Weekly News Roundup: 03/30/2008

Games

♪Raiden Fighters! Blowing stuff up with trilogy power!♫ Yeah, I'll sing a cheesy theme song to get this disc released in the US.

• Those lucky Japanese Xbox 360 owners can download a Raiden Fighters Aces demo. Word on the street is that non-Japanese gamers may be able to get it as well. Raiden Fighters Aces had a better see an US release in it complete disc form. With all the shooters being released on XBLA it's time for some publisher to take a chance and release a budget-priced shooter disc. The disc contains Raiden Fighters, Raiden Fighters 2, and Raiden Fighters Jet, so I'm sure more people would buy it because it's a collection. Someone make this happen, please.

• Ikaruga may finally be arriving on Xbox Live Arcade on April 9th. If you have a 360 and want to play one of the most original top-down shooters ever check it out. I've already played through the game plenty of times on the GameCube, but I'm tempted to purchase it again just to play it in HD and get some achievements for it.

• Another new Soul Calibur IV character has been revealed: Angol Fia. Don't get too close or those things will kill you. Impress Game Watch also has some in-game images of the previously revealed new character, Scheherezade and she's... an elf? No, I'll bet she's the love child of some Soul Calibur female and Link, when he visited the universe in part two.

• Square-Enix announced a new RPG for the DS called Sigma Harmonics. The story is that some mysterious mystery guy mysteriously rewrites the past and Tokyo becomes a wasteland. The characters will have to solve murders and find hints by placing Go stones. Check out a couple magazine scans of the game at Kotaku.

• PSP Fanboy lists the Top 20 Final Fantasy Supporting Characters that Should be in Dissidia. If you forgot what Dissidia is, it's the Final Fantasy fighting game that will surely include the major heroes and villains from the series. They have a brief description of the character and how each character could fight in the game. Good stuff if you're a FF fan.

• The Capcom blogs posted Udon's character select screen art for Cammy, Ryu, and Ken from Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix.

• You may have thought that you could have held off on a purchase of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue and just wait until the full GT5 is release. Well, unsurprisingly, Gran Turismo 5 is still a year away. I say it's probably more knowing how long it takes Polyphony to bring out each installment of the real driving simulator. So can you GT fans wait that long? No, of course not.

• The latest issue of Famitsu has a Capcom 25th Anniversary DVD with some special Resident Evil 5 behind-the-scenes stuff and a little new RE5 footage.

• Konami has another limited edition Metal Gear Solid 4 item; Sony 7.1 channel DS-7000s headphones with MGS artwork on each earpiece. These things are limited limited editions as only 30 will be randomly handed out to those buying MGS4 PS3 bundles from the Japanese Konami store.

• We've already heard the rumors of a BioShock movie and cell phone game (why a cell phone game?), but a recent shareholder document shows that Take-Two may also be pondering a BioShock MMO. An MMO? Really? Does there need to be more MMOs?

• The Variety Map Pack for Call of Duty 4 is due in the first week of April for Xbox 360 players. It should be hitting the PS3 three weeks later. Once again, PS3 players have to wait for extra content.

• Rare has confirmed Banjo Kazooie 3 on the 360 later this year. I'm never got into the franchise, and given Rare current gen track record I doubt I will with this one. When will they bring back Killer Instinct? I need ridiculous combos to return.

Movies

• So who's playing who in the Tekken movie? Kung Fu Cinema confirms: Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as Mishima, Candice Hillebrand as Nina Williams, Marian Zapico as Anna Williams, Ian Anthony Dale as Kazuya, Cung Le as Marshall Law, Kelly Overton as Christie, Luke Goss as Steve Fox, Gary Daniels as Bryan Fury, Darrin Henson as Raven, and UFC contender Roger “Matador” Huerta as Miguel Rojas.

• Producer Joe DeLuca was interviewed by Collider where he discusses a little on the Metal Gear Solid movie. He says he knows the difference between a video game movie and a good movie. We'll see for sure if he knows the differences whenever MGS comes to theaters.

• The Onimusha movie has been delayed because of the death of Heath Ledger. It's weird, yes, but Ain't it Cool News has an explanation as to how it's possible. They also reveal the rest of the casting with Emilie de Ravin (Claire on Lost) as one of them.

Weekly News Roundup: 03/23/2008

Games

Metal Gear Solid Mobile uses the phone's camera to alter Snake's camouflage, so take a photo of that dirty toilet to help Snake sneak into the ladies' room.

• Metal Gear Solid Mobile has successfully snuck its way onto Verizon Wireless phones. Hmm, this is almost tempting me to switch my cell phone carrier. Almost.

