Posts

[As originally postedon Tomopop] Often times, video game companies like Capcom and Atlus give us little figures or plushes that tie into their upcoming releases, but this might mark the first time a company’s ever created something amazing in the vinyl department. The fine folks at Aksys Games, who are publishingBlazBluehere in North America, sent us a little e-mail this morning featuring news on this amazing Mighty Mugg of Noel Vermillion, one ofBlazBlue‘s 13 fighters....

You’ll have to excuse us for not mentioning the perky PitGirl when we wrote about our time with theMonday Night Combatdemoat PAX East. Her voice was impossible to hear above the screams of our victims and the wet cacophony of constant nerd nasal discharge. But just so you know, she’s the announcer forMNC‘s sports-inspired presentation, an updater of on-screen action. We received afigurineof her after our demo session and decided to share some photos....

Xbox 360 owners have had the pleasure of being able to play Zoe Mode’s awesome musical puzzlerChimefor awhile now. Today, it’s been announced thatChimeis coming to PC, by way of Steam, this summer. PC users rejoice, because you’re getting a bonus that 360 owners could only dream of — the popular Portal track, “Still Alive,” will be included in the Steam version ofChime. That’s in addition to the tracks from the Xbox 360 version, which included music from Moby, Philip Glass, and more....

Hey, you know those wacky new Nintendo Miis that everyone (in 2007) is talking about?My Pokémon Ranch, a “game” where Miis and those already cute/ugly cash cows known as Pokémon collide, hit the Nintendo WiiWare service yesterday for 1000 Wii Points ($10 plus tax), and the results are both alarming, strange and mind-numbingly dull. My impressions of the title, promised to be devoid of any more “let me show you them” jokes, are after the jump....

Nearly half of my music collection is from videogames, and it gets a lot of play in my iTunes. I figure, if I don’t always have the time to replay the games I loved, I can at least listen to the music and wax nostalgic in my imagination. Namco Bandai has decided to make it all the easier on fans like me to get our game music fix with the announcement of Namco Sounds, an iTunes label focused exclusively on the distribution of music from their games....

Easter Eggs in games have been around for ages, but Easter Eggs in consoles? Not so much. However, now that special edition consoles land with every big game out there, it seems like a natural thing that they might have some fancy Easter Eggs built in. Enter theHalo: ReachLimited Edition Xbox 360, which will feature two pretty novel little surprises. See, the new 360s make a little sound when you turn them on....

It’s fuh-fuh-Friiiiday, and that means I don’t have to write another one of these stupid show posts until muh-muh-Monday. Ass Creed News:Assassin’s Creed Revelationsis a new game about Italian ninjas.Boobies News:As long asThe Witcher II: Assassins of Kingskeeps involving nudity, I’ll keep talking about it.Dusty News:From Dustis a game about how Tara can’t pronounce “archipelago,” and dust, probably.Intense Emotional News:I shout aboutGears of War 3while Cliffy’s Lancer gently weeps.Homemade Gun News:LA Noireinvolvescrime,jazz, anddiscs....

With the news that PEGI has become the UK’s sole game rating system, a brand new set of game rating symbolshave appeared. These new symbols share similiarities with the old PEGI ones, but have been given a splash of color and are due to appear on the front and back of all videogame boxes once PEGI fully takes the reigns. The old descriptors on the back of the box (pictures of spiders and fists and other abstract things) will remain exactly the same, giving parents a quick at-a-glance idea of what kind of questionable content lurks within each game....

We’ve barely seen anything about the nextZeldagame coming out other than afew wordsfrom Miyamoto himself and a single piece ofconcept art. Still it’s almost garnering more buzz than a 2.5DMetroidcollaboration designed by the Nintendo guys who did the GBAMetroidsand Team Ninja. To add to this sad state of affairs we bring you more news on a game that wasn’t even ready to be shown at this year’s E3. In an interview withWiredMiyamoto discussed the upcoming game, expressing how he wants it to only work with Wii MotionPlus and require waggle though he does seem to realize that most people will not want an excessive amount of it in there....

NextGen.biz has compiledone hell of a comprehensive listof their top developer picks, which is well worth a read if you are work pretending to be busy but actually surfing the internet. Ken Levine sits proudly atop them all thanks toBioShock, which was also chosen as Destructoid’sGame of the Year. More from the article: Yes, 2007 was a year of staggering achievement and many excellent games. But even in such illustrious company the brainchild of Ken Levine, BioShock, managed to stand out....

Furthering my oft-debated theory/fact thatPS3 fanboys are the worst, Nielsen has provided somestunning evidence, data that shows PS3 owners buy more crappy movie games than anybody else. For encouraging awful movie tie-ins, there is no doubt that PS3 fanboys have ruined gaming foreverybody. “We find that households purchasing a movie-based game spend a larger proportion of their console video game expenditures on PlayStation platforms than the average video game buying households....

I don’t have to ask you if you remember the Nintendo Entertainment System classic, Technos’Super Dodge Ball. Of course you do. And you probably already know that Aksys Games is lining upSuper Dodgeball Brawlers, theirupdateto the classic, for a spring 2008 release. But what you didn’t know about is that Aksys is endorsing a collection of music that pays tribute to the music of the original game. No Balls, No Gloryis an internet EP release by The Bad Dudes, a multinational group of musicians that releases covers of video game music....

Hot off the heels of Infinity Ward’s controversial decision to scrap dedicated servers inModern Warfare 2, here’s Rebellion with grim hints thatAliens vs. Predatormay be following suit. In an interview withCVG, game producer David Brickley was asked three times about dedicated servers, and three times did Brickley avoid the question. “Well the one thing we can say is obviously running an operation like that is monumentally expensive,” says Brickley. “For the period the original was up, people who played that game got an incredible experience....