Hey there people! I mentioned that a little change would be happening to the blog on Twitter recently, and here it is. I guess I just came to the sudden realization that, hey, I’ve been doing this Lone Gamer thing for quite a bit of time- several years, in fact- so I guess I should get a wee bit more serious. So, I went and got my own domain for the blog, so now we’re not just an ordinary wordpress blog anymore, but our own little piece of the .net world!

TheLoneGamer.Net is now live! What does this mean? Well, not really that much- it just lets me have that much more control over the site, do a bit more with the help of an actual web guy and put on neat new widgets, eventually fix up my template and make the blog even slicker and maybe even earn a bit with some ads.
But what won’t change is that you’ll still be getting the same sincere, light-hearted, always-earnest, from-the-hip Hardcore Casual Gameblogging from A Single Player’s Perspective as you’ve always enjoyed for the past several years.

In any case, I will be keeping the old blog up for archival, redirecting and sentimental reasons. But if you come here regularly, bookmark TheLoneGamer.Net and let’s all just pretend nothing happened, but did. Wink, Wink!

Okay, we all know THAT, thanks to numerous leaky tweets from the Ultimate Tekken Mole, Katsuhiro Harada (who’s fairly in deep with anything that’s involved with this game). However, it’s only recently that Namco-Bandai itself has acknowledged this, on their new AOU site, which lists all their to-be-featured games including Tekken Tag 2 (of course, who cares about some stoopid Dragonball games…). Anyway, the entry for TTT2 mentions some intriguing features:

• Best-ever 3-D fighting character lineup!
• New Tag Gameplay!
• Redesigned Card System!
• Live monitor system to connect the world!

Wow! Harada didn’t mention any of those things. Well, at least not in those big-sounding words. This probably means that if Tag 2 is playable at the expo, we’ll be seeing, hopefully, the new Tag-Team Gameplay, how the arcade system will handle Cards and keeping all your player records and customizations all saved up, plus a hint of the online mechanics. Oh, and hopefully we’ll also have a look at the game’s roster- the biggest in a Tekken game yet.

Awesome-sounding stuff, but sadly, still about a week and a half away on Feb. 18-19. Till then, one can always re-watch the last TTT2 trailer another couple thousand times…

Some time ago vids of Marvel vs Capcom 3′s final boss filtered onto the web, but were quickly silenced (a bit). Well, some time later, Capcom has finally released the official trailer showing off the Ultimate Bad Guy in the game. You have to hand it to MvC3- there’s no villain bigger than Galactus. You start off the fight battling some metal versions of the main villain team (Wesker, Doom, Akuma and Dormammu), then move onto the Big Kahuna himself. Big G’s pretty excellently rendered, and quite an intimidating sight. Still, while he shouldn’t be a pushover, he shouldn’t be impossible as well. Players can take on the Planet Eater in about a week and a half, when MvC3 is out in stores everywhere.

Say what you will about Gameloft and their current way of ‘unabashed homages’ to various game franchises… for me, as an iOS gamer, it’s pretty cool that there’s a company giving me the attention that BIG gaming companies won’t, or can’t. Blizzard won’t ever give me Starcraft on my iPhone or iPad? Well, who cares when I have Star Collision? Okay, it’s a pretty corny name but I’ll be signing up for this once it hits this week. The trailer above shows some pretty impressive-looking action, if only the art team just tried a bit harder to NOT be too Starcarfty… but well, there it is.

I’m hoping though that this will be a Universal app which I can play in full screen resolution on my iPad, but even if it isn’t, if it’s good enough I’d probably spring from an HD version as well later. We’ll see if this plays as good as it looks then, once we get our hands on it.

Some time ago, it was confirmed that director Kevin Tancharoen’s indie effort with Mortal Kombat: Rebirth has borne fruit with an all-new 10-episode web series that will fit into the MK canon. Hand in hand with the announcement was that Michael Jai White will be reprising his role of Jackson ‘Jax’ Briggs from Rebirth into the upcoming webisodes. Well, now we get his partner as well. Through her verified Twitter account, actress Jeri Ryan has confirmed that she’ll playing Sonya Blade for the web series, which is now shooting. This is great news, indeed. Having both actors from Rebirth return should go a long way to keeping at least some of the flavor of Rebirth that fans latched onto so readily into the new MK series.

UPDATE: Apparently Ian Anthony Dale has also confirmed via Twitter that he will indeed reprise his role of Hanzo Hisashi for the web series. Oh, wait… Hanzo Hisashi is dead… his name… is Scorpion.

I don’t know how many of you guys out there are old enough to remember or have enjoyed the classic Thundercats cartoon. It came from Rankin/Bass productions, and was one of the iconic adventure series back in the mid-80s. It was all about the last surviving people of the Planet Thundera- Thunderans, AKA Thundercats, and their battle to survive against various enemies and threats while making their new home on the strange world of Third Earth. It had magic, tech, combat, weird creatures, warrior women, mutants, Big Bad Mummy Villains and the token cute mascot, and it was pretty cool.

