Yesterday, Atlus and Cyanide Studios provided a peek into Riverspring, a new town created for Game of Thrones.

They also confirmed the game’s release date for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC: May 15, 2012. You don’t have much longer to wait, if you need more of that particular epicness.
But here’s more about Riverspring and Sarwyck Keep, where the ruling family lives:

A vacant lordship and civil unrest greet Alester Sarwyck, one of the game’s two main characters, as he returns home after a fifteen-year self-imposed exile.  He arrives as the town mourns the passing of his father, the elder Lord Sarwyck, forcing Alester to consider reclaiming rule of Riverspring and restoring order to his lordship.

To learn more about Riverspring, watch the trailer below or visit the game’s website.

Zen Studios is merging RPG with pinball. Max, a knight with a keen eye for loot, battles monsters and collects his valuables at the same time, he even rescues a princess on the way!

Epic Quest, the new RPG pinball ball experience will be available on XBLA, PSN, Android and iOS systems this month.

“It is our quest to deliver the most entertaining and original pinball tables, and Epic Quest delivers on both fronts,” said Mel Kirk, Zen Studios Vice President of Marketing and Public Relations. “With a wink and a nudge towards classic RPG tropes, Epic Quest blends frantic pinball action, obsessive character building, and liberally applied tongue-in-cheek humor.”

Pinball with a story could be one addicting game!

Level Up Labs brings players a cheap game that caters to both casual and hardcore gamers. Defender’s Quest, a combination of RPG and tower defense gameplay, places you in the middle of a settlement bursting with monsters. In between the realm of life and death the protagonist, a young lady, assembles a group of people not affected by the plague. Together they try to escape this unruly world.

The game is only $6.99. Gamers don’t have to worry about paying for expansions because all future updates are free when you buy the game. Level Up Labs plans to release a bonus version of the game in a few months at $9.99. The bonus version will have secrets and extended end-game content.

The game runs on Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems, so everyone can have fun. The game also offers customizable characters, which is a pet peeve of mine, and comes with over 34 maps.

Defender’s Quest offers casual missions, which can be completed in a few hours, and advanced and extreme missions that can take up to 30+ hours to complete.

If you’re a fan of either tower defense or RPGs, this could the next game that distracts you from your work. It’s better than saying you were playing CastleVille

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning was the furthest thing from my mind for 2012. Yeah, it looks like a pretty RPG, but I don’t have time for that. I’ve barely scratched the surface of Skyrim, Final Fantasy XIII-2 releases in a couple of weeks, and don’t forget, Mass Effect 3 drops in about six weeks. I have my RPG fix, thank you. But of course, the developers just have to cross streams with Mass Effect 3 by offering weapons and armor that you can only get by completing the demo. So yeah, I downloaded it and played the entire thing, including the 45 minutes of additional exploration just for the ME3 goodies. The things I do for Mass Effect…almost shameful.

But then something unexpected happened: I LIKED Kingdoms of Amalur.

If Dragon Age: Origins and Dungeon Siege III had a love child, this game would be it. It has all of the character creation and depth of DAO, and the hack-and-slash gameplay and bright colors of DS3. In many instances, it’s like a hack-and-slash version of DAO, but without a party–at least, I never got to the point of recruiting partymembers. There is a dialogue wheel like in DAO, and your character is silent like in DAO. The skills and leveling up trees are also a page right out of DAO.

However, there is no talent wheel that DAO and ME both have, which is very welcome. Instead of pausing the game to call up a wheel of all of your skills, you assign skills to different buttons on your controller, which is very much like DS3. It keeps the action smooth and seamless, two vital points for decent hack-and-slash gameplay.

It's so pretty!

It may sound a little like Skyrim, but there are two distinct differences: it’s third person POV only and there are bright, vivid colors. The coloring reminds me a little bit of the colors found in Skyward Sword and WindWaker in terms of how bright they are. The land is just as overrun from battle as Skyrim, but the environments are still beautiful. After playing so many “brown” shooter games, I can’t help but be wowed with the beauty of the colorful environments, characters, and creatures.

The visuals aren’t 100% perfect yet, though. The game suffers from a ton of texture popping problems. Normally texture popping is more of an annoyance than anything, but in this demo, they were downright distracting. Environments would only correct themselves when I walked through them. At times I couldn’t tell if what I was seeing was part of the environment or a beastie. It wasn’t a constant occurrence, but when it did happen, it was horrific.

