You'd think that the Venn diagram for fans of lolita, Japanese goth, and SHMUPs wouldn't show a huge overlap, but as it turns out, the three combined genres command enough of an audience to justify Deathsmiles' extensive journey to PC.
The Japanese studio CAVE (all caps, please), the creators behind Deathsmiles and DoDonPachi have decided the Western Hemisphere is just not the place for their co-op shoot-'em-ups. In an announcement made by their English-speaking representative, Masa-King, the studio is closing its CAVEWorlden Twitter account and the CAVEWorlden word-press website on February 28th of this year. Before this announcement, the blog had not been updated in two years. CAVE noted it will still continue to provide information on the development of its games via the Japanese twitter account.
Japanese shoot-em-up maker CAVE is one of the few developers responsible for keeping the shmup genre alive (and, some would argue, for the genre's ever-dwindling popularity). We've covered several of their Xbox 360 shooters in our Co-Op International column, including Dodonpachi Resurrection and Espgaluda II. Now Japanese fans who have somehow abstained from buying most or all of the company's Xbox 360 output have reason to rejoice. The Cave Shooting Collection is coming to retail overseas, complete with a whopping 9 retail shmups, all of their DLC, and the company's sole XBLA genre entry, Guwange.
While perusing Amazon today I noticed that the two player co-op shoot em up, Deathsmiles, is on sale for $22. More specifically, the limited Xbox 360 edition of the game which normally runs $49.99 is only $22. Limited Edition extras include an exclusive Deathsmiles Xbox 360 faceplate, a CD soundtrack and special boxart.
Publisher Aksys Games has just released the Cave developed SHMUP called Deathsmiles on Xbox Live. The full game download will set you back $30 and features two player online and local co-op play.
For those of us who are Americans, today is Labor Day, marking the official end of summer. However, here at Co-Optimus, such is our devotion to co-op gaming that we bring you news up a few recent announcements even when we are resting from our labor. (Actually, I'm just putting off mowing the lawn.)