• Japan's Metal Gear Solid 4 PS3 bundle includes a Steel colored PS3. Too bad the US MGS4 bundle doesn't have the Steel PS3. Ah well, Snake can sneak just as well on a regular PS3, I suppose.

• An unattended list at the Play.com Live show had that Europe might get some exclusive Rock Band songs. The songs include gems such as Muse - "Hysteria," Blur - "Beattlebum," Tokyo Hotel "Through the Monsoon," and Oasis - "Rock 'n' Roll Star," along with some French and German songs. I can understand them not bringing over the French and German songs, but to deny us Muse? Are they kidding? By God, I had better see "Hysteria" make the US track releases. I'm sure many people would also want the Oasis and Blur tracks.

• Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift will be coming to the US DS June 24th. FFTA2:GotR is kind-of a sequel to the Game Boy Advance's Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. Aside from having dual-screen strategizing action, the game will make the laws more lenient so you won't want to punch the judges as much.

• Gamasutra's article, A Japanese RPG Primer: The Essential 20, analyzes the 20 (it's actually more than 20) greatest JRPGs. The article includes titles like the awesome Xenogears, Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, Persona 3, Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, Dragon Quest V, and Panzer Dragoon Saga. Final Fantasy IV, VI, and VII get lumped together as one, yet Final Fantasy V, VIII, X, and XII each have their own entry. However, their reasoning behind the grouping is sound.

• Tomonobu Itagaki was interviewed by Famitsu (via a 1up translation) in which he revealed the other career paths he could have taken, like working for Sega or becoming a professional Mahjong player. Itagaki also stated that his original plan for the DOA series was to conclude it with Dead or Alive 2.

• Gamasutra has an interview with N+ creators Raigan Burns and Mare Sheppard of developer Metanet and Nick Waanders, president of Slick Entertainment. They discuss bringing the game to Xbox Live Arcade, how most of the games on XBLA suck ass, and how N+ is getting lost in that pile of XBLA crap.

• Atlus has revealed Persona 4... for the PlayStation 2? While I commend them on making it for the PS2, a system with millions upon millions of owners, it's weird that they aren't making it for the PS3. If you want to see the game in action be sure to view the 17 minute trailer.

•  If you have yet to get the Halo 3 Heroic Map pack, just wait until Tuesday the 25th when it will be free. Free! Also on Tuesday, Bungie will reveal the third map of the Legendary Map Pack, Moonlight Sonata.

•  After a poll sometime back as to whether Bionic Commando: Rearmed should be $10 or $15, it has been confirmed that BCR will be out in May for $10 on PSN and XBLA. Unfortunately, at $10, the game will have to sell exceptionally well for Capcom to continue doing 2D games.

• If you can't get enough Portal, then check out this stop-motion Lego Portal video with "Still Alive."

Movies

• Neil McDonough will be M. Bison in Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li. He's a decent actor and his face is enough like Bison, but I wonder if he'll be packing on some muscle for playing the psycho-powered leader. Taboo from The Black Eyed Peas has also been confirmed for the part of Vega. He'll just have to dye his hair blonde.

• The next movie franchise to get a number 4 or a reboot for a series of movies might be Robocop.

• EA's Dead Space will have an animated movie. The movie takes place after the comic series and before the game. So, the movie is a prequel and the comic is a prequel prequel.

- Shawn - 03/23/08

Weekly News Roundup: 03/16/2008

Games

Buy the new Pontiac G8 GT and your life will be exactly like this.

• The new Spy Hunter ad for the Pontiac G8 GT is the greatest car advertisement ever. It features almost everything from the original game except, of course, the G8 transforming into a speedboat. This almost makes me want to buy a new car. If you head over to the official G8 website, you'll also noticed that the car is sponsored by Halo 3, showing that they really want gamers to by the G8. Now if only GM would make the enemy car with the spinning wheel blades.

• It looks like Burnout Paradise will be getting free a downloadable expansion of extra islands. The islands that feature certain types of races and be connected to Paradise City with bridges. And since it's free, every Burnout enthusiast will be able to race the new maps. Thanks for thinking off the fans, Criterion. There will be other DLC with extra cars, but those will cost some points/cash.

• Assault Heroes 2 has been officially announced. The sequel is said to have enhanced co-op, a space locale, and the ability to steal enemy vehicles, meaning you no longer have to wait for your buggy/Jeep thing to re-spawn.

• With Metal Gear Solid 4 nearing completion, Hideo Kojima has started working on a new, original project.

• The latest issue of Famitsu reveal a new Soul Calibur IV character; the new female fighter with a pointy coat, Scheherazade.

