Games

Prepare yourself for constant death in Bionic Commando: Rearmed's Challenge Mode, influenced by Metal Gear Solid's VR missions.

• Capcom has been having more issues with Microsoft's Xbox Live size restrictions. First it was causing problems for Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix and now Bionic Commando: Rearmed. Because of the size restraint, the PlayStation Network version will have higher-res graphics than its XBLA brethren. It is bad news sure, but at least it's not as bad as the missing features from XBLA version of SSFIITHDR. John Schappert, the corporate VP of Live says they have a team that can help Capcom with their issues. (Interesting note: The XNA trial game TriLinea is 190.64 MB - so much for Live holding everyone to their restrictions) We'll see if Capcom will accept their assistance and if they do, if the Live team really can help Capcom fit everything in.

• Drone Tactics, the turn-based strategy game of mechanized insects for the DS, has been delayed until April 8th. Good God, this game looks awesome.

• Not Surprisingly, Portal 2 was announced. However, somewhat surprisingly "Still Alive", Portal's ending theme song, was announced for Rock Band.

• Capcom is out to fill up your entire PS3 hard drive as Lost Planet will also require a 5GB installation. Stop, Capcom before this gets way out of hand.

• Ace Combat 6 will have a squadron-sized heap of DLC this Thursday. There are four new skins, a Razgriz set featuring the heroes form Ace Combat 5, three new multiplayer missions, and a new extra hard single player mission.

• Gears of War 2 will be out this November. Already?

• Videogamer.com has the first screenshots of BioWare's Sonic RPG, Sonic Chronicles.

• Bungie revealed the new Halo 3 map, Ghost Town. Spooky.

Movies

• Here is the latest Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li casting news: Along with Kristen Kreuk as Chun Li, Michael Clark Duncan will be Balrog, Chris Kline is Nash, and Rick Yune is Gen. It's good to see a couple of Street Fighter Alpha characters in the mix. In unconfirmed roles are Moon Bloodgood, the Black Eyed Peas' Taboo, Edmund Chen, and Cheng Pei Pei.

Toys

Games

Once the Hello Kitty MMORPG is well underway, Hello Kitty monuments will be sprouting up everywhere in our own world.

• Hello Kitty's dreams of world domination have come that much closer to reality as Hello Kitty Online has begun a closed beta testing. You can sign up to beta test the MMORPG to let Hello Kitty and her friends smother you in a world of cute before the game goes open to the public. Hello Kitty Online does indeed have combat, but also mini-games, will let players build houses, make crafts, farm, and you can even get big-name Hello Kitty characters as pets. If any MMORPG were to actually get me to play an MMORPG, it would be Hello Kitty Online.

• EA has struck a deal with Hasbro to make games based on Hasbro properties, including a G.I. Joe game. The G.I. Joe game will be released alongside the movie in 2009. However, there is no word on whether the game will be based on the G.I. Joe universe of the movie, cartoon, or comics. Hopefully it's the comics, but the cartoon universe would be alright, too.

• Capcom revealed a new Street Fighter IV character this week: the blonde-haired amnesiac Abel. Abel is a grappler who wears a blue and white fighting outfit and has no memory of his past. His story is pretty lame, but at least his outfit fits in with the rest of the fighters.

• If you've already watched the put together your Indiana Jones Legos, re-watched the Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull trailer over, and are patiently waiting the release of the Lego Indiana Jones game, you might as well play the official Lego Indiana Jones Flash game.

• The other classic car combat game, Vigilante 8, is set to return on Xbox Live Arcade as Vigilante 8 Arcade. The game will be a re-imagining of the themes with five new arenas, 8-player multiplayer over Live, customizable paint jobs, and future DLC.

• Future downloadable content for Rock Band may have been discovered in a file from the last DLC pack. The list contains songs that are already out plus songs that are not. In other words you may or may to see these songs in the future, though I'm betting that you do.

• The cover of the April issue of PC Gamer (and subsequent cover story within) reveals Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3. Awesome.

