Speaking as someone who has never truly enjoyed Star Fox ever since the N64 version, due to the change in theme that was present in the SNES original (hence why I couldn't care less for the upcoming 3DS re-release), the video above is a nice change of pace. Because David Bowie can make everything all better. The Wes Anderson vibe also helps as well.

Bonus points for making connections between Falco and Dennis Leary plus Slippy and Lady GaGa. Explains quite a bit actually.

Posted by Matthew Hawkins at 8:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Prope, the studio that Yuji Naka established after leaving Sega, and whose output is not surprisingly in the vein of his Sonic Team body of work (both Ivy the Kiwi and Let's Tap featured colorful, mascot and platform-centric gameplay, though more the former than the latter admittedly), has a new iOS game out. Other than having blue skies, an association that Naka and his crew helped to imbue Sega's offerings with, it's about as different as Sonic or NiGHTS as one can get.

This new title, Prope Discovery is somewhat of a hidden object game that has some degree of moment. It's been compared with Infinity Blade, due to its visual polish, which is not surprising, given that it's also built upon Epic's Unreal Engine. Though it's perhaps closer to the interactive demo that came before, Epic Citadel.

[via Joystiq]

Posted by Matthew Hawkins at 6:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Not sure what the real story is here, whether it’s a modified/hacked version of Super Smash Bros Brawl, or just a very well done piece of machinima. I call it catharsis for all of us who would have gotten a win if that one last Falcon Punch had connected. Better late than never!

[via Adarkox]

Posted by Matthew Hawkins at 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

To advertise its line of Chromebooks, Google has whipped up a series of challenges that you have only 6 seconds to complete. Which is how long it takes for one of its laptops to boot up. There's seven microgames in total, and are presented in rapid-fire succession, as well in a fashion that's very reminiscent of WarioWare.

Most intriguing of all is how one can go head-to-head with another player, from somewhere across the globe. Sadly, no opponent was pulled up on my end (though my internet at home sucks, so that's hardly indicative of everyone else’s experience). To play, one can install the web app here. It only works in Google's Chrome browser, not surprisingly.

[via 4 color rebellion]

Posted by Matthew Hawkins at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Jealous of all the obviously super hip dudes who can casually throw around esoteric names like Senko no Ronde and Battle Garegga with similarly cool shoot'em up aficionados? Wish you could be just like that DoDonPachi expert at the arcade, racking up high scores and going home with a different woman each night?

Retro gaming site Racketboy can make those dreams -- however foolish they may be for a grown man to have -- come true with its latest bible, Shmups 101: A Beginner's Guide To 2D Shooters, compiled by contributor BulletMagnet with the help of Hardcore Gaming 101 and the Shmups.com forum.

The guide takes you through the history of shoot'em ups, genre conventions, numerous subgenres, essential home systems for each console generation, signficant developers, and more. No longer will you feel the shame of others laughing at you for not knowing the different between a Euroshmup and a caravan shooter.

Posted by Eric Caoili at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last night, Nintendo of Japan opened up a site for Rhythm Heaven Wii, with the highlight thus far (it's a bit sparse at the moment; expect goodies in the not too distant future, including wallpaper and the such) being footage of some of its minigames in action.

The above is perhaps the most notable of the batch, since it demonstrates a few of its two player activities, something the series has yet to see in its portable incarnations. After the cut you'll find the other single player challenges, including a round of golf with some monkeys and a round of badminton in the sky via biplanes:

[via NintenDaan]

Posted by Matthew Hawkins at 10:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

[GameSetWatch rounds up the latest news in the world of App Store gaming, featuring standout releases like Sega All-Stars Racing, Tiny Tower, and 1-bit Ninja.]

- Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing Joins Sega's App Store Lineup
Sega's mascot-based kart racer arrives for the iPad, boasting a lineup of playable characters from Sonic the Hedgehog, ChuChu Rocket, Golden Axe, and more.

- Tiny Tower: A Cuter, Free SimTower For iOS
"iOS studio Nimblebit has just released Tiny Tower, which looks like a mix of Yoot Saito's SimTower/The Tower and the developer's Pocket Frogs with a layer of cute pixelart over the whole thing."

- 1-bit Ninja Debuts, Offers Surprising Depth
Kode80's 1-bit Ninja is a stylized side-scrolling platformer with a unique feature that allows players to drag the playfield into 3D at any point to reveal hidden paths.

- Telltale's Tales of Monkey Island Series Completed on iPad
Telltale Games has released the remaining chapters in its Tales of Monkey Island adventure game series for the iPad, and has now made the first chapter a free download.

- Gameloft BackStabs Ubisoft, Clones Assassin's Creed
Continuing its long-standing tradition of releasing iOS clones of popular console titles, Gameloft dips into Ubisoft's catalog with BackStab, a free-roaming stealth-parkour game in the vein of Assassin's Creed.

- Chillingo Launches Twin-Stick Shooter D.A.R.K.
Chillingo's latest App Store effort is a RPG-ish twin-stick shooter featuring multiple levels and character upgrade options.

- Bungie's Marathon Coming Soon to iPad, for Free
"Bungie's Halo predecessor Marathon is on its way to the iPad courtesy of a fan-made port that Bungie not only approves of, but calls 'totally sweet.'"

Posted by Eric Caoili at 8:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The above might elicit one of two reactions. Either "wow that’s a really nice take on the original's cel-shaded style." Or "Jesus, there was NOTHING wrong with Wind Waker's look; why must people constantly try to fix what wasn't broken?"

Thankfully, instead of going the full-on photorealistic, Reddit user thepixelartist's HD update is conservative and tasteful. Though I'm conflicted if I like this second take, with more realistic trees, as opposed to original take.

Sure they look, but are a bit too much of a departure, plus clashes with some of the other foliage. At least Ganon's new look is unquestionably terrific, seen after the cut.

[via Kotaku]

Posted by Matthew Hawkins at 6:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

T.E.C. 3001 (Tesla Energy Collector) is a 3D take on the automatic running game genre that's emerged in the past year through simple but addictive releases Canabalt and Robot Unicorn Attack.

The Xbox Live Indie title is based on three commands -- jump, charge, or slide -- and allows you to move left and right to avoid obstacles while running "through a virtual space to collect leftovers of energy for human kind.

Phoenix Game Studio will release T.E.C. 3001 in the coming months (possible through XBLIG Summer Uprising) with up 20 levels, each one around a minute long if you don't make any mistakes.

[Via Phoenixgs]

Posted by Eric Caoili at 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This short video for Puzzle Family, an iOS collection of colorful puzzle games from South Korean firm Com2uS, is a delight to watch, similar in tone to Nintendo's own whimsical Rhythm Tengoku/Heaven series, what with its expressive and dancing cartoon characters.

The actual eight games included in Puzzle Family are less interesting, as they appear to be just knock-offs of classics like Zookeeper and Magical Drop, but at least you get to dress up the figures in this video with new hairstyles, hats, and other accessories.

Also, when this releases on July 7, it will be free, though with ads. You will be able to unlock five extra modes and in-game items by purchasing the ad-free Puzzle Family Starpack version for $1.99, too.

[Via TouchArcade]

Posted by Eric Caoili at 2:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

['Homer in Silicon' is a biweekly GameSetWatch-exclusive column by Emily Short. It looks at storytelling and narrative in games of all flavors, including the casual, indie, and obscurely hobbyist. This week she looks at Christine Love's visual novel don't take it personally, babe, it just ain't your story.]

Don't Take It Personally, Babe, It Just Ain't Your Story has been out since April, and though it hasn't attracted quite the universal accolades of Digital: A Love Story, it's had lots of attention from lots of directions.

It's a quirky piece about the concept of privacy in the post-Facebook world; like Digital: A Love Story, it tells its story mostly through an adapted version of computer technology we're well familiar with already.

It's definitely worth playing; if you haven't played yet and would like to read a review, read one of those I just linked. Because what follows from here on is going to be a wholly spoiler-rich discussion of certain themes in the plot and the way they dovetail with Love's interaction choices.

Seriously, it's all spoilers from here on.

Ichigo's speech at the end of Don't Take It Personally, Babe touches briefly on an important theme: "I think your fundamental misunderstanding, John, is mistaking privacy for control of your personal boundaries."

This is an important key to the whole story, but it's unevenly explored in the narrative.

John Rook is created as an immature character who is bad at handling his own boundaries. His two divorces and his obvious lack of any personal life outside the classroom suggest a somewhat troubled background, and Ichigo also explicitly calls him out as immature during her final speech.

John's problems on this front are legion. Teaching requires balance. If you don't like your students or don't care to establish a rapport with them, they'll sense that and be uncomfortable with you. On the other hand, you can't let your empathy and chumminess with them get in the way of providing an orderly and disciplined experience in the classroom. And you absolutely cannot let your own self-image depend on the emotional signals you're getting from a bunch of teenagers. You're the adult in the room.

John's struggles with this show him as someone with considerably less self-awareness and control than he needs. His internal monologue about his students is occasionally harsh to an undeserved degree -- for instance, when he thinks about his contempt for Nolan because Nolan is a 16-year-old who doesn't pay attention to his studies. Most of the successful teachers I know have a somewhat more rounded view of their students than that and do not inherently have contempt for the young; if they do, they really don't belong in that line of work.

Major decision points highlight this awkwardness. John should have been able to establish a distance between himself and Arianna, *not* by being cruel to her, but by keeping her away from his personal life and personal time in the first place. It's not her job to make sure he has an umbrella to get home with, and there are ways to put off offers like this without being mean. (The semi-"happy" ending with Arianna, in which he decides he's in love with her, is even creepier. It's easy enough to understand that he might be attracted to Arianna, but it takes a pretty damaged 38-year-old man to decide that a flighty 16-year-old is a suitable partner.)

