Panther Software, one of the few small developers in japan to support the Xbox, has announced that the port of the PC avg Kana ~Imouto~ has been cancelled, due to the company's perceived inability to make a profit on the game, now two years into development, according to RPG Fan. The company has made other contributions to the platform in the past, such as the Metal Dungeon RPG, and the AVG aoinamida.
Hot on the heels of the Alien Hominid GBA port news, it has become known that a mobile version was released on the 23rd of may. The mobile version was developed by Tuna technologies, and comprises four minigames in the Alien Hominid universe. The game is playable on all java-equipped phones, and was put out by Player X in concert with Zoo Digital.
Remember that cute MMORPG named Wiki, that borrowed a bit too much from the first Zelda installment on the Gamecube? Webzen Games, which you heard of recently on IC, came back with a second wave of media displaying their good will at not totally infuriating Nintendo by... slightly changing their logo and the characters' hairstyles. Oh, and they also made the effort of giving up the WindWaker-like outfits... and instead go for costumes matching the ones of the next Zelda. It looks like IP lawyers get all the fun these days. You can check a bunch of new pictures and download a new 98MB trailer on their dedicated website.
News: AWNet no more & operators concerned by upcoming releases
Iggy just translated some arcade-related news from Alpha-Station, summing up the info at a recent Sega Private Show. Here's what we learned: Sega announced that SNK Playmore's NeoGeo Battle Coliseum will be the last game using SegaSammy's AW-Net service, which copied Virtua Fighter's VF-Net and asked you to play hours of the tedious KOF NeoWave in order to unlock hidden characters (among other annoying examples). Games like KOF XI and Samurai Spirits Tenkaichi Kenkyakuden will remain offline.
Speaking of "Tenkaichi", operators aren't found of it. The two previous Samurai Spirits releases had less than stellar incomes, and august will also be the month of Capcom/Banpresto's new Gundam Seed game. Not only that, but NGBC's control problems seem to have been fixed, and the operators think that NGBC will be commercially above SvC, at the level of Neowave (which triggered strong income in spite of being panned critically). Now, as NGBC launches in late july and as the SNK audience isn't ubiquitous, Tenkaichi supporters have reasons to be pessimistic.
SNK isn't the only one to have calendar issues, though. Notice the upcoming releases: NGBC in july, Tenkaichi in august, GGXX#reload/ in september, Hokuto no Ken in october and KOF XI in november. The whole AtomisWave 2D fighting scene is shooting itself in the foot with five games released in five consecutive months, a dream for fans but a nightmare for operators - the upcoming arrival of Spectral Vs. Generation (new movie here) on Type-X notwithstanding.
This weekend's loketest gave away a lot of details on the first Samurai Spirits for AtomisWave. Most people were favorably impressed by the game, although it is still not clear who is responsible for the development. Here's what we know right now: Tenkaichi Kenkyakuden is a "dream match", which means it doesn't follow any specific storyline, therefore allowing a mix of characters that wouldn't normally meet (As in KOF '98). However, in order to fit the setting of the Samurai Spirits series, "Tenkaichi" is set during a matsuri festival, which leads the game into colorful backgrounds, no blood spilled and a couple of matsuri-spirited original characters.
The cast is huge: 36 characters as of now, and there is room for 4 more. They all come from the main series and only Earthquake (from SS), Chamcham, Kuroko, Sieger (from Shin SS) and Poppy (from SS Zero) miss the call as of yet. This means that along with the previously announced Wan Fû, old characters Nicotine and Gen An are back. The 3 original characters are Sugoroku, Andrew and Ochamaro. Sugoroku is a matsuri organizer reminiscent of the cast in Ie, Tatemasu! and fighting with an array of original attacks. Ochamaro is a robot filled with theatrical gimmicks. Andrew is a bishônen-type american guard with a bayonet.
To make full use of this impressive roster, Tenkaichi also allows to select one amongst six different fighting "spirits" - in a fashion similar to the numerous grooves in CvS2. Those fighting modes are based and named after each different title in the (main) series plus an original mode, and offer quite different styles of gameplay. Tenkaichi also uses the AtomisWave trademark fifth button of course.
