Natural Selection 2 came out last week, and the folks who made it have created this neat infographic to show off the performance of their new real-time-strategy/first-person-shooter hybrid.
Notably: between pre-orders and sales, more than 144,000 people now own the game. Not bad for an indie made by a studio of seven full-time staff.
Click the image above to expand the whole chart.
![Halo's Story Got You Confused? This Chart Might Help. [Update]](http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/184qp7m8wa41ljpg/original.jpg "Halo's Story Got You Confused? This Chart Might Help. [Update]")
I'll be honest, Halo's story confuses the hell out of me. Not the general outline, I get that, but the specifics and history of the universe are presented as a mess for someone who just plays the games and doesn't get knee-deep in the external fiction.
Why am I here? Who's that guy? When did that happen, and what the hell did that thing just say? That sort of thing.
So I'm appreciating this simple guide, laid out in chronological form, to the overall backstory of the universe, provided by GameFront. Though even after reading it through a couple of times, boy, they could have trimmed some corners there, made it a little neater.
UPDATE - Well, as you'll see if you scroll down to the comments, seems there are a few errors with this. Given my thoughts on the canon's complexity, I sympathise, but it's still something to be aware of! You can find around 3 million corrections below.
UPDATE 2 - New timeline posted with corrections made!
Halo Story Timeline [GameFront]
![Halo's Story Got You Confused? This Chart Might Help. [Update]](http://img.gawkerassets.com/post/9/2012/11/halotime.jpg "Halo's Story Got You Confused? This Chart Might Help. [Update]")
Over the last week as I have spent more and more time with Bravely Default: Flying Fairy—a Final Fantasy in all but name—I have found myself thinking about the classic Final Fantasies and how they compare with the most modern non-MMO iteration, Final Fantasy XIII. When I first played FFXIII, many months before it came West, I was sure it would be well received by fans and critics alike. This was clearly not the case.
With regard to FFXIII, I heard several common complaints about the gameplay—linearity, no backtracking, lack of character customization, no overworld map—but all these really boil down to a single perceived problem: a lack of choice.
There's just one small problem with this criticism, however. Except for the two MMO-Final Fantasy games, Final Fantasy has never been about choice.
To start with, Final Fantasies—and JRPGs for that matter—are incredibly linear. In none do you have the ability to go where you want and do what you want (until the very end of the game). Instead you are herded from town to town, event to event, and dungeon to dungeon as the plot demands.
The overworld map itself is just as much a linear corridor as anything in FFXIII. Each area of the world map generally has a single entrance (where you come from) and a single exit (where you are going). Everything in the middle is just space filled with monsters and lower resolution graphics than you would find in your average dungeon—and of course the occasional town.
Unlocking the airship simply allows you to quickly move to any point in the world map corridor—giving the illusion of freedom, nothing more. The ability to backtrack itself serves little to no purpose other than giving you a second chance to gather any items you missed on your first pass—though they are likely useless by the time you can go back for them.
Even side quests don't really add choice to how you play the game. In most of the Final Fantasies, side quests don't unlock until right before the end—and generally do little more than pad your play time before finishing the game (I'm looking at you, FFX lightning bolt dodging).
The customization found in leveling up the characters is likewise an illusion. While leveling up, Final Fantasy characters—especially those in X and XIII—are very different from one another. But by the end of the game, each character tends to be able to perform any role in the party.
Now, while there are exceptions to many of my statements above, they are generally true for Final Fantasy as a whole. So while there may be many valid reasons for disliking Final Fantasy XIII, lack of choice isn't one of them. Just as you don't blame a snake for being a snake, you shouldn't blame Final Fantasy for being a Final Fantasy.
In other words, Final Fantasy games are just the same as they've always been, with the majority of changes being not in gameplay but in graphics and story. The problem is that gaming has evolved in many ways besides graphics and story—making Final Fantasy look stuck in the past. Whether "being stuck in the past" is a bad thing or not is completely up to each individual gamer.