He should have been equipped to reprimand Taylor seriously but without descending to the language of "bitchiness" and meanness. She needs to hear a correction from someone who is not at her own level.

He also -- and this point goes beyond his personal characterization -- should have had the institutional support to act when he thought a student was in danger of harming herself. The prank about Isabella is the least successful part of the plot for a number of reasons -- it's improbable that it would work, it casts the students and a parent who should know better in a very negative light, and it's telegraphed repeatedly so that the player is likely to have guessed well before John does.

But beyond all that, schools do tend to take the wellbeing of their students extremely seriously and to have institutional provisions for following up on implied suicide threats or other signs of major emotional distress. It's beyond belief that the administration would have brushed off a serious inquiry by telling John it's not worth trying to follow up.

Obviously, there is nothing wrong with fiction that highlights a problem by having a character handle it badly. I also have no objection to interactive stories whose protagonists are not completely under the player's control, who have neuroses and personal limitations.

The trick isn't that Don't Take It Personally, Babe makes John's boundary issues a problem but that it doesn't problematize them. The player has no option to explore his failings interactively. His violations of privacy are front and center, in a way that encourages the player to be complicit in them and think about them, even though (in practice) the player has no real choices and is not allowed to go through the game without reading all of the students' private messages. The interaction is all about privacy.

The boundary choices by contrast are in a strange grey zone. John is aware in some of these cases that there are better decisions he could be making, better advice he could be giving, better ways he could be handling the student with a crush on him. The player's choices don't really explore this territory in the same way that they explore the privacy issue, though.

John's biggest violations (especially with regard to Arianna) never have significant repercussions. The player is never given the option to handle some of these situations with genuine sensitivity and maturity. (Contrast Stephen Bond's Rameses, whose neurotic protagonist frequently fantasizes about sensible or defiant responses he might make, but never has the courage to follow through when the player chooses those options.)

The whole question of how to behave well as a teacher is only fuzzily addressed because John not only doesn't know how to do it but (apparently) can't even imagine what the correct behavior might look like.

And without some focus on how personal boundaries might work properly in the context of reduced privacy, the story -- despite its charming characters, colorful dialogue, and important questions -- feels a little incomplete.

[Emily Short is an interactive fiction author and part of the team behind Inform 7, a language for IF creation. She also maintains a blog on interactive fiction and related topics. She also contracts for story and design work with game developers from time to time, and will disclose conflicts with story subjects if any exist. She can be reached at emshort AT mindspring DOT com.]

Posted by Emily Short at 1:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Though he's now busy working on big things at Minecraft maker Mojang, Markus "Junkboy" Toivonen hasn't given up creating awesome pixelart demakes, like this Castlevania-ish scene with a dark castle in the background, gnarled trees, and dozens of gravestones.

Gary Lucken (Army of Trolls) has put out his own cemetery scenes with his mock-ups for Swordstick Gentry, an awesome looking action game starring tophatted Victorian gent Dr Simon Swordstick, giant spiders, and werewolves. I so want to play both of these!:

[Via Junkboy, Army of Trolls]

Posted by Eric Caoili at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One of the most played multiplayer stages in video game history, de_dust is an iconic first-person shooter map, one familiar and fondly remembered by almost everyone who's ever touched Counterstrike. It's been re-created dozens of times by fans in other FPSes since.

And now artist Aram Bartholl wants to create a 1:1 scale replica of the level, memorializing it with a concrete "art piece and museum", a public sculpture that the public can wlak through and "experience the loaded game space in the physical reality".

Before Bartholl can start work on the 115 x 110 x 15 meter project, he'll first need to have the Rhizome Commissions Program in New York City to approve his grant. An excerpt from his proposal:

"To win a game the player needs to know the 3D game space very very well. Spatial recognition and remembrance is an important part of our human capability and has formed over millions of years by evolution. A place, house or space inscribes itself in our spatial memory. We can talk about the qualities of the same movies we watched or books we have read.

But millions of gamers experienced the same worlds in computer games. They all remember very well the spaces that they’ve spent a great deal of time in. Computer game architecture and game maps have become a new and yet undiscovered form of cultural heritage. How many people in the world have seen the real Time Square, the Kaaba in Mecca or the Tiananmen Square with their own eyes?

Millions of players share the experience of the same computer games and 3D spaces they have ‘lived’ in for a significant amount of time in their lives. A computer game map like ‘de_dust’ appears to be more real than many other places in the world such as artificially constructed places like supermarkets, airports or cities like Dubai."

This isn't the first time Bartholl has attempted to bring de_dust into the real world -- you can see one of his previous public space projects, in which he re-created the map's wooden creates on a real street after the break (as well as a video of a small de_dust model).

[Via Nullpoint84]

Posted by Eric Caoili at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By now, I hope you've played the experimental games of IGF award nominee and SOWN selected presenter Daniel Benmergui, like his interactive poem Today I Die and memorable multi-ending title I Wish I Were the Moon. Seriously, they're great stuff.

Benmergui just unveiled his next game, Storyteller, which he says is his "most ambitious project" yet. It's essentially a "storytelling puzzle videogame based on comics", and is designed to be "more gamey" than the other two titles I mentioned above.

"The mechanics borrow heavily from comic techniques of storytelling like Closure, points of view, captioning and frame transitions," the developer explains. "Each 'puzzle' is a story that must be built." You can see more comics that explain the concept here.

He expects to spend a year developing the game and will release it for Windows, Mac, and iPad. While you wait for that, you could always play other comic-themed games like Twisted Pixel's Comic Jumper and Sega's Comix Zone! (though neither really has similar gameplay...)

Posted by Eric Caoili at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There are many words I can use to describe this modded Sega Game Gear. Glorious. Imposing. Hefty. The "Handy Gear" project, created by lovablechevy, beefs up Sega's classic portable console with a vastly improved backlit display and other impressive features like internal rechargeable batteries, stereo sound, and dual compatibility with Game Gear and Sega Master System cartridges.

The five-inch screen, the same kind of LCD display used in the PSone's portable gaming kit, is clear enough to be visible in this example video, which is more than can be said of the Game Gear's standard 3.2-inch display. Unfortunately, most Game Gear games are hard-coded to display at a standard resolution, causing a border to surround the action on the Handy Gear. Master System carts display full-screen, however, and suffer none of the blurriness of the Game Gear's standard screen.

My old Game Gear gave up the ghost after one too many sessions of Dragon Crystal, so it's great to see the system getting some love. Also worth a look: lovablechevy's HandyDuo, which portablizes the NES and SNES.

[via Engadget]

Posted by Danny Cowan at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Cave has something special planned for fans of its arcade shoot-'em-ups. Starting at 11:00 AM GMT today (6:00 AM U.S. Central time), Cave will broadcast a livestream event showing off the upcoming iOS version of Deathsmiles.

The livestream, which will be archived if you miss the initial showing, will unveil a new and iOS-exclusive character, and will offer profiles for the game's illustrator, voice actors, and composers. A segment near the end of the broadcast will give a first look at the iOS version's revised gameplay, which will be optimized for touch screens, as per Cave's previous iOS releases Dodonpachi Resurrection and Espgaluda II.

Deathsmiles will premiere in the App Store on July 7th at a temporary sale price of $4.99.

Posted by Danny Cowan at 2:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Steam's Summer Camp Sale is now in full swing, featuring daily discounts that are so good, you may end up buying another pile of games that you'll never play. The seasonal event is more than just a sale, however -- while the promotion lasts, players can complete in-game tasks to earn exclusive add-on content.

Each unlocked Summer Camp achievement earns Steam members a ticket. Three tickets can be exchanged for an item at the Prize Booth, which currently hosts unlockables like extra challenge levels for Dejobaan Games' AaAaAA!!! - A Reckless Disregard for Gravity, snorkels for the co-op bots in Portal 2, and the full version of Team17's shooter Alien Breed 2: Assault.

Many of the Summer Camp achievements are for popular games that you may have already purchased, possibly during previous Steam sales. Achievement-unlocking games are also conveniently discounted, if you don't yet own them. It's quite insidious! And a fun challenge, I guess. New activities will be added daily through July 10th.

Posted by Danny Cowan at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Kickstarter as a means to fund game-related film projects is nothing new, but the vast majority thus far have been documentaries (Indie Games: The Movie and Minecraft: The Story of Mojang being just two examples). Though Your Friends Close immediately sets itself from the pack by being a work of fiction.

The movie depicts a going away party for a video game designing husband and wife team. On the eve of their planned trip to France, where they’ll develop some groundbreaking new MMO, it's revealed that one might not be leaving after all. The end result is everyone suddenly going after newfound opportunities. The screenwriter claims the main thrust is "the emotional, psychological heart-strings that are pulled by the people behind the scenes every time we pick up a controller, and what happens when they turn that attention among each other in a real life game with much higher stakes."

For whatever reason, I’m reminded of Chris Hecker's Spy Party. Ultimately, movies about going away shindigs that go awry are a dime a dozen, but when was the last time any involved video games? It would be nice to see Your Friends Close get funding, but with less than a week to go and a little less than halfway to go towards their goal, they could use all the help they can get and as soon as possible.

[UPDATE: It has just been revealed via Destructoid that Yahtzee Croshaw (of Zero Punctuation fame) and Lisa Foiles, (Top 5 with Lisa Foiles, also for The Escapist) have joined the cast. Seems the added dose of star power is working; the amount pledged has seen a significant bump since this report was originally filed hours ago!]

Posted by Matthew Hawkins at 8:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

That's the idea behind the iTari. It's also the most basic of video games, powered by the largest assemblage of cobbled together tech one can imagine (as well as costly, since it's all Apple gear).

The iPad is the center of it all, with both players controlling their paddles via iPhones. Though the tablet only displays the score, with the action being outputted to a bigger screen via the Apple TV.

