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Dragon's Dogma: The Kotaku Review This week’s Wiikly Update hit at noon Eastern today, bringing with it a bit of Kirby Avalanche, Streets of Rage 3 and the Legend of Hero Tonma.
Kirby’s Avalancheâ„¢ (Super NES®, 1-2 players, rated E for Everyone, 800 Wii Points): Everyone’s favourite round, pink hero takes a break from swallowing his enemies to put your brain to work in this fast-paced puzzle game. Players take control of Kirby and match wits with well-known enemies from the Kirby series (including his archrival, King Dedede) in an effort to win the First Annual Dream Land Avalanche Competition. The simple-but-addictive game play revolves around brightly coloured blobs and boulders. When the right amount of matching blobs are stacked, they explode and rain down on your opponent’s field of play. Repeat this until your screen is clear to move on to the next round. But be careful–the farther you advance, the faster the blobs fall and the smarter the opponents get. Are you good enough to help Kirby become the avalanche king? Streets of Rageâ„¢ 3 (Sega Genesis, 1-2 players, rated E 10+ for Everyone 10 and Older – Violence, 800 Wii Points): Just when you thought the world was safe from the Syndicate and its shady leader, Mr. X, they have returned to torment the city once again. Mr. X has developed lifelike robots to take the place of various city officials so he can be in complete control. Now it’s up to our old heroes Axel, Skate and Blaze to stop the threat with their amazing fighting skills. With more weapons and combat moves, as well as secret characters and various endings, this return to the streets is one you won’t want to miss.
LEGEND OF HERO TONMA (TurboGrafx16, 1-2 players, rated E for Everyone – Mild Cartoon Violence, 600 Wii Points): LEGEND OF HERO TONMA is an action game that puts players in control of the magic-user Tonma, whose role – as was typical for game heroes of the day – is to travel to another world and save the princess. Fight your way through seven stages using Tonma’s jump ability and shot power. Collect power-ups and barriers to grow in strength and pummel your enemies. Bring that strength to the end of each stage to face off against and defeat the menacing bosses that aim to keep you from the princess. This well-detailed game’s comic visuals and feel will have players wanting to come back for more frantic and exciting action.
Yes, you read that right. Jack Thompson, attorney at, uh, law, is at it again. This time round, his sights are set on Microsoft’s recently released Halo 3.
According to the GamePolitics.com story, Thompson believes Halo 3 is a public nuisance. GP goes on to rightly point out the neither Halo 3, or its retailers, are engaged in prostitution or gambling, making his case somewhat shaky on those grounds. But that’s not the worst of it.
More troubling by far are the long term implications of this action. Thompson apparently feels emboldened to invoke Florida’s public nuisance law against any video game he desires to target. That is the essence of censorship and the video game industry cannot allow it to continue on any number of grounds – legal, moral or creative.
Who will stand against this man? Take 2 has had a go of it… is there anyone else?
Jack Thompson Seeks to Have Halo 3 Declared a Public Nuisance in Florida [GamePolitics.com]
Right on the back of the launch is this sad news. GameDaily picked up this thread over at the NeoGAF forums, where users are reporting that their long-awaited Halo 3 Limited Edition boxes are arriving complete with discs scratched like the insides of a well-used dog house. From NeoGAF:
This Limited Edition has a piss poor plastic nub and foam pad disc holding design that is a major flaw and the discs pop off with ease.
The GameDaily story confirms that some of their Limited Edition discs were tainted by grooves as well.
Concerned about the home front, we’re chasing Microsoft’s PR here in Australia. Updates when we have them.
Let us know if you’ve had an unfortunate meeting with your prized possession.
Heads Up Everyone !! Halo 3 Limited Edition Big Disc Problems !! [NeoGAF forums, via GameDaily BIZ]
If you’ve ever racked up the big bucks on your credit card, then I can imagine why you’d see it as the focus of all things evil. Even some kind of dimensional portal that allows passage to the 8th level of Hell, known by bankers as “Debt”.
