Weekly News Roundup: 8/30/2009

Games

All you need to succeed with Bayonetta is one hand to press all the right buttons.

• Bayonetta will have a very easy automatic mode where players can play the game with one hand as evidenced by this video. If I remember correctly, a few of the Devil May Cry games did this, which makes sense since it's made by the same guy. Not only is all the challenge taken out of the game, but it's a little creepy.

• ScrewAttack has ranked 120 Mega Man songs. The comprehensive mega list covers Mega Man 1 - 9.

• Cave is considering requests for shooters fans want on consoles. I request that Cave bring all their shooters to North America. Email them here: blog360@mail.cave.co.jp.

• The second piece in the BioShock 2 artist series is by Penny Arcade's Gabe. A print of "Mr. Bubbles" will be available at PAX.

• The launch trailer for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen DLC looks like it will make the game better by adding classic Generation 1 Optimus Prime, Megatron, and Starscream. Oh, it also has other characters and maps, but the G1 characters are what's most important.

• One of the new PS3 ads jokes about all the rumors surrounding the slim console and price drop before its announcement. It's pretty funny.

• Command & Conquer 4's title has been chosen by the fans and is now Command & Conquer 4: Tiberium Twilight.

• If you were unable to get a super-cool Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles t-shirt, you can now order one from Capcom's online store, or pre-order the game from GameStop.

• Destructoid has an interview with Capcom's Seth Killian about Smash Bros., EVO, and Capcom stuff.

• August 25th held the first wedding under Japan's giant Gundam. The groom was dressed in Earth forces' bright dress uniform and their daughter's name is Sayla, after the character from Gundam. I'm sure this is only the beginning.

- Shawn - 8/30/09

Weekly News Roundup: 8/23/2009

Games

This is awesome!

• The upcoming PS3 game from From Software and Silicon Studio, 3D Dot Game Heroes, takes 8-bit dot sprites and fully translates them into a 3D world. The results look amazing. The story is that a king declares that his 2D RPG kingdom should be 3D from now on, but something goes wrong. It's a perfect set-up. Let's all hope it gets localized for a North American release.

• The Behemoth has a new Necromantic Pack DLC pack coming to Castle Crashers soon. The DLC includes the new characters of the Necromancer and Cult Minion, the new Dragonhead animal orb, and two new weapons: the NG Skull Mace and a chainsaw.

• The big news this week was the official announcement of the slim PS3 and the new lower price of $299 for all current and slim PS3s. Oh, and Japan will get a slim PS3 Gundam bundle. In related news, the Xbox 360 Elite will also be reduced to $299... minus the HD cables.

• The Lost Planet 2 team is working on split-screen co-op, but that doesn't mean it will for sure be in the final game.

• I hope you like playing the same four maps in Battlefield 1943 over and over, because DICE currently has no more content planned for the title.

• Midway Europe has been renamed Tradewest Games on completion of the company's buyout. No word yet if the new Tradewest will resurrect its old games, like Battletoads or Super Off-Road.

• Screw Attack has the Top 10 Ugly Chicks in Games. It's horrifying.

• Water will be splashing into LittleBigPlanet, but before that happens Media Molecule needs to... test the water (with a beta!). If you haven't yet bought LittleBigPlanet, you may want to wait until September 8th when the Game of the Year Edition comes out. It will include $30 worth of DLC goodies.

• Here is a new nine-minute trailer for Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. Nine minutes!

• Sega has added some new screenshots for Alien Vs. Predator.

• It's the new Story trailer for Tekken 6.

• Forza 3 for PS3?! Silly GameStop.

• A man in Japan has spent the last eleven years building an 11 meter long, 15 ton robot rhinoceros beetle. The robot beetle can be driven from the cockpit or by remote control, and can even carry passengers. Just add some guns and he'll have the first unstoppable real-life Zoid war machine.

- Shawn - 8/23/09

Weekly News Roundup: 8/16/2009

Movies / TV

A re-imaging of the already re-imaged Battlestar Galactica is unwanted and unnecessary, but if it does happen, it better bring back capes as a solid fashion statement.

• Get ready for a cluster-frak of confusion. Bryan Singer will be directing and producing a Battlestar Galactica movie, but it won't be a part of the re-imagined series. His movie would be a re-imaging of the original 70's series, which is what the re-imagined series already did. What the frak?! It's way too soon to be re-imaging something that was just re-imagined, especially when the first re-imagining still has a new movie coming out of its own.

• Godzilla might be getting a reboot. Not the lovable Toho Godzilla, but the craptastic American Godzilla. If they can get a decent director this might be okay, but Emmerich's American Godzilla was, and is still, awful.

• Good news zombie fans, Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead will be adapted as a series on AMC, directed by Frank Darabont.

• It seems that Steven Spielberg has interest in the Halo movie. Hopefully any developments won't shut down Operation Chastity's Halo fan-film.

• Underworld 4 will be in 3D. Why is every other movie now doing 3D?

Games

• Phoenix Wright was originally be going to be included in Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom. His main special move would have been yelling, "Objection!" which would have damaged his opponent. They scrapped him form the final game however, because the character difference between objection and the Japanese term igiari would have resulted in a smaller speech bubble, thereby completely changing the move. Well, here's an easy fix: just add extra exclamation points to igiari to make it the same length as objection. That would have been easy, right?