Again, the set-up is not cheap; according to the iTari's creators, everything (including AT&T & Verizon's share) is around $1850. Yikes.

[via Kotaku]

Posted by Matthew Hawkins at 6:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This week's big game is again, a 3DS Virtual Console title -- Kirby's Dream Land is now available on the 3DS for £3.60 / €4. Also available on both the 3DS and DSi are A Fairy Tale
, a neat puzzler for 200 Points, and Successfully Learning German: Year 3 for 500 Points.

It's a pretty lonely life over on the WiiWare service, with just one new title -- Successfully Learning German: Year 3.

Posted by Ryan Langley at 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ahead of launching Rage for PC/PS3/Xbox 360 this October, id Software is releasing a series of behind-the-scenes videos about the first-person shooter/vehicle combat game, starting with this five-minute clip about the company's history and legacy. 

Here, John Carmack, Todd Hollenshead, Kevin Cloud, and other id Software notables talk about the advances to the FPS genre they've contributed over the years through titles like Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake.

There's also a look at the the id Tech 5 engine powering Rage, which Carmack boasts is "arguably the best looking game on consoles today" while running at two times the framerate (60fps) most other titles offer. 

Posted by Eric Caoili at 2:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New Star Soccer 5, which I previously held up as the primary reason to get excited about soccer games again, will release for Windows and Mac on August 11, allowing you to life the life of a young football star, in and off the field.

This indie game doesn't come close to matching the graphics of modern FIFA or Winning Eleven releases, but it's not trying to offer the same experience: here you just control one player instead of an entire team.

With that player, you'll train, level up, gain new skills, do your best on the pitch, pick up sponsors, drink too much before the night of a game (and predictably play terribly the next day), gamble your money away at the casino or horse track, and more.

When New Star Soccer 5 debuts, it will be priced at $20. If you pre-order, though, you can pick it up with a 25 percent discount and also receive access to the beta version. 

Posted by Eric Caoili at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Fans of shoot'em ups and import gaming magazines, the second volume of Shooting Gameside has released! Even if you can't read its Japanese text, the layout and care put into the periodical is worth the high price of admission: $30.90, if you're buying from NCSX.

This issue offers 160 pages, 26 (!) of those devoted to a feature on Gradius. The rest of the mag is full of previews, strategies, interviews (including one with Taito's in-house band Zuntata), and more for games like Crimzon Clover, Eschatos, Trouble Witches, and Hayabusa.

Shmups Forum member Rancor has already received his copy of Shooting Gameside Magazine Vol. 2 and posted photos of the pages covering Cave's Akai Katana and reviewing Kotobukiya's Ikaruga ship model kit, which you can see after the break:

Posted by Eric Caoili at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Digital agency Littleloud and Channel 4 are teaming up again (you might remember their previous collaboration The Curfew) for Sweatshop an online strategy game that's sure to make you feel like a jerk, as you play the manager of a sweatshop producing designer clothes for the UK s high-street stores.

Despite its appalling premise, it looks like a lighthearted affair with graphics by the esteemed Gary Lucken (Army of Trolls) and a Tower Defense mechanic that challenges you to balance the demands of your Western clients with the welfare of the children slaving away in your sweatshop.

"Should you hire a fire officer to prevent the risk of workers dying horribly in an industrial blaze or pack them in to get the job done? Should you train workers to make them more efficient and satisfied or fire them when they lose a limb in an industrial accident?

How do you motivate workers: with generous treats and toilet breaks or with an iron fist, long hours and verbal abuse? Maybe you just want to buy a bunch of robots to do the job instead, forcing your human workforce into deeper poverty.

As the player journeys through the game, the story of the characters evolve and the sweatshop grows, moving into ever new larger premises with all the complications of management this entails."

Posted by Eric Caoili at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Organizers have officially opened submissions for the 2012 Independent Games Festival, being held at the Game Developers Conference 2012 in San Francisco next March 5-9.

The Independent Games Festival is the longest-running and highest-profile independent video game festival, summit, and showcase, and is now accepting entries to its 14th annual edition, with deadlines in the Main and Student Showcase categories by October 17 and October 31 respectively, and finalists to be announced in January 2012.

All games selected as finalists will be available in playable form at the IGF Pavilion on the GDC show floor from March 7-9, 2012, and will compete for nearly $60,000 in prizes, a significant increase from last year.

This includes the high-profile $5,000 Nuovo Award, honoring abstract, short-form, and unconventional video game development, and previously won by designers including Jason Rohrer (Between) and Messhof (Nidhogg).

In addition, awards for Excellence in Visual Art, Audio, and Design, Technical Excellence, Best Mobile Game, the Best Student Game, and the Audience Award each now receive a $3,000 prize, and the signature Seumas McNally Grand Prize for the independent game of the year (won by Mojang's Minecraft in 2011) has been increased by 50 percent to a record $30,000.

Winners will be announced on stage at the high-profile Independent Games Festival Awards on Wednesday, March 7, 2012, at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. The Independent Games Festival Awards are held immediately before the wider Game Developers Choice Awards.

Both multi-thousand person attendee award shows are part of the 2012 Game Developers Conference, taking place March 5th - March 9th, 2012. GDC 2012 also includes the 2012 Independent Games Summit, which is entering its sixth year and offers two days (March 5-6) of inspiration, practical lectures, and rants from the top minds in the independent games world.

The Independent Game Festival continues to sit at a place of global importance as the largest, most prestigious and all encompassing showcase of independent game talent across the wide spectrum of artistically and commercially aimed development. Notable former IGF winners include landmark indie titles such as Minecraft, Limbo, World of Goo, Braid, Castle Crashers, Everyday Shooter, Darwinia, Audiosurf and many more.

"All of us here at the IGF are excited for a new year of the innovation and artistry we consistently see from the independent games that enter the festival," said Brandon Boyer, chairman of the Independent Games Festival, who also published a separate letter discussing this year's plans.

"Our transition to a more expert-focused jury system last year was a tremendous success, and we expect it will again lead to another stellar set of finalists and winners that have made this festival the most respected in the industry. Best of luck to all the entrants!"

Submissions to the competition are now open to all independent game developers; important dates for IGF 2012 - organized by the UBM TechWeb Game Network, as is this website - are as follows:

- June 30, 2011 - Submissions are Open
- October 17, 2011 - Submission Deadline, Main Competition
- October 31, 2011 - Submission Deadline, Student Competition
- January 5, 2012 - Finalists Announced, Main Competition
- January 12, 2012 - Finalists Announced, Student Competition
- March 5 - March 9, 2012 - Game Developers Conference 2012
- March 5 - March 6, 2012 - Indie Games Summit @ GDC 2012
- March 7 - March 9, 2012 - IGF Pavilion @ GDC 2012
- March 7, 2012 - IGF Awards Ceremony (Winners Announced!)

For a complete list of information on the 2012 Independent Games Festival, including submission specifics, frequently asked questions, and more discussion on this year's contest from the IGF Chairman, please visit the official Independent Games Festival website.

Posted by Simon Carless at 7:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

[Following the announcement of the 2012 Independent Games Festival competition, IGF Chairman Brandon Boyer goes in-depth on the changes made for this year's Festival, examining the ethos for the competition and the shifts in policy and rules for this year's 14th annual IGF experience.]

Well, we made it unscathed through that lucky-13th, and here we are again, back where we started, with the opening of the 14th year of the Independent Games Festival. Last year's festival was a landmark one on a number of levels.

It was the first that folded the IGF Mobile into the main competition, the first where one of the entrants (and the eventual Grand Prize winner) surprised everyone (the developers included!) by selling several hundred thousand copies of their game before judging had even begun, our first with a new two-tier judge and jury system, and, obviously, my first year as chairman.

I learned a lot about the festival and how it operates and how it could better be improved over the past year. So I'm here now to outline some of the changes we'll be implementing this year, as the IGF, its role in the community, and the community itself grows and evolves. But we'll start with one aspect of the festival that we won't be changing:

The IGF will continue to utilize its two-tier judge and jury system.

From the conversations I've had over the past several months, nearly everyone involved -- from the judges and jurors themselves to the individual entrants to those of us organizing the festival -- felt like the change to this system was an incredibly important and positive change.

The two-tier system - with our 150-200 judges recommending games in certain categories, and discipline-specific juries of 8-10 subject matter experts assigned to each award, ensured that all games in the festival got an equal chance at making it into the finalist round.

With more eyes than ever on each entry, and each jurist chosen for their specific professional merits for each category (our list of 2011 jurors is available here), experts were able to make a strong case for any game, whether it gathered an initial popular vote or not.

It also meant that our finalist and winner selection was less of a binary process, and more of a conversation about the deeper merits of the games and their place and legacy in the independent game community. Those intimate conversations were a passionate, productive, valuable look at the pulse of professional indie developers, as you can read in our Nuovo jury comments and Main Competition jury statements, and we're looking forward to those conversations again this year.

As for things we will be changing, we'll start here:

IGF Winner awards will be increasing across nearly all categories.

We increased a few of the finalist number and dollar amounts for IGF 2011, and we're doing so a little more broadly in 2012. The Seumas McNally Grand Prize will now include a $30,000 cash prize, 50% more than previously, and all category winners have been increased to a $3,000 cash prize. All, that is, except for the Nuovo Award, which will remain at the same $5,000 as last year, continuing our increased focus on experimentation and alternate game approaches in the IGF.

The full breakdown of all the awards received by both IGF finalists and IGF category and Grand Prize winners can be seen on our Awards page.

We're taking gradual steps to limit prior finalists from re-entering the same game.

One of my strongest beliefs is that none of us here at the IGF should act as gate-keepers, rejecting developers as they file in to enter their games, for any reason. I believe that's one of the strengths and the best utilizations of our judge and jury system, allowing the community to set its own tone for the outcome of the festival.