Of course, if all goes as planned with Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, those longing for more freedom in Final Fantasy may just get that choice-filled world they've been longing for.
HRP-4C Miim is a humanoid robot, kind of like Asimo, but cuter. Japanese researchers toiled away for years in order to bring her to life, enabling her to walk and bow. And soon, she'll be immortalized as a collectible.
According to Tomopop, next February, Miim is getting a snap together figure that is posable. It makes sense that Miim would be turned into a toy aimed at otaku (geeks). She's pandered to them in the past: Miim can sing, thanks to the same software that powers virtual idol Hatsune Miku. Miim even cosplayed as the character in the past. All this, for science!
Priced at ¥2,800, Miim also comes with three different faces. Sadly, she doesn't come with Hatsune Miku accoutrements.
サイバネティックヒューマン HRP-4C 未夢(ミーム) [AmiAmi via Tomopop]
I vividly remember watching the Nintendo press conference right before the Tokyo Game Show in 2011 where they announced Bravely Default: Flying Fairy. I remember because I could not stop laughing for a good ten minutes after I saw the nonsensical title pop across my screen. I dismissed the game based on its name alone and categorized it in my own mind as nothing but a derivative, throw-away Square Enix RPG. That was foolish of me because over the course of my time with Bravely Default: Flying Fairy, I have come to see it is not only the latest of Square Enix's insanely named titles but also the spiritual successor to the Final Fantasy games of the 16 and 32-bit eras.
Much of BD:FF is comprised of gameplay and features from the classic Final Fantasy games. The battle system is your standard turn-based battle system where you choose your party's attacks before each turn and then the order which they—and the enemies—go is based on their individual speed ratings.
To level up, the game uses a job system much like in Final Fantasies III and V. All the classic jobs are available as well as a few you might not have seen before.
The visual style of the characters is a throwback as well. The entire cast of the game is rendered in a "super deformed" or "chibi" art style resembling the character style of the 16-bit era—though now made with polygons instead of sprites.
The characters for BD:FF have all been designed by Akihiko Yoshida, character designer for Final Fantasy Tactics, Vagrant Story, Tactics Ogre and Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light. 
The character models manage to capture his designs perfectly; but even these characters, while great looking, don't hold a candle to the painted watercolor backgrounds of the game.
The backgrounds in the game are beautiful, whether they be dungeons, towns, or castles. Moreover, the 3D effects do a great job of making you feel as if you are moving through a watercolor painting. It's the art as much as the story that keeps you wanting to progress through the game.
While BD:FF is indeed a call back, it is not a retro-designed game. There are many little features that really add to the game. The first, and most obvious of these, is the voice acting. Main story conversations are always voiced and the Japanese voice actors really carry the story. If you're one of those people who wants to dive into the world in more detail, BD:FF also comes with Tales-series optional four-box conversations interspersed between the main events.
The game also dabbles in augmented reality to fairly good effect—especially in the games opening sequence where you get a "help me Obi-Wan Kenobi" speech from one of the game's protagonists before your own room is torn apart by dimensional magics trying to get her back.
The best little additions, though, are in the gameplay. I've already detailed the "brave" and "default" system—which basically allows you to save turns for later use—but perhaps the best thing in the game is being able to fast forward (at double normal speed) during battles. This feature was desperately needed, because in BD:FF…
While the "brave" system does add complexity and additional strategy to battles, it also has the side effect of making every boss battle painfully long—something even the fast forward button can't completely eliminate. This is because most boss battles revolve around you "defaulting" (read: blocking) until you have three turns saved up and then blitzing your opponent (or healing your party) with four turns in one. You then repeat this ad infinitum until the boss is dead.
Normal random encounters often face the opposite problem. You enter battle, everyone "braves" three times and you blitz the unfortunate bastard before he even knows what's going on. The majority of these fights take less than thirty seconds and only a few rare times did this strategy fail to work for me in random battles.