For a load of informations and comments on characters and modes, check the appropriate MMC thread.
A curious (dark!?) fact recently made itself known to me: Thomas Haden Church, co-star of Sideways, and the TV series Wings, was the voice of Goban Toba in Ys books I and II for the Turbo Grafx. The more you know.... the nerdier you are??
News: Ys: The Oath in Felghana Website Translation
For those looking for an Ys VII fix, check out this translation of Falcom's website for Ys: The Oath in Felghana. It does a pretty good job of translating all the useful information and keeping the original Falcom site's execution... right down to weird menu code bugs with the download link! (Hint: Get to download from the front page.)
About 17 seconds ago, Crystal Light Stage released a new version of their conventional but cute puzzle game Magical Feeling 2. It's a 20MB tiny config-friendly freeware, so I don't see why you shouldn't just rush to their website and launch the download, save from reading that neat little guide for Electroplankton on NTSC-UK.
For those of you who need some delightful BGM when going to the office in the summertime and enjoyed obscure mahjong music as much as Konami baseball diaries, the one-man army Tanguy Ukulele Orchestra has been producing a handful of simple yet pleasing tunes, including but not limited to classic VGM remixes. Don't miss his brand new tribute to Kid Icarus, and catch the rest of the collection on the first post of his dedicated topic at Boulette.
News: Absurdly long name doesn't prevent a DS game from selling
As expected by the most optimistic people amongst you, the Nintendo DS' (japanese) line-up is indeed filling up with a bunch of unique titles which give a fresh look at videogames, their quality notwithstanding. As another example, check out the newly released Touhoku Daigaku Mirai Kagakugijutsu Kyoudoukenkyuu Center: Kahashima Ryuuta Kyouju no Nou o Kitaeru Otona DS Training, which translates as Touhoku University's Future Technology Collaborative Research Centre's Professor Ryuuta Kawashima presents: DS Brain Training for Adults. The game finished second in the weekly charts with 43,000 units sold, albeit against admittedly tepid competition. JohnnyRam posted a bunch of interesting impressions on the GA-F.
About a month before the release of Ys : The Oath in Felghana, Falcom finally released a convincing trailer for their upcoming game which seems to mix YS VI's gameplay with the setting of the lackluster yet musicly-inspired Ys III.
Seems that the recent Down Town Nekketsu Monogatari EX was successful enough for Atlus, as they now have plans to re-release the whole Kunio-kun game series for the GBA in 2-in-1 volumes. The first one (scheduled for August) will include Nekketsu Koukou Dodge Ball Bu and Nekketsu! Street Basket ~Ganbare Dunk Heroes~, the second volume, Down Town Nekketsu Koushinkyoku: Soreyuke Daiundoukai and Nekketsu Koukou Dodge Ball Bu: Soccer Hen, while the third one will include Down Town Special: Kunio-kun no Jidaigeki Dayo Zenin Shuugou and Ike-Ike! Nekketsu Hockey Bu ~Subette Koronde Dairantou~.
Roni has been mysteriously missing in action for a few months now, thus his great doujin news website hasn't been updated even once since the new year (actually if anyone has news, some of us wouldn't mind hearing that nothing bad has happened to him). Fortunately, there's still some activity on the Doujinaroni Forums (mainly thanks to moderator Basara), and a lazy newswriter could easily go catch a glimpse of the interesting doujin material that came out in the last month, then shamelessly post about it here :
SRO Softwares has a new shooter in development, Touhou Rokumangi ~Border of Past & Present~. Cute girls, horizontal bullet hell, most of you know the drill. If SRO doesn't ring a bell, they're the guys behind Maria-Sama ga Gyakuten, that incredibly cool Gyakuten Saiban parody back when it wasn't known as "Phoenix Wright" yet.
First Step has a similar horizontal shooting project in the works, Tobi Tsukuhime, with gameplay videos avaiable for download. And if that guy really has something to do with the game's development, then I am already sold.
This is partly off-topic, but Spike has made a fun shockwave minigame based on their upcoming epic bosozoku adventure Kenka Bancho.
