Playable Press

Regardless of your ultimate opinion on the Mass Effect series, it's hard not to recognize its impact on the industry, on the community and from within, in the current generation and in its implications for the future. If you've managed to resist the draw of this highly influential - not to mention controversial - series up until this point, Electronic Arts and Bioware are preparing to sweeten the pot with the upcoming Mass Effect Trilogy collection.

At the beginning of the month, a Twitter account with the name "Mingy Jongo" (@MingyJongo) was created, claiming to be made by former Rare developers. Little came of the development, but an announcement today caught the attention of many a fan of one of Rare's signature franchises: its intention to create a successor to the Banjo-Kazooie series.

If you're a zombie fan and you've managed to avoid Telltale Games' episodic The Walking Dead releases up until this point, you might want to wait until December to take the dive; Today Telltale confirmed plans to make a collected version of all five episodes in the series available for retail on December 4, just in time for the holidays (at least, as long as production of the final two episodes of the game doesn't suffer from the same delays).

Veteran fans of the Ace Attorney series should be very happy to hear that, not only has Capcom officially announced Ace Attorney 5, but original protagonist Phoenix Wright will be back in the spotlight. The series' move to 3DS also comes with eschewing much of the sprite art for cel shaded 3D models, and while we remain advocates for good sprite work here we have to admit that the new graphical approach does a great job of maintaining the established art style without any of the dreaded awkwardness all too common to polygonal treatments of 2D art.

Regardless of the doubts of some of the series faithful, Ninja Theory's reboot of Devil May Cry at least looks to be just as flashy as its inspiration, and the new trailer fresh from Tokyo Game Show has plenty of the new iteration of Dante doing that. Specifically, it advertises the return of fist weapons to Dante's arsenal as he brawls his way through a mangled cityscape. There are also reports from the show floor that the playable demo contains certain breeds of enemy coming in both angelic and demonic flavors, and that switching off to different maneuvers will be the only way to defeat them. We don't mind getting a little Ikaruga in our action games, so touches like this are always welcome.

If you've seen any material for Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance then you know that the game has decidedly more of a lean towards action than its predecessors (hence the removal of the "Tactical Espionage Action" tag), but from reports of the running demo at Tokyo Game Show it looks like developer Platinum Games hasn't abandoned it altogether. The new trailer - in addition to showing off even more bizarre cybernetic enemies - gives a few examples of what's in store for the sneaky crowd, from using the variable angle slashing system to open locked doors and surgically remove security cameras from their mountings to sending remote drones to snoop around corners.

We already got a glimpse of how Nintendo intends to make the Wii U version of Namco Bandai's latest fighter - Tekken Tag Tournament 2 - more than just a port with the quick look at Mushroom Battle mode the E3 compilation trailer afforded us, but don't think for a second that that's the end of it. Along with showcasing the interface changes made to the upcoming fighter at Tokyo Game Show, series producer Katsuhiro Harada and other members of the development team have been showing off a more... flamboyant new addition.

Early this morning at their pre-Tokyo Game Show conference, Sony revealed another new model for their steadily aging Playstation 3 console. Touted as 20% smaller and 25% lighter than the PS3 Slim, this new model will be available exclusively as part of a bundle when it hits US shelves:

Despite wildly varied fan impressions and somewhat mixed critical reactions to their last iteration, EA and Bioware have decided to take another crack at the Dragon Age series. Bioware executive producer Mark Darrah officially announced Dragon Age III: Inquisition early today through the company's official website, though nothing was mentioned about what systems it will be available on.

Nintendo's push for third-party support on the Wii U may have just garnered them a new second-party dev in Platinum Games. If what we're seeing here is any indication, the rampant project cancellations and localization issues under current publisher Sega could have pushed the touted action devs to seek greener pastures with Nintendo. We already knew about the Wii U-exclusive Project P-100, today given the official name The Wonderful 101 (where'd that extra one come from?) and little else besides a shiny new trailer.