Onimusha CT
International Distributor: Capcom
Local Distributor: Electronic Arts Taiwan
Platforms: Chinese for PC and PS2
Taiwan release: This month
Onimusha, set in 16th century feudal Japan, has long been a favorite of PS2 gamers, with its action appeal strengthened by a hero based on the pop and cinema idol Takeshi Kaneshiro (
The game, available in Japanese and English in PS2 versions, has now been released as Onimusha CT for the Chinese market. The Chinese edition is being released both on the established PS2 platform and the PC platform. While the second game in the series is currently available in Japanese and English, with a third scheduled for release later this year, the Chinese edition is a localized version of the first Onimusha game.
The survival/slasher game puts you in control of Samanosuke, a samurai warrior with many hits to his credit, not least taking out the evil warlord Nobu Nobunaga (1534 to 1582) in a daring assassination. As Onimusha CT opens, it is payback time, with Nobunaga back from the dead and ready to get even. The game scenario starts off with Nobunaga kidnapping Samanosuke's childhood sweetheart, and what follows is, naturally enough, the rescue of said sweetheart by brave hero.
In its mixture of horror (the ghost of Nobunaga and his demonic forces) and sci-fi fantasy genres, Onimusha CT bears some similarities to Resident Evil.
Splendid atmospheric graphics help give artistry to the slasher genre, and for those who care about such things, Takeshi Kaneshiro also took a part in creating the sounds and backing music for the game.
Cultures 2: Gates of Asgard
International distributor: JoWooD
Local distributor: T-Times
Platform: Chinese for PC
Taiwan release: this month
Cultures 2 by JoWooD continues a strong line of Sim City-type games. In moving to the second generation, the designers have extended the scope of the game to encompass the whole world, allowing players to experience cultural development in a whole range of cultures.
One of the biggest differences from previous games has been the incorporation of role-play elements into what is basically a city-building game structure, so that personality is added to the factors of production and construction.
Each character in Cultures 2 has their unique life experience. This can be sketched out by the player as the character grows and develops, marries, has children and dies -- all in response to the economic conditions that the player is able to create.
At the same time, the character is able to take jobs, study and generally seek to learn and adapt to the world around him or her. The combination of role-play in a Civilization-like game means that the various wars affect not just faceless military units, but the characters who inhabit your world.
The cartoon-like computer graphics have a fresh simplicity to them, with the costumes and architecture of individual cultures reflected in the appearance of the game characters.
According to Antonio Lu (
"You need to establish schools and provide job opportunities so that your society can go on developing," he said. "By putting these different gaming formats together, it is hoped that Cultures 2 will appeal to both fans of role-play and of building/production games, Lu said.
X-Men: Wolverine's Revenge
International Distributor: Activision, Marvel
Local Distributor: Unalis Technology
Platform: English for Xbox and PC
Release: PC this month; Xbox in June
If you haven't had enough of X-Men 2 at the cinema, why don't you relive the film through X-Men the game, which takes as its lead character Wolverine, played by Hugh Jackman. The game establishes details of Wolverine's past that are only hinted at in the movie.
It reveals that Logan had been part of a experiment to produce X-men fighting machines. When the experiment failed, the test subjects were injected with a drug to destroy them. Logan must find the antidote in 48 hours, before the drug kicks in.
The structure is fairly predictable and cuts out many of the other characters that made the first X-Men movie so appealing, but is nevertheless a fast paced puzzle-solving and action game that has little that is new in terms of game play, but plenty of appeal in terms of marketing tie-ins.
In addition, there are short missions to enhance Wolverine's skills and secrets to discover along the way, as Logan gradually discovers more about his past.
The Lord of the Rings -- The Return of the King
International Distributor: Electronic Arts
Local Distributor: Electronic Arts Taiwan
Platforms: English version for PC, PS2, Xbox, Gamecube, GBA
Taiwan release: Fall 2003
Electronic Arts has announced the Taiwan release of The Lord of the Rings -- The Return of the King in versions suitable for all main gaming platforms under the EA Games label.
Based on the third part of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, to be released by New Line Cinema this Christmas, it will give gamers a chance to sample aspects of the film before it is seen by cinema audiences. The third-person game allows players to take control of a choice of major characters including Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, Sam and Frodo.
An all-new multiplayer co-op mode will let players form their own Fellowship before embarking on their journey through Middle Earth.
After The People’s Republic of China (PRC) published 22 new guidelines on June 21 that allow its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death “Taiwan independence separatists,” the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) upgraded its travel advisory to the PRC and the Special Administrative Regions (SARs) of Hong Kong and Macau to level 3, or “orange” alert, meaning Taiwanese nationals shouldn’t visit unless “absolutely necessary.” Surveying commuters in Taipei’s bustling Main Station on Thursday, the Taipei Times found only 20 percent of people we spoke to had not heard that the travel alert had been raised to orange. Similarly, only
Over the past year, a peculiar phrase has begun to litter Asian women’s social media accounts: “Oxford study.” An Asian woman vlogging about her dating life — and particularly about dating white men — gets commenters reacting to her updates with the words “Oxford study.” A young Asian student showing off her prom dress with her white boyfriend sees “obligatory Oxford study comment” on her TikTok. “I can already hear the oxford study comments coming,” one Asian woman captions a video of her dancing with her white partner. The phrase “Oxford study” refers to just that: an academic study out of Oxford
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The local press is already running lots of content on the jostling and jockeying for power within the parties to be in position to emerge as the chosen candidates in the 2026 elections. In part one of this series we examined some of the strategies being pursued and considerations the parties faced, and examined the races in northern Taiwan. The races in the northern “big six” metropolises share a lot of similarities with each other, and the southern ones of Tainan and Kaohsiung also have commonalities. Taichung will comprise part three of this series, as it is a complicated race