The excellent folks from Easy Game Station (Duo Princess, Dash de Rei Rei) are working on a doujin brawler based on the R.O.D. series. The game's name is - watch out for slippery puns - ElePaper Action. There's a two stage long 23meg trial version avaiable here or there. Also, a picture from the website fooled some people where I got the news from, so I am warning you guys: unlike what this might indicate to non-japanese speakers, there's no PSP version in the works as of yet (and it's basically what's written in red font on the picture).
Finally, one of the guys from the Doujinaroni forums called Psykobee is working on a flash-based shooter which goes by the name Seizon Kyôsô (although the homepage actually writes it Saizon... oh well). The game is still in early stages and the guy is looking for sprite makers, but you can already give it a try. The first red link is to play online, the second one is to download.
So it turns out that Devil Kings is merely Sengoku Basara in disguise - sans the japanese history theme and names. The characters have been redesigned accordingly, and the story will change as well. Check this interview for more info.
On the show floor I found Zoo Digital Publishing by their giant blowup of Alien Hominid art. Asking a few questions I discovered that they plan to release that very game for the GBA, in addition to their euro Xbox and PS2 ports. No word on a date yet, nor a price, but it will definitely be coming to Europe. A US publishing deal is also a possibility!
Thus had begun the tenth triple E,
And soon us gamers had forgotten thee.
Yet in the dark corridors of the place,
Some came to find the mysterious space
In which one could play every little game
That your fate condemned to never know fame.
Those videos, our readers shouldn't miss:
It seems Gizmondo is not total piss!
Just barely on time, Vincent finds himself suffering from the effects of prolonged E3 exposure. The side effects of this, thankfully, are mostly internal, and you can now see some of this internal strangeness from the comfort of your computer.
The Brazilian guys at Pirex have an info page on Gamer Br, 'a Brazilian documentary about the video game scene in Brazil. It gives voice to gamers, producers, LAN center owners, anthropologists, politicians, government representatives and game enthusiasts, asking questions about professional gaming, addiction, piracy, censorship, and violence in games. The video is mainly Portuguese-spoken, with relevant English subtitles.' The kicker? The 46-minute, 750mb AVI of the full doc is Creative Commons-licensed and now downloadable via BitTorrent from the LegalTorrents site.
Taken from yesterday's location test and uploaded to one of those image hosting services by, well, somebody (and now, down), the first screen of Arc System Works' Hokuto no Ken has appeared, revealing true hi-res graphics not unlike the Guilty Gear X series. The picture has been mirrored at Postback's forum.
Iggy noticed this: a party set by Capcom next saturday night to celebrate the release of their Vampire compilation on the PS2. Vampire Fans will be able to meet, chat, have a drink and play a few games. For various reasons, this looks way more original and appropriate than a tournament. The location for this "Vampire Darkstalkers' Party" is the Dragon Heart Bar&Café, where various cosplay events are regularly organized, as their staff can confirm.
Firstly, it was the Hamapika rumors, then, today's confirmation picture thanks to Kobayan. Sega has a new 2D vs. fighting game on location test based on the Hokuto no Ken series. It's being developed for the Atomiswave platform by Arc System Works, of Guilty Gear fame. We all know that this, of course, is actually a Sammy's initiative, but seeing the Sega logo in a 2D fighting game after the ten-years-old Golden Axe: the Duel is still surprising.
With that intensive E3 coverage going on everywhere on the web, it's quite hard to find typical "fly off the radar" games for Insert Credit news. Fortunately the DS has so many big announcements this year that you might have missed the discrete Digitylish Series (no typo here). Under this line of products are displayed titles such as Coloris, Orbital, T-Typo, Dialhex, Neopong, Sneakout, Swimworm, Dotliner and Sojourner, all of which raised speculations when their names were simultaneously registered by Nintendo in early january (in the same time as Play-Yan, as this Quiter page reminds us). The graphics and concepts of the aforementioned games seem to travel back and forth from low-key to experimental, but it gives quite a unique identity to the series, as well has a reminiscent feeling of some freeware games you might have heard of on this very website. Whether these titles end up as interesting or dull in their own respect, the Digitylish series as a whole goes along well with the "trendy low-key" image Nintendo is trying to give itself with other efforts such as the GameBoy Micro and Electroplankton. You can find footage at some of the usual big E3 news sites and, by watching the video, one can notice that Kyôto-based Q Games was responsible for at least Digidrive. The Digitylish series have no release date as of yet.
