News

In the latest tidbit regarding Final Fantasy IV DS, Square Enix has opened auditions to find a vocalist for the game's title song, Theme of Love.

Auditions are open to anyone 18 and older, regardless of gender and experience. Applicants are required to send in a basic profile, self introduction, photo, and demo tape. And, in the spirit of the auditions, Theme of Love composer Nobuo Uematsu as well as Final Fantasy IV Director Takashi Tokita have recorded their thoughts and discussions regarding the topic of love. Radio streams of this discussion are available on Square Enix's website.


Sources:
GA Graphic
Dengeki Online

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I'm tempted to record a demo tape and send it in. Too bad (or, good thing) I'm very aware of how awful my singing voice is. :P

Nonetheless, this seems a magnanimous choice for Square Enix to make. I'd imagine any FFIV fan, diehard or not, would be thrilled to have their own voice gracing the title sequence of the game. And therefore Square is sure to amass quite a few entires to work through after their July 31 deadline.

On another note, and as a followup to one of our previous FFIV DS newsposts, a few more Shonen Jump scans of the FFIV DS teaser pages are available at French gaming site JeuxFrance.

Sony officially reduced the MSRP of the 60-gig model of the Playstation 3 from $599 to $499, but you can still pay the full six hundred bucks if you want to, as they also announced plans to release a new 80-gigabyte PS3 that will sell from the $599 price point.

Five hundred bucks is still pretty expensive, but hey, five hundred is less than six hundred, right?

Source: Joystiq

If you signed up for our contest, well, it's on now. You will have until midnight GMT (7pm EST) next Saturday, 7 July, to get your answers in. You've been broken into four groups, and each group gets a different quiz. The top scorers from each of the four groups will move on to the next round next week.

I'll send out a PM to everyone participating - good luck to every one of the fifty-two of you who signed up!

Yes, you read that headline correctly. BioWare, the role-playing game ace developer behind Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, is making an RPG for the Nintendo DS starring Sonic the Hedgehog.

In a recent press release, BioWare CEO Ray Muzyka was optimistic: "as huge fans of Sonic ourselves, we're committed to delivering a truly amazing story-driven experience within the Sonic universe, focusing on capturing the character's broad appeal and placing him in a completely original adventure."

This untitled Sonic RPG is scheduled for an unspecified 2008 release, and also marks BioWare's first game on a Nintendo console (other than MDK2, all of BioWare's games are for either Microsoft systems or personal computers). Currently, BioWare is working on two much-hyped RPGs, Dragon Age and Mass Effect, for the PC and XBox 360 respectively. This BioWare/Sega/Nintendo partnership might seem strange, but those three companies have one hell of a track record, so it could turn out to be something special.

Source: Joystiq

No need to wait any longer, you can sign up to participate right now! We will be kicking off the actual participation in a couple weeks, but for now you can make sure your name is in the hat so we can assign you to your groups; plus, for us, we'll know what the prize pool is going to be earlier if we get all the signups early too.

To sign up, just go to the new special Quiz page — that's right, we're bringing back the quizzes this month for you guys to celebrate our Tenth Anniversary with us. But, like Laszlow said, this time you don't get by on your Final Fantasy knowledge. It's up to your knowledge of music, the staff, and some good old-fashioned detective work. Or random guessing, since you've got a 20% chance of guessing right every time!

Don't worry, though, because we're also giving you some hints, some cryptic, some not. To learn more about whose music you're angling for, have a quick look at our "About the Participants" page.

The more people we get involved, the more money we can guarantee will roll out of the contest. So get your friends involved. If they're not on CoN, bring them in, because anyone with an authorized Caves of Narshe account can play, not to mention participate in these very forums and use all the other interactive features of CoN.

Get started, and post in here to let us know you're in!

That's right! In honor of the Caves of Narshe's upcoming 10th anniversary, a second CoNtest (quite possibly the first of several) is coming up very soon! This CoNtest is going to be quite different from last year's, with concept by Del S and code by Rangers51 and Tiddles. I won't tell you exactly what it's about yet, but here are a few hints:

1) This CoNtest will use a tournament-style setup coded directly through the website; no more emailing in submissions.

2) Again, this CoNtest will almost certainly favor contestants that frequent the forums and chat more often than others; it's similar to the incognito CoNtest in that respect.

3) For the most part, this CoNtest will NOT be about video games, not even ones that CoN covers; if you have an extensive knowledge of video games, it isn't going to help much. If at all.

4) Bogut.

That's all I'm saying, so let the anticipation begin! This time there will be guaranteed prizes for the first, second, and third-finishing contestants in the form of Amazon.com gift certificates, so the stakes are pretty high. You can expect this new Contest to drop sometime in the next few weeks. Until then, prognosticate away!

Want to sign up? Signup should be available in the evening of 18 June or sometime on 19 June - it's as simple as clicking a button. To stay updated so you know when you can sign up, either subscribe to this thread or make sure you can receive email from board administrators.