That said, we would like to see the games coming into the festival being prepared for the festival, just as it operates in other creative fields. While some IGF finalists have gone on to win IGF awards when entered in a more complete state, we're making an official stance that finalists of IGF 2012 will be discouraged from re-entering their game in 2013.

The idea is to leave those finalist slots (not to mention judge & jury assignments) open for new works. As this is a transitional year, 2011 finalists will not be discouraged from re-entering any games -- we only add that we're all looking forward to seeing new creations each year, and hope that you, the developers, are confident that your game will shine through amongst the other entries. And finally...

We're working on solutions to improve communication on all levels for IGF 2012.

One of my biggest frustrations over-seeing last year's festival and its record 670-plus entries was the sense that once a developer enters a game, they lack information on the progress of the judging. More than a few times I know I told individual entrants that the less they heard, the more that meant that things were actually going well, but I don't think that's the way it should have to be.

So we're intending to implement more updates and status check-ins, for entrants and judges to better communicate about technical issues, missing and broken entries and so on, and to give developers a better sense of where their entry is at in the process after it's been submitted.

Look forward to hearing more about that, as well as some other new aspects of this year's Festival, Awards, and Summit, in coming months. And, as usual, the best of luck to everyone entering their game -- we all look forward to seeing what you've created this year! If you've got any questions or concerns about anything I've listed here, don't hesitate to email me at brandon@igf.com!

Posted by Simon Carless at 7:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's all about the Virtual Console this week with some great classics finding their way to the Virtual console.

The Wii's Virtual console has picked up quite a gem -- Final Fantasy III. That being the original US game, more commonly known as Final Fantasy VI nowadays. You can grab it for 800 Points.

The Wii also gained a new WiiWare title -- Big Town Shoot Out, a classic on rails shooter for 500 Points.

On the 3DS Virtual Console we have Kirby's Dream Land for $3.99. This was the very first Kirby game, and actually missed out on a lot of what Kirby's about now -- collecting powers. Still, a nice, cute and easy romp though the Dream Land.

We also have a bunch of new DSiWare releases -- The Lost Town - The Dust for 500 Points, Boardwalk Ball Toss for 200 Points, Hearts Spades Euchre for 200 Points, and lastly Moto eXtreme for 800 Points, which looks like a take on the Trials HD type of motorcycle game.

Posted by Ryan Langley at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Deadly Premonition director Hidetaka Suehiro, aka "Swery65," wants very badly to make a new game, according to his latest blog post (scroll down for the English version), but lacks the funding to do so. This is a crime. Publishers, it's time to sack up and throw some money at this man.

"I promise I'll make something good!" Swery pleads, as only he can. "Seriously! I'll work real hard! I'll work until it kills me! I’m gonna work harder than anyone’s ever worked before! But, uh, I will need some rest from time to time... But, but, but, you definitely won't regret it. I mean it. Please!! (Haha)"

The strange and excellent Deadly Premonition was followed up with standard "pay the bills" fare from Swery's company Access Games -- the PSP Monster Hunter clone Lord of Arcana, for one, along with the Ace Combat spinoff Joint Assault. Neither game featured coffee fortunes nor meandering one-sided conversations about '80s horror movies. It's time for this to change.

In other up-to-the-minute Swery news, Deadly Premonition is set to see a release soon as a downloadable title for the Xbox 360's Games on Demand service in Europe. And for anyone who wants to experience but not necessarily play Access Games' 2003 Metal Gear Solid-like Spy Fiction (which shares many elements in common with Deadly Premonition), a professional-quality Let's Play video series has recently kicked off at Something Awful.

Posted by Danny Cowan at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Developer Zeboyd Games brings word that Cthulu Saves the World and Breath of Death VII, two of the highest-rated titles for the Xbox Live Indie Games service, will be released as a Steam and Gamersgate combo pack next month for $3.

Both games are designed in the style of 8- and 16-bit era console RPGs, but offer numerous refinements to familiar gameplay systems. Random battles are limited in number, for instance, and after clearing a dungeon of wandering enemies, players are free to explore without being attacked. Battles can then be called up via a menu option, if the player wishes to grind for experience points.

There's also a good amount of humor sprinkled throughout both games, which often pokes fun at RPG conventions and video game logic. I played through Breath of Death VII when it was first released and found it to be a breezy, enjoyable experience that eliminated much of the frustration and slow pacing that bogs down older RPGs. Totally recommended!

A content-expanding update will arrive for the Xbox Live Indie Games version of Cthulu Saves the World upon the release of the Steam compilation, which is set to launch on July 13th.

Posted by Danny Cowan at 2:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yamaha has released TNR-i, a fully-featured iOS simulation of Toshio Iwai's electronic musical instrument and Electroplankton successor Tenori-on.

Tenori-on operates via a 16x16 grid of LED switches, which can be triggered to play and loop a variety of sounds to a consistent beat. The effect is similar to the "Rec-Rec" minigame in the Iwai-designed Nintendo DS music sim Electroplankton, but offers much greater flexibility in terms of music creation. The iOS version additionally allows users to create music online with others via Apple's Game Center service.

The instrument itself is fascinating to watch, but doesn't come cheap; different models range in price from $700 to $1000. Yamaha's iOS adaptation, which is a universal build compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad devices, is priced at $19.99.

[via @brandonnn]

Posted by Danny Cowan at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

While not quite the household name that Mega64 is today, the Chicago-based collective known as The Gang might be on a similar path of success and stardom. If there's one thing the trailer above demonstrates, it's how the real deal might have enjoyed greater success if Lan Di was instead a shirtless white kid with a buzz cut, wearing a cape, and sporting a Superman logo on his chest.

Don't be fooled; the above is not a trailer to some full-length thing that doesn't exist. The entire movie can be found after the cut, which clocks in at a whopping one hour and forty-nine minutes. It follows all the major beats of the game fairly closely, with some creative license here and there. Example: instead of Ryo wasting valuable time on Hang-On at the arcade, he does at home with the Dreamcast (via the version found in Shenmue, naturally).

But that's not all; Gang Entertainment also has adaptations of Shenmue 2, and what they believe would have been the tale told in Shenmue 3. For those still seeking closure, this is as close as we're going to get. Furthermore, they also make games, including Shenmue: The Gang Edition RPG, which can be nabbed here.

Posted by Matthew Hawkins at 10:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Many have already seen assorted behind-the-scenes sketches for beasts that didn't make the cut in Shadow of the Colossus. But few of us know what the story behind them is. Thus comes GlitterBerri to the rescue yet again! Last seen retranslating the script to Zelda 1, her current project involves putting the Japanese words found in SotC's official guidebook into English.

Thus far we have insight behind the primary players and some concept art, in the words of the game’s creator, Fumito Ueda, which is all good stuff. But the star attraction is finally learning why certain Colossi were never meant to be. A few got the axe because of technical reasons, but many were discarded due to their methods of disposal being too similar to others or simply not coming together in development.

By far the most visually striking ones are "Devil", which despite its winged back, looked the most human of the entire lot, and another that appears to combine elements from another rejected Colossi, "Monkey", and fighting Aztec robot Huitzil, from Darkstalkers. See what I mean after the cut, along with other examples. Glitterberri asks us all to bookmark this page, with updates on the way.

Posted by Matthew Hawkins at 8:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Owning stock in any large (and successful) company definitely has its perks. It may not compare to the piles of iPad 3s and iPhone 5s that certain Apple stockholders might receive as thank you gifts, but those who own a significant portion of the house that Nintendo built were recently awarded bonuses that are still quite the coup.

Like the most precious Mii of all, the one belonging to Shigeru Miyamoto! Not only that, but Satoru Iwata as well, sporting a pair of golden pants! Along with some cards and cookies, but who cares about that...

[via Andriasang]

Posted by Matthew Hawkins at 6:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This month's Austin indie game gathering organized by Juegos Rancheros will feature a star-studded lineup of guessts that includes representatives from Sworth & Sworcery developers Superbrothers and Capy, and Adventure Time maker Pendleton Ward.

Canabalt creator Adam Saltsman will host a three-way chat with the developers and Ward -- if the latter's inclusion in the event seems odd, you should remember that his Cartoon Network show has a number of video game homages:

"If you follow the intersection between games, art & animation, there's very little chance you haven't already been acquainted with Adventure Time, but if you haven't, all it takes is one sitting to realize that the show was created and written by a lifelong and super enthusiastic videogame lovers.

Magic +1 rings, perilous labyrinths & miniboss battles and a full-on episode where stars Finn & Jake are pulled directly into a videogame on their BMO console, below!), the series is drenched in the culture we've collectively grown up in."

The Juegos Rancheros meetup kicks off at 4PM this Sunday, and will be free and open to the public. RSVP here!

Posted by Eric Caoili at 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Big week for the Xbox Live Arcade with three brand new titles, each looking to take some of my time over the next week.

The first game is Half Minute Hero - Super Mega Neo Climax Edition, a new version of the fascinating little PSP game from a year or so ago. It's a RPG on steroids -- where you only have half a minute to complete a level. Highly recommend you check it out, and it's available for just 800MSP.

The second release is Galaga Legions DX, a return to the Galaga franchise by Namco. While the first Legions title wasn't the best, I have hopes that since Pac Man CE DX was fantastic last year, this game sees a similar return to form. It is also 800MSP.

The final new release is Backbreaker: Vengence. Bear in mind -- while it looks like a Football game, it isn't entirely that. Instead it's a score based game where you must run thorugh waves of opponents, juking, barging and jumping to get a touchdown while also scoring the most points possible. That can be grabbed for 1200MSP.

The final new piece of content this week is a new Pinball Table for Pinball FX 2 -- The Captain America table, which you can grab for 240MSP.