Release date isn’t too far off, so I can only hope that these graphic problems can be fixed before shipping or at least with a day-one patch (even though these are far too prevalent). It’s too beautiful and fun of a game to have texture issues leave a permanent black mark on it.

That said, it didn’t prevent me from preordering the game. Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is in many ways, an RPG made just for me: deep character customization, hack-and-slash action, beautiful and colorful environments, a fantasy setting, and big swords. The demo barely touched on the story, so I don’t know much about it other than it takes place during a war (shocker!), my character has unusual abilities that no one understands, and, um, my character was dead at the beginning of the tale. How’s that for intriguing?

Seriously, though, the things I do for Mass Effect. At least this time it paid off and has enticed me to look into this game that I would have readily dismissed.

“While it comes at significant cost to us and although it has been over two years since the game revolutionized the notion of multiplayer and online functionality in an RPG,” commented Aram Jabbari, Manager of PR and Sales at ATLUS, “Our commitment to the game and the fans that turned it into an incredible success remains as strong as ever.  While the reality is that one day the servers will ultimately close due to operation and maintenance costs, that day is not today, nor will it be this year.  We’re excited to continue to support one of the most significant, influential games in recent memory into its third year, and we’re planning to hold more tendency events for our loyal, beloved fans.  If you’ve been waiting to try Demon’s Souls or held off with concern that it was too late to join in, the truth is that there’s never been a better time to see what all the talk and awards are all about.”  When asked if the fact that a Flamelurker had been spotted guarding the door to the server room had anything to do with the decision to extend the online functionality, Jabbari politely excused himself, muttering something about his mother calling him.

The special holiday Pure White and Pure Black World Tendency events will also still occur, though details will come later.

Demon’s Souls is part of the PS3′s “Greatest Hits” collection and is available for $19.99.

Ni no Kuni: Shiroki Seihai no Joou (basically Another World: Queen of the White Ashes) for PS3 will be seeing a North American release in early 2012. (Japan gets it on Nov. 17.)

The (incredibly beautiful) RPG, brought to you by Level-5 and Studio Ghibli (who bring us Professor Layton and Totoro/Spirited Away/Kiki’s Delivery Service/Nausicaa, etc. respectively) allows you to control a young boy named Oliver, who is seeking to bring his mother back from the dead. But, you know, in a sweet way. Not a zombie way. He enters another world, parallel to his own, and has to face battles on his quest.

DLC is on the way after release, but we know no details about it yet.

If you need to be convinced of this game’s beauty, check out the trailer from TGS.

[Source: Gamespot]

• The Wizard: Long range attack
• The Mercenary: Melee attacks
• The Assassin: Long range and Melee attacks

The assassin in particular was not unveiled until PAX.  Even though the game has only three classes, four player co-op is supported.  You will be able to tweak your character so it looks different than the other ones by changing your primary and secondary colors, changing your name, plus your look will also depend on how you equip your character since it will affect your fighting style.  You can mix and match any combination of classes, so if your party all want to be the same class (for example, all Mercenary) you can do that.

Erin and I jumped into it and I picked the Assassin as my class.  Moving the D-pad you could choose what kind of outfit you wanted to apply to the character. Erin took the mercenary to be more of an “in your face” type of player and balance the different play styles.   The controls are fairly simple:  X button for short attacks, Y button for long range, B button to stunt or dodge and the A button is your dash.  The back button allowed you to see what items you have equipped and the stats of those items; see what other things are available and change gear accordingly.  Due to the nature of co-op and the implementation in Crimson Alliance, if you pull your inventory up, you still stand the chance of being attacked.  You have to make sure that they area is secure, before making any changes.  It also makes it so that if one of your teammates pulls up their screen it does not pause the game and allows all other players to continue playing without interruption.  Some of the environment like barrels and boxes can be picked up and hurled at the incoming enemies. Erin took the front and I played more of a backup, as I tried to eliminate enemies with my , sort of, long range attack, and dashing as it will cause some enemies to be stunned.  This allowed me to get quickly ahead to where Erin with her Mercenary were at in the level.  At this point, I had certain consumables that I could use. Using the D-bad I had an explosive axe than when thrown it will spontaneously combust.  I also had monster meat that when thrown the monsters gather around it giving you the opportunity to eliminate them while they are eating.  My third option was a deployable turret that shot arrows and lastly a healing Totem that I could set up in order to serve as a healing beacon for my party.   Erin and I kept battling the enemy and I found myself getting all the loot on the screen.  I apologize for ninja looting but she said not to worry.  The money and Items are shared evenly among us and the loot can be found in barrels and chest thought the map. So we could focus on killing the monsters without worrying about who gets what and how it was going to be divided.   Another feature I liked about the game is that none of our gamertags or names would show up on top of the characters. This allowed for a much cleaner, less cluttered screen.  At the end of the game you can see a leader board, showing names with points so you can see who did better and who was perhaps riding your coat tails, thus giving you some massive bragging rights.