• Gamasutra has an interview with Tetsuya Mizuguchi on Rez HD, the future of expression in games, and where he likes to place the extra vibrating controllers.

• For some reason a BioShock cell-phone game is being made by developer IG Fun. I don't see why this is necessary or why this isn't a game that's being developed for a viable platform like the DS.

• Some Halo fan constructed a brief snippet of the final run in Halo 3 in Legos. Seeing this almost makes me want to play through Halo 3 again.

Games

Chun Li attempts to fireball Crimson Viper into a game she belongs in. Okay, I'm sure CV will be a fine addition, but her fancy pants seem mismatched to the world warriors' fighting outfits.

• This week Famitsu confirmed more characters in Street Fighter IV and none of them should come as any surprise. The SFIV roster is now Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, Zangief, Blanka, Guile, Dhalsim, E. Honda; essentially the original eight world warriors and the new girl Crimson Viper. Famistu's site has a load of fantastic screen shots showing all the characters in action. Everyone looks great and Chun Li's thighs are not super extra huge as previously feared. That Crimson Viper chick looks out-of-place next to everyone else. Hopefully the as-of-yet-unannounced new characters will make her look like she belongs in the game.

• Capcom's We Love Golf is coming to the US with two new characters, with an alternate costume of a classic Capcom character for each. Which ones? Well that's up to you. Head over to the Capcom blog and vote! The female character choices are Cammy, Morrigan, Roll Caskett, Ashley Grahm, and Rouge. The male choices are Ken, Dhalsim, Guy, Balrog, Captain Commando, and Frank West.

• In some sad news, Namco Bandai and Sega Sammy are closing arcades in Japan. Due to the Wii, Namco Bandai will be closing one fifth of its arcades while Sega Sammy is closing down 110 arcades. Not only are arcades practically dead here, but they're beginning to die in Japan as well. Japan was supposed to be the one place arcades could still thrive.

• Ziff-Davis is doing a little re-organizing. After years of scoring games on a 1-10 scale, EGM and 1up will be moving to a letter grading. All games will now be rated from A+ to F, with the scores of every game ever reviewed on 1up being changed to the new scale. It seems that few people understood that 5 was average so the change was deemed necessary. James Mielke is also the new Editor-in-Chief for 1up. Congrats, Milkman.

• CVG has some details on Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures slated for June. Most interestingly is that there will be no Nazis in the game. "Lego having already replaced them with an anonymous genocidal, occultist, trenchcoat-wearing master-race," according to Traveller's Tales. They may not be Nazis, but they sound just as evil.

• The relaxing game flOw has been officially announced for the PSP. It will be $8.00 from the PlayStation Store on March 6th. If you're not a fan of SIXAXIS control then you'll be able to flow it up with the PSP's analog nub.

• You may have noticed that the Xbox 360 version of Burnout Paradise requires the hard drive for online play. According to Criterion part of the reason is so that those who downloaded additional content will still be able to play against those that didn't. Well played, Criterion.

• After the secret message in Twisted Metal: Head On - Extra Twisted Edition was discovered, David Jaffe confirmed that his next project is a new Twisted Metal for the PS3.

• Although Play Asia had it for pre-order already, Konami has confirmed that Metal Gear Solid: The Essential Collection will come out March 18th for a mere $30. This is certainly cool for those that want to catch up on their MGS lore before the release of MGS4, unless they're like me and already have every version of each game. Whether the collection has the original releases or the special Substance and Subsistence re-releases isn't clear yet.

• Good news for shooter fans, the ESRB has rated Assault Heroes 2 a T, obviously meaning a sequel to the cool Assault Heroes is underway. The ESRB has also rated Lost Planet: Colonies, but we already knew that was in development, whatever it is.

• Bangai-o DS streets on March 19th in Japan. If you're keen on importing get your imported shooter skills ready.

• Japan's Metal Gear Solid Mobile has a nifty feature where you can customize Snake's camouflage by taking pictures with the phone's camera.

