Entertainment Electronics Blog

A new Dungeons & Dragons game will be coming to downloadable formats early next year, Atari and Bedlam Games announced today.
Titled Dungeons & Dragons Daggerdale, it pits players against the forces of evil as they attempt to conquer the Dalelands. It looks to be an action multiplayer title, though it’s not clear how much in the way of RPG elements it will include.

This is the second D&D game to be announced this year, the other being the revival of Neverwinter. The latter is also a multiplayer title being developed in conjunction with Cryptic.

Daggerdale is currently being developed for XBLA, PSN and PC. Look for it in spring 2011.

Arc the Lad and Alundra will be out on PlayStation Network this week thanks to a partnership between MonkeyPaw Games and Vic Ireland’s Gaijinworks.

Both games were published in the late 90s by the now defunct Working Designs, which is best known for localizing the Lunar series and other niche Japanese titles. MonkeyPaw specializes in import re-releases such as Cho Aniki and Magical Drop F.

“When [MonkeyPaw founder John Greiner] and I started talking about his new company, it quickly became obvious that a Gaijinworks collaboration with MonkeyPaw would be a natural fit. John’s building a company to expand the awareness of Japanese games, much like Gaijinworks, and together we can really quench gamers’ thirst for quality classic gaming on download services like PlayStation Network in the West,” Ireland said.

Both Alundra and Arc the Lad will be avaliable for $5.99. Look for them October 12.

Sony revealed a way to extend your PlayStation 3 or PlayStation Portable’s warranty earlier this year with the PlayStation Protection Plan. You can now easily purchase the plan for your PS3 through the PlayStation Store, and PlayStation Plus members can even receive a discount.

The plan comes in one- or two-year varities costing $44.99 and $59.99, respectively. Plus members will be able to get the two-year plan at a 25% discount, meaning you’ll pay $44.99, effectively giving you two years for the price of one. Among the features a protection plan provides are free shipping on repairs and no fee for qualified claims.

You can’t apply the plan to any older PS3 systems, so that precious backwards-compatible 60GB unit is almost certainly not eligible. Only systems that are still within their original one-year warranty can have a PlayStation Protection Plan applied to them.

Fans who have been calling for Square Enix to bring Parasite Eve to PSN may soon be getting their wish.

Speaking with 1UP during GamesCom last week, producer Yoshinori Kitase said that Square Enix would like to bring both games to PSN in the near future. However, he also noted that Square Enix does not wholly own the rights to the franchise, and that the publisher still has work to do in that regard.

The rights issues likely stem from the fact that Parasite Eve was a bestselling novel before being adapted as a film and a videogame. There has been some speculation that those same issues resulted in Square Enix dropping the name Parasite Eve from the upcoming PSP game.

Despite the rights issues though, Kitase seemed confident that the series will eventually be available on PSN in the U.S. and Japan. Tetsuya Nomura has also tweeted, “Before The 3rd Birthday I’d like to do something for the numerous requests for the archives [version] of 1st and 2nd.”

Square Enix has already ported its PlayStation Final Fantasy titles, Legend of Mana and even Threads of Fate.

No release date has been set for The 3rd Birthday in North America, but it’s due this year in Japan. Keep an eye out for an official announcement as we get closer to the release date.

PlayStation 3 has become most players’ new favorite with its awesome features and also its handsome appearance. At today’s Comic Con, the Behemoth confirmed that the former Xbox exclusive game ‘Castle Crashers’ is scheduled to land on the PlayStation Network some time soon, and played the game video to the public.

Basically, ‘Castle Crashers’ is a little action RPG. It embraces the age-old classic premise of knights chasing after damsels in distress, and it was one of the more successful downloadable titles available on Xbox Live. Last month, The Behemoth announced the game had reached 1 million players.

As for those PS2 owners, who are also big fans of ‘Castle Crashers’, don’t worry, the controller converter can help. By using it, you can still play the PS3 game with your PS2 controller.