tri-Ace for the WIN!! I love me some tri-Ace. Star Ocean 2 and 3 were great. (I didn’t play the first one). Don’t get me started on Radiata Stories. I’ve never had more fun kicking everything in sight. And don’t forget Valkyrie Profile! With Star Ocean 4, the 3d anime style and real-time combat game play are back with next generation graphics and awesome looking space vistas. IGN has some new info up for the fourth iteration of the series, which, it seems, will be a prequel. Apparently we should go back and play the first game to find out which characters we’ll probably see in the 4th game. Two main characters have been introduced - Edge Maverick and Reimi Saionji. Now, if we’re going to be giving characters silly names like Edge Maverick, why not just go the full nine and name him Jack Ironballs. I think that’s a better name, don’t you? There are also some pictures from Famitsu posted at JeuxFrance.com here. Present in the pictures is also one of Infinite Undiscovery. Based on tri-Ace’s website, this new IP may be getting more love than the next Star Ocean, at least from a marketing standpoint.

Square Enix has just announced that they are launching a North American community website. They are modeling the site after the popular Japanese community site. They stated that the site will offer exclusive content for members including special content, game trailers, interviews, sweepstakes and more. Registration has already start at the site and will officially launch on March 24, 2008.

Everybody’s favorite youth culture defining corporation MTV danced it’s way into an interview with Bioware’s general manager Greg Zeschuk at this year’s GDC. Hot on the tail of the first expansion, discussions of second full game are already happening. MTV Multiplayer inquires about how Bioware is planning to improve the side quests. Although I found the side quests to be a nice addition to play time, they served to do little more than add extra battle content. Zeschuk states that “the amount of effort and knowledge and know-how that went into building the technology for the first one is huge, and [we now have] the chance to actually make things a little bit richer.” This suggests that the second game will be built on top of the first. It seems for the second time around, Bioware wants the side quests to tie into the central storyline while still remaining side quests. They’re also looking into more ways for the game to auto-generate content. Personally I think this could be a good thing or a bad thing. It would certainly mean more hours of play time, but will it mean less actual content? I suppose we’ll find out.

It’s hard not to admire the vision and optimism for game design that Peter Molyneux has. That same optimism gets my eyes rolling anytime I read anything about an upcoming Molyneux game. In an interview with GamersGlobal, he spills a little bit of juice on his next game codenamed Dimitri:

“… And then it moved from that experiment to a moment in time that happened six months ago when a discovery was made, and this discovery has been so exciting that it has lead to Lionhead focusing on it and sculpting a game around that. I think that discovery is so significant. This discovery has lead us to start a game and that game will be on the front cover of Nature magazines and Science magazines.”

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We are currently looking for more writers for TurnBasedEra. If you love RPGs and would like to write for us let us know. Fill out the contact form and tell us if your interested and how you would like to contribute. We are looking for people who know and are passionate for RPGs. Also, if you need more information contact us and we’ll get back to you ASAP.

Siliconera reported that developer Tri-Ace is working on a third title in addition to Star Ocean 4 and Infinite Undiscovery, and the world will get it their first glance of it on a bonus disc of Tri-Ace game trailers that is included with preordered copies of Star Ocean: Second Evolution in Japan. You can check out the list of trailers on the pre-order disc here.

Play-Asia.com has just released a new Etrian Odyssey Painted PVC figure available for preorder. This figure is based off the Etrian Odyssey DS game released by Atlus last year. The figure really looks great with a lot of detail and small touches. There have already been a few other figures released from the game including medic and Bushido Girl. These sold out quickly, so if you are interested you may want to preorder now. The Paladin Girl figure is selling for $49.90 and will be released in May 2008. View the full post for images of the new figure.

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ZeniMax Media, the parent company of famed Fallout 3 and Elder Scrolls: Oblivion developer Bethesda has announced today that they have opened a new office in London. Their new offices will be responsible for directly publishing Bethesda branded titles to retail outlets in the Europe, Middle East and Africa market.

Read the full article to check out the press release.

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For all of you Tales fans out there, I stumbled upon a site today you will want to check out. This may be a popular site, but if it is I did not know about it until now. The site is Raijinken.net and they cover everything dealing with the Tales games. For each game they give character information, story information, a multimedia gallery and also general game information. This site seems to really cover the games in there entirety and does a nice job of making it easy to find the information you are looking for. I have to say also that as a graphic designer I love the design of the site. It is nice to see a site with such great information that looks great as well.

Onaxis has post some interesting news for all Final Fantasy fans. At the upcoming Games Developers Conference Taku Murata’s, the head of Square Enix’s R&D, will discuss the process of creating their own game engine and the hurdles they crossed during the development process. He also confirms there is a new MMORPG in development and the new game engine being built will be used in this game.
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