Weekly News Roundup: 11/29/2009

Games

Who is Guy fighting? That Kunai he's deflecting can only belong to Ryu Hayabusa from Ninja Gaiden. What an awesome crossover!

• Adon, Cody and Guy are all joining the roster of Super Street Fighter IV. Plenty of screenshots, art, and a trailer have arrived of the new-old challengers. Guy is super cool, but I didn't realize that Adon was such a popular character. I like Cody, but why is he still wearing his prison pajamas? Seriously, he looks awful. A screenshot in Famitsu also pretty much reveals Ibuki will be joining the roster, so then who are the last two characters to be revealed?

• For some reason Capcom is bundling Final Fight and Magic Sword together as a digital download and calling it Final Fight: Double Impact. That title just makes it sound like it's a new Final Fight game. The games will be arriving on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live in April 2010. Both games will feature an optional HD graphics mode, but it's not like the HD remix of Super Street Fighter II Turbo; the regular graphics will just be spruced-up for HD.

• Dim Horizon Studio has created some fine photos of Volpin Props' finished Big Daddy costume and a Little Sister in an Aquarium, which is about as close to a Rapture setting as you can get.

• In a recent Iwata Asks interview about New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Shigeru Miyamoto reveals that Super Mario 64 originally had a co-op mode with Luigi, but it didn't work. Man, a co-op mode would have made the game even more amazing.

• Final Fantasy XIII perfume smells like the character Lightning, if videogame characters can smell like anything.

• A premium Bayonetta theme for the Xbox 360 in Japan has Bayonetta making an appearance in Virtua Fighter and obscure shooter SDI. It's cool, however, paying for themes remains un-cool.

• Comic Book Resources has an interview with the Udon creative crew about what we can expect from the upcoming Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors mini-series.

• These Splatterhouse sneakers actually look decent.

• The new Halo book, Halo: Evolutions, a collection of short stories across the Halo-verse, is in stores now. I completely forgot this was coming out.

- Shawn - 11/29/09

Weekly News Roundup: 11/22/2009

Games

The Monster Hunter pillow's mouth is a pocket for storing... things.

• This Monster Hunter pillow is terrifying. How am I supposed to sleep with those teeth near my noggin? The pillow is based on the Furu Furu monster, is available in red or white, and is ridiculously expensive at ¥9,240 (around $104).

• No More Heroes: Heroes' Paradise will be hitting the PS3 and Xbox 360 on January 25th, 2010 in Japan. It will have HD graphics and a "Very Sweet" mode where the girls wear skimpy outfits. This game desperately needs to find a North American publisher, stat.

• 3D Dot Game Heroes will be available May 11th, 2010 in the U.S. It'll be published by Atlus because they know pure awesome when they see it.

• A former Midway employee re-designed four characters for a proposed Mortal Kombat reboot. His designs for Scorpion, Raiden, Sonya, and Kano, are quite badass. It would be a shame if these designs never get used.

• The Final Fantasy XIII Cactuars look identical to every other FF game with a Cactuar. FFXIII does have a super huge Cactuar, though.

• Here are some cool behind-the-scenes photos of Pop Culture Shock's Felicia and Zangief statues.

• Japan's Club Nintendo will have Ball, the first Game & Watch LCD game, available to members soon.

• You can play as Wesker in Lost Planet 2 if you pre-order the game from GameStop. If a sweet Collector's Edition comes along then I might just do that.

• Now that you've seen what's in the vinyl-y Special Edition, here's the box art for BioShock 2.

• 8-Bit Left 4 Dead looks like lots of fun and way easier than the real game.

• Vote for the next Capcom lithograph. The top two will be made.

• Even though the vote for the new Resident Evil 5 add-ons was mostly for a DLC, there will be a Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition disc that will include all of the DLC.

- Shawn - 11/22/09

Weekly News Roundup: 11/15/2009

Games

A fancy pink gun on your work desk would just demand respect.

• Australia has a super-awesome collector's edition of a game in the Bayonetta: Climax Edition. Not only does it have a saucy, exciting name, it comes with a CD soundtrack, artbook, and a full-sized replica of Bayonetta's pink gun, the Scarborough Fair. That is just too awesome. Europe's special edition only has the CD and artbook. We'll have to wait and see if North America will get a pink gun edition. Somehow this would complement the Arkham Asylum batarang and Modern Warfare 2 night vision goggles quite nicely.

• Tofu is back in Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles. This unlockable mode is a little different than the original Tofu Survivor; instead of playing as a giant piece of Tofu, you shoot giant pieces of Tofu. This raises the game's buy factor by at least tofu percent.

• Final Fantasy XIII will be available in North America and Europe on March 9th, 2010. The latest video lets us meet the masterminds behind the game and announces that they've chosen Leona Lewis' "My Hands" as the theme song for the game. The Chocobos in FFXIII are huge and have funky hairstyles.