If you happen to be looking for that life-crushing feeling of despair, without the associated state of cashlessness, you could always get a Resident Evil-themed credit card. The Japan Credit Bureau (JCB) has a line of plastic going just for you.
Resident Evil Credit Cards [Gamebrink.com]
With the pace of the Tokyo Game Show slowing down now, we’re back to normal speed on the news front.
Elaborate Halo Case Mod Basic beige boring you? You could always whack the Master Chief on there.
Original Fallout Concept Art Bethesda may be defiling Fallout 3 as we speak, but you can find comfort in Leonard Boyarsky’s original artwork.
Resident Evil: Extinction Eats Weekend Box Office I’m going to see this just so I can share my opinion with you, but I know it’s going to be painful.
Shanda Says No to Men Role Playing Women Characters What? But I love playing chicks! Oh wait, it’s in China.
Textfyre – The Comeback of the Text Adventure? Will we see the return of interactive fiction? Probably not on next-gen, but there might be a market in mobile phones or… iPods?
The only thing better than a pre-order is a Valve pre-purchase, where you get to download, but not play, the game before it officially goes on sale.
Starting today Valve and GameStop have teamed up to pre-sell the PC version of The Orange Box to gamers interested in that whole pre-purchase concept. Anyone who pre-orders the game before Oct 10 gets 10 percent off the regular price plus they can download and play the beta version of Team Fortress 2.
Hit the jump for all of the tantalising details.
If you couldn’t tell, Halo Fever is in full force right now. The game may not be perfect (sorry Eurogamer) but it certainly has its selling points and I think Microsoft’s boast that they want to dethrone Spider-Man 3‘s mammoth opening weekend with a mammoth Halo 3 launch day aren’t that outlandish.
We’ve sent our very own Fahey over to New York City to check in on the Halo-mania going on later on tonight. Remember at the stroke of midnight you can pick up a copy of the last in the Halo trilogy… unless you picked it up at one of the many places that seemed to have sold the game early. Once you play through the entire game I’d love to hear your thoughts on it.
In the meantime sit back and check out these pictures from New Zealand, the first place in the world where Halo 3 launched. Nicole Sinclair and Ryan Marsden, both 19, were the first two in the world to pick the game up from a retailer…. who didn’t break embargo.
New Zealand Microsoft also celebrated the launch by freezing 50 prize discs in a one ton block of ice. Gamers have until 6 a.m. to melt the ice with water guns and get the prizes.
This fine young man is the first in line at the Best Buy on 5th Avenue in NYC, the site of the official Halo 3 launch in the northeast. He arrived last night around 6PM, spending the night in happy Manhattan for the chance to be the first to get his hands on Bungie’s opus. He’s also a regular Kotakuite, who goes by the comment handle Unndunn. With such outstanding Kotaku representation at the event, why am I even here? The answer is simple. Volume. Unndunn probably won’t be seeing this for awhile, as he’s busy being interviewed, reinterviewed, photographed, and videotaped by various media outlets. Then after midnight he will be dissected on live television to help us understand the Halo phenomenon. Go UnnDunn!
I am a huge fan of Mark Wilson’s Justify videos, and I’m not just saying that because he makes them for Kotaku. They are genuinely funny and still manage to impart some information. This time around Wilson managed to churn out quite an eclectic mix of Justify Your whatevers including Mark Rein justifying Unreal Engine 3… right after it crashes, Tetsuya Mizuguchi having a nervous break down as he tries to justify his Rez and a Kotaku reader justifying his cosplay outfit.
Justify Your MGS4 Cosplay Justify Your Engine Mark Rein Justify Your Game, MGS 4 Justify Your Xbox Holiday Lineup Takashi Sensui Justify Your Game Everyday Shooter Justify Your Game LittleBigPlanet Justify Your Game, Rez