The double-edged sword of being a spiritual successor is that while everything can feel nostalgic and familiar, everything can also feel cliché and unoriginal. This includes the plot and setting. The world could be from any old-school Final Fantasy, with its castles, airships, and magic. The plot of the game even follows four characters striving to protect the four magical crystals that are each tied to one of the four elements—earth, fire, wind, and water—of the world.
For those longing for the "good old days" of JRPGs, Bravely Default: Flying Fairy is no doubt the game you've been waiting for. It brings back the old-school feel of the classic Final Fantasy games while still updating the formula with things like voice acting and a fast forward button. However, those not interested in a nostalgic trip into gaming history may end up finding Bravely Default: Flying Fairy to be nothing but yet another, run-of-the-mill, turn-based JRPG.
Bravely Default: Flying Fairy was released for the Nintendo 3DS on October 11, 2012, in Japan. There is currently no word on an international release.
In 2007, Silicon Knights sued Epic over issues with the Unreal Engine (that it was unfinished and, thus, sabotaged Silicon Knights' work). Epic won the legal tussle earlier this year and was awarded US$4.45 million. The headaches for Silicon Knights don't end there.
NeoGAF member Xenon noticed that page 41 of the court documents give Silicon Knights until December 10, 2012 to destroy any unsold software that was built with Unreal Engine 3. Those games include Too Human, The Box/Ritualyst, The Sandman, X-Men: Destiny and Siren in the Maelstrom. Unsold titles must also be recalled from retailers, with Silicon Knights picking up the tab.
As website Eurogamer points out, Silicon Knights must also end production and all distribution on those titles. Silicon Knights has to notify the court and Epic games by December 21 and then on February 21, 2013 on its compliance with these stipulations.
And like that, unopened copies of all these games just became collectors' items.
Deathblow! Silicon Knights ordered to destroy all software with unreal code. [Xenon@NeoGAF via Eurogamer]
As I've said before, I was a fan of the Valkyria Chronicles series from the moment I first saw its debut trailer. Not only was it beautiful but also it got me, a man who never liked strategy games growing up, to spend countless hours on them. I love the series (though VC2 has more than its share of problems) and picked up Valkyria Chronicles 3 the first day it came out in Japan—not for work, but for pleasure. I spent not only a hundred hours plus beating it but also stuck around for the extra and DLC missions. Since then I have been one of the game's most vocal supporters and have been as disappointed as anyone at the game's lack of an international release.
Yet somehow, despite all this, I completely missed that there was an anime based on the series.
So after a quick run to Akihabara, I sat down last weekend with the two-part OVA Valkyria Chronicles 3: For Whom Do You Fight? Long story short, it was pretty much the perfect anime tie-in.
From the ground up, For Whom Do You Fight? is designed to appeal not only to fans of Valkyria 3 but also to fans of the franchise in general. All the voice actors from the game return for this anime, which is a must for a tie-in like this. This even includes cameos by the cast of the original Valkyria Chronicles as well.
The characters themselves are written identically to their in-game counterparts as well—friendships, unique traits, and personality handicaps all on display. And despite the anime's sizable cast, everyone gets one or two moments to shine.
The plot, on the other hand, is completely original and is set around the mid-point of Valkyria Chronicles 3. While only an hour in total, the anime is constructed similarly to the game, showing a series of episodic side missions leading up to a final climactic battle. Amazingly, the tone of the story manages to capture the feeling of both the game's lightest and darkest moments despite its short running time.
The biggest surprise of the anime was seeing that the strategies used in the anime mirror many of the best strategies from actual gameplay. When the characters need to cross an open area, they use the tank as a mobile shield. When they attack a target, they separate into carefully chosen teams. And when in dire straits, they use the carefully hoarded special abilities of the main three characters to game changing effect.
Perhaps the only downside I found in the OVA is that there are spoilers from the game. While it does not ever show events from the game directly, some of the characters' hardships in the anime stem from the game's early plot twists.
