Of Knights And Kats

Thousands of Kats. Millions of Kats! A horde of cursed black kats swarming the clockworks. Haunting corners, spooking the unwary, knocking things off shelves, asking to go out and then wanting to come right back in … and what-not.

The Story: Some unknown nefarious something/something has released an absolutely insane number of Kats into the Clockworks.

Awesome! Now what? Actually this is kind of a problem. A – wait for it — katastrophe. Now that we have that out of the way: seriously though it’s kind of bad down there. The Kat spooks are drawn to arcane energy, of the sort that Moorcroft Manor is just absolutely brimming with.

Like most Manors, Moorcroft keeps their arcane energy safely ensconced within magical grimoires. A grimoire is a type of book for people who wear robes. Just trust us that this is important.

Okay, Then: Advanced scouts have determined that a) Kats cannot read (that’s good!) and b) they are just eating the freaking things instead (that’s bad). Look, don’t ask us to explain how cats, let alone mystical undead ghost Kat versions, go about problem solving.

Event Overview

What: Kataclysmic Confrontation is a new event for Spiral Knights – it will run for a limited time, and, as with all invasions of phantom felines, will return in the future! Due to the excessive danger of the Black Kat invasion, these missions are only available for Knights who have achieved rank 4-1 and up.

Event Goals: The object of the event: to collect Ancient Page tokens from Black Kats. Ancient Page tokens will be awarded either as daily Prestige Mission rewards, or as drops from individual Black Kat monsters via missions from the Arcade.

Meow? The villain of this event – the Black Kat! This is a new monster type equipped with a power ability to snub any food you offer it … and curse your immortal soul! Seriously though, the Black Kats deliver curse damage, so watch out for that. They can be randomly found in place of any Spookat-type monster in a Tier 2 or Tier 3 level of the Clockworks.

Meow! Indeed! The Kataclysmic Confrontation event is scheduled to end on February 13th.

Moorcroft Manor: Going to Katmandu

Knights are now able to explore the Archives, a newly accessible area of Moorcroft Manor. Therein, you will find the Ancient Grimoires … and also the Black Kats who ate them. So there’s that.

Features:

• Pembrooke, the Spookat caretaker of the Moorcroft Archives
• Montague, the Historic Preservation Motivator. Montague is a token trader that exchanges rewards for Ancient Page tokens.
• Moorcroft Alchemy Station, where Kat Gear can be crafted!
• The mysterious Konjuring Kat. What koncerns this kitty? Perhaps if you had the right item …

New Gear and New Guild Hall Features

In addition to a veritable ocean of phantom Black Kats choking the gears of the Clockworks and devouring ancient books, there is also: New Stuff! and… New Furniture!

Many new Kat-themed helms of high quality are available from Montague, within the Moorcroft Manor addition.

For guild-minded Knights, there are also a variety of new themes available with which to decorate your Guild Halls – whole decoration schemes, as well as Environment themes, allowing you to have actual weather conditions inside your Guild Hall! Which is crazy. Crazy awesome.

Please see the official patch notes for additional information, changes, and details on new STUFF!

Ron Gilbert & Double Fine’s newest adventure game is here! The Cave launched last week and now that reviewers have seen, played, and enjoyed the game we’re happy to post some articles from their travels. Take a look and be sure to post your own feedback from your experiences in the comments below…

IGN.com

“Delightfully, The Cave is, in fact, a pure, puzzle-solving adventure game rife with funny lines and chuckle-inducing non sequiturs despite trying to disguise itself as a side-scrolling platformer.”

Read the full IGN review here

EGM

The Cave is a classic PC-style adventure game in which you choose between seven characters and take a group of three into a mysterious talking cave. Once there, platforming, puzzles, and hilarity ensue.

Read EGM’s full review here

Gamespot

“The Cave’s puzzles are challenging, its story is well constructed and narrated, and its cartoon-like visuals and sprawling, morphing tunnels are pleasant to look at.”

Read the full review on Gamespot.com

Kotaku

“The feeling I’m left with after having played the game several times over is that I’m reminded by how much I love adventure games with clever puzzles. Because it reminds me that gamers can be smart problem-solvers. We can be resourceful and thoughtful. We can make the best of a situation. We can look at our set of tools and piece seemingly uncooperative items together to create something to our advantage. Even if all the while we’re being taught a lesson about the narrow-viewed goal seeking we often take up when we pick up a controller.”

Read the full Kotaku review

Gamereactor

Ron Gilbert has created another memorable adventure – a dark, twisted and decidedly moist spelunking adventure.

Read the full Gamereactor review here

Read Up on all the Reviews!

Gaming-age.com
Gameinformer.com
Gamesradar.com/
Venturebeat.com/
1up.com
Videogamer.com
oxm.co.uk
Godisageek.com
Shopto.net
Gametrailers.com/
Gamerstemple.com
3djuegos.com
Gamingnexus.com/
Honestxboxreviews.com
Sticktwiddlers.com

What about you?

We’ve heard from the critics, but we haven’t heard from you! Have you played The Cave, do you have a favorite moment or character? Let us know in the comments.

