Gamers gear up as scores of new titles hit stores

Home > Culture > Arts & Design

print dictionary print

Gamers gear up as scores of new titles hit stores

Video game developers are strategically releasing new games prior to the Lunar New Year holidays.
That’s when pockets fill up with special end-of-year bonuses.
Among game developers, the most aggressive in unleashing new games is one of the three major game console providers in the world: Microsoft Xbox 360.
Microsoft just last week released its long-awaited video game, “Lost Odyssey.”
The game is the joint work of the Japanese novelist Kiyoshi Shigematsu, the game producer Hironobu Sakaguchi, who masterminded the hit game series “Final Fantasy,” Takehiko Inoue, the creator of the hit manga series “Slam Dunk” and Japanese composer Nobuo Uematsu.
Microsoft is hoping this game will revive old-fashioned Japanese role-playing games like Final Fantasy.
Microsoft is also preparing to unleash two more major titles that gamers in Korea have been anticipating for some time.
One is the second installment of “Ninja Garden” and the other is the fourth series of “Devil May Cry.”
Devil May Cry 4 received the Future Award in the 2007 Game Show in Tokyo.
“An owner of an Xbox 360 is known to have an average of 6.9 game titles,” said Kim Dae-jin, an executive of Microsoft Korea.
“This means that Xbox 360 has a strong lineup of game titles,” Kim said.
“However, we will offer Korean video game players the best content with killer titles like Lost Odyssey and Ninja Garden 2, he said.
To increase the number of customers, Microsoft said it has made efforts to input Korean into the games.
“It took a year to add Korean just to Lost Odyssey,” said Kim Jae-yeon of the R&D team at Microsoft Korea.
According to the company, 20 Korean voice actors worked on the project.
Meanwhile, Nintendo is not planning to let Xbox 360 take over the market.
Although the company has yet to launch its console Wii in Korea, Activision Korea released its first-person shooting game, “Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare,” exclusively for Nintendo DS on Friday.
Instead of using a joystick, players blast the enemy using a touchpad.
The game has been dubbed into Korean and the menus are also in Korean.
Last week EA Korea released its latest major game, “Burnout Paradise.”
Over the years gamers have heaped praise on Burnout, a car racing game.
It’s known for its crazy speed and realistic-looking crash scenes.
Additionally the game is known for its hot soundtrack, including bands like Guns N’ Roses and Soundgarden.
According to EA Korea, Burnout upgraded its last series by adding a more diverse race track for vehicles to burn up.
Additionally gamers can choose from a roster of 80 vehicles. The latest Burnout can be enjoyed both on PS3 and Xbox 360.


By Lee Ho-jeong Staff Reporter [ojlee82@joongang.co.kr]
Log in to Twitter or Facebook account to connect
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
help-image Social comment?
s
lock icon

To write comments, please log in to one of the accounts.

Standards Board Policy (0/250자)