Entertainment Electronics Blog

Square Enix enabling Final Fantasy fans to try-before-they-buy three weeks ahead of release.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 will get a demo via PSN and Xbox Live next week, Square Enix has confirmed.

The demo will hit PS3 and Xbox 360 in Europe on 11 January, but is only set for PS3 in North America where it launch a day earlier, the publisher confirmed.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 launched in Japan last month to critical acclaim, while Square Enix has been keen to push promotion of the game’s improvements in the West.

Does future firmware holds the key to rumoured feature?

PlayStation Vita will be out in less than a month, on December 17, in Japan, and it’ll follow in North America and Europe on February 22. With Sony hosting a Vita-focused event in London today, the launch lineup for the system in PAL territories — including Great Britain, Ireland, and Australia — has been officially confirmed.

Among the titles that will be available alongside the system on February 22 are many of the usual suspects: Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Wipeout 2048, Little Deviants, and Super Stardust Delta. One of the surprise titles is the newly-announced MotorStorm RC, a new racing game in the works at series developer Evolution Studios.

PlayStation Vita will be out in less than a month, on December 17, in Japan, and it’ll follow in North America and Europe on February 22. With Sony hosting a Vita-focused event in London today, the launch lineup for the system in PAL territories — including Great Britain, Ireland, and Australia — has been officially confirmed.

Among the titles that will be available alongside the system on February 22 are many of the usual suspects: Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Wipeout 2048, Little Deviants, and Super Stardust Delta. One of the surprise titles is the newly-announced MotorStorm RC, a new racing game in the works at series developer Evolution Studios.

Double Fine’s XBLA tower defense game Trenched will finally be out in Europe later this month, at which time it’ll take on a new name: Iron Brigade.

Both Double Fine and publisher Microsoft have had a real headache to deal with in Trenched. It was released as planned in North America this past June, but “unexpected challenges with distribution” got in the way of a European release. What that meant in reality was a trademark for a board game known as Trench was blocking Trenched’s release.

If you’ve missed out on Fallout: New Vegas until now and want some open-world action that features more guns than the swords and magic seen in the upcoming Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Bethesda plans to package the game with all of its DLC for a special edition release next year.

Scheduled for release on February 7, 2012 in North America and February 10 in Europe, the Fallout: New Vegas Ultimate Edition bundles the game with all of its downloadable expansion packs: Dead Money, Honest Hearts, Old World Blues, Lonesome Road, Courier’s Stash, and Gun Runners’ Arsenal. With the level cap increases provided by these, you’ll be able to take your character all the way up to level 50, which should take a great deal of time.

It won’t be until early 2012 that Metal Gear fans in Europe are able to get their hands on the upcoming HD Collection.

The high-definition bundle includes several of the games you’d expect — Metal Gear Solid 2, 3, and Peace Walker. Also packed in are the original MSX2 titles Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake thanks to the versions of MGS2 and 3 being based on Substance and Subsistence, respectively. The one notable omission is the original Metal Gear Solid; in Japan a download code for the game is provided, but those in North America and Europe will have to track down a copy of the game without the help of the HD Collection.

Level-5 held its annual Vision press conference in Tokyo last night (Saturday morning in Japan) for nearly two hours. It covered a great variety of games, among them the absolutely gorgeous Ni No Kuni, which was confirmed again to be headed to North America and Europe in 2012, now with Namco Bandai attached as publisher. We learned that Professor Layton has a son who will be starring in Layton Brothers Mystery Room, a reworked version of DS title Mystery Room that is now coming to iOS. The Gundam Age game made an appearance and we heard about how the aim is to make something for a younger audience fans in order to create a new generation of Gundam fans.

In addition to the conference, also taking place this weekend is Level-5 World, a two-day event being held for the first time ever. You can check out our liveblog for a recap of the conference and flip through our gallery to get a look at pictures and video from the ensuing event. Click on any of the photos for a larger view.

Sega’s Hiroshi Seno has revealed to GameSpot that the publisher has no plans to create an English version of the RPG for western markets. That’s thanks to the overall lack of popularity of the PlayStation Portable (which the second and third VC games were made for) in those regions and the poor sales of the second game.

Valkyria Chronicles II was released last August to fairly strong reviews. Its predecessor wasn’t a huge seller on PlayStation 3 in North America but was much beloved by those who did play it. A fan campaign did manage to lead to a sizable jump in sales, though not enough to convince Sega to create another console title.

In addition to the standalone game, Mario & Sonic at London 2012 Olympic Games for Wii will be bundled with the new Wii announced during Gamescom. The system will come in the blue color seen on the box above, as will the accompanying Wii Remote Plus.

A new model of Wii might sound exciting, but really it’s just stripping out a feature: the biggest change with this new version is its lack of GameCube support. The four controller inputs have been removed, resulting in the system being smaller. It’s only been confirmed for Europe; Nintendo of America told 1UP in August it had no plans to release the new console — or Europe’s Family Edition bundle (consisting of the new system, Wii Sports, and Wii Party) — in North America.