The game is said to clock approximately six hours of game play. This can differ due to the size of your party or how much exploring you like to do.  There are tons of secret areas that you might miss on the first play through, which together with additional achievement unlocking will guarantee that you’ll play it again.  Each character has a unique ability that you can activate by hitting the right bumper.  Since I was playing the assassin, I had the power to slow down time, letting Erin get as many hits as she could, while I threw knives at the boss and we killed him before my ability ran out.  We moved to a higher level and multiple enemies jumped at us.  At this point Erin released the Mercenary special attack, making him twirl with his weapon like a whirlwind and hitting everything in his path; very much a crowd control move.

As we kept playing, the game felt familiar, like a simpler Baldur’s Gate, with the co-op and how the game handled over all. Erin said that the developers are fans of the Action RPG style of gaming, and they based Crimson Alliance on the things they liked about the genre and what they think an action RPG should be.  Once the game is released, it will have 200 achievement points to boost your score, divided among 12 achievements.  Crimson Alliance is doing something very different when it comes to its purchasing system.  You can buy the game for 1200 Microsoft points and it will have all 3 classes, or you can buy one of the classes for 800 points.  So if you don’t think you’ll use the Mercenary or the Assassin, you can buy the wizard for 800 points and play the entire game.  If you change your mind, and you want to play another class, you can then purchase that class for another 800 points.  At this time, there are no DLC in the works, but Certain Affinity has been thinking about it and if the game does well, they will get the chance to do so.

If you didn’t know already, Crimson Alliance is part of the “Summer of Arcade” deal on Xbox.  If you happened to buy all the previous games released this summer, you will get a copy of Crimson Alliance for free.  You can also catch Erin Reed in one of the Xbox Live videos covering Pax Prime Indie games of the show, talking about Crimson Alliance.

I want to thank Erin Reed for taking her time to play the game with me, along with Jake Sorking and Robert Brown for the opportunity to play this amazing game.

Dead Island…  Zombies, buckets of blood, use everything you see on your path to kill the zombies, and a story to go with it.  What else do you want?  If you aren’t convinced already to get the game when it releases on September 6th, nothing I say will convince you.  What I can tell you is that I got a chance to play with the game at PAX Prime this year and my hunger for killing zombies grew instead of being sedated.  I had the pleasure of speaking with Doug Macleod, who is the project consultant for Dead Island and before we got to the questions and answers, the first things he said “Just aim for the head!”  I whack my paddle against the zombie, sending him down on the sand. “Now, get on top, crouch down and aim for the head!” he tells me, and I followed suit. As I swung my paddle it made an disgusting crunch and splat sound, the head of the zombie crack opens with pieces of brains flying with blood spewing all over the sand in buckets.  The scene was nothing but horrific, but absolutely fascinating and amazing. “WOW!” I said to Doug “COOL HUH?” he said, as we quickly turned into fanboy and fangirl.

In the game, you have 4 different characters and each character fulfills a different roll. The assassin character excels with sharp weapons, knifes, cleavers, anything dealing with cutting.  You can also add a ‘blood rage’ ability or combat for sharp damages. Survival allows you to keep yourself alive ant it is highly recommended to spec survival when playing solo campaigns.  Playing the game with more than just yourself, you’ll be able to spec into the more aggressive roles and have more fun with it. Sadly, the game does not support local co-op, but when you play online co-op, your friends can come in and out of the game, without having to end the current game.  You will also get quests, where it will allow for the story to be moved forward.  Some will be related to the survivors and some will be related as to why this island seems to be overrun with zombies.  The best part is that if you want to stay and explore the section of the island you are currently in, you can.  You are not tied to the story or to the quest. You can look around, kill as many zombies as you like, level up and explore the island to your heart’s content.  Talking about the story a bit more, as the cut scenes played I noticed a lot of similar images from old zombie movie classics like Night of the Living Dead.  I asked Doug if this was a if this was a coincidence or a deliberate attempt to grab inspiration from the vast library of zombie movies.  “A lot of research was done on the classic zombie movies and some of the newer ones. You’ll notice that there are some ‘28 Days Later’ types of zombies that are sprinting at you all the time. We have also taken inspiration from mutant type zombies.  A lot of it was because we wanted a game that focused on survival. A lot of zombie games are not that focused on survival and we wanted to make this one as close as we could make it, as true as to what it might be like.”

