When a player is low on health, a portrait of their character’s upper head pops in on-screen to indicate that they are in “Awakening Mode.” This phase gives the player additional space for their super meter which can be used for their signature final attack, similar to “Astral Finishes” in BlazBlue and “Instant Kills” in Guilty Gear. Examples include protagonist Yu Narukami and his Izanagi persona using their swords to do a cooperative strike on their enemies while Chie Santonaka can call out a meteor strike. While they are considered the ultimate super moves, it has not been revealed if it will follow Astral Finishes where it finishes the match or Instant Kills which only ends a round.

Persona 4: The Ultimate in Mayonaka Arena is still set for a spring 2012 in arcades and summer 2012 on consoles.

First, there was Street Fighter IV, and it was good. With new characters and rebalanced old ones, Super Street Fighter IV came. Adding four more characters and further rebalancing the old, Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition hit the arcade scene, followed by a home console release. Each of these upgrades cost money, but had substantial additions even to a layman, namely new characters.

Capcom’s being nice and benevolent this time. With no new characters to add (but a host of tweaks to implement to all 39 playable characters), Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition Version 2012 will become downloadable on December 13th for console players (and soon after for PC). To prepare the tournament players for this change, Capcom has uploaded a full change list in multiple languages to their site. In addition, they’ve revealed a new trailer showcasing some of the changes, which will largely only be noticed by competitive players.

Of course, Hakan can now start the match oiled… which should completely change the game for everyone.

Source: Capcom

The Street Fighter and Tekken series will finally become a reality March 6 2012 with the release of Street Fighter X Tekken, and what a better way to pass some time than with the Street Fighter X Tekken Announcement video. Take a look below as the Thousand Pounds Action company has created this video, filmed on location outside the Los Angeles set of the TV commercial for Street Fighter X Tekken. The Thousand Pound company is the team behind Real Life Ultra Combos and Street Fighter: Beginnings End.

About Street Fighter X Tekken:

The long awaited dream match up between the two leaders in the fighting genre becomes a reality. Created in Capcom’s signature 2D style, Street Fighter X Tekken (pronounced Street Fighter “Cross” Tekken) delivers the ultimate tag team match up featuring 20 characters from each franchise, delivering one of the most robust character line ups in fighting game history. With the new gameplay additions of the Super Charge system, as well as character specific Combination Attacks, the acclaimed fighting engine from Street Fighter IV has been refined to suit the needs of both Street Fighter and Tekken players alike. Two new online modes, Tag Battle Mode and Online Training Mode, have been added to the already stellar online feature list included in Super Street Fighter IV, giving Street Fighter X Tekken the most robust online functionality of any fighting game released to date. Also, for those who wish to customize their experience further, an optional Gem system has been introduced, allowing players to equip items to help pull of more difficult combos or other gameplay assists, adding a new collectible and strategic element to the game.

The short film from Thousand Pounds Action Company is due to be released in conjunction with the game in March, so keep your eyes open for further information.

MMCafe released a translation of what SNK Playmore posted on their official blog detailing what you can look forward to playing online.

The main modes for the online includes both ranked and player matches, with quick and custom searching.  For the replay system, there is the option to toggle attack and input data, heads-up-display, and even slow down the game frame by frame. You can also save your replays to the main menu from personal or top 100 leaderboard matches.

Here is the actual translation supplied by MMCafe:

SNKP made their weekly blog update. This week, it’s about the network but there’s not much worthwhile info except that you can go frame by frame in replay. Hopefully it’s frame-by-frame in 60fps. Interestingly, there’s no mention of a slow-motion option in the blog, but the sample video shows it. Hopefully the blog’s staff didn’t mistake the two terms (frame-by-frame and slow motion).

Also, they’re out of things to talk about and they’re wondering what to write about in the next update. Here’s a quick summary.

• Network mode roughly has two options, “Ranked Match” and “Player Match”. Ranking Match allows you to play with a determined set of rules and your winning results will reflect on your ranking. Player Match on the other hand has no effect on ranking but lets you customize the rules up to a certain level.
• You can search for opponents by “Quick Matching” or “Customized Matching”. You can set various search options when using Customized Matching. Like for instance, you can filter network speed by four levels/bars. The search options are somewhat different between Ranked and Custom matches. Also, you can set a region filter as well as a network speed filter when you’re hosting.
• As a network-mode-only feature, you can save replays. You can also upload replays, but only in Ranked Match and if you’re in the monthly 100s.
• Your saved replays can be viewed from the Replay Mode in the main menu. You can also download replays from the rankings and use them for studying. You can display/hide the meters, attack data, command data, jump through rounds, pause, and go frame-by-frame.