• If you thought the game Typing of the Dead was a little odd, Sega announced English of the Dead for the DS in Japan. Japanese gamers will have to say English words to fend off the undead.

Movies

• Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins is perhaps the most poorly named Terminator project ever. The fourth movie might have Josh Brolin as the new Terminator facing off against Christian Bale's John Conner. In 2009 there will be no country for old terminators. Sorry, I just couldn't resist that one.

• Rob Zombie could be directing the new Conan movie. Zombie has been in meetings about the film and is one of a number of considered directors. Zombie would definitely have the gore factor, but beyond that who knows.

Games

I'll bet this is exactly how the SSFIITHDR team feels right now. The XBLA restrictions are force chocking the content from SSFIITHDR. See the photo shoot of Street Fighter: Empire.

• The Xbox Live Arcade version of Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix is having some problems. VideoGamer.com interviewed David Sirlin, director of the remake. The SSFIITHDR team is having issues with the 360's download limit of 150 MB, making it difficult for them to cram all the 1080p visuals along with the original and remixed music into the game. If Microsoft doesn't change the download limit size, then the PlayStation Network version will be the way to go. In the interview Silin also talks about making fans happy, refining online play, reveals a couple of new re-balanced moves for characters, and why Street Fighter still matters.

• The Rock Band downloadable content for March has been potentially revealed in the latest issue of Official Xbox Magazine. There is some good stuff, some covers, and a Nine Inch Nails pack the week of March 18th. What's crazy about the NIN pack is that "The Perfect Drug" is one of the songs. This is the one song that Trent Reznor himself says cannot be performed live, so I would expect either drum machine backup in the song or your arms to fly off when attempting to play it.

• Dr. Kawashima, the friendly floating head and brain behind the Brain Age series, has refused the $11 million in royalties he is entitled to from the success of his games. He is either crazy or so smart that we could never possibly understand his refusal.

• If you like the Twisted Metal series then you'll enjoy Wired's interview with David Jaffe about Twisted Metal Head-On: Extra Twisted Edition which hits stores within the week. The interview starts off with Jaffe responding to Shigeru Miyamoto's reaction to Retro Studios' shelved car combat game.

• Gran Turismo 5 Prologue will be hitting PlayStation Network and retail April 17th for $39.99. Unlike the download version, the retail version will have the game on a disc, a case to store said disc, and the extra behind-the-scenes video "Beyond the Apex." If the download and retail version really are priced the same, why bother with the download then? Japan also has some cool GT merchandise: a Gran Turismo 5 Prologue soundtrack and 1/18 scale GT-R Concept car.

• Famitsu revealed that Front Mission 2089: Boarder of Madness will be heading to the DS. This game was originally for mobile phones, but don't worry, producers stated that cut-scenes have been added, the script re-written, and touch screen improvements have been made. There is no release date in Japan as of yet, nor has it been announced for the US.

• Arcana Heart, an all-girl 2D fighting game, is coming to the PS2 courtesy of Atlus. The eleven female characters will be customizable so you can add your own flair to the girl-on-girl matches. The game will be out on April 8th for $29.99.

• A corporate executive friendly cobalt blue DS will be arriving in stores February 10th. No doubt this one will help get you that promotion with the window office.

• Someone modded an old Nintendo Game & Watch into a cell phone. Very cool.

Movies / TV

• A new character has been revealed for the Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series. Ahsoka Tano is a young female Padawan for Anakin Skywalker. I thought it was ridiculous when Anakin had a "secret apprentice" in The Force Unleashed when he's Darth Vader, but now has a student just after he bitched to become a Jedi, too? The Jedi council are a bunch of tools. All Ahsoka will be able to learn from him is how to whine and slaughter Sand People.

• Guillermo Del Toro might be directing the two films based on The Hobbit. It sounds like a good move since Peter Jackson is producing the films instead of directing.

Toys

• Teaser images for the first Mass Effect figure from toy company Hyperchild went online this week. The figure is of the regular male version of Shepard. Now how about a regular female Shepard for those that like to play the game as a girl.