While most of Ubisoft's Q1 fiscal report will consist of the usual gigantic sales numbers (up 25.8% to €169 million) and a smattering of bold, forward-looking statements, there's also something for gamers to look forward to. On the last page of a press release, the international giant confirms that they will publish the formerly import-only mecha battler Armored Core: For Answeron PS3 and Xbox 360 this fall.
It's pretty cut and dried:
Though Agetec had traditionally published the Armored Core series overseas -- Sega taking over during the transition to current-gen consoles -- following the mixed reviews of Armored Core 4 neither company made any indication that its sequel, For Answer, would find release outside of Japan.
The Ubisoft link was first discovered by a Wal-Mart employee posting at GameSpot earlier this month. An alleged printout from the Wal-Mart computers pegs the exact release date as September 16th, and with his or her credibility significantly boosted by this reveal and the Ubisoft document clearly showing an intended release within that timeframe, the date seems likely.
For what it's worth, Armored Core: For Answer actually scored one point lower than its predecessor in Weekly Famitsu (30 for ACFA, 31 for AC4) but perhaps the more recent title better appeals to American sensibilities. Or something. We won't read much into it, because the game looks awesome:
i am a fan of the armored core series and also to anyone who thinking that armored core sucks i have advice for u play it right not how normal gamers do b/c most gamers start playing on xbox live immediatly without knowing the importance of beating single player to get parts and frs and as a result it is played less b/c the person that does the wrong approach tells his or her friends that the game sucks(i know i b/c i know 2 people who have done the same thing). the armored core series takes practice to get used to i could think of some players who do not play this game also end up playing some of the world's best armored core player like some of my friends on xbox live and maybe me and get slautered by our mechs, but realize it took practice and hours of custimizing our mechs to be that good so it takes a process of trial and error for anymore info go to thenewark.homeip.net and who knows we might make u a fan already if we do we might actually get armored core 5 if we r lucky
The only reason ACFA actually is scoring lower than AC4 is because of the current regs. Regulations 1.2 isn't really that good, as there isn't enough design diversity. That said, everyone has the option of playing on 1.1, where there is a nice amount of design diversity, but the Assault Armor feature is much, much more dangerous (it's like a bomb from your PA, and people use it as a panic button whenever someone tries to go CQC on them). Assault Armor got balanced in reg 1.2, but the drastic and unnecessary increase in speed killed off most play-styles and designs from being remotely useful. Maybe by September, regulations 1.3 will come out and have this fixed, since regulations 1.2 was based off a poll of Japanese players who are now eating sour grapes because of their own suggestions.
no that be b/c u have not got used to it and i was talking about how players that i desrcibed in my last entry and the assault armor will prevent a guy from pretty much getting in ur face and shooting while doging ur attacks at the same time b/c it is trickyy hitting those kind of targets and assaault armor is optional since it depends on the over booster that is being used and who cares about regulations b/c what u say is true then it is not a problem and the resign there is not enough design diversity is b/c someone who gets beaten will copy the person who beats them like half of ac4 players pretty much use dual riflers w/permaflyters that people use second stage boosting and also i have several different designs for my guys b/c i will probably not use the same guy again until 25 more matches b/c i was to busy using all my other 25 designs
i had a typo in the 1st line after about and before and the assaault. i meant to say how players who r new to the armored core series and do everything wrong
^ Does it hurt to provide punctuation in your messages?
And btw I imported this game when it first was released in Japan. The new game hype wore off in a bout a week for me. The new lighting and broad spectrum of new parts are nifty, but so far the current regs are utter trash. AC4 already had a pretty dominant range, backpedalling game. ACFA is much worse because they lowered weapon accuracies down to Last Raven range. Assault Armor just kills cqc in general, if it already wasn't killed. Basically if you try to get in the "right in your face" range, basically the only range mgs and shotguns and alike are effective, you'll get a face full of AA that does 15k ap damage to you.
Hopefully they'll come out with newer regs that further balances the game. But as of right now, AC4 is way more balanced than ACFA, and has about the same design diversity.
As for For Answer's single player, who cares about AC's single player it's always been trash and will always be trash.
Jared, I wasn't even replying to you - I was commenting on the observation made by Sean Hollister in his article. That's about all I could get out of your response, considering you don't realize that coherence or punctuation exists. I wonder if you even own ACFA, because you really have no clue as to what you're talking about here.
See, I own ACFA, and let me clue you in on something: The metagame for ACFA on Reg. 1.1 has about 6-8 different viable design and play styles you can choose from that will work competitively, depending on the definitions of differences between some designs and styles. Now, let's look at Reg. 1.2. You have, at most 3-4 viable design and play styles, but in all honesty, they all end up falling under two styles: Blading or Anti-Blading. Where's the design diversity in that? Hell, AC4 had more design diversity than that. Lucky for everyone who owns ACFA right now, we can still play matches using Reg. 1.1 and not 1.2. Seriously, 1.2 would have been great if FROM hadn't decided to up the speed more - it was perfectly fine the way it was.
