Currently, his days are spent teaching at two southern California colleges. But his evenings and weekends are filled with STGs, RPGs, and action titles and well at writing for Tech-Gaming since 2007.

50 comments

  1. Yakuza are so hard they’ll just stare you when you bite their arm. They don’t even wince.

  2. Journey, I hear nothing but praise for you. But I’ve also heard you’re just a bit more than a hour long. Why must you be $15?!?

  3. A Yakuza: Dead Souls pic, without a Yakuza: Dead Souls Pick?

    What’s going on?

    • I played Yazuka 4. If Dead Souls is anything like that game, it should not get any kind of pick.

      • I bet you read manga from left to right, then say “this makes no sense. Admit it! 😉

        FYI: Gamestop has a “Playable Character Pack,”. It includes 8 super weapons, 14 hostess guns, 8 hostess outfits, and over 20 bonus items.

  4. The Man, The Myth

    I see that Birds of Steel is coming out this week as well. Why did you leave it off your list?

  5. I hear that Mario Party 9 is just Mario Party 6. Nintendo releasing it as an early April Fools trick. I doubt anyone will notice.

  6. Blankas Electric Anus

    Uh, Journey came out last week? You’re asking to get called out by CheapyD on the Cagcast aren’t you?

  7. Nothing that interests me this week. In case anyone doesn’t know, the intro song to Silent Hill: Downpour is done by Korn.

    Yeah, Korn.

    In 2012.

    • The drummer from Korn used to live in my GF’s parents’ neighborhood. He moved because the city council wouldn’t let them build a gate, and he refused to live in a community that wasn’t gated.
      True story.

      • So your GF’s parent live in a gated community?

        NOLA, you badass golddigger, you. Do you’re thing!

      • Shit, If I’m pounding the skins for Korn, I want to live in a damn castle with a moat and spikes all around. All I need is some crazy fan trying to kill me when I’m watching cartoons on Saturday morning and coming down from a 3 day smack bender.

        It could ruin things.

  8. TALES OF GRACES F!!!!!!! CANT WAIT!

  9. Still waiting for Bioware to patch ME3, so I can play as my Shepard. Hopefully, that will happen soon.

  10. Tales of Graces f this week. Do you guys know what happened to the Wii version?

  11. Pho-King Kra Zee

    Holy hell, how many Naruto games are there?

  12. still trying to find time to play ME3 and SFxTK – so terrible that both games came out the week of GDC while I was in San Fran…… looking forward to Naruto next week – played some of Tales will have a video up on my channel when the embargo lifts!

  13. Silent Hill: Downpour for me this week. Korn or not.

  14. Is Tales the one about the boy hero with crazy hair who has amnesia but then he gathers a party, they power up and he defeats the bad guy and saves the world?

    Already played it. 10X

  15. I still need to get Mass Effect 3.

  16. I want to try Yakuza, but I heard that this one isn’t as good as 3 or 4.

  17. Deagle, I’m surprised you’re not interested in FIFA Street.

    • Don’t get me wrong, I love me some football, but between the console and Vita version of FIFA as well as the occasional game of PES, I’m fulfilled.

      Of course, I’d probably succumb to FIFA Street if it was a $10-$15 add-on, but as a $60 game? No.

      • I couldn’t believe EA was selling Fifa Street for $60 until I looked it up right now. To me, this seems like it should be a DLC game like NFL Blitz.

  18. HighPriestPepper

    Looks like Yakuza is the winner this week. So how much did Sega remove from the Japanese version?

    • Don’t know yet, but I think they left it in tact. Yakuza 3 is the only one they removed stuff from so far, and that was because they were on a serious time/budget crunch to get it localized. Yakuza barely sold at all, and Yakuza 2 sold even less. Also they spent a fortune on localization, especially with the first game – I mean Mark Hamill did the voice work for Goro. That does not come cheap.

      I think people forget just how close we came to not getting Yakuza 2-4 in the US – they are fantastic games, but if no one buys them, they really don’t make sense for SEGA to release in any capacity.

      • I think the problem is we (as hardcore gamers) don’t realize this. There’s 10-20,000 of us that buy these type of games, hit the same sites, but thats a total niche in the grand scheme of things. Probably not enough for SEGA to make much money on these things.

        I wouldn’t be surprised if Super Monkey Ball makes more money that Yakuza.

        • I wouldn’t be surprised if Super Monkeyball for the iPhone made more money than the entire Yakuza series combined in the US.

          • if that’s the case, why do you think Sega still brings the Yakuza games over here? You’d think they’d use their manpower to push something that they know is profitable.

          • Partly due to passionate fans, and partly due to the fact that it’s so popular in Japan. Sorta like how Microsoft always publishes Gears games in Japan, even though they don’t sell well there.
            It’s a form of keeping face to continue offering your ”best” internationally, even if you might take a financial hit. It doesn’t make sense in paper, but from a marketing perspective, the difference in a hit game and an international hit is the available territories.

          • I’d imagine Yakuza sells more in the US then Gears in Japan. But they might find comedy in the bromance.

  19. Just put $5 down on Tales of Graces. It better be good, Deagle!!!

    • If you like JRPGs at all, you’ll like it. I put about 3 hours in yesterday. Love it so far.

  20. I’m waiting for Ultimate Ninja Storm Generations this week.

  21. RIDGE RACER!!!

  22. Tales for me. It’s the best JRPG series around, IMO.

  23. I’m curious, why do you link to other people who repost your new releases?

    And also, how do you deciede who reviews what?

  24. So the new release thread is the official OTT, now?

    I’m cool with that.

    I want to pick up Yakuza: Dead Souls, but something in my heart tells me it will disappoint me and make me sad. Zombies have a place, just not in the Yazuza games.

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