The weapons in the game are abundant, but they have the limitation of durability. By simply pressing RB, you’ll be able to see a circle that shows you how many of that particular weapon you currently have.  Once it is gone, it’s gone, so you have to plan accordingly and pick up new weapons as you progress through the area.  Any weapon you carry, is capable of being thrown at the zombie, for some spectacular combinations of throw, run, pick up weapon from zombie and kill, if that is your style of playing.  I will neither confirm nor deny the possibility that I might have done just that, several times, during the demo.   If that wasn’t enough, you’ll be able to combine weapons in order to make them even more powerful when fighting a horde.  The character I happened to be playing was Xian Mei, who was fashionably equipped with heels.  Heels at the beach? After a zombie invasion? Let’s not use ‘logic’ and suspend reason for a second and enjoy the fact that Xian can kick and stab the zombie with your heel, hurting the zombie enough to bring him down and allowing you to chop his head right off!

If zombie killing is your thing, Dead island is clocking around thirty hours from beginning to end, due to its long and deep nature.   If that isn’t enough, relatively soon after the game is out, you’ll have the Blood Bath Arena DLC to keep yourself busy, adding to the amount of game play this game will have from day one.  The DLC is said to be free if you pre-order the limited edition copy of the game from Gamestop, but for those of you that don’t have Gamestop near you, you’ll be able to purchase it for around $10.  If you go the Gamestop route, you’ll have some exclusive weapons like the Reaper (A baseball bat), and a buzz saw.  So keep an eye as to what retailer has the weapon you like, as I was told that different locations will have different weapons.

With the possibility of exploring all you want, create new weapons, kick, make zombie heads explode and so much more, no doubt this zombie game will be on the top of many people’s list for a while.  The best part?  It’s out very soon!

GamingAngels: So what attracted you to working as a 3D artist?

Deanna Nygren: It was my interest in technology, videogames, problem solving and love for fantasy/sci-fi that initially helped steer me towards a career as a 3d artist.  Additionally, I was attracted to working within a collaborative team environment, having artistic freedom and the portrayed culture of game development studios.

Have you always wanted to create games?

I knew I always wanted to be an artist.  Before my decision to get into games I wanted to be a fashion designer, but the real world has gravity limitations and high fashion models don’t tend to be giant nerds and gamers.

What games made you think that this is what you wanted to do when you grew up?

The game that really made me want to work in games was Final Fantasy X.  I really got into that game and absolutely loved the character and monster designs.  The in-game 3d models looked fantastic for the time and the cinematics were pretty.  Halo also helped my determination because I had so much fun hosting 16 player LANs at my house and got in with the hardcore gamers. The more games I played, and the better their art became, the more I wanted to work in games.

Do you play video games now?

Yes!! I would say fantasy style action and/or rpg are my favorite genres, but I like a wide variety of games.

What are you playing currently?

Currently I am playing From Dust, Monster Hunter Tri, League of Legends, Halo, Rift, DC Universe Online, Killing Floor, Bastion and Smash Bros Brawl (when people are brave enough to face me).

What have you used as your inspiration?

The Minneapolis Institute of Arts Museum was one of my favorite inspirations with its extensive Classical Greek/Roman/French sculpture, ancient sculpture from Japan, China and India.  I am daily inspired by many concept and 3d artists from games and forums that I follow and movies like LOTR, Starwars, Avatar, District 9 or even random indie movies.  I really admire Hollywood FX artists like Steve Wang; he has especially fantastic sculpts and interesting casting processes.  I also am inspired by deep sea creatures, crazy plant life and bugs that we don’t often see just sitting in our offices everyday!  I often carry a camera around with me and am inspired by textures and color.

What has been the most difficult thing you had to do at work?

The hardest thing I have done at work was to move onto a new project where I had to create types of artwork which I did not have much experience with before.  It was difficult modeling huge buildings because I lacked prior architecture art experience.

What was the easiest?

The easiest thing I have to do at work is making art assets from really fun and interesting concept art.

What was something in particular you contributed to Crimson Alliance?