• Here is the debut trailer for Motorstorm 2. This looks like it may be another "target render" video, but it still looks cool. Placing the races on a tropical island will bring new challenges to the series and what looks to be some destructible pieces of the environment.

• Corey Balrog, the lead for God of War II, has teamed with George Miller, writer/director of the Mad Max films, to make the Mad Max: Fury Road game.

• Mr. Driller Online is coming to the Xbox 360 with Standard, Quest, and multiplayer modes so you can do some deep drilling with your friends.

• The nature of Lost Planet: Colonies has been official revealed. What it is, is the Platinum Hits version of Lost Planet with some extra multiplayer stuff along with new characters and weapons. However, Colonies multiplayer is not compatible with the original.

• Despite speculation and rumors, Microsoft says they are not in talks with Sony about a future Blu-ray add-on.

• The UK gets a nice Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII limited edition with a slipcase and art book. The US gets either a special UMD holder from GameStop or EB, or a shiny case insert from Best Buy. Man, US FFVII fans are getting the shaft on this one.

• Haze is being offered pretty much for free at GameStop and EB Games. Pre-order the game and when you purchase it you can trade it back in within a week and receive full credit. I guess Haze isn't worth keeping for longer than a week then.

Movies

• Producer Michael De Luca is looking to Kurt Wimmer for adapting and possibly directing the Metal Gear Solid movie.

• Batman Begins will be coming to Blu-ray on 7/8/08 in a single disc, a two-disc limited edition gift set, and a new two-disc DVD set. The Blu-ray gift set includes a motion card, postcards, script pages, and $7.50 movie cash to see The Dark Knight. Both editions will come with a prequel comic for The Dark Knight. The DVD set includes the postcards, movie cash, and a 128 MB flash drive. Wait, why doesn't the Blu-ray set get the flash drive? Batman: Gotham Knight will also be released that day on DVD and Blu-ray.

• Terminator 4 will no longer have the horrible title of Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins. The fourth film will thankfully be re-titled to something less ridiculous.

- Shawn - 03/16/08

Weekly News Roundup: 03/09/2008

Games

If you really want to show your love for Sega's ultimate machine, hunt down a limited edition Dreamcast wristwatch.

• Update: It looks like the Dreamcast site isn't even Sega's, but a someone's phishing scam. Good thing the site was down when I went there so I wasn't able to actually sign-up. Original: Sega wants to know, "Do you still own a Dreamcast?" Answer a few more questions and they'll set you up with your own Dreamcast.com gmail account. Well, they would if their site wasn't temporarily suspended due to the high volume of account requests. Is Sega planning something special for the Dreamcast or is the account it?

• Apparently a 50 GB Blu-ray disc is to small for Metal Gear Solid 4. In an interview, Metal Gear mastermind Hideo Kojima stated that they had to compress some elements of the game to fit on the disc.

• Gran Turismo 5 Prologue is getting beefed up for its US release. The US version will have 72 total cars (opposed to Japan's 37), 1 extra track, tuning options for the cars, two-player split screen, more online options, and a new Drift Mode. With this much added racing goodness I wouldn't be surprised to see Japan import.

• It looks like Microsoft is in talks with Sony in developing a Blu-ray drive for the Xbox 360. So some day soon now Sony will be a part of Xbox.

• Ziff Davis has filed for bankruptcy. ZD heads such popular gaming media as EGM and 1up. I hope they can pull out of their debt because I would certainly miss my EGM every month.

• Shooters have proven to do pretty well on the 360 so two more are on the way from Cave: Ketsui and DoDonPachi Dai Ou Jou Black Label should be available sometime this year.

• Gamasutra interviewed SCEA's Director of Product Development John Hight about the PlayStation Store. One of the most notable announcements was that titles that were originally only available in Japan, will find their way to the US store.

• The Command & Conquer universe's main villain Kane is now... Cyber Kane. The Kane's Wrath expansion for C&C3 gets released March 26th with a Red Alert 3 Beta key.

• Disgaea is now coming to the DS. It's not a new game, however, but a port of the first game from the PS2 and PSP.

• Here is the new Wipeout HD trailer. Man, now I really wish this was a disc title and not just a store download.

Movies

• If for some reason you didn't already buy the Indiana Jones DVD boxed set that's been out for years, Lucasfilm is re-releasing the movies on separate DVDs just before Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull hits theaters. There are a few new featurettes and each DVD has a demo for Lego Indiana Jones. That's nice, but there's no need to buy these movies again until they come to Blu-ray.

• The Dragon Ball movie has been delayed until April 3rd, 2009. The delay is mainly because it would have faced fierce competition from the animated Star Wars: The Clone wars theatrical release. Perhaps they can use the extra time to make the movie not suck.

