BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger

London: 29th March 2010: Zen United is pleased to confirm that the highly anticipated BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger is coming to the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and PlayStation®3 on 2nd April in standard retail and Limited editions.

The special Limited Edition includes the game, a bonus DVD with around 2 hours of fighting tutorial guides and deep character specific strategies. Plus a gorgeous 92 page full colour book with original art and illustrations from the design team at Arc System Works. You can still pre order at Amazon.co.uk, Game, gamestation, hmv, Play.com, TheHut.com or through your favourite retailer.

Once again, Arc System has brought fast, intense 2D fighting with highly stylized characters. But now, that beautiful imagery will be presented in HD and take advantage of newer hardware technologies. All the character sprites are hand-drawn and the stage backgrounds are a completely mesmerizing mix of hand-drawn images and 3D models. BlazBlue is a definite visual visceral treat. The game is conceived by Guilty Gear director Toshimichi Mori and the music by legendary veteran (creator of Guilty Gear) Daisuke Ishiwatari.

The release coincides with nationwide try-it-and-see-for-yourself demo pods in 40 hmv stores and a number of online and arcade style tournaments featuring warm up events to crown the UK champion.

“Praise has been given for the depth of gameplay as well as an excellent online component and good balance”, said Tomo Ohno, Managing Director of Zen United. “‘Bringing the excitement of arcade centres into the home is one of our mantras and online play is the key to it. We are hoping to create a global ring, where Europeans fight with Americans and Japanese. Or against them!”

For those new to fighting action, the highly acclaimed BlazBlue has been specifically designed so it’s easy to pick up at the beginning, and an ever increasing depth introduces new and more demanding skills.

• The game features a plethora of defensive and offensive options at your disposal - take advantage of barriers, counter assaults, rapid cancels, barrier bursts, ukemi tactics and distortion drives to turn the tide of battle.

• Drive your way to victory! Use the unique “Drive Attacks” specific to each character to decimate your opponent.

• Story mode tells the back story of each of the BlazBlue characters, with incredible cut scene animations and music to support it.

• Online Battle - Train your skills online through ranked and player battles

“We have been developing fighting games since 1988. This, perhaps, gives us a bit of expertise and we aim at developing ever better fighting game experiences. The creation of BlazBlue by our teams at Arc System Works shows that 2D can bring intense, enjoyable, visually appealing gaming to the next gen consoles” added Ohno.

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For more information, assets, promotions and reviews please contact Rob Noble: rob@pqube.co.uk.

About BlazBlue

BlazBlue is a new experience in 2D fighting making exceptional use of the Hi Res power behind the Next Gen consoles (on PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system and Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system). The game is created by Arc Works Systems (Japanese developers of the Guilty Gear franchise). The 3D one-on-one fighting stages and 2D Goth-Anime characters are pure over-the-top Japanese. Fighters seamlessly combo from standard attacks into specials using the four-button control scheme (weak, medium and strong attacks). Every character also has a unique special attack called a Distortion Drive. Take the fight online in lag-free player ranked tournaments. www.blazbluegame.com.

About Zen United

Zen United is a game publisher, a consortium of Japanese studios and an International Business Development specialist in the game industry. We are from Japan and work as a consolidated European office of various well experienced small to medium Japanese developers and publishers, providing full services. Aggregating high quality studios as a consortium, we can provide a variety of services from work-for-hire to publishing various games under one brand. As we have a strong local network with developers and publishers in Japan, we are able to help bring European companies to the Japanese market. For more information please contact info@zen-united.biz.

About Pqube Ltd

PQube provides a complete range of services for PR, marketing and games publishing. With an established team of industry professionals based in the UK, Germany and Italy, Pqube Ltd publishes and distributes a range of its own and third party products across all games platforms and price points.