Harley Quinn's Revenge Is Batman: Arkham City's Bad New Ending 
High Scores And Egos: There's Always A Bigger Doodle 
The Last Moments Of GAME 
How Bad User Interfaces Are Ruining Video Games And Other Wonderful Things 
She Tried To Make Good Video Games For Girls, Whatever That Meant 
The Story Of Doodle Jump: Brotherly Love And Digital Snacks With all the characters in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, there are a few that are missing. Where’s Mega-Man? That character certainly wouldn’t be out of place. Or what about Chun-Li or Ryu? The SNES controller was designed to suit the Street Fighter II port! Likewise, those characters would be right at home with the Smash Bros. Want to know why? Several insiders tell us that Nintendo was apparently still upset about GameCube exclusive Resident Evil 4 going multi-platform, and thus, decided not to include Capcom characters in Super Smash Bros. Brawl during development. However, with Capcom making a valiant effort at third part Wii developing with Zack & Wiki, do expect better relations between the two companies. Old wounds do heal — even when you are Nintendo! Heck, we wouldn’t be surprised if Capcom and Nintendo were ironing out a deal for the developer to make more Wii titles.
Chalk this one up as a rare victory, Europe: your PSN update for the week is better, I think, than the American one. Sure, there’s no Conflict demo (yawn), and yes, the Devil May Cry 4 demo is a week late (zzzzz), but that’s made up for by the inclusion of three PS1 games. Motorhead is, well, it’s something, Theme Hospital should make a few people happy (despite the PS version’s awful control scheme), but it’s the classic Fade To Black (well, I liked it) that should put a smile on everyone’s face. Especially when you consider that it (and the other two) are then naturally available for the PC/PSP store as well.
Wowzers! SEGA game designer and fashion something Toshihiro Nagoshi appeared at Tokyo retailer Ma-ya in a promotional event for the upcoming Ryu ga Gotoku Kenzan!. The fame Monkey Ball creator answered questions about his upcoming PS3 exclusive Ryu ga Gotoku Kenzan! (aka Yakuza 3), posed for cell phone pictures, autographed cell phones and looked very, very brown. Bonus points for Nagoshi’s coordinating his hair, jacket and skin. Yakuza 3 Event [Game Watch Impress]
During the 90s, PC gaming was king. Refute that all you want, but know that whatever you say, you’re wrong. Nowadays, though, hmmm. Not. So. Hot. Consoles are king, while PC games sit in a heap at the King’s throne, wondering where it all went wrong. Mark Rein’s wondering where it all went wrong. And it’s breaking his poor little heart: When [Activision's]Call of Duty 4 came out, I heard some of our guys sitting around talking about the great game they’d had last night and I’m like, ‘Hey guys, what server are you playing on? I’d love to come and join you,’ and they said, ‘Just send us a friends request.’ It was at that point I realised they were all playing it on console.
You can almost hear the violins playing…poor Mark. The Mark Rein interview [The Guardian]
You know, Super Smash Bros. Brawl wasn’t the other game released yesterday. There were other games, other games like Devil May Cry 4 and Disgaea 3. Here’s how the PS3 title’s Akihabara release looked, complete with a plush Prinny toy, Prinny hats and a dude in a Prinny suit. The keyword here: Prinny. And yes, Witzbold sent in this tip.
Disgaea Event [Dengeki Online]
Lots of talk today of how Madden simulated the Super Bowl. Had the Pats winning 38-30. Does anyone really care? Course you don’t. Because, like me, you were waiting for the real decider to take place: Super Bowl XLII, Tecmo Bowl-style. Using updated player rosters (via a ROM), the ArmchairGM put the Pats and the Giants to the ultimate predictive test, with the Patriots running out deserving 24-21 winners. Hit the link below for highlights footage and a full, quarter-by-quarter rundown. Tecmo-ising The Super Bowl [ArmchairGM]
Microsoft just rattled on our window to let us know that a bunch of their newly-licensed content, including the Bond and Rambo series, as well as all that Disney crap, hits Xbox Live this month. Great. Of greater interest will be that Lost is now available. Even the new stuff! Seasons 1-3 are up there now if you like, but season 4, which kicked off tonight, will also be available later in the evening for download in both SD and HD, with the same slight delay to accompany every episode in the series.
Shinji Mikami, Resident Evil creator and current boss at Platinum Games (formerly Seeds, formerly Clover) has announced the start-up developer is going to get down to work. But on what? In a recently posted 1Up interview from last TGS (thanks for the leisurely update!), Platinum Games cohort and Okami producer Atsuhi Inaba (pictured) expresses interest in the Wii and DS. But what about the PS3 and Xbox 360? Inaba says:
So if it’s a concept that will be matching the Japanese market, we’re going to try to probably concentrate on the Japanese market, but of course the Western market is the biggest market now, so we are concerned about the Western market, and have the Western market in mind. We might even do some testing specifically in the Western market to create a game…. To be honest, if we’re going to consider the Western market, we should be thinking of creating a game on the 360; however, the 360 is not doing that good in Japan, and we’re a Japanese studio, so do we want to ignore Japan? And let’s think about the European market. Well, is 360 doing good there? No. So OK, what about PS3? Well, how well the PS3 is doing is still kind of vague, you don’t know where to go with PS3.
Multi-platform anyone? Seems to be suiting Inaba’s former employer Capcom just fine. Inaba Profile [1Up via Go Nintendo via DS Fanboy][Pic]
Multiple sources have pointed to a 120GB version of the PlayStation 3 replacing the 80GB model, rumored to be extinct at retail soon. According to a report from GameDaily, however, that talk may be premature. The outlet writes that it has a source close to Sony indicating that the company is still working on its product strategy, that “nothing is final yet”.
The report goes on to mention that Sony may be looking at differentiating the two versions of the PS3 by including 160GB worth of storage and packing in a DualShock 3 controller. If accurate, it would appear that the successor to the top-tier version of the console isn’t arriving any time soon.
Ugh. Someone, please, stop the PlayStation 3 SKU ride. We want to get off.
Source: Sony Mulling Over PS3 SKU Strategy [GameDaily]
2008′s best-named title is now also home to 2008′s most explosive trailer. In the literal sense, not the PR-speak sense. The whole thing, naught but explosions and fire! The highlight of which is an exploding, thrown gas tank, which as a co-op move looks pretty great (provided they mix it up – you don’t tend to run into that many gas tanks in your daily travels).