While a power outage, a technical disaster, and a slight mess with hair styling paste did their best to make today the worst it could be, Parfait Station from WebZen made everything right with its promise of shoot'em up combined with MMO. While the website has some info and screenshots, the people manning the booth this afternoon couldn't help us at all with either playing the game or providing more information.
Until that happens, have fun with the trailer (7.5 MB).
After years of operations, insert credit now has the flickr group that you've always wanted. Even if you didn't know what you wanted it!
If you're interested in building up the insert credit photo collection, go ahead and request to join, and I'll approve you ASAP. Don't know what I'm talking about? Read up on what Flickr is all about.
As geeks descend upon E3 for a grand opening that's less than 12 hours away, Raph Koster, Chief Creative Officer for Sony Online, has an interesting piece in the Sunday Los Angeles Times. Within, he continues pushing the serious use of games as tools that can potentially teach more than shooting virtual aliens.
The June 2005 issue of Official Xbox Magazine in North America has a demo for Xbox Live Arcade on the cover-disc, and alongside trial versions for some naggingly addictive casual titles, there's also a demo of the previously mentioned psychedelic shooter Mutant Storm from Pom Pom Games, which is well worth checking out - awesome double-analog oldskool controls and wonderful Minter-inspired psychedelic art. For anyone hooked up to XBL Arcade, $9.99 is well worth it for the full version of the game.
[Oh, and another one of the demos is for PopCap's Zuma, rather easily 'confused' with Mitchell's Puzz Loop/Ballistic. Interestingly, it seems that Mitchell is now doing web versions of Puzz Loop, and were apparently considering legal action over the similarity of the games late last year, according to an igda.jp post.]
E3 is just around the corner, so instead of addressing the hype in a direct manner, Vincent goes ahead and takes a tangent on a day when video game websites just aren't supposed to be updated anyways.
Same sources, newer news, and let's focus on what was left out in the previous newspost. There was a mystery roaming around this page, showing that this guy did some voice acting for Sho Hayate (from the Fu'un/Kizuna series) in KOF "2005". The rumor is that a Fu'un team as well as a Buriki team would be unlockable via SegaSammy's AWnet service, like some secret characters were in KOF NeoWave.
The overall presentation reminded people of KOF'97, which is widely considered as the most researched episode in that area. The hour at which matches are set is mentioned at the beginning of each fight. Backgrounds are mostly appreciated although they appear to be dramatically empty and suffering some quirky animation issues à la Capcom Fighting Jam. The locations are Beach (13h00), Aqueduct (15h01), Temple (10h05), Ruins (11h09), White town (13h03) Alley (00h24), Ice festival (14h05), Final hall (19h24).
Apparently, sprites are also bigger than on Neo Geo. Finally, artwork is indeed from Hiroaki, KOF'94 Re-Bout style.
Matt a.k.a. Fort90 went to a party thrown by Nintendo to celebrate the opening of their "Nintendo World" store in NY, and brought his camera there for a good reason:
Now, the whole point of me taking pics in the first place: the Advance Video System, which was the prototype of the NES. It was apparently only shown once before, at the Consumer Electronic Show (which as we all know was the precursor to E3) back in 85. This is the first time according to Nintendo (and as far as I know) that its been shown publicly…
Here's the link to the pictures and full post. Also check the quite unique peripherals of the AVS, as well as the original hanafuda cards which are what Nintendo started their business with, back in 1889.
The first day of location test is over for King Of Fighters XI and everyone has something to say about it, from MMC to NeoArcadia to S.-C.com to the IC forums - so here's a short(?) summary.
