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Finally! Good quality The King of Fighters XII screenies. There's images of the China stage and the Egypt stage. Just look at those shades and fire effects. Truly dazzling stuff.
Syndicate fans, this one's for you. After posting a little something on former Bullfrog boss Peter Molyneux's love of the series, we were contacted by a former Bullfrog and EA UK employee. This guy was nice enough to let us know that a new Syndicate game wouldn't be anything new. Indeed, over the years he says there have been "quite a number of attempts to get a new Syndicate game into production".
Where I Get My Lazy From
Comment by: bgordon
Nominated by: Pretty much everyone
Well Mike, you little ingrate. Who brought you into the world, fed you, sent you to school (when I could find you)and paid for your ROTC Candy when you ate it all and didn't have the money to pay for it yourself? Who plugged in the hole you drilled between the bedroom and the bathroom so you could spy on the cute babysitter while she was in the shower? Who just smiled with tears in her eyes when the one class you passed was the "wrong bowling course" and you didn't get credit for it. Who spent half her time rescuing your cat from you and clearing all the moldy hot dogs out of your underwear drawer? Who went to all the trouble of hiding all your Christmas Presents under your own bed because she wanted you to be surprised on Christmas and knew the on place you would never look was under that bed? Does this sound like lazy to you?
This is the intro to the Japanese version of Mario Kart Wii. Should be no different to the inro we get everywhere else. Love the uninterrupted gameplay footage towards the end, but what's with the invisible karts and the bumping and the sidewards glances? Awfully suggestive of you, Nintendo.
Bandai Namco's Duel Love takes players into the underbelly of prep school fighting. That doesn't mean the game is only about fighting. At its core, Duel Love is a Japanese "renai game" ("romantic game") where the goal is to get the game's exceedingly male metrosexuals to fall head over heels in love with you. This is standard dating sim stuff, but Bandai Namco tries to spruce up the formula with touch pen touching.
Totally unexpected news, this, but welcome news nonetheless! Seems Target stores in the US are stocking shirts featuring characters and designs from small-time, independent games. And not rubbish ones, either, awesome ones like Tower of Goo. That's not even the best part: if you buy the shirt, you get a snazzy physical copy of the game as well. All for just $US 12. If you're looking for somebody to congratulate for such a brilliant idea, look no further than EGP Apparel, an offshoot of the Experimental Gameplay Project.
Kevin J Allen [via Boing-Boing]
Anyone who picked up Guitar Hero III on the Wii, you've had problems. Multiple problems. Our hearts go out to you. And while nothing anybody can ever say or do will give back to you the hours spent playing a game with 20th-century sound output or weeks spent waiting for replacement discs to arrive, RedOctane sure would like to try. Seems users who sent their "busted" GHIII discs back to Activision, then were forced to endure the long wait for Pro Logic discs to be shipped back, are being sent guitar faceplates. Rather snappy fire-and-phoenix-ones, too, may I add. How poignant.
Today's Bungie Weekly Update features a handy reminder for the frugal. Next Tuesday, March 25 at 2 AM PDT, the Heroic Map Pack for Halo 3 will become a free download on Xbox Live. Good things come to those who wait (and reject microtransactions). That will coincide with the reveal of the third map from the soon to be released Legendary Map Pack, which, if you're getting greedy, has no current plans for becoming an eventual freebie. Who knows if that may change. God and The Shadow, probably. Maybe Luke Smith.
Bungie Weekly Update: 3/21/08 [Bungie]
Gibson's first lawsuit against Activision was stupid enough, but subsequent filings against retailers and now Harmonix and MTV show they're clearly suffering from a particularly acute case of STUPID LAWSUIT FEVER. Harmonix are having none of it, and have issued a statement claiming Gibson's suit is "completely without merit".