• So, Modern Warfare 2 sold a bazillion copies and is great and all, but Modern Warfare 3 is going to blow it away. Also, have you seen this MW2 match winning knife throw video? It's amazing.

• Phalanx is coming to WiiWare, but it won't be the SNES version, it'll be a remake of the Sharp X68000 version.

• It has been decided that the Resident Evil 5: Alternative Edition will be released as DLC, not on a disc, in Spring 2010.

• Garnet Hertz, a student at the Pasadena Art Center College of Design is in the process of making an Outrun arcade cabinet driveable.

• Two jerks dressed as Mario and Luigi are wanted for beating up a cabbie.

• The PS3 really can do everything. Now it's catching child pornographers! See, videogames are good for kids; they keep the bad man away.

- Shawn - 11/15/09

Weekly News Roundup: 11/8/2009

Games

New characters and modes are great and all, but the return of the Bonus Round is what's going to sell Super Street Fighter IV.

• The Bonus Rounds are making their long-awaited return in Super Street Fighter IV. Sure, the game will also have other new modes of Team Battle, Replay Channel, and Endless Battle, as well as new characters, but smashing cars and bashing barrels are really what matters here.

• Apparently November is Novvember, which means that a group of Facebook people made this Lego Vic Viper month. Lego and Gradius fans make Vic Viper-inspired Lego models. If only I had my Legos I could join in the fun. Some of the ships are pretty cool, while others are quite different and just follow the basic Vic Viper shape.

• The intro to Super Street Fighter II was re-drawn by Udon for Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, but it never got used in the actual game for some reason. Watch it here.

• Smash TV may be returning. One of the original programmers, Mark Turmell, said the game was in development before Midway imploded. Hopefully it will be finished by someone.

• The trippy platformer Braid will finally be on PlayStation Network on November 12th.

• Don't expect LittleBigPlanet 2 anytime soon if at all. Media Molecule said that they don't want to make a sequel because it would be counterproductive.

• Unsurprisingly, there will be a Mass Effect 2 Collector's Edition. It includes a tin case, hardcover artbook, Mass Effect: Redemption Issue #1, a bonus DVD, and exclusive in-game weapons and armor.

• Some of the strategy guides from the Demon's Souls Deluxe edition are fading or falling apart, but Atlus will be replacing them.

• Splinter Cell: Conviction will have a Collector's Edition which includes; a Steelbook case, a custom USB drive, art book, comic, in-game weapon and outfit, and wait for it... stickers!

- Shawn - 11/8/09

Weekly News Roundup: 11/1/2009

Figures

The coolest Ratchet & Clank figures are ones that fans may never get.

• CreatureBox and Gentle Giant made some amazing Ratchet & Clank vinyl figures for Insomniac employees. The figures were done in CreatureBox's own style, with Quark ending up a huge 15-inches wide! The three figures of Ratchet, Clank, and Captain Quark may never be released to the public, but I'm pretty sure tons of them would sell if they were.

• Getting shot down by a jet with a hyper anime girl on it was emasculating enough, but now the Idol Master skinned jets from Ace Combat 6 are getting some real life versions - kind of. Models of the jets are being produced by Hasegawa and will be out in November and December. If these jets featured other Namco properties like Pac-Man, Xevious, Tekken, or Ridge Racer, then I could get behind these things.

Games

• The God of War III Ultimate Edition is insanely ultimate. It comes in a sculpted replica of Pandora's Box. It contains an artbook, God of War Trilogy MP3 soundtrack, a Blood & Metal MP3 tribute album to God of War, a history of God of War documentary, a Dominus skin for Kratos, and an exclusive combat area. Plus, GameStop, Amazon, and GameCrazy will each have their own exclusive pre-order armor. Meanwhile, the God of War III demo will be included on the District 9 Blu-ray. They don't really go together, but who cares.

• As for the God of War Collection, it will indeed have two Platinum Trophies as detailed by the released Trophy list.

• Square-Enix's Final Fantasy XIII site revealed the looks of this version's Bahamut and Brynhildr. They look normal enough until they transform into their gestalt modes. Bahamut becomes some kind of robo-T-Rex thing and Brynildr is a fancy dune buggy.

• Check out Capcom artist Akiman's life-size Chun Li painting. Those thighs are enormously meaty!

• The #1 submission for Capcom's Mega Man tribute contest was a Mega Man brick wall. That's pretty awesome.

• Develop has an interview with Keita Takahashi, creator of Katamari and Noby Noby Boy. He talks about the Japanese games industry, Noby Noby Boy, and a unique FPS he wants to make.

• The Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 DLC pack will be out on November 5th for $10 and will contain Psylocke, Carnage, Cable, the newly announced Black Panther, and a fifth character to be announced soon (oh hey, it's Magneto!).

• The DSi XL, basically an extra-large DSi, was officially announced this week. The system now sports big 4-inch screens and will be out in North America in Q1 2010.

- Shawn - 11/1/09