Final Fantasy VII Coming to the PC (Again)

Back in 1998, SquareSoft and Eidos released a PC version of Final Fantasy VII to the world. While the release featured slight improvements over the original Playstation version such as minor translation and typo fixes, it had problems and bugs of its own. Now, 14 years later, Square Enix decides to give it another shot. Soon, players of old and new will be able to buy the PC version of FFVII as a digital download directly from Square Enix Store. This new re-release is updated with 36 achievements to unlock, an option to boost your character stats and gil, and cloud save support that will make it easy for you to enjoy the game no matter which PC you use. You can check out the game's official website at finalfantasyviipc.com to find out more about the new features but you have to come back later for the release date as Square Enix only lists that as "Coming Soon" for now.

Summer 2012 Anime

Here's a list of new anime for the summer season.

Guild Wars 2 Launches on 28/08/2012

Are you ready for this? ArenaNet has finally given us the release date for Guild Wars 2 - 28th August 2012. That means we're two months away from the launch of what could be one of the most anticipated MMOs of this generation! ArenaNet also plans to carry out one last Beta Weekend Event from the 20th to the 22nd of July so if you want to be a part of it, remember to pre-purchase the game before that.

Agni's Philosophy - Final Fantasy Realtime Tech Demo

Square Enix released a new tech demo at E3 today and it looks great! The demo, which runs on the next gen Luminous engine, is rendered entirely in realtime. At this point, Square-Enix hasn't clarified whether "Agni's Philosophy" is related to Final Fantasy XV or not, despite being called a Final Fantasy demo. It may be nothing more than a tech demo, just like the Final Fantasy VII HD demo that SE showed many years back.

E3 2012 Live Streams

Microsoft E3 2012 Press Conference
Date & Time: 4th June, 9:30am-11:00am (PST)  /  5th June, 12:30am-2:00am (GMT+8)
Links: GameSpot, G4, XBox.com

EA E3 2012 Press Conference
Date & Time: 4th June, 1:00pm-2:00pm (PST)  /  5th June, 4:00am-5:00am (GMT+8)
Links: GameSpot, G4, EA.com

Ubisoft E3 2012 Press Conference
Date & Time: 4th June, 3:00pm-4:00pm (PST)  /  5th June, 6:00am-7:00am (GMT+8)
Links: GameSpot, G4, Youtube

Sony E3 2012 Press Conference
Date & Time: 4th June, 6:00pm-7:30pm (PST)  /  5th June, 9:00am-10:30am (GMT+8)
Links: GameSpot, G4, Playstation.com

Nintendo E3 2012 Press Conference
Date & Time: 5th June, 9:00am-10:00am (PST)  /  6th June, 12:00am-1:00am (GMT+8)
Links: GameSpot, G4, Nintendo.com

Aerith's Theme Ranked 16th In Classic FM's Hall of Fame 2012

Aerith's Theme, the famous track from Final Fantasy VII made history recently by becoming the first video game music to have ever made it into the Classic FM Hall of Fame! The track, composed by Uematsu Nobuo, took the 16th spot on the chart. Final Fantasy VII celebrates its 15th anniversary this year.

You Can Now Pre-Purchase Guild Wars 2

Guild Wars 2 might not have a release date yet (that remains to be "when it's ready") but starting today you can pre-purchase the game at buy.guildwars2.com and get some nice in-game goodies. What's more, pre-purchasing Guild Wars 2 (paying full price for the game in advance) does not only guarantee you the access to all upcoming beta events, it also gives you a 3-day headstart access when the game officially launches. ArenaNet has also put up a list of retailers where you can get the standard as well as the collector's editions of the game from but if you live outside of North America, Europe or Australia, it'd be much easier just to get the digital copy version from the website above. So far, there's no mention on whether any of the retailers in Asian or other countries will carry the game or not.

Spring 2012 Anime

Spring is here! And that means Japan has readied a fresh batch of new anime (plus a number of sequels) for us. Here's a quick look at what they are.

New Sword Art Online Anime Trailer

The official website for the Sword Art Online anime has just posted a new 3 minutes long trailer for the show. The anime, which is adapted from Kawahara Reki's light novel series of the same name, will begin airing this July.

Kawahara's other work, Accel World is also getting an anime adaptation and it's scheduled to start next month.

AnimeReactor Awards 2011

Every year, selected members from the AnimeReactor (ARC) forum community come together to pick what they think were the best anime they've seen in the previous year, and organise them into roughly two dozen award categories. Hundreds of titles are considered by the jury before the nominees are finalised and revealed to the public in the ARC forums, after which forum members can freely cast their votes on the polls associated with each award category for the anime they feel should win. The votes are counted a few weeks later and the anime with the highest number of votes in each category becomes the winner. The ARC Awards may be unofficial, but it gives us a good idea which shows are popular with anime fans outside of Japan.

The 6th Annual Seiyuu Awards

Japan gives out awards to voice actors for their outstanding performances in anime and other forms of media entertainment in 2011.

Sign Up For Guild Wars 2 Beta Now!

Signups will only be open for 48 hours so hurry over to Guild Wars 2 Beta website and register!

Final Fantasy XIII-2 Launches!

The latest installment in the Final Fantasy series, Final Fantasy XIII-2, is finally out in North America and Asia. The European version of the game will be released on 3rd February.

New Code Geass: Boukoku no Akito Info

Finally, some new information on the Code Geass spin-off anime, Boukoku no Akito (Code Geass: Akito the Exiled). At a Code Geass event that took place last week, Sunrise announced that the anime will be shown in Japanese theatres starting this summer. The main character Akito is going to be voiced by Irino Miyu, and Sakamoto Maaya will play Reira Marukaru as well as sing the show's theme song. The song will reunite Maaya with composer Kanno Yoko (Macross Frontier, Sousei no Aquarion) and lyricist Iwasato Yuuho. The three of them worked on Maaya's debut song "Yakusoku wa Iranai", which was the opening theme for 1996's Tenkuu no Escaflowne. Sunrise is also planning to release a movie adaptation of the original Code Geass TV series Lelouch of the Rebellion, but haven't said anything about a release date.

Reira and Akito