Toys

- Shawn - 03/09/08

Vic Viper Gradius III Model Revealed

Vic Viper shoots the core of your display case.

Hobby Stock of Japan has revealed Atelier-Sai's next Vic Viper model, the Vic Viper from Gradius III (via Kotaku). This Viper may be a little less colorful than the Gradius II version, but is sleeker, deadlier. Besides, when you're fighting the Bacterians in the cold death grip of space, it doesn't matter if your super space fighter has nifty pin striping.

Like the other two models, this one is 1/60 scale and comes with four ever-helpful Options. It also blasts into availability in May. So, will there be one new Vic Viper model per month now? I have a feeling that Atelier-Sai isn't done with Vic Viper models just yet. After Gradius III comes Gradius IV's Viper, and Gradius V's Vic Viper T-301. I better start powering up my modeling skills.

See the second pic here.

- Shawn - 03/05/08

Direct link: Vic Viper Gradius III Model Revealed

Weekly News Roundup: 03/02/2008

Games

Oh, so the monkey was the one behind the Patriots scheme after all. Hey, weirder things have happened in Metal Gear Solid.

• Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots finally has a solid release date: Thursday, June 12th, everywhere (North America, Japan, Europe, and Asia). In April fans will be able to pre-order the game and get a bonus Metal Gear Saga 2.0 DVD (Vol. 1 was a pre-order bonus with MGS3: Subsistence) that will include a code to get in on the Metal Gear Online beta. There will also be a Metal Gear PS3 bundle that includes an 80 GB PS3, a DualShock 3 controller and a copy of MGS4. Wherever you are and whatever current PS3 configuration you have (or don't have) you will be able to Metal Gear Solid 4.

• Two other characters have been confirmed for Street Fighter IV: Sagat and Balrog. Fortunate Japanese gamers that have been able to play the SFIV arcade machines in test locations in Japan have also seen three stages that are not Chun Li's stage: North America's Drive-In at Night, South Asia's Beautiful Bay, and South America's Inland Jungle. Now here's hoping that Sakura wins the "Who should be included in SFIV" poll.

• Capcom wants you to design a challenge level for Bionic Commando Rearmed. The winner's super challenging room will win by having their room placed in the game.

• Two days after Toshiba declares that they are ending HD-DVD production, Sony sells Toshiba a Cell processor chip plant for $835 million. It's certainly nice of Sony to let their previous competitor make them richer. Well played, Sony.

• A gallery of new Soul Calibur IV screens at Kotaku gives us a sweet look at Xianghua, a very frilly Lizardman, and Kilik.

• Capcom has been sued by MKR Group because of the "similarities" between George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead and Capcom's Dead Rising. The similarities being that zombies are in a mall.

• Investigators from the Japanese Fair Trade Commission raided Sharp and Hitachi offices in suspect of price fixing the Nintendo DS' LCD touch screens, along with touch screens used in other touchy devices.

• Persona 3 FES has been confirmed for North America on April 22nd. The game will be a 2-disc set with a slightly re-imagined version of the original and expansion content.

• SCi, the parent company of Eidos, has run into some major financial troubles. Namely a $60 million loss. They will be laying of 25% of their staff and canceling 14 games. Ouch. However, a new studio called Eidos Play will be formed which will focus on casual games.

• The awesome game Overlord has been confirmed for the PS3 this Summer. It will be re-titled Overlord: Raising Hell and will contain all of the 360's downloadable content.

• I was personally hoping that Wipeout HD would turn into a full disc-based title instead of a download, but that is not the case. Three Speech posted a press release that details the eight tracks taken from previous games in the series. However, the press release also gives other Wipeout HD has some really cool features such as 60 fps in 1080p, a photo mode to save in-game images to the Hard drive, and custom soundtracks.

• PS3 DualShock 3 controllers, complete with exquisite rumble, will be out on April 15th.

• Sega's very cool looking Valkyria Chronicles will be heading to US and European PS3s this Fall. From what I've read, Valkyria Chronicles visuals are like a water color painting in motion and combines tactical strategy RPGs with real-time action. Sounds fantastic.

Movies / TV

• It looks like The Last Starfighter is getting a sequel. The movie is supposed to start filming soon and involves star Lance Guest, the starfighter kid, and the Nick Castle, the original's director. The movie is said to have a "Son of the Starfighter" storyline. Man, the original is such a classic, so this is very cool news.

• J. Michael Straczynski stated that Galactus will appear the Silver Surfer movie, armor and all. I hope the movie, said to be the Surfer's origin story, explains how Galactus became a space cloud in the Fantastic 4 sequel.