Today’s Free Stuff Friday giveaway is all about The Cave! Specifically we’re giving away Steam codes allowing you to pick up and play The Cave right now on either Mac or PC platforms!

How it Works

1. You must be following us on Twitter to be eligible. (If you don’t have a Twitter account, you can create one by going to http://www.twitter.com and click the green “get started — join!” button in the center of the page.)

2. At random times on Friday, we will announce the prize we are giving away, a word or phrase, and what number of response you need to be to win. Send us a direct message (DM) via Twitter and be that number to win the prize. (@ replies do not count as entries!) We only accept one direct message per person per prize!

Example:

We tweet “GIVEAWAY: Sonic T-shirt, size L. Be the 15th person to DM “Sonic Adventure” to win!” (don’t actually DM this, it’s not the way to enter)

You see this, and want to win it, so you send us a direct message that says “Sonic Adventure”. If you are the 15th person to do so, you are the winner!

Quotation marks do not matter, capitalization does not matter, but spelling does matter!

3. All followers are eligible to win all prizes, unless a restriction is noted. Restrictions are usually due to the prize being region-locked. For example, US games that won’t work on UK gaming systems. There may also be age restrictions due to the rating of the game.

4. We will announce the winner on our Twitter feed once eligibility is confirmed.

Other Assorted Information:

• Free Stuff Friday duties alternate between the London and San Francisco offices and are done during business hours (usually mid-morning) in our respective time zones.
• No, you can’t know what number message you were – so please don’t ask! We will tell you that the information is classified!
• If you have questions during the giveaway, please contact us with an @reply. As you can imagine, we get a whole lot of direct messages during the contests and there is a very good chance we will miss your question if it is sent as a DM.

How to Send Direct Messages on Twitter

Due to a change in our account status with Twitter, you should be able to send us direct messages without us following you if you are using the Twitter website. However, third-party applications may not allow you to.

There are a few ways to send us a Direct Message on Twitter. The easiest way is:

1. Log in to your Twitter account.
2. Click on the person icon and select Direct messages from the drop down menu.
3. You’ll see a pop up showing your Direct message history. Click the New message button, highlighted below.
4. In the address box, type the name or username (SEGA) of the person you wish to send a message to.
5. Enter your message and click Send message.

You may also select the “direct messages” tab from your Twitter homepage, and select SEGA from the drop-down menu at the top of the page. Again, if you don’t see our name there, it’s probably because we’re not following you. Let us know, and we’ll follow you. If you still have questions on sending direct messages, please visit Twitter’s Help Section.

There are also many Twitter clients that you can use instead of using the website. These include TweetDeck, Twitteriffic, Tweetie, and Twhirl. Each of these programs works differently, so you’ll want to figure out how to send a direct message on the program you use. If you want to send us a test message, we’ll let you know if we received it or not. Please make sure your message says “test” somewhere.

SEGA Corporation (Headquarters: Tokyo, President, Representative Director, and Chief Operating Officer: Naoya Tsurumi, “SEGA”) acquired all of shares of THQ Canada Inc. (Headquarters: Vancouver, Canada, “THQ Canada”) and some IPs owned by THQ Inc., a parent company of THQ Canada on January 24, 2013 in order to further reinforce PC game development capabilities in the U.S. and European regions. THQ Canada has developed million-seller franchise titles such as “Warhammer 40k Dawn of War” and “Company of Heroes” under the brand of Relic Entertainment Studio.

Relic Entertainment was established in 1997 and acquired by THQ Canada in 2004. THQ Canada have been known familiarly as Relic Entertainment since the acquisition and provided a number of high quality games equipped with graphics equal in quality to movies and rich strategic game features mainly for the PC market in the U.S. and European regions. THQ Canada provides several million seller franchise titles, and its representative products include the “Warhammer 40k Dawn of War” series,.  As a series Warhammer 40k Dawn of War has sold more than 7 million copies worldwide, whilst the “Company of Heroes” series, a real time strategy game based on the modern history of warfare from World War II and after,  has sold more than 4 million copies worldwide.

“We are thrilled to have Relic Entertainment join the SEGA family. The acquisition is a strategic fit and a critical step in growing our business,” John Cheng, President and CFO, SEGA of America said. “They are a well-respected studio with a pedigree for making creative and innovative games and we look forward to seeing what great things we can create together over the coming years.”

SEGA already owns three development companies in the U.S. and Europe, and is progressing to support compatibility with the rapidly expanding online games field, such as PC online games, smartphone games and social games. As a result of the THQ Canada acquisition, SEGA will further advance the provision of various appealing entertainment contents by utilizing THQ Canada’s high-end content development capabilities and accumulated development know-how, and increase SEGA’s presence in the PC online game market.

Company names and product names mentioned above are registered trademarks or trademarks of the respective companies.

As part of PlayStation Network’s Thirteen for Thirteen sale, we have three SEGA games discounted for you, with special deals for PlayStation Plus members. Please keep in mind these sales are for North America only!