If none of that tickles your fancy, check out the current deals on sale on the storefront:

All pieces of the Hasbro Family Game Night - were 800MSP, now 400MSP.
Turtles In Time RS - was 800MSP, now 400MSP.
Lara Croft: GoL - was 1200MSP, now 600MSP.
X-Men - was 800MSP, now 400MSP.
Comic Jumper - was 800MSP, now 400MSP
Zeno Clash UE - was 1200MSP, now 600MSP.

Also TMNT Re-Shelled will be removed on June 30th due to licensing issues -- now is the time to grab it!

Posted by Ryan Langley at 3:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Big week for the European PlayStation Network user -- a ton of games are now available after being delayed from the month of downtime.

You can now pick yourself up Gatling Gears an exceptional top-down shooter, for £7.99/€9.99. If you're into dungeon crawling, grab Dungeon Hunter: Alliance for £9.99/€12.99. If golf is more your thing, check out 3D Ultra Mini Golf Adventures 2 for £7.99/€9.99.

Dragon’s Lair II: Time Warp is also available for £7.99/€9.99, as well as the bizarre puzzler Puzzle Dimension for £7.99/€9.99. And last (and possibly least), Star Raiders is available for £7.99/€9.99.

That's not the end of the releases though -- a new PSOne classic is available. You can now grab Motor Toon Grand Prix 2 for £3.99/€4.99, and on the DLC side, you can grab the Captain America Table for Marvel Pinball for £1.59/€1.99.

Posted by Ryan Langley at 3:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Once approached about video games' harmful effects on children, former Nintendo CEO Kristian Wilson famously said, "If Pac-Man had affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive electronic music."

Of course, Kristian Wilson never existed, and that bit of wisdom was actually made up by English comedian Marcus Brigstocke, but it's still funny to think of Pac-Man's world and mechanics brought into our real world, as this video from NotWorkingFilms does.

In this short, the maze game isn't played in dark rooms, but on unlit highways, pellets strewn across empty lanes and ghosts on the horizon. The moon, an incomplete glowing yellow orb watches, while a Pac-Man remix booms on the stereo.

Posted by Eric Caoili at 2:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Aside from creating the gold standard to which all console FPSes are judged upon, another innovation that Halo brought to the table was introducing Alternative Reality Games to the traditional game playing masses. And there’s apparently an initiative in the works to see if lighting will strike twice, this time for the next Halo trilogy.

First off, ILoveBees.com, where it all started one could say, has a new countdown clock. The length is around five years, which is how long Master Chief was in cryogenic stasis before being rudely awakened by the events in the forthcoming sequel. But now there's a second site, supposedly by the same team behind ILB. Called TestSubjectsNeeded, one must answer a number of questions before being allowed to sign up for the Human Preservation Project, whatever that might be.

Furthermore, clicking on the fly on upper left-hand corner will net a third site, Mission Icefly. Another counter is present, with a far shorter duration of less than two days. Various cities are also listed, and when the clock reaches zero, a single volunteer from each locale will be chosen for... something. Intriguing to say the least.

[via DeviceMAG]

Posted by Matthew Hawkins at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Last week, we mentioned that NYC-based developer and Mobile IGF award winner Powerhead (Glow Artisan) laid off its workforce, and that the team had managed to submit one more puzzler to Apple's App store before packing its stuff.

Luckily (since no one's at the studio now to fix any bugs), the game made it through the submission process, and you can now download ASYNC Corp. to your iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad for just $0.99.

A quick gameplay description for the unique andpuzzler:

"Your task at ASYNC Corp. is to create and send Packets. A Packet is a 2 x 2 (or larger) block of the same color. To make a Packet, a player selects a single Unit from each grid.

If a 2 x 2 Packet can be created, the Units will swap and a Packet will be formed. Just tap the Packet to send it off to one of ASYNC Corp's many Packet Handling Facilities."

We might not receive anymore games from Powerhead (not unless the studio manages to re-hire workers and fund new projects), but at least we have this last colorful, smiling title to remember it by...

Posted by Eric Caoili at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Metal Gear Office starts off as a predictable, amateurish parody asking "What if Solid Snake worked a normal 9-to-5?", but there are some genuinely funny moments in the video's spoofing of NBC comedy The Office, mostly in the co-workers trying to understand the company's new book keeper.

And while Deltacore lacks personalities like Michael Scott and Dwight Schrute to keep the office on its toes, it has great stand-ins for Jim and Pam -- the latter, represented here by the fawning Melony, has fallen hopelessly in love with Snake, unperturbed by his tactical gear and tie outfit.

Anyway, I was expecting this to be terrible, especially since it's a combination that's been visited before, but now I want to see more of this from Blue Core Studios. Hopefully, they'll find time to produce more episodes when not working on the Sonic the Hedgehog fan film with Jaleel White.

Posted by Eric Caoili at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

PlayDead Studios made a huge splash into the Xbox Live Arcade last year with LIMBO, their creepy puzzle platformer that, at least based on Leaderboard statistics, has had over 750,000 players give the game a shot. Now the game plans to expand to another platform -- the PlayStation Network.

The news comes from a rating on the Korean Rating Board, citing that Sony Computer Entertainment Korea has rated the game. While I personally found the game to be a little lacking, it still garnered a huge amount of praise, and will now finally see a release on another console.

It's not the first time this has happened -- both 2008 classics Braid and Castle Crashers, after months of exclusivity, finally made their way over to the PlayStation Network. It will be interesting to see if this version is being developed by PlayDead themselves, or a second party like Braid was.

Posted by Ryan Langley at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

That's a headline I've long been prepared to write, but regardless, I was still praying that this day would never arrive. It should come as no surprise that double-platinum rapper and noted butt-liker Sir Mix-a-Lot has targeted Gamasutra editor-in-chief Kris Graft in a promotional video for his Facebook game Mix-N-Match with Sir Mix A-Lot.

Graft instigated the conflict with this tweet, which laid the groundwork for Mix-a-Lot's shocking revelation above. Sir Mix-a-Lot's announcement expands Graft's robust baby catalog, which to date includes two human babies and one e-mail baby.

Posted by Danny Cowan at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A nice, meaty update for North American players this week on the PlayStation Store. It's a bit of a catchup week, as most of these have been released on the Xbox Live Arcade over the past few months, but that doesn't mean you should miss out on any of them.

This week you can grab Beyond Good & Evil HD -- a quality action adventure game for $9.99, Gatling Gears -- an excellent top-down shooter for $9.99, Puzzle Dimension -- a mind bending puzzler for $8.99, and Streets Of Rage 2, the classic brawler for $4.99.

On the DLC side we've got two new releases -- Funky Lab Rat now has an Even More New Challenges for $1.99, and you can grab the Captain America Table for MARVEL Pinball for $2.99.

To round out the new releases we have one new Minis title -- Tetraminos for $3.99, which absolutely does not shy away from being just straight-up Tetris.

For those with PlayStation Plus accounts, you can also grab the following:

Streets of Rage 2 (Free with Plus – a $4.99 value)
Dead Space Ignition (PlayStation Plus price $2.50; a 50% discount)
Deathspank (PlayStation Plus price $7.50; a 50% discount)
Deathspank Thongs of Virtue (PlayStation Plus price $7.50; a 50% discount)
Funky Lab Rat (PlayStation Plus price $3.00; a 70% discount)
Mahjong Tales: Ancient Wisdom (PlayStation Plus price $3.99; 20% additional discount on two week sale price)
MicroBot (PlayStation Plus price $5.00; a 50% discount)
Shank (PlayStation Plus price $5.00; a 50% discount)
Spare Parts (PlayStation Plus price $5.00; a 50% discount)
Tetris (PlayStation Plus price $5.00; a 50% discount)
The Fancy Pants Adventures (PlayStation Plus price $5.00, a 50% discount)

Posted by Ryan Langley at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our sister site Gamasutra has been running some great coverage of the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision to strike down California's proposed law to restrict the sale of violent video games to minors, but if you'd rather have the whole thing summarized via CG animation, well, here we are.

Next Media Animation, a Taiwanese news outfit that earned minor meme status for its unique take on 2009's Tiger Woods scandal, has taken its notoriety and ran with it, producing dozens of animated shorts tackling major worldwide news items in the months since. This video is one of the group's latest efforts, following up on recent animations spotlighting New York's gay marriage bill and that whole hacking business involving Sony, the CIA, and our beloved Sega.

Gotta say, that game those kids are playing looks pretty sweet.

[via Joystiq]

Posted by Danny Cowan at 2:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mobigame's iOS action game Edge has earned more attention for its role in the downfall of Edge copyright claimant Tim Langdell than for its gameplay -- a shame, as the game itself is pretty boss. Few people were able to experience Edge upon its first release due to Langdell's well-publicized legal threats.

Edge will get another chance in the App Store this summer -- hopefully without the legal wrangling this time -- with Edge Extended. No further details are available at this time, save for the fact that Extended is not a sequel, but instead a "new game" featuring "new levels and new ideas." The original Edge is still available in the App Store, following multiple reinstatements.

Posted by Danny Cowan at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Marvelous Entertainment is playing it super safe with the upcoming updated version of No More Heroes for PS3. Added Move support brings it closer to the Wii original, which they're assuming the upcoming customer base has never touched. Though having someone dressed as Travis Touchdown demo the game by going through an entire mission could easily be classified as overkill.

Never mind how an edited down clip reel could have sufficed, the most amazing thing is the guy they got to play the part. Given how dripping with cool Travis is in the game, could the published have gotten a more goony and awkward real life equivalent?

Watch it turn out to be Suda 51's cousin, a contest winner, or someone who’s there because of Japan's version of Make-A-Wish Foundation I'm giving grief...

