Being the opposite of subtle Square-Enix has established the release goal of 2010 for the latest installment in the long running Final Fantasy series for a 124-foot tall billboard across from E3. Indeed Square officially set the year 2010 as the intended release date for the thirteenth Final Fantasy game at both the Sony and Microsoft press conferences.

But while everyone was expecting a Final Fantasy 13 announcement the audience at the Sony press conference was shocked by the announcement of Final Fantasy 13 Online. The new title will be Squares second Massive Multi-Player Online Role Playing game and at this time has been set for a 2010 release as a Play Station 3 and PC exclusive.

I’m impressed by Square’s ability to keep such a huge title a secret. The development of Final Fantasy 13 has been known since shortly before the last game was released in 2005 but no one had any knowledge that Square was working on the game and the fact that this game is nearly done is shocking. Check out the trailers for both games below.

Final Fantasy XIII

Source: Destructoid

Dream C Club, an upcoming game from D3 Publisher, is a virtual hostess game where a player can experience all the excitement of a host club without actually being there! The majority of the game consists of drinking and watching girls singing. The main game play element is called “IIS” or “Interactive Inshu (drinking Alcohol) System.” Players will try to control their own drunkenness level while attempting to get their host drunk so she’ll talk about personal things. Did I mention this was a video game? It seems kind of insane to care about the personal life of a virtual dancing girl.

The system for talking with the hostess is called “ETS” or “Emotional talk system” which gives players three responses for answering the host’s questions. But again, the majority of your time will be spent watching these girls dancing and sing.

Honestly… it doesn’t look that bad.

Source: Kotaku

A long awaited trailer for the next game in the legendary Final Fantasy series has arrived at E3. Although most of the trailer is prerendered the gameplay footage soon looks very good. The most impressive being the detailed backgrounds shown at the end. Water has traditionally been used to show off the power of a graphics engine and the waterfalls here give just a hint a hint at the power of Crystal Tools.

Let’s avoid the ugliness of Square deciding to port the game to the xBox360. I’ll handle that in a later post if I stop frothing at the mouth.