Here’s what’s up:

NiGHTS Into Dreams…  
Regular Price: $9.99
Sale Price: $4.99
PSN Plus Price: $2.50

Jet Set Radio
Regular Price: $9.99
Sale Price: $4.99
PSN Plus Price: $2.50

The House of the Dead: OVERKILL Extended Cut
Regular Price: $19.99
Sale Price: $9.99
PSN Plus Price: $5.00

The SEGA Cup is coming this April, offering Virtua Fighter fans from around the world a chance to complete for top honors in a SEGA-sponsored tournament. Along the way, we’re doing something fun – we’re taking an established 2D fighting champion and challenging him to compete in Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown.

The Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown Challenge

Meet Justin Wong. Active in the fighting game community for over 10 years, Justin is an absolute Pro fighting game player. His tournament background will tell you he excels at 2D fighters, bringing in top honors at a variety of major tournaments, such as EVO, for games like Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Marvel vs Capcom 3, Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike, Street Fighter IV, and more. Justin is a fighter through and through, and like any strong competitive player, he likes to challenge himself to be the very best.

“I look forward to playing Virtual Fighter 5 Final Showdown. I have played just about every fighting game that’s out besides it. It’s definitely a hard game that takes a lot of dedication and I would love to see if I can learn the game and play with the players that have enjoyed it for so long.”

The Road to SEGA Cup 2013

While Justin is great at 2D games and occasionally 3D fighting games, he’s not played Virtua Fighter 5 in a competitive format. Ever. We’re giving Justin the keys, letting him set his training regimen and we’re inviting everyone along for the ride.

Want to see what character he picks? Follow his twitter at @JWonggg for all the up-to-the-minute details. Want to see him spar online against other players in matches? Catch the streams and see how he’s progressing. Want more details on the training and playing? Read the SEGA blog regularly to grab an in-depth look at key areas of the game.

Look for more info on The Virtua Fighter Challenge right here on the blog, we’ll have more info as we get closer to the tournament.

We’re excited that the critically acclaimed BAYONETTA will soon be available for download on the PlayStation Network! Experience the free flowing over-the-top action of BAYONETTA from the creators of Devil May Cry and Resident Evil. Play as a witch with powers beyond the comprehension of mere mortals, and face-off against countless enemies, evil forces and giant sized bosses in a game of 100% pure unadulterated all-out action.

Directed by Hideki Kamiya, this stylish and cinematic action game is known for outlandish finishing moves that are performed with balletic grace as Bayonetta flows fluidly from one fight to another. With magnificent over-the-top action taking place in stages that are a veritable theme park of exciting attractions, Bayonetta pushes the limits of the action genre, bringing to life its fast-paced, dynamic climax combat.

BAYONETTA™ is available for download in the U.S. on January 29^th for $19.99 and in Europe on January 30^th for £11.99 on PSN and is already available on Xbox LIVE Arcade for the Xbox 360.

Including the award-winning SHOGUN 2 (2011), plus its thrilling expansions Rise of The Samurai (2011) and Fall of The Samurai (2012), Total War SHOGUN 2 GOLD Edition is a stunning collection that contains the entire saga from start to finish, and features hundreds of hours of award-winning strategy gaming.

North American Gold Edition

Total War: SHOGUN 2
MASTER THE ART OF WAR in the darkest age of Japan, endless war leaves a country divided. It is the middle of the 16th Century in Feudal Japan. The country, once ruled by a unified government, is now split into many warring clans. Ten legendary warlords strive for supremacy as conspiracies and conflicts wither the empire.

Total War: SHOGUN 2 – Rise of the Samurai
Set 400 years before the dramatic civil war depicted in SHOGUN 2, the “Rise of The Samurai” campaign is based on the Gempei War, a conflict between six legendary clans of the Taira, Minamoto and Fujiwara families. It culminated in the first Shogunate, and the rise of the Samurai as the ruling class.

Total War: SHOGUN 2 – Fall of the Samurai
The standalone expansion to the award-winning Total War: SHOGUN 2 explores the conflict between the Imperial throne and the last Shogunate in 19th century Japan, 400 years after the events of the original game. A dramatic clash of traditional Samurai culture with the explosive power of modern weaponry.

The North American GOLD Edition includes all three titles, and is available at retailers from March 5th.

European & Australian Gold Edition

Including all three SHOGUN titles plus all released downloadable content (excluding the Blood Pack), in limited-production Wajima-nuri inspired packaging.

Total War: SHOGUN 2
Total War: SHOGUN 2 – Rise of the Samurai
Total War: SHOGUN 2 – Fall of the Samurai

Dragon War Battle Pack
Hattori ‘Ninja’ Clan Pack
Ikko Ikki ‘Warrior Monk’ Clan Pack
Otomo ‘Gunpowder’ Clan Pack
Saga Clan Pack
Obama Clan Pack
Tsu Clan Pack
Sendai Clan Pack
Saints & Heroes Elite Unit Pack
Sengoku Jidai Elite Unit Pack

The GOLD Edition is available from retailers in Europe and Australia from March 8th.