[via Joystiq]

Posted by Matthew Hawkins at 8:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

One of the many things that you'll commonly find over at Nico Nico Douga is random subject matter that's been cut and pasted into some moe-riffic visual novel's intro. The greater the dichotomy when it comes to the subject matter, the greater the laughs!

The original opening, by the way, is from an eroge (naturally) called Nursery Rhyme. I'm hoping at last one GSW reader out there is familiar with the game. A shot by shot comparison is available after the cut. Anyhow, erotic games between mecha pilots have already been done, but between mecha themselves? Surely that exists already, right?

[via Mecha Damashii]

Posted by Matthew Hawkins at 6:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Hey, it's Tuesday! Everyone should know the drill by now; time again for another healthy dose of randomness, courtesy of Tumblr.

Kicking things off is a reminder of how truly awful the American Street Fighter 2 comic from the '90s truly was. Published by Malibu Comics (who is no longer around, big surprise), it was cancelled after just three issues. The final installment featured a fight between E. Honda and some guy called "The Ferret". Don't ask.

Pokemon Snap x Back To The Future anyone?

And Pokemon x Metal Gear?

Remember the days when Japanese game designers used aliases? I miss those days as well...

Remember that statue of Jeffry from Daytona USA? Same thing one can suppose:

I guess this was used to promote Nintendo's Vs. arcade system? Was there ever a Ladies Golf game?

Once again, what's that screenshot from?

It's not often one comes across Faxanadu fan art:

Darkstalkers tributes on the other hands are fairly common, but that doesn't make this any less awesome:

European game magazines were, I guess you could say, different back in the day:

Team Fortress 2 definitely neat and all, but I would indeed be more inclined to play it if the game featured cute animals:

Time for the obligatory Mega Man portion of Tumblr Tuesday...

And Mega Man X Evangelion:

And why the heck not: Zone Of The Enders x a fat little dog?

Finally, courtesy of Lamar Abrams, a hippo playing a video game...

Posted by Matthew Hawkins at 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Perhaps I just don't know my stuff and am missing something here; at the very least, I know Philip K. Dick died a few years before the game out, so the only connection I can make is that the famous science fiction author was somehow an inspiration to those within Taito while making the game.

Either that or the person who hand stitched the piece is simply a fan of both. Okay, probably that. A few additional, in progress pics can be seen after the cut.

It hails from a Flickr stream belonging to SuperJuegos Xtreme, a Spaniish gaming magazine, where on can find all sorts of flat out weird things (though the Monster Boy image is just flat-out cute):

Posted by Matthew Hawkins at 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello and welcome to another installment of This Week In Videogame Blogging, with the latest and greatest writing, blogging and criticism from the videogame blogosphere. But some news! I'm actually going to be away in the UK for the next fortnight (get ready London!) but the diligent team stands ready to fill in for me so we shouldn't miss a beat. Onwards!

Dan Bruno at Cruise Elroy analyses the music and sound of Portal 2. I think every man, woman and child has pointed out how great the music and sound design is in this game, but Bruno elaborates succinctly as to why.

The BIG news this week, in case you somehow escape hearing it, is that Brandon Sheffield and Co. are relaunching the allegedly awesome Insert Credit blog that has lain dormant recently. The relaunch is kicked off with a manifesto in seven parts, and here's Sheffield:

"The fact is, writing about games is depressing in all new ways. And guess whose fault it is? It's mine. It's my fault. Ours, really. That sounds self deprecating, but it's actually kind of arrogant, and it's not even totally untrue. Games writing is now way too personal. It's too casual. Too many writers inserting too much of themselves in ways that nobody in their right minds cares about. Too many armchair journalists speaking as though their word is gospel. Really, think about that. Armchair journalism has become the standard. Kids on forums actually now truly believe that their opinions are hyper-relevant, because after all, they can write just as convincingly as your average blogger. They're not really wrong!"

You probably didn't know it, but lovely contributor Kris Ligman did: you actually wanted to read an excerpt from Patchen Barss book The Erotic Engine on io9:

"The effect of being immersed in a video game is qualitatively different from any medium in which the consumer is just a spectator. You don't feel as though you're pushing a button on a controller-you feel like you're blowing up a tank. Translate that into sexuality, particularly acting out sexual fantasies, and you are playing with a power that few companies have been willing or able to harness. Although the explicitly erotic video game sector remains relatively small, it is still a driving force in the field."

"We spend a lot of time on, I don't know what to call it, some kind of boob physics or whatever you want to call it," Abrams said with a laugh. "I have no idea what would be a great name for it, but basically our boobs bounce. There are so many little details that we go into to create a little bit of life in a character which are typically ignored most times in other games."

"In gaming, the camera's gaze and the characters' get tangled together, because we aren't just viewers, but players. We take on the role of someone in the story, and the camera serves as our eyes. Male characters tend to be the point-of-view characters, even in a third-person game. We watch what interests them. Miranda's deliberately putting herself on display for Shepard. This makes the moment of male gaze particularly jump out if you're playing a female Shepard, as then the on-screen dynamics feel misplaced, rather than feeling like a default."

"Video games tend to be an insular, thematically slight medium in which much of the meaning that is explicit often refers back to other games themselves (I'm still looking at you Braid). Whoever observed that there are more books written about other books than any other topic would have something to say about the nostalgia binge of the last five years. In this light, it's exciting to hear about an atmospheric, thematically ambitious game that not only takes on the typical, if excellent, triumvirate of nostalgia, coming of age and fantasy, but does so with a clear consciousness of weightier issues, namely global poverty and the harm it wreaks on families."

Reader Tom Kenny writes in to alert us to "a massive Quintin Smith-shaped hole in your curation. It's called "Journey of Saga", and it's still the best piece of games writing I've ever read". And he's right! We haven't linked to it before, possibly because it's a kinda weird and out there series, but hey, we know a lot of people (me included) like that kind of thing. So do set aside the hours to go read all seven (count 'em!) parts of Journey of Saga. It starts here, with a promise of 'Gaming's Citizen Kane'.

Writing for the Pop Matters Moving Pixels blog, G Christopher Williams looks at clothing damage in games and how, well, 'Boys Get Naked Better than Girls' and Aaron Poppleton talks 'Agency and Narrative in Open World Games', inspired in part by Tom Bissell's piece of a few weeks ago on LA Noire.

Speaking of LA Noire, the ever excellent Jonathan McCalmont talks about the game in his latest column for the Futurismic blog, in 'Pixel-Bitching: L.A. Noire and the Art of Conversation':

"As a devotee of noir fiction and a long-time admirer of both James Ellroy's LA Quartet and Curtis Hanson's L.A. Confidential (1997), I was more than looking forward to Team Bondi's attempt to recreate 1950s Los Angeles using the Grand Theft Auto sandbox template. However, as soon as Ken Cosgrove was shoved into an interview room with a suspect and told to extract a confession, I knew that something was desperately wrong – not just with L.A. Noire, but with video games as a whole. After decades of investment in realistic graphics and physics engines, modern video games can perfectly recreate what it is like to shoot someone in the face… but ask them to recreate a believable conversation between two humans and they are at a complete loss. What we need is a revolution in the way that games portray social interaction."

'Designing Better Levels Through Human Survival Instincts' is a post on the Gamasutra members blog by Christopher W. Totten, and it's got lots of great pictures to illustrate it's points.

And lastly, at The Mary Sue, Becky Chambers is 'Looking For A Few Good Chells: Why Player Character Gender Matters', which is something I hope our readers don't need convincing of since I know you're all such a clever and informed bunch, but we can always do with a reminder.

Thanks muchly to everyone who sent in recommendations this week – I couldn't do what I do without you, particularly in the hectic weeks like this one. And as always, you can send in any recommendations of great games writing, blogging, or criticism via Twitter or email.

[This week, our partnership with game criticism site Critical Distance brings us picks from Ben Abraham on topics including the dark side of Neptune's Pride, Native Americans in video games, and more.]

Posted by Eric Caoili at 3:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Australian Classification Board has sparked up with a new, previously unannounced title that brings a classic arcade title to the forefront -- Elevator Action Deluxe.

Elevator Action was a very popular game back in 1983, ridding a hotel of their gun-wielding gangsters. A new game in the series hasn't appeared since Old & New for the GBA (that is, if you don't count the first person shooter).

The rating reveals that the game is being developed by B Project Inc, a developer I cannot find a single thing about. We also know that the game has been rated specifically for the PlayStation 3, which sounds like it will be a PlayStation Network exclusive.

I'm a pretty big fan of Elevator Action Returns, so I hope this new title can live up to the name.

Posted by Ryan Langley at 3:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

"In the future, lawless biker gangs fight robots on the highways of freedom. This is the song they listen to as they do so."

Anna "Auntie Pixelante" Anthropy, she of Mighty Jill Off and Lesbian Spider-Queens of Mars, posted this splendid animated music video she created for her friend Ronk. It's a bit NSFW due to some pixelart nudity, and a robot shooting lasers out of its nipples.

"[Ronk] suggested the video could be about grizzly bears, the videogame Streets of Rage, an alternate reality version of THE WARRIORS where the gangs theme themselves after internet memes instead of baseball fury," explains Anthropy. 

She says that after listening to the song, though, she "immediately realized it was about motorcycle gangs fighting robots in the future." Seeing the finished work, I have to agree. I especially like the close-upshot of the biker's sunglasses reflecting the skyline! (01:44)

Posted by Eric Caoili at 2:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Given the popularity of Vlambeer's (or Not Vlambeer, the studio's alternative label) Super Crate Box, and not to mention its work on the upcoming Serious Sam: The Random Encounter RPG, it's surprising that the Dutch developer couldn't find a sponsor for Luftrauser.