The game runs on AtomisWave but the graphics aren't much more impressive than those of KOF NeoWave, although the new characters are for the most part very well animated. Backgrounds and overall presentation divide people. The tournament's rules are KOF'03-like, and the gameplay only differs through minor adjunctions listed below. The biggest upset comes from the roster, as not a single team hasn't been changed - sometimes in dramatic proportions. Leona, Mai, Joe, Robert, Chang, Daimon, Jhun, Billy, Yamazaki, Chizuru and Hinako are out. Duck, B.Jenet, Kensou, Kula, Vanessa, Ramon, Kasumi and Eiji are in, as well as original characters Elisabeth, Momoko and Oswald.
The full roster is :
Ash /Oswald / Shen-Wu
K' / Kula / Maxima
Terry / Kim / Duck
B.Jenet / Gato / Griffon
Kyo / Iori / Shingo
Vanessa / Mary / Ramon
Ralf / Clark / Whip
Ryo / Yuri / King
Marin / Kasumi / Eiji
Elisabeth / Duolong / Benimaru
Athena / Kensou / Momoko
Athena is wearing a schoolgirl uniform. Kyo has his fireball back. Oswald is a fan favorite and reminds people of Groove on Fight's Bristol Weller - a nicely dressed mature man fighting with cards. Elisabeth appears to be less popular and reminds people of Kagura Mei from the Gyakuten saiban series, which means she gets to use a sort of whip to fight, although the (conveniently named) female whip-user Whip is also in the game. They only need to bring back Lenny Creston (from the Ryuukonoken/AOF series) to have a whole SNK whippin' ladies team next year. Momoko was disabled from character selection for the time being, and so were a bunch of other characters such as Duck and Eiji... as well as Iori, which some people see as a positive sign that he'll finally get some new outfit. Adel also comes back, as a mid-boss. The last boss is a female, which is a growing trend among AtomisWave games lately. She uses weapons sush as a spear, and has long hair.
Here are the original gameplay features, directly copy-pasted from Prof over at MMCafé.
Judgement System: The usual timer on the top of the screen keeps tilting towards (what the game judges as) the player that's fighting more skillfully during the match. If the match ends with a time over, the person that the timer is tilted towards will win. It's not decision by remaining life any more.
Skill Meter: Right above the usual power meter, there's an additional new bar called the "skill meter". It's used to pull off a number of systems, as decribed below. The skill meter builds up on its own as time passes by. you can stock up to 2 skill meters. Your match starts out with the 2 skill stocks full.
Button E: Thrust (good old CD) attack (also apparently used for some specials - Chaz)
A+C / B+D : Partner Change
A+C / B+D during an attack: Quick Shift (Changes to partner, requires 1 Skill stock)
A+C / B+D while getting attacked: Saving Shift (Changes to partner, requires 2 Skill stocks)
Guard Cancel Evacuation: A+B during guard (requires 1 skill stock)
Guard Cancel Thrust: E during guard (requires 1 Power stock)
Leader Super: Requires 2 Power Stock
Super Cancel (cancel special attack into super attack): Requires 1 Skill + 1 Power Stock
Dream Cancel (cancel from super attack into leader attack): Requires 1 Skill + 2 Power Stock
Someone also noted that the game crashed once, and when the game rebooted, the first logo was "Sega". More info by tomorrow and the second day of loketest.
According to a representative of Agetec, the import-centric U.S. publisher that's showing games like PoPoLoCrois for PSP and RPG Maker 3 for PS2 at next week's E3, the company is fed up. But it's not tired of life, oh no - it's tired of E3 booth babes, and it's not going to take it any more. Thus, we have the Anti Booth Babes website, a promise to give out 'anti booth babe granny panties' at its booth, and a vow from an Agetec rep that the company will have "ugly girls" demonstrating its games from 11am-2pm on each day of the show. Looks like Agetec's new PR company is debuting with a 'splash' - though it's unclear whether the pool has been dredged recently.