For those of you who decided that the theatre just wasn't the right place to thoroughly enjoy Uwe Boll's In The Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, Fox Home Entertainment has some great news for you. While normally you'd expect to have to wait a good six months before a quality film such as this made it to DVD, Fox is rushing it into the hands of eager fans on April 15th, complete with deleted scenes (he DELETED some?), a behind the scenes featurette, and trailers. All of this for a suggested retail price of $US 27.98, which translated into Wal-Mart money is roughly $US 14.99. Rejoice, movie fans! Our long, nightmarish wait is soon over!
In The Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (R1) in April [DVD Times]
Porter's line up of high priced things into which one can stuff a PSP continues, courtesy of the PS Pictogram Monster Hunter Portable 2nd Generation case. In a rare cross promotion that's actually video game related, the case comes covered in Monster Hunter imagery, bringing the PSP's most popular game series to the outside of the portable. Want one? You'll need 11800 yen (about $119 US) and you'll have to put your reservation in by April 4. Sending us photos of your dandy adventures while expensively accessorized will not be frowned upon.
PS Pictogram × Monster Hunter Portable 2nd Generation × PORTER [PlayStation.jp]
We may know who that "anonymous" developer, the one who recently said that Xbox Live Arcade was "full of shit," is now. The frequent poo talk from a recently published Gamasutra interview from the N+ developers, who are surprisingly frank about their experience with Microsoft and the Live Arcade certification process, makes us suspect that they could be the ones (if not one of many) unhappy with what's available on the service.
When Tecmo announced last year that its classic footballer Tecmo Bowl was returning to unlicensed glory in 2008, it failed to mention just about anything beyond that. No platform, no details, nothing but the sting of nostalgia. However, if the most recent rumours from EGM are to be believed, Tecmo Bowl is coming to the Nintendo DS and Wii, albeit in too very different forms.
The winners of the Warhawk custom paint job contest have been announced via the official PlayStation blog, and boy, are they a fabulous bunch. Warhawk producer Dylan Jobe revealed the 18 new user created colour schemes that will be shipping with the 1.3 software update, a fantastically rainbow coloured assortment of non-drab airships. The winning insignias, less showy, were also revealed. Jobe even dropped off a new trailer for the next Warhawk update, all of which can be seen at the link below. Congrats, winners!
Warhawk Contest Winners! Plus v1.3 trailer! [PlayStation.blog]
Every once in awhile a set of screenshots contains a single shot that not only defines the game, but could very well define the person who plays it. While the gameplay screens of Drone Tactics are interesting enough, the above imagine is one that will stick in my heart forever. Should I ever die (I have my doubts), I would like this particular quote etched across my headstone. I can imagine the priest solemnly intoning, "Michael Fahey was a friend, a colleague, and not personally a cockroach." Enjoy the rest of the screens while I go and polish my chitinous exoskeleton, breathing through my tracheae all the while.
In a note to investors Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter says that Nintendo of America is planning to pitch Wii Fit to American consumers with "the biggest marketing campaign in its history." We're pretty sure that means that you, core gamer, won't be able to go anywhere without being surrounded by Wii Fit and the millions of physically fit humans that will ultimately result from its success.
Turns out that poor sap who had his Xbox 360 viciously cleaned during a routine repair might now perceive that horrible incident as the best thing that's ever happened to him. In addition to an over the top make-good package from the boys at Bungie, Microsoft has heeded the call for reparations, shipping off a handsomely worthwhile package to Nathan, victim of a wild rag-man.
To: Everyone
From: Crecente
It's not a long weekend, but it's going to feel like one. This is, I hope, going to be the last weekend for quite awhile when we don't have a full-time writer aboard to keep an eye on things. Since Flynn has shifted to weekdays and event coverage we've had my brother fill-in, Luke and Mike have helped and I have done a lot of posts. But Maggie's been our mainstay, plugging away at her thoughtful posts, and even doing a few extra here and there to keep things going, all while being a graduate student. Don't know how she does it.
This weekend all of us our pitching in a few here and there. I'm actually going off to the mountains for part of the weekend, so hopefully nothing blows up. Fortunately, if it does, I'll be pretty close to Mount Cheyenne.
