Namco Bandai's E3 line-up
Xenosaga, Tales, more.
Namco Bandai's announced that its first E3 line-up since the merger will be headlined by the likes of Xenosaga Episode III, Tales of the Abyss and Mobile Ops: The One Year War. In all the company's got 19 games down to show, covering more or less all the consoles, PC and handhelds.
Most of the attention from you lot's likely to focus on Xenosaga Episode III: Also sprach Zarathustra, the third in the company's... shall we say 'verbose' RPG series; Tales of the Abyss, another epic Tales RPG with beautiful anime cut-scenes by Production I.G.; and Gundam-inspired 360 title Mobile Ops: The One Year War.
Also on the cards are a trio of interesting PSP titles in Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception, Tekken: Dark Resurrection and The Legend of Heroes II: Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch. Dunno about the last one actually, but it's due out in June so we won't have long to wait to see.
Namco's also using E3 to showcase its burgeoning PC line-up, consisting of Mage Knight Apocalypse, Warhammer: Mark of Chaos and Hellgate: London. All three should draw the crowds - assuming the PC version of Pac-Man World Rally isn't too exciting. That's also out on PS2, PSP and Cube, incidentally.
Moving away from gamey stuff, Namco also has a crop of licenses - from films, cartoons and Japanese anime series. The main ones you'll recognise are The Fast and The Furious (PS2/PSP), Snoopy vs. The Red Baron (PS2/PSP/PC) and Charlie Brown's All-Stars (PS2/PSP), while Rob will be heartened by the presence of Naruto: Ultimate Ninja (PS2), Zatchbell!: Mamodo Fury (which sounds like some sort of genetic experiment involving Saved by the Bell and angry river-dwelling mammals, and is due on PS2/Cube), .hack//G.U. Vol.1: Rebirth (PS2), One Piece Grand Adventure (PS2/Cube), IGPX (PS2) and Eureka Seven Vol.1: The New Wave (PS2).
E3 takes place next Wednesday to Friday in LA.
Oh, and if you think E3's going to disappear off into the distance with just ONE next-gen game from Namco Bandai, you're probably going to be disappointed. Expect more from them. The tricksters.