As much as I enjoyed the anime, I don't think it would be a good introduction to the franchise. It is an OVA built on the assumption that you are already familiar with the world and plot of the original Valkyria Chronicles, if not Valkyria 3 specifically. The uninitiated would be better off playing the original game or watching its own 26-episode anime adaptation.
However, fans of Valkyria Chronicles 3—or fans of the first two games who don't mind a few spoilers—will see a great cross section of what Valkyria Chronicles 3 is at its core. Because, in the end, Valkyria Chronicles 3: For Whom Do You Fight? matches the tone and feel of the game so perfectly, you'll forget that you're not actually playing the game yourself.
Valkyria Chronicles 3: For Whom Do You Fight? was released on June 29, 2011, in Japan. There are currently no plans for an international release.
Jigoku (地獄) is the Japanese word for hell. Jigoku is Japanese Buddhist hell, where brutal and bloody penitence is doled out. It's also the subject of a picture book for children.
The book is called A Picture Book of Jigoku, and it is a best seller—a best seller that makes some children very scared. Adults, too.
Originally published in 1980, the book took off recently, after manga artist Akiko Higashimura brought the book to a larger audience with her manga Mama wa Tenparist (Mom Is Panicky), which details her struggles raising her young son.
The cover of Jigoku features a drawing of Higashimura saying, "Thanks to this book, my kid stopped being bad."
Traditionally, many parents in Japan tell their kids that they'll go to hell if they do something wrong. This book makes those warnings far more vivid.
That's why some families in Japan are using the book as a parenting device. If kids are bad, parents read from the book, telling them—and showing them—that they'll go to hell if they do wrong, such as lie, don't keep their promises, or make fun of others. Not only will they go to hell, but they'll be stabbed, burned, cut into pieces, and more.
This year, Jigoku hit number one on the children's book charts—but not without some controversy. Some parents said it helped kids behave, while others said the images in the book were far too morbid and grotesque for young children. According to some reports, some children, however, even seem to enjoy the scary book. Those kids, of course, will grow up to be criminals. (KIDDING!)
While at the bookstore over the weekend, I was flipping through Jigoku. I didn't buy it, because man, the book scared the shit out of me.
Above is look at some photos of Jigoku, collected from various sites online. Click the lower right corner of each image to expand to full size.
えんま王、しつけの「劇薬」？ 地獄絵本に子ども釘付け [Asahi Shimbun]
[Kakehi]
[Kakehi]
[Kakehi]
[Ano]
[e-hon]
[Kita]
[Kakehi]
Japan's CyberGadget is rolling out a "3DS dedicated" AR card holder. Sure, it only costs ¥500, and it can hold 120 AR cards, but I'm honestly thinking of one good reason why this product needed to be made. I'm also trying to think of the last time I used AR cards with my 3DS.
CYBER・ARカードホルダー（3DS用) [CyberGadget]
Italy looks like a boot. Romania looks kind of like a fish. And the United Kingdom? The country certainly has a distinctive shape—a shape that Japan turned into an anime girl.
As website Japan Sugoi pointed out this week, a thread popped up on bulletin board 2ch online in Japan last fall. In it, the shape of the United Kingdom was compared to "a girl who worries tremendously about her bosom". Bwah? you say. This makes perfectly good sense!
Northern Scotland, the thread said, looks like a hat, while just above Edinburgh, the land looks like a face. Above Newcastle, it looks like a female's bosom. Then Liverpool and the land south of that looks like a skirt. The resulting anime character looks like a Victorian female.
There is a long history of anthropomorphic (er, zoomorphic) maps that has existed for centuries, whether that's turning Russia into a giant octopus, the United States into an eagle, or Europe into a queen.
This recent anthropomorphic map, however, even inspired a new round of land mass personifications. You can see them here.
イギリスの形って胸の大きさ気にしてる女の子に見えるよね （画像あ [ニュース２ちゃんえる via Japan Sugoi]