• The Sega Genesis turned 20 this week. Happy anniversary, Genesis! I was more of a SNES kid, so I didn't buy my Genesis until the system started dying. However, I've accumulated (and still am) quite a collection of great games for it.

• In America, the lilac PSP is bundled with Hannah Montana. In Korea and China, the lilac PSP is bundled with Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny, with Ivy being the central character on the packaging. Are Korean and Chinese girls that much tougher than American girls that they get Soul Calibur instead of Hannah Montana?

• The PS3 version of Batman: Arkham Asylum will have a free unlock for PlayStation Home. you'll be able to make your Home apartment to look like the Batcave. That's actually kind of neat. Now I can have my virtual Namco arcade machines in my own virtual Batcave.

• Watch an AI program play Super Mario World faster and more daring than you ever could.

• Here are some cool Street Fighter IV concept sketches.

• This tiny Neo Geo Pocket arcade cabinet looks very cool and appears fully functional.

• The Halo expanded universe keeps expanding as Tor has announced Halo: Evolutions, a short story collection.

- Shawn - 8/16/09

Weekly News Roundup: 8/9/2009

Games

Muramasa is too unbelievably gorgeous to be limited to the Wii.

• In an interview with Gamasutra, Vanillaware's George Kamitani said that porting the gorgeous Muramasa to an HD friendly system wouldn't be difficult because all the art is actually double the size of how it appears in the Wii version. Make it so, Vanillaware.

• Penny-Arcade is making a Tekken 6 comic about Roger, the boxing Kangaroo. It's going to be mind-blowingly epic.

• College Humor made a Mario and Princess Peach sex video using the sprite from Super Mario World. It is freaking hilarious.

• In a recent Iwata Asks column at Nintendo, Punch Out!!! Designer Makoto Wada revealed that in the NES original, he drew Mario as the referee without permission, but it was just accepted.

• Zen Studios will be adding a Super Street Fighter II Turbo table to Zen Pinball for the PS3. Since they also made Pinball FX on the Xbox 360, I hope it's not the exact same SSFIIT table that they added to that. At least they should be able to add new Trophies since the PS3 has less restrictions on Trophies than the Xbox 360 does with Achievements.

• Here is a look at the DLC characters of original Optimus Prime and movie Soundwave coming to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

• There were some intrusive ads during Wipeout HD's loading screens for a short time, but people complained that the ads increased loading times. The ads have since been removed.

• Fluid has posted all of their possible alternate covers for House of the Dead: Overkill they could have used before deciding on the final cover. All of them look great!

• Valve is releasing the Left 4 Dead level Crash Course will be arriving in September. Unfortunately, it will cost $7 on the Xbox 360, but will be free on PC. What the hell, Valve?

- Shawn - 8/9/09

Weekly News Roundup: 8/2/2009

Mega Man

"This is for giving me a broom as an accessory!"

• Dimension Diver showed off some cool Rockman figure kits at Japan's recent Wonder Festival. The kits are super articulated, have interchangeable limbs and are very limited. And wow, that's pretty bad that Roll's accessory is a broom. Ha! They also had a radical Samus figure and some Persona kits.

• A scan from an old Game Players magazine provided by Protodude's Rockman Corner reveals why Rockman was re-named Mega Man for the West. The simple answer is that former Capcom Senior VP Joseph Morici just didn't like the name Rockman. It's not quite an exciting answer, but an answer nonetheless.

• If you like some Mega Man with a bit of Lady Gaga then you might enjoy the Mega Man 9 arranged version of Wiley Machine combined with Just Dance or the MM9 arranged version of Jewel Temptation combined with Poker Face. The first one works pretty well, the second only a little.

Games

• Aidra and Ernest love Katamari so much that they had a Katamari Damacy-themed wedding. I wonder if the Katamari theme was played during the grand march.

• In Japan, Tecmo put fake boobs on a wall to advertise Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2. Watch the video to see some passer-by looking around before touching them.

• Capcom has unfortunately delayed Dark Void until the first quarter of 2010 to avoid a crowded gaming season, except the first quarter of 2010 is very crowded because so many companies are delaying their games until then.

• F.E.A.R. 2 will see the release of new DLC, Reborn, which puts players into the shoes of replica soldier Foxtrot 813. This should be some interesting DLC since the replica soldiers are usually evil. Strangely, Reborn will have its own demo as demos for DLC are practically non-existent.

• TMNT: Turtles in Time Re-Shelled has been re-priced to 800 points ($10). The original price was going to be $15. I would expect it will also be $10 whenever it arrives on PSN.

• Watch Colonial Marines hopelessly fight for their lives in this new Aliens Vs. Predator trailer.

• According to a German ratings board listing, the amazing time-warping platformer Braid will be arriving on the PS3 in the future, which could be the past.

• Check out this concept art from what is being dubbed "Epic Mickey." It's a dystopian steampunk take on Mickey Mouse and his friends.

• Mothership Zeta will be the final DLC for Fallout 3. Probably. Maybe.

- Shawn - 8/2/09