Vlambeer says the game was "too extreme" for sponsors and has decided to release Luftrauser for free -- it's available right here for you to load in your browser, and jump into a huge aerial dogfight that pits you against an army of enemy aircraft and ships.

There's not much to the game, but what's there is fun. You can take a few hits, repair your craft by not firing, and rack up a high score by taking down as many enemies before you're overwhelmed. You can then submit your score to online leaderboards to compare.

[Via IndieGames.com]

Posted by Eric Caoili at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Minecraft modders have taken advantage of the sandbox game's tools and create homages to other titles, like The Legend of Zelda and Assassin's Creed. This latest mod, dubbed "Kataminey Damacraft", pays tribute to everyone's favorite roll'em up Katamari Damacy.

Created by Bat Country Entertainment, the Kataminey Damacraft mod incorporates the jBullet physics engine and allows you to push around a growing sphere that picks up pretty much everything in its path, absorbing the voxel-based world's blocks as it rolls over them.

Download and follow the mod's development here.

Posted by Eric Caoili at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Illustrator Zac Gorman, who has taken Tumblr by storm in recent weeks with his Legend of Zelda motion comics, has put out this beautiful print of Link and the princess, and is selling them in a limited run of 50 copies.

The 13"x19" "She Is Your..." prints are priced at only $30, which is pretty cheap considering how in-demand Gorman has been as of late, and that each copy comes with an original 5"x7" sketch. 

These posters are bound to sell out soon, easily by the end of the day, so you'll want to grab one soon if you're interested.

Posted by Eric Caoili at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bungie's Halo predecessor Marathon is on its way to the iPad courtesy of a fan-made port that Bungie not only approves of, but calls "totally sweet."

The Marathon games were standouts for the Apple Macintosh when gaming was not a focus for the platform, and the series pioneered the usage of mouse look in first-person shooters. Porter Daniel Blezek notes that the iPad edition will be released for free, with Bungie's blessing.

You won't have to wait long, either -- the port has already been submitted to Apple, and should appear in the App Store within the week.

[via Touch Arcade]

Posted by Danny Cowan at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The five years and estimated $80 million that went into developing Gran Turismo 5 has resulted in a real-world payoff for series producer Kazunori Yamauchi, who earned a class victory at this year's 24 Hours of Nürburgring event in Germany.

Yamauchi was one of four drivers in the Nissan GT-R's Team Schulze, which raced for 24 continuous hours on the famed 15-mile Nürburgring course. Though the team didn't place first overall, it still managed a victory in its vehicle class, overcoming a series of mechanical setbacks.

Gran Turismo 5 is notorious for its lengthy development cycle, which included extensive travel, research, and vehicle testing for the Polyphony Digital team. Perhaps the Nürburgring win will somehow make for a better Gran Turismo 6?

[via Joystiq]

Posted by Danny Cowan at 2:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Video game obscurity museum Hardcore Gaming 101 boasts a hefty update this week, shedding light on a number of overlooked oddities from gaming's past.

Among the featured items are iNiS's rhythm game Gitaroo Man, the 21st Century Pinball series, and Data East's wonderfully bizarre Trio the Punch.

The Your Weekly Kusoge column gets an update as well -- not with Trio the Punch, as one might expect, but with a much more controversial choice: Noby Noby Boy. Oh, I can't wait to see the response that's going to get.

Also worth reading: Kurt Kalata's recent write-up concerning all of the different shooter minigames found in Konami's dating sims. Apparently, the Tokimeki Memorial franchise has a history of these things, ranging from TwinBee spinoffs to surprisingly robust original efforts that were never seen elsewhere. Great stuff!

Posted by Danny Cowan at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The clock is ticking for the Wii, with its successor on the horizon. Nintendo has stated multiple times that it's still 100% committed, but a quick look at its upcoming release schedule tells a different story: aside from Skyward Sword and a small handful of first party offerings, there's not much to look forward to. Especially frustrating is how there's a trio of quite superb looking RPGs that are seemingly stuck back home: Xenoblade Chronicles, The Last Story, and Pandora's Tower. That's where Operation Rainfall comes into play.

The grassroots campaign's aim is to convince Nintendo Of America to bring them here. Given how the first two are due to be translated and released in Europe already, it's not an entirely hopeless goal (unlike similar efforts). The push will be done in three equal parts, one for each game. First up is for Xenoblade; in addition to a letter writing initiative, supporters managed to nab the top spot on Amazon's gaming pre-order list. For those unaware, Monado: Beginning Of The World was the name the US version of Xenoblade was appointed before all talk regarding its fate complete vanished among official channels many moons ago.

Other positive signs include an acknowledgement by Nintendo Of America that they've at least heard the message, plus support via Twitter from Soraya Saga (who wrote Xenoblade) and Mistwalker (which is behind Last Story). Hopefully things will all work out and Wii owners in North America will have three additional games to look forward to. Unfortunately, as it's been proven time and time again, Nintendo does what Nintendo does. We wish Operation Rainfall the best of luck!

Posted by Matthew Hawkins at 10:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When Udon announced Mega Man Tributes, hundreds upon hundreds answered the call and submitted their works of fan art, hopeful for the chance that they'd make into the final, published product. The book, due later this summer, will be 300 pages big and it's assumed that every square single inch will be dedicated to the very best that came Udon's way.

But what about the ones that didn't make the cut? They still have a chance for glory thanks to Soul-Rokkuman, the driving force behind the Art Buster Fan Book Project. He seeks to compile all the rejected work into some kind of digital format (while not formally announced, PDF seems to be one that might end up being chosen).

One of the key tenets behind the initiative is to feature work regardless of artist ability or skill level behind the brush of wacom tablet. All that maters is that whoever simply loves the characters and games, period. Which means the end result might be quite the sight to behold to say the least. For those interested, this blog entry has all the details, though I'll just reiterate the most important point, since it's in bold: "If you want to do a new pic for this book, YAOI, YURY, HENTAI, FURRY AND FANCHARACTERS are NOT allowed."

[via Rockman Corner]

Posted by Matthew Hawkins at 8:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What you see above is the first ten minutes or so of the upcoming WiiWare remake of La-Mulana. The wait for it's debut has been a lengthy one, but each new morsel has demonstrated that it'll all be worthwhile, and this is by far the most satisfying taste of things to comet.

For starters, the graphical and audio upgrades are simply superb; everything has been skillfully and tastefully enchanted. Not that there was any real fear, but it's just nice to see it all come together in the course of actual gameplay, since the basic point of trailers is to accentuate the positives and downplay any negatives.

Though the jury is still out until it lands in everyone's hands. Some might appreciate a few of the other changes shown displayed, especially as it pertains to some of the puzzles and ability to save underground, especially for those of us who loved the PC version but weren't very good at it. Though I can also see diehard fans of the original crying foul since extremely difficulty has always been one of its defining attributes.

[via Nobuooo]

Posted by Matthew Hawkins at 6:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Let's face facts: pop culture of today that's presented with graphic design sensibilities from mid-last century is hardly special at this point. Sure it's a great exercise for creative types, but the end result takes a lot to impress these days, especially those that are particularly internet savvy.

Hence why the piece above truly stands out (the entire image can be seen after the cut). Artist Ron Guyatt has a couple of posters in a similar vein, and a few others are also game related, which can be viewed over at his DeviantArt page. And if the name sounds familiar, he should be; Ron's photographic abilities have already been highlighted once before.

[via Ron Guyatt]

Posted by Matthew Hawkins at 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Llamasoft's Jeff Minter, who never fails to craft an intriguing experience with each game release, has another iOS title on the way to follow up Minotaur Rescue and Minotaur 2112, and it's an update of a 1982 game some might remember.

Deflex for iOS is a modern take on Llamasoft's Superdeflex on the ZX Spectrum, in which you bounce a space invader named "Sid" around the screen into power pods, moving him around by placing "Deflex shields".

This iPhone/iPad edition (Universal) has a similar control system, letting you drop paddles to bounce the moving ball at 90 degrees angle. Once you collect all the on-screen items, whether it be oxen or smiley faces, you can move to the next stage.

The concept, played out over 52 stages, is interesting enough, but Deflex also plays a pleasing melody as you gather al the characters scattered about. I could see the "yay"s that accompanying the notes getting annoying quick, though...

[Via Touch Arcade]

Posted by Eric Caoili at 2:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I love when a new story pops up about hidden messages some developers have concealed in their game's code, only visible to those who bother to muck around with a hex editor years later.

It seems like most of the time, though, these concealed notes are from frustrated programmers, like the infamous messages from Pachi-Com, Erika to Satoru no Yumebōken (Karate Kid), and The New Tetris.

The note in 1999's Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation, though, written by former Core Design lead programmer Richard Flower (now CEO at Fuzzy Frog), is an awwwww-inducing note to his then-fiance and kids.

Flowers' last sentence leaves one to wonder if Flowers left more pleasant messages in other games he worked on. Someone should start scouring all the other titles listed in his credits in a hex editor!

[Via pinumbernumber]

Posted by Eric Caoili at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Xbox Live programming director Larry "Major Nelson" Hyrb announced release dates and pricing for all of the features downloadable games in its upcoming Summer of Arcade XBLA campaign:

• July 20: Bastion - 1200 MS Points
• July 27: From Dust - 1200 MS Points
• August 3 :Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet - 1200 MS Points
• August 10: Fruit Ninja Kinect - 800 MS Points
• August 17: Toy Soldiers: Cold War - 1200 MS Points

If you purchase all five, you will also receive a free copy of Certain Affinity's action RPG Crimson Alliance (usually 1200 MS Points) when that releases some time later this year.

Posted by Eric Caoili at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

While Kairosoft fans are still waiting for the company to release Grand Prix Story on iOS devices, the developer is readying another title to bring to the West: Pocket Academy, a mobile title that has you managing a school.

