Christmas cards from developers are big thing in the West. Similarly, no developer in Japan would be rude enough to neglect sending cards commemorating the New Year. Metal Slug and King of Fighters developer SNK Playmore has already done the honors for this holiday, creating a batch of a half-dozen Happy New Year 2008 card mock ups that you can send to your favorite fan of whatever SNK Playmore games the kids are playing this year. Designs for Metal Slug (above), Samurai Shodown, The King of Fighters XII, The King of Fighters ’94 and The King of Fighters ’98 are all currently available for your downloading and redistributing pleasure. Sorry, no Doki Doki Majo Shinpan!
For your own enjoyment, plenty of wallpapers that are not holiday related, including some fabulous desktop worthy World Heroes Gorgeous pieces are just a downward scroll away.
Happy New Year 2008 [SNK Playmore]
After tallying all of the votes for the platform-specific Game of the Year awards I want through and looked for the one with the highest vote, the one that was, essentially, awarded the most points out of all of the games. The thing is, it turned out that three games tied for Game of the Year:
The Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass – DS Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune – Playstation 3 Super Mario Galaxy – Wii
Microsoft was recently rumoured to be working on a motion controlled version of something courtesy of the folks at Gyration, but the folks in Redmond aren’t talking. Reps gave Next-Gen the stock “we don’t comment on rumours” response when asked about the XboxFamily allegations that MS was ready to ape the Wii-mote and SIXAXIS. If true (as Microsoft rumours tend to be) it wouldn’t really come as a surprise, despite Bill Gates assertion that motion control is “not mainstream for most games.” Remember those rumours that the company was pushing for a motion controller pack-in with Halo 3? While that sounded a bit fishy, it wouldn’t be out of the blue for them to appropriate the concept for a future product. How else can you possibly imagine controlling the next Viva Pinata game?
Microsoft Mum on Motion Control Rumours [Next-Gen]
A new batch of original PlayStation games has been added to the Japanese version of the PlayStation Store which features plenty of enviously available big names amid the Japan-only fare. The biggest PSone Classics to make their way to PSPs and PlayStation 3s are Biohazard 2 (aka Resident Evil 2) and Intelligent Qube, both of which would be welcome additions to the North American and European stores. Just sayin’, SCEA. The full list of newbies is below.
Biohazard 2 Intelligent Qube PoPoLoCrois Monogatari II Crime Crackers 2 Atelier Marie Plus Tantei Junguji Saburo Early Collection Magical Drop Baroque Robin Lloyd no BoukenPlayStation Store (JP) [PlayStation]
The most searched for item on the UK’s eBay since Christmas is the Wii, The Telegraph reports today. More than 1,100 of the consoles were on sale earlier today with asking prices as high as £1,000, aka somewhere in the stupid range.
And the Wii isn’t the only console UK buyers are searching for on the auction site. In fact half of the top ten searched items are gaming consoles with the DS at the number five spot the PSP at number six, the 360 at number 9 and the PS3 rounding out the list at number ten.
Hit the jump for the top ten search list from the paper.
You’ve seen our picks, maybe noticed what Time, Maxim and others had to say about gaming in 2007, but Playboy’s choices are finally in. They not only went safe, picking Bioshock as their game of the year, but went with their demographic, opting to choose the 2007 game with the “Best Jiggle Factor.” It might not have been my choice, as I like my ridiculously oversized gaming girl breasts covered in slime, but I suppose Heavenly Sword deserved to walk away with some sort of accolade this year. Ninja Gaiden Sigma oversight aside, it’s a fairly solid list.
Playboy’s Best Games of 2007 [Playboy]
When Konami of Japan announced Otomedius, we quickly realised what it was up to. Konami had little interest in trying to revitalize the shrinking arcade shmup scene or looking in a new direction for the Gradius and Parodius series. No, they wanted to bring more boobs into the Konami family and shill loads of Otomedius toys. And they’re making good on it again, with new redemption prizes in the form of 14cm tall toys and, yes, smaller than life-sized inflatable versions of the busty shooter girls. You’re either shaking your head, sighing with defeat or whipping our your credit card again, I’m sure—it’s been a big week for plastic video game girls.
The current lot of goods also includes the “multiple movable system” action figures and a digital manga series featuring the maid-ship ladies of Otomedius. We don’t expect it to stop any time soon.
Otomedius Goods [Konami]
Our first-ever Game of the Year awards was a pretty straight forward deal. I asked all of the writers to submit a list of three games for each category and the three that showed up most in each category made it as a finalist. Once we had the list of finalists I asked each writer to go through and order the finalists and then tallied the vote. The one with the most points was named Game of the Year, the runner-up was named Not Quite Game of the Year. The game with the most votes for Worst Game of the Year received that dubious honor.
Hit the jump for the final results and lovely medallions which no one will receive. Check back later tonight for the Overall Game of the Year, drawn from the winners of each category.
Here it is, kids—Street Fighter IV in motion. The 1UP Show crew visited Capcom and chatted it up with the producer Yoshinori Ono to learn all about the fourth game proper in the twenty year old Street Fighter franchise. You’ll maybe want to skip to about 3:30 in for your first taste of SFIV video, but expect to see plenty more after that. The clip runs a good twenty minutes, so make yourself comfortable.
We’re going to start with the bad news. There will be no updates to the Smash Bros. Dojo next week and, in turn, no Dojo Dump next Friday. The lazy bums at Nintendo are taking a week off to rest comfortably in hammocks or possibly scrounge up fresh content from Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the official site. At least this week contains some gems, some of which we’ve already covered. We get a fresh look at personal favorite Wario and a healthy dose of Sonic the Hedgehog, who I wouldn’t mind never hearing from again. The rest? Well, it’s mostly filler. On with the Dump!
