Old News: Ubisoft Announces Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes in HD

I know this announcement is now a week old (equal to about 2 years in internet time), but I thought I'd mention it officially here too.

Following on the heels of its highly charming (and even more addictive) puzzle-RPG hybrid for the Nintendo DS, Ubisoft and Capybara have announced that they will be remaking Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes using HD hand-drawn sprites for Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network.

Additionally, it appears that the gameplay is being tweaked for the new release, and online play has also been confirmed. Furthermore, it has been confirmed that there will be a co-op mode, allowing players to have battlefields beside one another, as well as a new game plus for those who want to go back and play completionist.

While the game is confirmed for XBLA and PSN, Ubisoft apparently hasn't ruled out a WiiWare or PC release.

Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes will be available for Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network sometime this Summer.

[Kotaku]

Crystal Guardians Goes All Console On Us

If you live in Japan, there's a good chance that you've heard of Crystal Guardians. It's kind of a simplified SRPG set in the Final Fantasy Tactics universe that was made for mobile phones over there.

But what if you don't have a Japanese cell phone? Well, Square Enix is happy to announce that they will now be willing to take your money for the game even if you only game on consoles. How nice of them!

Ported as Crystal Defenders R1, Crystal Guardians will be making its way to WiiWare on January 27, 2009 in Japan, for 1000 Wii Points.

Meanwhile, Square Enix has also announced that their iPod Touch/iPhone port of the game, called Crystal Defenders, will be ported to Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network sometime this spring. It features widescreen support and better graphics.

Well, uh, I'm not sure what to say about this. Yay? I guess it's better than not being able to play it, right?

Anyone looking forward to playing cell phone games on your consoles?

Penny Arcade Adventures Episode 2 Available Next Week

Sorry I haven't really covered the first episode of Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, mostly because writing out the game's name alone takes nearly an hour. The first episode of the game by the guys that write the popular comic came out on PC and XBLA during the summer, and received surprisingly good scores for a downloadable game.

Hothead Games (the studio behind the game's production) has announced that episode 2 is finished and will be available next week on PC (Windows, Mac, or Linux) for $14.95, and on XBLA for 1200 points, making it about $5 cheaper than its predecessor.

PlayStation 3 owners who wanted to get in on the action can finally download the first episode on PSN starting this week for $15. Though there are plans to eventually bring episode 2 to PSN as well, there is no current release date other than the vague promise that it will be "sometime before Christmas."

I like Penny Arcade, but haven't really gotten around to playing episode 1 yet. Guess I should.

P.S. I've ammended this week's RPGs of the Week column to reflect episode 1 hitting PSN.