Games

Warning: the overly excitable anime girl in the giant robot suit is about to shout even louder.

• Developer G.rev have announced Senko no Ronde 2. Senko no Ronde was a weird shooter/fighting game hybrid featuring anime characters piloting giant robots. It was released on the Xbox 360 not that long ago with the word "WarTech" added in front of the title. It carried a retail of $60, but went down to $20 (or less) within the second or third month of its release. After the poor sales of the first one, I doubt part 2 will make it to the US.

• First 4 Figures has an image of their upcoming toy of Samus Aran's Gunship from the Metroid games. It is a little hard to tell if the pic is of the actual Gunship, or if it's just kind of a teaser image, but it should be pretty cool. Pre-orders for the ship start on December 21st.

• Folding@home has a couple of cool new features that came with the PS3's 2.10 firmware update. You can now listen to music in the background while you're folding and has an auto shut off if you don't want your PS3 to be folding all night long. Just remember, cancer proteins never sleep, and neither does the Digital Monkey Box Folding@home team.

• The SNES Super Turrican and Super Turrican 2 have been slated for release on the Wii Virtual Console for awhile. Now, Factor 5 has registered Mega Turrican (the Sega Genesis one) with the ESRB for the VC as well. All that Turrican, just waiting to be dropped on the unsuspecting public. 

• A little info and the first screenshot for Command & Conquer: Tiberium was revealed. The game will be a FPS/tactical shooter where you, as Ricardo Vega, will control a squad of soldiers.

Movies

• Why so serious? The first trailer for The Dark Knight arrived online on Monday. You can't beat Jack Nicholson, but Heath Ledger looks pretty good as the Joker.

• Kristen Kreuk, Lana Lang on Smallville, will play in Chun Li in Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li. This makes as much sense as when Jessica Biel was rumored as playing the role. Will Kreuk be wearing make-up so that she looks Chinese or will Chun Li just not be Chinese (or even Asian) in the movie?

Games

If you can't figure out how to play Galaga, then you need some training.

• Brain training games have been making people feel smarter for years now, but how about a game that trains you on games? Namco Bandai announced Videogame Training DS. It will train you with with 500 mini-games from 30 classic Namco titles like Galaga, Mappy, and Xevious, among others, and will be available March 2008.

• The Japan only PS2 NiGHTS remake/re-release is sounding better all the time; the disc will also include Christmas NiGHTS. Sega would be fools not to release it in the US.

• Final Fantasy IV looks to be getting a sequel called Final Fantasy IV: The After -- Return to the Moon... but only on cell phones, and only in Japan. This means we will probably never play it.

• The Command & Conquer series will have another FPS spin-off titled Command & Conquer: Tiberium. This will be set around the same time as Command & Conquer 3. C&C has gone the FPS route before with the underwhelming Renegade, so they'll let's see if they can make a better game this time out.

• Namco has some fresh Ace Combat 6 DLC on tap for the soon-to-be-here holidays. The content includes designs that pay tribute to Ace Combat 2, 4, and Zero, an Idolmaster F-117, and a Christmas-themed deco for the A-10 Thunderbolt. Bomb the enemy in a festive, jolly way.

• Castle Shikigami III is arriving on the Wii in Spring of '08. Only the Wii though? Why not the PS2 as well? Castle Shikigami 1 and 2 are already on the PS2, so it would be a good match.

• Portal fans can rest easy at night when they have a Weighted Companion Cube Plush at their side. Except, they'll have to buy it when it's not sold out.

• There will finally be some PLAYSTATION Network cards for those that don't have, or don't want to use, credit cards. Unlike other consoles' cards, when the PSN cards says $20, it means $20, not some ridiculous point value.

• SquareEnix won their case against Fantom. If you don't remember, Fantom was the company that blatantly copied a scene from Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children for a music video for Korean pop-singer Ivy.

• Guitar Hero III guitars didn't work with Rock Band on the PS3. Harmonix developed a patch that where gamers could use Guitar Hero III controllers with Rock Band on the PS3, but Activision is blocking the patch. Sony is remaining neutral and letting the two developers duke it out. The guitars are compatible on the Xbox 360 so why not PS3 guys? Activision has also been hit with a class-action lawsuit over Guitar Hero III's mono sound on the Wii. And Rock Band? Some thieves stole a truckload full of Rock Band.

Movies

• Here's a crazy rumor. The Justice League movie might have been renamed American Heroes. Most of the characters in the Justice League aren't even Americans (many are from space), so hopefully this really is just a bad rumor.

• The new KITT for the upcoming made-for-TV Knight Rider movie was revealed this week and it's a Ford Mustang Shelby. Shelby's are cool and all, but it certainly doesn't look like proper follow-up to KITT.

Movies

• The first trailer for the Speed Racer film is now online as a Moviefone exclusive, yet can also be found on YouTube. I was wondering how this was going to look with the Wachowski brothers fancy new camera techniques and didn't know what to expect. Holy crap, it looks freaking awesome, but still has that cheesy feeling from the old anime. It's super colorful and retains the most important thing: speed lines!

• The Digital Bits has the first in-depth review of Blade Runner: The Final Cut and all its different versions. This is a great insight on what you'll be purchasing on December 18th.

• Following in the steps of the PSP GTA games, the previous PSP exclusive Twisted Metal: Head On is being ported to the PS2 as Twisted Metal: Head On: Extra Twisted Edition. Two colons is too many.

• The newest World of Warcraft commercial features Jean Claude Van Damme. He is a mage. He turns foes into sheep.

• Xbox Live silver members are getting the shaft on demos. They will now have to wait a week after its release to be able to download it.

• If you missed it on Day of the Ninja 2007, the sexual harassment case against Tomonobu Itagaki was settled, with Itagaki innocent of groping. Another Day of the Ninja 2007 event was EA revealing Ninja Reflex to be combination of Brain Age and Wii Sports, but with ninjas.

• Because people get excited about anything Grand Theft Auto IV, the new trailer "Move up, ladies" went online this week.

Movies

"Help me, old man Indy. You're my only hope."

• Some images from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull were posted on Ain't It Cool News, but were taken down because of a studio request. Indy is looking old. Real old. Shia has some greasy-ass hair and a leather jacket that the girls will swoon over. The title also sounds a little silly, but it really isn't any worse than the other film titles.

• Next Gen has an interview with Shigeru Miyamoto about his ideas on videogames.

• The voice of Mario, Chris Martinet, is working on an autobiography chronicling his work as the kingdom-saving plumber.

• EA has announced a ninja party game called Ninja Reflex for the DS and Wii because the two systems sure are in a shortage of party games. Maybe ninjas will make it better?

• GamaSutra has an excellent article about Retro Studios and the Metroid Prime trilogy. Retro Studios on the Journey of Metroid Prime.

• There was much speculation that GameSpot reviewer Jeff Gertsmann was fired for an average scoring review of Kane & Lynch. Eidos supposedly pulled advertising on GameSpot because of the review.

• Some guy is suing Microsoft because Halo 3 causes his Xbox 360 to crash. He says they released a faulty product. I think millions of Halo 3 players would disagree.