What you missed:
Buy Bungie's Halo Soda Machine
EA And Starz Team For Dead Space Movie
SOCOM Confrontation Details
Major General Hammond Invokes Pac-Man
EndWar Gameplay
Namco Bandai is planning to bring its own cheerleading title to the Wii, trademarking We Cheer with the US Patent and Trademark Office this week and issuing a challenge to rival Wii cheering game, All-Star Cheerleading from THQ.
After slapping retailers selling Guitar Hero with a lawsuit, Gibson today said it has also filed suit against EA and MTV, publisher of Rock Band and parent company of Harmonix, respectively. While the Reuters report doesn't mention Rock Band by name, which happens to use Fender brand guitars and controllers, the suit may implicate the EA/MTV Games title as violating Gibson's patent for simulating an on screen musical performances. It is, after all, simply a better Guitar Hero. Let's hope Guitar Centre has a big Gibson blow out sale this weekend, setting the manufacturer up with some obviously much needed cash.
If you're going to go to the trouble of getting an old-school arcade controller for your Xbox 360 it might as well have neon in it right? Right? ShaolinDrunkard, built just such a beast. His hand-built arcade controller uses parts from Sanwa and Seimitsu and then knocks things straight back to 1977 with LED backlighting behind each button and the knob. The whole thing is housed in a chunky oak box that screams arcade culture.
the ultimate xbox 360 arcade controller [Technabob, via Gizmodo]
By now, the updates to the official Super Smash Bros. Brawl web site are simply interesting to see how snappily Masahiro Sakurai's writing is translated. The Dojo is unusually lacking in Peach upskirts, seemingly the only interesting development post release, so we really are reading it for the articles at this point. We think the Dojo Dump is nearing its end, as this week's updates focus on house cleaning and organising, resulting in things like the Pokémon Encyclopedia. Join us post jump for a round up of all of this week's updates.
Hushed Casket points out that people who purchased Rainbow Six Vegas 2 from Best Buy were given a code to unlock a free gun in the game. The thing is the code was printed on a sticker on the outside of the game. Better still it can be used by anyone who owns the game.
Gaming? What's that? My life is now spent at the post office, telling the nice lady behind the bullet proof glass that I don't $20 worth of delivery confirmation on my package again. That's not totally true. I actually have plenty of gaming to get done this weekend, including seeing how well the Wii Zapper holds up to some House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return and some Uncharted: Drake's Fortune just for fun. Add to that some Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword and you've got a weekend of quick reflex gaming accounted for. Not much else planned, outside of gaming and Meat Bun! Woo!
Hope everyone has a beautiful and safe weekend. If you're doing some gaming, brag about it and your recent purchases in the comments.
The tech Easter Bunnies have been secretly hard at work this week, rolling out today Star Commenting.
An announcement has gone up in the Rock Band forums that next week's DLC will be a Boston pack. And not just three measly songs, but six and each and every one a Master Track! The list of songs is as follows...
Back in the day I was a HUGE fan of Fist of the North Star. So when Julien emailed me to let me know that he had just finished his new fighting flash game, Hokuto No Ken, I was pretty psyched.
It looks like another blog is being crushed under he heavy wheels of the internetz. Game Break, VH1's gaming blog is closing its doors. In a final article by editor Harold Goldberg (who single handedly ran the blog since June of 2007), he bids a fond farewell to his loyal readers and talks a bit about his time with the blog. He also let people know where they can find him and where to go to get their daily dose of game news and even gives a shout out to your humble Kotaku team.
And so we bid adieu to Harold and Game Break. You will be missed.
Valve and Nunchuk Games have teamed up to bring you a very special edition of the martial art skill game Ninja Reflex appropriately titled, Ninja Reflex: Steamworks Edition. This new downloadble through Steam only edition contains quite a few additional bits of content including new belt ranks, over 50 achievements and "a special "basket" of Easter Eggs from the universe of Half-Life and Portal." That portion of it has me more excited than any of the others. Perhaps our old friend Companion Cube will make an appearance? If you order this special edition now, you can even get 10% off the already low, low price of $9.95. What a bargain!