Just like Game Dev Story, Hot Srping Story, and Grand Prix Story, this new title is a sim, except here you're hiring teachers, buying school supplies, outfitting classrooms, adding extracurriculars, and designing the building's layout.

We don't know when this will hit the App Store, but Kairosoft typically puts out its games on Sundays. In the meantime, here's a Japanese gameplay video for Pocket Academy:

Posted by Eric Caoili at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The user content-driven Rock Band Network hasn't updated with much of note since relaunching earlier this year with standout tracks from Eiffel 65 and Anamanaguchi, but the dry spell has come to an end at last. Thanks to the charting efforts of Ozone Entertainment, four tracks from Buckner & Garcia's landmark 1982 album "Pac-Man Fever" are now playable in Rock Band 3.

Downloadable songs include the title track (which reached #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1982, if you can believe it), the Frogger tribute "Froggy's Lament," the Asteroids-based "Hyperspace," and a song dedicated to Exidy's Mouse Trap, all of which are priced at 160 Microsoft Points each. A PlayStation 3 release for the tracks has not yet been announced, but is likely.

In addition to offering playable guitar, drum, and bass parts, all tracks are also compatible with Rock Band 3-specific features like backup vocals and Pro keyboard gameplay. While it's unfortunate that the creepy Centipede ballad "Ode to a Centipede" didn't make the cut, it's at least some consolation to know that Rock Band's catalog now includes the phrase "Pluck your magic twanger, Froggy."

Posted by Danny Cowan at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

PopCap's ongoing charity eBay auctions continue this week with a lineup of strange and wonderful items for fans of the company's hit "flower defense" game Plants vs. Zombies.

Among the items up for sale is this Peashooter mask and collar combo, one of three sets in existence. PopCap suggests purchasing a "verdant leotard" to complete the ensemble. Warning: not guaranteed to fend off actual zombies or anyone unimaginatively dressed as one at your next Halloween party.

Also up for auction is a PvZ ceramic mug and bowl set and this magnificent hand-drawn diorama.

All current auctions end on Tuesday, with proceeds going toward the Starlight Children's Foundation and SpecialEffect UK.

Posted by Danny Cowan at 2:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you're holding out hope for a sequel to D3 Publisher's gory boob-'em-up Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad, your dreams may soon come true. UK retailer Play.com recently started accepting preorders for an Xbox 360 game titled Onechanbara 2, though the listing was removed from the site shortly thereafter.

The Onechanbara franchise has seen a number of sequels and upgrades since its humble beginnings as part of D3's "Simple 2000" budget lineup for the PlayStation 2. The UK actually saw localized versions of many of these games (Zombie Zone, Zombie Hunters), while the Xbox 360's Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad and its sister Wii title Onechanbara: Bikini Zombie Slayers were the only series entries to arrive stateside.

Given the series' popularity in the UK, it makes sense that a sequel would be first announced there, though D3 has issued no word regarding when Onechanbara 2 will be released, or if it even exists at this point.

[via Joystiq]

Posted by Danny Cowan at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

[In this weekly column, GameSetWatch rounds up the most popular paid and free iPad gaming applications on the App Store as of today, with Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing, Battleship and Mr Giggle HD currently ranking among the platform's top downloads.]

This week's top paid titles are:

1. Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing ($1.99)
2. Battleship for iPad ($2.99)
3. Angry Birds HD ($4.99)
4. Angry Birds Rio HD ($2.99)
5. Angry Birds Seasons HD ($1.99)
6. Fruit Ninja HD ($2.99)
7. Cut the Rope HD ($1.99)
8. Trenches: Generals ($0.99)
9. Words With Friends HD ($2.99)
10. Epic War TD: iPad Edition ($0.99)

Sega's kart racer Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing leads as the iPad's biggest-selling app in its debut week, overtaking EA's recently released Battleship for iPad and three versions of Angry Birds for the top spot in today's results.

An iPad adaptation of Thunder Games Works' Trenches: Generals enters the top ten at eighth place this week, as newcomer Epic War TD trails Words With Friends HD at tenth.

Here are this week's top free iPad applications:

1. Mr Giggle HD Lite
2. Rows 3D for iPad Lite
3. Tiny Tower HD
4. Angry Birds HD Free
5. Fishing Joy HD
6. Breakout Mania HD
7. Monkey Island Tales 1 HD
8. Army of Darkness Defense HD
9. Castle Attack HD
10. Galaga 30th Collection

Patryk Palasz's Mr Giggle HD Lite reclaims first place in the free charts after dropping to eighth last week, amid competition from Pixeltin's puzzler Rows 3D for iPad Lite and NimbleBit's recent debut Tiny Tower HD.

Angry Birds HD Free and Fishing Joy continue to rank among the iPad's most popular downloads, as Telltale Games earns a spot in today's rankings with the first chapter of Tales of Monkey Island, which is now a free download to promote the later entries in the series.

Posted by Eric Caoili at 8:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Recently announced was a massive 20-disc package to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Seiken Densetsu, the series from which Final Fantasy Adventure and all the various Mana games have stemmed from. Well we finally have a look and it's a massive beauty.

There are actually 19 CDs and one DVD. Every track from every entry in the series is included, meaning some of the finest music to be produced by the original Game Boy, SNES, PSone, GBA, and DS have all been brought together. There have been two arranged releases in the past, and both present as well; the one for Secret of Mana is one continuous, 50-minute long track that still stands today as one of most eclectic and ambitious offerings from SquareSoft's stellar musical output at the time.

As for the lone movie disc, there's assorted interviews and an orchestral performance by Kenji Ito, Hiroki Kikuta, and Yoko Shimomura, the three men responsible for Seiken Densetsu's sound over the years. It comes out in Japan on September 14 for 21,000 yen.

In other news Square-Enix audio news, a special chiptunes release is also in the works, which again celebrates one half of the company's past. Not only is Seiken Densetsu honored, but Dew Prism (aka Threads of Fate), Romancing SaGa, Unlimited SaGa, Brave Fencer Musashi, Einhander, assorted Final Fantasy installments, and perhaps most exciting of all, Chrono Trigger as well. Details otherwise are sparse, such as if it'll feature the talents of in-house musicians or guest artists. In case of the latter, fingers crossed that they call up Hally, Saitone, and Naruto (the chiptuner, not the manga/anime character).

This second release also lands in September, on the 7th, and for a far more affordable price of 1890 yen.

[via Game Swag & GamePro]

Posted by Matthew Hawkins at 6:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Established in 2001, Sega Sound Unit [H.] is Sega's current in-hose band, and the spiritual successor of the Sega Sound Team, otherwise known as the S.S.T. Band. The line-up includes Hidenori Shoji (among the many games he's worked on, the Yakuza series is perhaps the most recognizable to Americans), Mitsuharu Fukuyama (whose credits include Virtual On and Bayonetta), Takahiro Kai (was also involved in Virtual On and Yakuza), plus former S.S.T. Band members Hiroshi Miyauchi (the driving force behind the groundbreaking soundtrack for OutRun) and Takenobu Mitsuyoshi (most famous for his compositions and singing voice in Daytona USA).

Ten years later, not only have they set up a special anniversary site, which contains information regarding the bodies of work for all its members, columns, plus assorted personal information, but a special concert is being planned. Happening on July 1st via Ustream (this channel to be exact, which naturally is dormant for the time being), the plan is for everyone to play selected cuts from Sega hits.

In the meanwhile, one can enjoy an hour-long jam session that took place in Akihabara last month, which mostly tapped into the music of Mega Man Zero. Called Rockman Zero Live, it was put together to celebrate the release of Resonnant Vie, a collection of acoustic arrangements from the Zero series. Headlining the event was Ippo Yamada, who since Zero has been the primary computer behind the franchise (including the most recent retro releases, Mega Man 9 and 10), though playing the part of MC was none other than Japanese chiptunes superstar Hally! It too was live streamed, and later archived, which can be viewed in its entirely here.

[via Nobuooo & Rockman Corner]

Posted by Matthew Hawkins at 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Can-cans cobbled together from game footage is somewhat dime a dozen, at least over at Nico Nico Douga, but I challenge anyone to find another that's as fast-paced and spirited.

Though it also certainly helps that Ocarina of Time has such a rich and varied audio tapestry to cherry pick from. Reason #70,352 why Koji Kondo is a musical genius? But of course.

[via paul-tv]

Posted by Matthew Hawkins at 2:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Four months since we first featured A Jolly Corpse's co-op puzzler Wyv and Keep: The Temple of the Lost Idol, and the game now has a playable Windows demo! (it's also planned for other platforms in the future, though Windows will release first).

If you need reminding about what this title is -- we tend to feature a lot of indie puzzle platformers here -- it's a 16-bit-style, Lost Vikings-inspired title that has you controlling two treasure hunting thieves as they search for an ancient temple in the jungle.

You can play alone, or you can bring in a friend to help out as you take advantage of "team-based puzzle solving to advance the daring Wyv and the cunning and beautiful Keep through an exciting, trap-filled world."

Wyv and Keep's demo is available here, and you can also pre-order to receive access to private and beta releases, newsletters, the level editor, and more.

Posted by Eric Caoili at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Alexander "Siren" Brandon's -- whose long list of audio credits for video games includes the Unreal and Deus Ex series -- has put out a new album that brings together game audio (paying homage to the original Unreal soundtrack in spots) and '80s pop.

I've given Violet Electric a listen a couple times, and it's really great stuff! There's even a track that features Information Society's Kurt Larson on vocals, "Shrinking", with a hook that sticks in your head after a while.

Brandon says the CD is "intended to be a musical journey. Not something to just bob your head to or play in the background. A trip to a new world." You can stream the entire thing for free at Bandcamp, or buy Violet Electric in your format of choice for $12.

Posted by Eric Caoili at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)