Cryptic Studios' PC superhero MMO City Of Heroes has announced the winners of its 'City Of Archvillains' Halloween costume competition over at its community site, for which the task was to create a real-life villain to match up with your in-game hero. There are some fine pictures in the winning gallery, particularly the winning 'Kor/Votum' duo.

But naturally, by far the best entries weren't the winners, and the full entry gallery reveals the Angelik Madness/Demonik Wreakage duo, a particularly fine example of MMORPG fandom - bonus points for anyone who can identify the convenience store the pineapples are being held up in. Yet above all, Catsheep/Admiral Steaksauce is another outstanding supermarket-related effort - bravo.

Just a quick note to say that GameSetWatch is officially launched - which, if you're reading this, is incontrovertibly true, right? Over at Gamasutra we have the official announcement, which provides some info on the blogging line-up here that's worth repeating:

"GameSetWatch is headed by Game Developer/Gamasutra EIC and former Slashdot Games editor Simon Carless. Contributors to the daily-updated game weblog, which aims to pinpoint and succinctly link to the gems of video game coverage online, include GeekOnStun weblog creator Michael McWhertor, Edge Magazine contributor Brandon Boyer, LostLevels founder Frank Cifaldi and Wonderland game weblog creator Alice Taylor, as well as Insert Credit co-founder and Game Developer editor Brandon Sheffield." So there you go - stay tuned for the many shenanigans to come on the good ship GameSetWatch.

The incredibly generic-monikered TechEBlog has details on Cenix's GMP M-6 Korean gaming handheld, with which it is apparently "looking to take on the PSP in [South] Korea". According to the site: "This system features a MiniSD Card Slot, 2″ Widescreen TFT-LCD Display, and FM Tuner", and a couple of built-in games, with '50,000' more downloadable via the web (Java? Flash? Text adventures? Who knows.)

Other vital statistics? "The GMP-M6 measures 90 x 13 x 45.5 mm and weighs just 55g. Fully charged, the system gets approx. 6 hours of video/game play, and 20 hours of music playback on its 3.7V Li-polymer battery. A 1GB model which comes in either black or white will cost $193 USD." It looks a little on the teeny side, and without lots of dedicated game software support, it's probably not going to blow the market away, but heck, it's another novelty geek item to file next to the apparently ultra-buggy GP2X, right?

For those of you who don't know Super Furry Animals, let's sum up - psychedelic Welsh pop group, once got Sir Paul McCartney to eat celery in time to their music, not as famous in the States as they should be.

But let's add to that list - commissioned excellent video game-related music video [.MOV] for their song 'Lazer Beam', directed by Aurelien and Florian Marrel, and imagining the band starring in their own side-scrolling arcade brawler. Points to note - the Final Fight-style overlay map, and the Metal Slug vs. Moonwalker type 'gameplay', as people are forced to dance by the sheer power of the SFA's sonic weapons. Oh, and now we want to play the 'Lazer Beam' game, and it doesn't exist, damn you all to hell. [Via RobotWisdom.]

Ever since the unveiling of its Windows XP-based arcade board, Taito has been promising some big things. One of these is the arcade version of Valve's Half-Life 2, for which the cabinet and details have finally been released, via a Game Watch Type X super preview. The cabinet features two control sticks, left for moving, right for shooting (and weapons toggle), and two footpedals, left for jump, right for squat. With a 32 inch display at 1,360 × 768 resolution, and six embedded speakers, the cabinet is certainly an impressive one. Data is saved via an IC card.

This is one of the first examples we've seen of the Type X+ hardware, which takes the default Type X architecture and adds more RAM, more processing power, and a more poweful ATI graphics card. And aside from the normal story mode, the game sports a 4 on 4 battle mode, across Taito's hardwired network. At present, they're calling the game 50% complete, with a full-scale Japanese launch planned for March '06. Nothing has been announced for U.S. arcades yet - one only hopes there are still a few left by the time the game actually comes out!

Game-art site Grand Text Auto recently announced the public availability of Book And Volume, a new Inform text adventure by Twisty Little Passages author Nick Montfort.

As GTA handily explains: "As a sysadmin in Book and Volume’s nTopia, it’s easy to know what to do. Your computer, your pager, and your boss are constantly telling you. And you must spend your Sunday night running around rebooting servers whether you like it or not (there’s a big demo coming up!) or get fired." The official site has more information, and even a link to a non-savable web version of the game using Java, for the curious. There, proof that there's text adventure life outside the (absolutely excellent!) IFComp.

Extremely entertaining EverQuest II weblog (yes, this is a real statement!) Aggro Me has been poking around the more obscure voice actors used for the multitude of speaking characters in the game, which also includes Christopher Lee and Heather Graham as top-line voice talent.

Among the more interesting in the massive list? Well, there's Mindy Sterling, who, of course, "played Frau Farbissina from the Austin Powers films", and assays Oracle Ulinara, Darmen Sproutmore, and Merchant Novak, among others, in EQII. Heck, there's even Mae Whitman playing Lilly Ironforge, and Mr. Aggro points out: "If you're an Arrested Development fan, you may be interested to know that Mae played Anne Veal, George Michael's very religous girlfriend." As for The Wonder Years' all growed up Danica McKellar punching up Lolla Cotgrove? Say no more, say no more.

The insano Sega acolytes over at UK-headquartered website Kikizo sneaked over to document the Virtua Fighter 5 arcade playtest that happened at Tokyo's Club Sega last weekend, and professed themselves extremely impressed with the Lindbergh-based arcade title, as yet officially unconfirmed for next-gen consoles.

Particularly interesting, apart from the extremely pleasant graphics, is the complex online networking for the arcade title: Kikizo explains of the expanded VF.tv service: "What this service provides is an ongoing service that will be in every arcade in Japan. Each arcade will have at least one VF.tv monitor, which will show battle replays of matches (complete with full audio commentary!), advertisements, and player rankings." Sounds pretty smart - watch for the final version of Virtua Fighter 5 in Japanese arcades in April 2006.

Over at DS weblog Neologasm, they've put up a startlingly literate rave for one of the most popular DS import-only games, the pundit-beloved, and, indeed, GameSetWatch-adored 'Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan' (or 'Oh! My! Ouendan!' if you're translating half-assedly), which was developed by Gitaroo-man creators Inis.

As Neologasm explains: "In Ouendan there is no conventional single hero. In each stage, you play a particular group of people--the cheer squad--who empower the individual heroes of their stories to win conflicts." Why is this so great? Well, it's suggested: "At its greatest, Ouendan is about the triumph of personal responsibility. This is not the communist ideal that "the people" as a group hold true power, or Ayn Rand's notion that when freed to do so, some individual humans can be freed from the dead weight of the common people, but the (I suppose) classic liberal idea that common individuals, empowered and working together, can do great things." Also, it has some great J-Pop, if you're not into the highbrow deconstructionism.

Edge Online continues its regular 'FAQ' series of mini-interviews by quizzing Quantic Dream's David Cage, most recently renowned for his post-Bowie story-driven piece of intrigue that is Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy.

Cage is particularly interested in imbuing his games with emotion, and this comes out in his answer to a question about new developments in gaming: "If you're talking strictly about technology, I'd like to see more technologies related to living characters (body and facial animations, skin, eyes, clothes, hair, etc.) - all the little details that make the difference between a living character and a bunch of pixels." Onward, traipsing across the Uncanny Valley, perhaps?