Ninja Reflex: Steamworks Edition [Steam]
For those of you planning to travel to the Games Convention in Leipzig this year will be happy to know that the organizers are making it easier for you to get there. Many additions ahve been made including six new charter flights from various locations in Europe including Amsterdam, Helsinki, London, Munich, Paris and Vienna. If the plane isn't your thing you can also take the Deutsche Bahn which will have a special ticket that can be purchased by conventioneers from any DB rail station. And if that isn't enough for you, direct coach service will be available from over 30 locations in Germany itself.
Leipzig announces travel improvements [GamesIndustry.biz]
If you're going to be in New York City or San Jose California and have a little free time on the 28th of March, you might want to stop by GameStop for a special Call of Duty 4 Variety Map Pack Challenge event. Be one of the first players to get your hands on Broadcast, Creek, Chinatown and Killhouse, the four new multiplayer maps coming out with the April 3rd DLC. Participate in Q&A sessions with developers, trivia contests, eye tests, and finally battle it out on the maps themselves for a chance at various prizes, including a $1,000 gift card. Attendees can register at the GameStop website, with the first few attendees receiving an Xbox Live token that lets you snag the pack for free. A first look at the maps, fabulous prizes, and the chance to hang out at a GameStop after closing hours. What more could a Call of Duty 4 player ask for? Feel free to contact the GameStop directly for a list of prizes, but be warned - the New York store's manager Randy can't find his packet. Poor Randy.
GameStop's Call of Duty 4 Event Page [GameStop via The Mercury News]
Ubisoft just sent over this trailer for EndWar which features a snippet, a very short snippet of gameplay. What it doesn't show, for some reason, is their super cool user interface which uses, almost entirely, your voice. So far this game is shaping up to be a must get for me if for no other reason than I like the idea of pacing around in front of my television issuing "commands" to my troops. I totally need to figure out where I can buy a swagger stick.
I've often been privy to conversations where people swear that the only good Wii game is a first party Nintendo game. While this might be true for some, there are plenty of other folks out there who enjoy a decent 3rd party game although admittedly the really good ones are few and far between.
U.S. Major General Jeffery Hammond, delivering a press briefing on the progress of the 4th Infantry's efforts in Iraq, revealed the inspiration behind their current strategy for dealing with Al Qaeda operatives and Shiite extremists.
"I believe they have been degraded, we continue to PacMan, like the video game, away at their efforts, at their different levels," Major General Hammond said.While it's nice to see a video game reference made by high-ranking military officers, I have to wonder exactly what this means. I get this bizarre mental image of an overhead view of the streets of Baghdad, fruit carts spilling into the streets and the military struggling to pick up the produce for extra points. Are we the ghosts, or are we Pac-Man himself? Are power pellets sanctioned under the Geneva Conventions? With so many questions, one thing remains quite clear - we need to air drop Billy Mitchell into the war zone immediately, hot sauce and all.
XGen Studio's Defend Your Castle is coming to WiiWare on May 12 and it's looking kinda cool. I especially like how you will be apparently be using items found around the garage to take on the "barbarian hordes." Looks cute and clever, a winning combination in my book.
Word from the Battlefield: Bad Company beta test is that several weapons in the game's arsenal are locked, with "Available for purchase on Xbox Live Marketplace" notations next to them. In total 10 weapons are listed as for sale, with five of them also available in the Gold Edition of the game. What this basically means is that people willing to drop a little extra cash, be it in the store or on Xbox Live, will have more weapons to choose from than someone who scrapes together just enough to pick up the game itself. This is not the way microtransactions should be used. Cosmetic additions and extra maps are all well and good, but allowing players to pay in order to get a leg up on the competition is just slimy. Multiplayer games suffer from enough balance issues without this sort of thing going on. Where will this lead? Perhaps eventually they'll allow you to purchase a much better surrogate player to represent you in matches, taking the term "professional gaming" to an all new level. Maybe we can pay for ammo next! "Everybody down! He bought extra clips!" *sigh*
EA charging for weapons in Bad Company Beta [Xbox 360 Fanboy]