I have to say though, that the series has its iffy aspects. While the Thundercats Intro OP is EASILY one of the finest animated sequences I’ve ever seen (much in the same way the original Soul Edge Intro still remains awesome to this day), the actual show’s animation didn’t measure up to the masterpiece of action and acrobatic awesomeness of the opening (probably because the intro had a big budget and was probably made in Japan, while the actual in-show animation done elsewhere, with a far lower budget…).
Also, Thundercats has some of the WORST voice acting I’ve ever heard- or at least, worst voice characterizations. To be fair, the show only had two voice actresses for all the female characters appearing in the series (pulling double-triple or quadruple duty). This problem persisted in a lot of Rankin/Bass cartoons, as far as I can remember.

ANYWAY, the ‘Cats are gonna have a revival later this year- a new Thundercats cartoon is in production from Warner Bros., and it will have everything from bad-ass anime-esque character designs, an edgy storyline and lots of cool action you’d expect from shows like the DC Comics cartoons, Avatar the Last Airbender and more. The pic above is an official image from the show, and I have to say I like it (even if Cheetara seems a bit too waif-ish). I guess this is finally the chance fans have been waiting for given that the T’Cats movie never really materialized. I’ll surely be on this like a cat- er, a hawk. This should be pretty awesome.

Gamespot recently did an interview with Capcom’s Yoshinori Ono on the upcoming Super Streetfighter IV 3D Edition on the Nintendo 3DS. Check it out for some of Ono’s insights on this new game as well as quite a bit of cool footage. This is one of the reasons why I’m probably going to get myself a 3DS when it comes out in a few months. Great fighting games on the go are awesome.

iOS gamers who love strategic battles are surely looking forward to seeing Square-Enix’s classic turn-based battler, Final Fantasy Tactics, on their iPhones and iPods within the year, but for now there’s more than enough battling and stat-raising with various fantasy RPG class-types in Battleheart. Brought to the appstore by Mika Mobile, the makers of the now-classic Zombieville USA (which shows in BH’s distinct art style and animation), Battleheart is something similar to Final Fantasy Tactics.

Well, really, both titles have as many differences as they have similarities. FFT is in semi-3D, while BH is totally, flatly 2D. Both games have a ‘cutesy’ look which is a bit of a disconnect from the simple fact that they’re both about WAR and COMBAT and KILLING. FFT has a complex, high-hat epic tale with plots within plots, threads that interlock and intertwine. Battlehearts just has you and your comrades defending the kingdom (well, at least, at first). But in the end, both games share one big commonality- you have to take a bunch of cute, SD-looking recruits and turn them into the most bad-ass, efficient and awe-inspiring death-dealers on the battlefield and mow all opposition down in every stage.

The controls in BH are deceptively simple- you can have up to four party members on the field at once. You take control of each one by simply tapping them with your finger to select them, and then drawing a line to any point on the field- on any unoccupied spot to make them move, on an enemy to make them attack, or on a comrade to do some beneficial move (such as healing). For the most part, your members will do their assigned task until you take command of them again and have them go somewhere else or fight something else, or they die.

In between battles you earn gold and experience, which you can parlay for better equipment, armor and weapons, and to access powerful skills and powers as your dudes or dudettes rise in level. You can grind as much as you want in stages you complete. Instead of creating party members from scratch, you recruit them from the local tavern, where unhired warriors, thieves or other potential members (there are supposedly 8 different classes of characters) hang out.

So far I am enjoying BH pretty much- the controls are perfect for the touchscreen of the iOS devices, and whether it’s on an iPhone or a larger iPad, it’s pretty easy to pick your guys out even in the middle of a messy melee (though mistakes can lead to some trouble, but heck- see if in real life giving orders on a chaotic battlefield would be any easier). I’ve yet to plumb the depths or go the distance yet in this game, but so far I’m enjoying taking my time and grinding as I advance.

Battleheart is available now on the appstore for $2.99, and it’s a Universal app, which means it works full-screen in full resolution whatever your iOS device. FFT seems still a ways off, so nicely I’ll be busy and happy till then. Full review to come soon.

Fresh from his latest slugfest with Ono, Tekken Boss Katsuhiro Harada has just posted a few choice screenshots from the upcoming Tekken Tag Tournament 2. This comes on the heels of the recent appearance online of a magazine scan from the latest issue of Arcadia Magazine, showing off several returning characters’ new artworks and some screenshots. Check out the new images in full-size over at Harada’s Twipple.

Lars and his now-young old man get to have a rematch.

So far the game looks pretty gorgeous, but I’m sure all of us are wanting to see it in motion. Just a couple more weeks, dudes- AOU 2011 should be here before we know it. Till then, let’s hope Harada-san doles out some more screens and art.

Devil Jin is back and looks freakin’ awesome.

It’s been confirmed in past updates from Katsuhiro Harada on Twitter that for Tekken Tag Tournament 2, characters will be speaking their native languages. This will be changing up the way it was done in past games: Lili Rochefort, for example, has been speaking English since her debut in Tekken 5. For TTT2, she’ll be speaking French (the language spoken in Monaco). What would that sound like? Well, one Lili fan on Youtube was intrigued enough to make a simulation video, dubbing over Lili with some French dialogue. Check ot the vid above!
Note: The audio is taken from a French-dubbed episode of the X-1999 anime so they’re not really what Lili should be saying in her win quotes.

My take? I’m gonna miss Lili’s old English voice (maybe they’ll get the same actress, just speaking in French?), but French is a really beautiful language to hear, and that should match Miss Rochefort perfectly. Can’t wait to see/hear TTT2 in action soon!