I modeled and textured many 3d environment art assets using 3ds Max, zBrush and Photoshop, usually modeled after concept art.  Specifically I made a lot of the props and consumables/pick up items.  One of the more iconic assets I modeled was the Vendor’s Cart in the player shopping areas.

Can you tell me a few things about the game that you are particularly proud of?

I am proud to have worked on such a fun XBLA game as my first game credit.  I really like how you can interact with the barrels and throw them in Crimson Alliance!  In the end this game came a long way visually since I first started, and I think it has a unique cohesive style.  I am passionate about character art, so I was ecstatic I had the opportunity to model the Leader Elite’s armor set that player characters can purchase.  It is pretty fun to run around with the shield/spear I made! You can see a render of him at www.crimsonalliance.com

What other games, besides Crimson Alliance, have you worked on?

After Crimson Alliance I worked on Halo: Anniversary, which comes out this fall.

Any games you are currently working on?

I am currently working on an unannounced project!

Any words of wisdom you’ll like to give to future female game designers, programmers, etc?

Follow your passion, be honest with yourself, draw/program/design all the time and put in the extra effort.  Know you are going to be working with a bunch of dudes, so have good humor.Do not stop playing games when you get your job.Go to networking events and places that will connect you with professionals.  I was given the opportunity to do an art test for Certain Affinity because of a connection I made at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. Know what’s out there and what is expected in your portfolio.  Do not be afraid to ask people to review your portfolio and give you honest feedback.  I randomly emailed some companies while I was a senior in college to ask for advice on what to do for my 3d portfolio, and the studio art director at Volition responded giving me great feedback.

—

Thank you so much Deanna for taking the time to talk to us.  Be sure to keep an eye on Gaming Angels, as we attack PAX with a vengeance and I will be bringing you more information on Crimson Alliance and more!

Zeboyd game’s first title was “Breath of Death VII.” A parody of RPG games, with a retro style and various fun elements and humor.

Breath of Death VII starts with an atomic weapon detonating in a desperate attempt to end the war, causing all life to be wiped out across the world.  But not all was lost, as an undead civilization began to prosper evil in their midst and it was up to four brave heroes to rid the land of evil.

The game starts in a dungeon where quickly you learn how to move your character.  Yet Zeboyd games were clever in the introduction of the controls, as they flash a photo of an Xbox controller showing you that is available for the Xbox Live indie Arcade. To be fair, Breath of Death VII was originally developed with XNA for the Xbox, but it found a home on the PC as a Steam indie game.

The main character of this story is DEM, making fun of Final Fantasy games from yonder years.  The humor and connections to previous RPG’s do not stop there. Having towns like “Palad-Lennus” (Paladin’s Quest) and “Motherbound” (Earthbound) are just a few of the many nods and references the game possesses.  Somehow, this does not distract you from the game, instead it made me grin at knowing what they did or just completely ignore it if you don’t know the reference.  As you move through the game, your first companion is a ghost named Sara who quickly joins you to form a party.  With her, you can combine powers and have special attacks that allow you to target more than one enemy.

Leveling is done automatically, but gathering experience points as you fight through dungeons or open plains.  You usually have the choice of two different specs you can take: one the warrior path, the other the more magical one.  After you exit the first dungeon, you encounter the first town, where Sara lives, and you are allowed to buy weapons as well as armor.  The “merchant,” a very obvious reference to Resident Evil 4, speaks in the same manner and the phrase “What are you buying?” echoes in your head.

The relationship between DEM and Sara seems to be an odd one, as the ghost has some feelings for DEM, yet DEM is oblivious and just simply does not understand women at all.  This leads to some very funny comebacks and one -liners from both characters.

The fighting mechanism is simple and turn based.  You can select to simply attack, thus not using your mana -like points, or use tactics which lets you hurt the enemy more than once or harder than a simple attack.  Graphically the game is basic and I dare to say that between Breath of Death VII and Cthulhu Saves the World, the graphics have improved, while still keeping the nostalgic 8/16 bit look.   The music was nothing but great and true to the genre.  With melodies that sound familiar yet different and tunes that you’ll find yourself humming for the rest of the day.

Breath of Death VII, just like Cthulhu Saves the World is a simple game, full of fantastic humor and references, that will captivate you with its story and the fate of its heroes.  A game where it’s easy to pick up and go, or never put down, since it does become addicting and make time fly without you noticing it.  I strongly recommend to get both games, for all of you RPG fans, as you won’t regret the purchase.