There is a huge fight that is happening this weekend in the MMA world. Current UFC Heavyweight Champion, Cain Velasquez, will be defending his belt against one of the hardest strikers in MMA, Junior Dos Santos. The team over at THQ released this video today showing what their game had forecasted in this epic battle, one that I might remind you, is free this Saturday on FOX. While I also see Cain Velasquez coming out on top of Junior Dos Santos, I just can not see the fight happening this way at all. Junior going in for takedowns again Velasquez? And getting one? I’ve tried in the past to sim matches together on UFC Undisputed, and I’m not going to lie, it doesn’t work. The game sims matches as just two regular fighters with different traits, it does not however, take these fighters actual fighting styles or real traits and sim them together. If you watch MMA, you would know what I’m talking about it. I’ve simulated a match with Rampage Jackson, someone who would never go for takedowns, attempt to do them again and again. Undisputed might score or rate the fighters attributes, but it just doesn’t seem to get how each of the fighters would really play out the match. Anyways, enough about that, it’s just a pet peeve of mine. Here is the video for you to enjoy, the game does look great and I can’t wait to get my hands on it early next year.

One more week Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 fans and we will finally be able to get our hands on the most anticipated Call of Duty to date. In the spirit of the release, we have a new trailer that gives us a look at the new modes and match customization right here for you to take a look at.

Without further ado here is the trailer you came here for:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 releases November 8th, 2011.

Pre-order your copy right now by clicking on your console of choice below!

This is not your daddy’s Twister.  No mat or spinner; instead, you are trying to match your body to a shape cut out of a wall headed toward you on the screen.

Twister Mania is an extremely fun filled game that combines the colorful, expressive and cooperative gameplay of the iconic Twister® board game with modern updates and added hilarity for the digital generation. Just as you are the game piece for Twister®, you are now the controller in Twister™ Mania! Twist into fun with friends and family in this light-hearted, fast paced game that supports up to eight players with deep gameplay across three game modes offering 16 variations and over 1,800 shapes to play! Don’t hold back as you move your body to match your opponent’s silhouette, knock down blocks against the clock and fill in thousands of crazy shapes of all sizes and themes!

Twister Mania will be available November 1, 2011 and will retail for $49.99.  Kinect is required, and not included.

Check out the screenshots in the gallery below.

The upcoming entry to The King of Fighters series is making use of console modes including the replay system that wants players to do well if they want to share with the world.

The King of Fighters XIII utilizing a replay system where if a player succeeds in meeting particular conditions during a ranked match, they are able to upload the replay. No further info on how the system works has been released. There are also player matches for those who want to practice with friends.

Another special feature is the color edit mode where players can customize a character’s colors to their liking. They can unlock future costumes as time passes.

Similar to other fighting games is a data system where players can check their total play time and their preferred characters.

The King of Fighters XIII will be coming on Oct. 25 for both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Source: Siliconera

Hmm. Actually that makes total sense. Bethesda Softworks, maestros behind Fallout 3 and the Elder Scrolls games, apparently came this close to adapting George R.R. Martin’s epic fantasy novels of epicness into a series of video games. Todd Howard (Executive Producer of the company’s upcoming game, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim) talked with EGM.com and gave them the reasons why the studio passed on the opportunity:

“We wanted to do our own world. That’s where we wanted to put our time into. Before we were even making Skyrim, there was a conversation with George R.R. Martin’s people. They thought it would be a good match—and so did we, actually—but then we thought about if that was where we wanted to spend our time. It was tempting, though.”

Listen, I’m no huge Elder Scrolls fan (even though Skyrim gets cooler and cooler with each trailer) and I’m only just starting out on The Song of Ice and Fire books before I watch the much-touted HBO series, but I can still grasp at how utterly cool a game this would have been. And with said HBO show garnering the series such attention in both mediums, this would have been the perfect year for one. But, hey, silver lining: Game of Thrones uber-fans will be able to witness the history of Westeros in RTS form later this month when Focus Home Interactive releases Game of Thrones: Genesis. See? Not a total loss.

Source: EGM.com and IGN.com

Enjoy the video and feel free to leave your comments below.