I went back and looked at the date of the score - it's from March. That's before Reg. 1.2 came out. Apparently the Japanese didn't like 1.1 that much because of the strength Assault Armor had (it literally changed the face of CQC, most importers think for the worse...), at least that's my guess. I wonder what the score is now though... I'd guess probably lower if it got re-rated.
[...] since then fell off the radar for any hope of a US release. However, that’s all changed as Gamecyte has discovered that Ubisoft will be picking up the game and will ship the mechanized warfare to [...]
[...] since then fell off the radar for any hope of a US release. However, that’s all changed as Gamecyte has discovered that Ubisoft will be picking up the game and will ship the mechanized warfare to [...]
[...] hope of a US release. However, that’s all changed as Gamecyte has discovered that Ubisoft will be picking up the game and will [...]
July 24th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
i am a fan of the armored core series and also to anyone who thinking that armored core sucks i have advice for u play it right not how normal gamers do b/c most gamers start playing on xbox live immediatly without knowing the importance of beating single player to get parts and frs and as a result it is played less b/c the person that does the wrong approach tells his or her friends that the game sucks(i know i b/c i know 2 people who have done the same thing). the armored core series takes practice to get used to i could think of some players who do not play this game also end up playing some of the world's best armored core player like some of my friends on xbox live and maybe me and get slautered by our mechs, but realize it took practice and hours of custimizing our mechs to be that good so it takes a process of trial and error for anymore info go to thenewark.homeip.net and who knows we might make u a fan already if we do we might actually get armored core 5 if we r lucky
July 24th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
The only reason ACFA actually is scoring lower than AC4 is because of the current regs. Regulations 1.2 isn't really that good, as there isn't enough design diversity. That said, everyone has the option of playing on 1.1, where there is a nice amount of design diversity, but the Assault Armor feature is much, much more dangerous (it's like a bomb from your PA, and people use it as a panic button whenever someone tries to go CQC on them). Assault Armor got balanced in reg 1.2, but the drastic and unnecessary increase in speed killed off most play-styles and designs from being remotely useful. Maybe by September, regulations 1.3 will come out and have this fixed, since regulations 1.2 was based off a poll of Japanese players who are now eating sour grapes because of their own suggestions.
July 24th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
no that be b/c u have not got used to it and i was talking about how players that i desrcibed in my last entry and the assault armor will prevent a guy from pretty much getting in ur face and shooting while doging ur attacks at the same time b/c it is trickyy hitting those kind of targets and assaault armor is optional since it depends on the over booster that is being used and who cares about regulations b/c what u say is true then it is not a problem and the resign there is not enough design diversity is b/c someone who gets beaten will copy the person who beats them like half of ac4 players pretty much use dual riflers w/permaflyters that people use second stage boosting and also i have several different designs for my guys b/c i will probably not use the same guy again until 25 more matches b/c i was to busy using all my other 25 designs
July 24th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
i had a typo in the 1st line after about and before and the assaault. i meant to say how players who r new to the armored core series and do everything wrong
July 25th, 2008 at 9:36 am
^ Does it hurt to provide punctuation in your messages?
And btw I imported this game when it first was released in Japan. The new game hype wore off in a bout a week for me. The new lighting and broad spectrum of new parts are nifty, but so far the current regs are utter trash. AC4 already had a pretty dominant range, backpedalling game. ACFA is much worse because they lowered weapon accuracies down to Last Raven range. Assault Armor just kills cqc in general, if it already wasn't killed. Basically if you try to get in the "right in your face" range, basically the only range mgs and shotguns and alike are effective, you'll get a face full of AA that does 15k ap damage to you.
Hopefully they'll come out with newer regs that further balances the game. But as of right now, AC4 is way more balanced than ACFA, and has about the same design diversity.
As for For Answer's single player, who cares about AC's single player it's always been trash and will always be trash.
July 25th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
Jared, I wasn't even replying to you - I was commenting on the observation made by Sean Hollister in his article. That's about all I could get out of your response, considering you don't realize that coherence or punctuation exists. I wonder if you even own ACFA, because you really have no clue as to what you're talking about here.
See, I own ACFA, and let me clue you in on something: The metagame for ACFA on Reg. 1.1 has about 6-8 different viable design and play styles you can choose from that will work competitively, depending on the definitions of differences between some designs and styles. Now, let's look at Reg. 1.2. You have, at most 3-4 viable design and play styles, but in all honesty, they all end up falling under two styles: Blading or Anti-Blading. Where's the design diversity in that? Hell, AC4 had more design diversity than that. Lucky for everyone who owns ACFA right now, we can still play matches using Reg. 1.1 and not 1.2. Seriously, 1.2 would have been great if FROM hadn't decided to up the speed more - it was perfectly fine the way it was.
July 25th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
I'll admit I hadn't read the actual text of the Famitsu review, just compared the scores... Did they base their review on 1.2?
July 26th, 2008 at 6:17 am
I went back and looked at the date of the score - it's from March. That's before Reg. 1.2 came out. Apparently the Japanese didn't like 1.1 that much because of the strength Assault Armor had (it literally changed the face of CQC, most importers think for the worse...), at least that's my guess. I wonder what the score is now though... I'd guess probably lower if it got re-rated.