Ask not for whom the bell tolls, Microsoft - it tolls for thee, not me. Jeff Minter, obsessively loved by fans of quirky llama-based games, is apparently making a Virtual Light Machine, a winamp visualization-like program (naturally predating winamp) that syncs trippy visuals with music played, for the Xbox 360. While exciting to those that play games, Microsoft has reason to be concerned. Take note of the two previous consoles to feature a VLM from Minter: The Jaguar. The Nuon. Nintendo and Lionhead Studios were so afraid that Minter's game Unity would bankrupt both companies, that they scrapped it during development. Microsoft's time is limited, so get your 360 before it becomes a collector's item! P.S. We love Minter!
...At Game Watch. Not much there besides lots of screens showing an upscaled and filtered hi-res display for the games (also known as 'fake low-res presentation'). Not exciting news, but not surprising either. Taito's 'retro-compilations' don't end there, though. This week Space Invaders Pocket has been released for the PSP. It's a collection of almost every Space Invaders arcade game made by Taito, including Akkanvaders from 1995.
Character profiles, background story, hi-res screenshots and a new BGM piece are available at the official site of this forthcoming adventure game with shooting parts for PS2.
And again thanks to Gaijin Punch. This time it's a recent one, from the latest Arcadia Magazine issue. It's aimed at Ibara's main developers, S. Yagawa and A. Wakabayashi. Notice the former was the main programmer of several Eighting/Raizing shooting games in the past, who has now joined Cave's staff.
We've known since past September that a Tengai Makyou game is in production for the PSP, but now we know that it's actually Tengai Makyou: Dai Yon no Mokushiroku, one of Saturn's best loved RPGs and that it's planned for this Fall. Tengai Makyou II is also coming in portable form (for the NDS and planned for this Summer, in this case). It's still uncertain whether they'll be direct ports or full remakes, but Hiroi Ouji (Red Entertainment's head) will be overseeing both titles.
Here's the most important thing happening at next week's E3 Expo, thanks to Namco and the King of All Cosmos:
"May 18-20, All Day – Namco Hometek – We LOVE Katamari Ball – Help the Prince please the King of All Cosmos at this E3Expo with the We LOVE Katamari ball. The King of All Cosmos has requested all attendees to provide items throughout the three days. Items should be lightweight enough to be attached and as nutty and creative as possible. Items should NOT be x-rated in nature or include clothing, books, magazines, papers or garbage. Those representing the Prince also have full right to decline any item."
victoly scores is a live game hi-score submission site. Although it is in beta mode, it is currently open to user registration and features live score updating and player ranking. Good stuff. Nice layout. Try it.
Pocket Shami, which is actually run by one of the creators of France Five, is a production company that shoots and sells high quality TV programs to french broadcasters (mostly game-focused, for MTV-owned channel GameOne). Their productions are often praised by the local gaming community and early reports indicate that their latest efforts seem to be worth watching - especially since it is heavily rumored that some people might work on subs for english audiences pretty soon.
The first one, which will broadcast this week, is focused on the Metal Slug series, and features exclusive interviews with SNK Playmore and a superplay (commentary included) of the original Metal Slug by local video game hero Ben "Shinobi", who regular IC readers already know about. Check some images and a quick summary here, and the list of broadcasts there. There is also a video preview here (that one might be down soon, though). All this is in french, obviously.
Next week will be about the history of fighting games, from Street Fighter II to Tekken 5, with a lot of SNK in between. There's even an interview with Yu Suzuki talking about when he was still a rich, sane man and thought up Virtua Fighter. If you can manage to survive the most irritating female voice-over ever, there's also a preview video, avaiable here.
As some background, Atlus, or at least part of it, was previously absorbed into Takara as that company's development unit. Konami invested heavily in Takara soon thereafter, presumably in Atlus. Konami recently divested itself of all interest in Takara, because it was not performing up to par. This may well have been Konami removing themselves from the Atlus sphere, as Atlus has just posted a first quarter loss of 23 million yen, with a profit decrease of 70%. This is a huge deal for a medium-sized company, and as a result Atlus has had to let go of 30 employees out of the total 291 employed as of september of last year. The company blamed the loss on poor sales across all markets, including Print Club arcade revenue, console and online games.
News: Summon Night Extase ~Yoake no Tsubasa~ promo video
Flight Plan's forthcoming 'fantasic action RPG' has now a promotional video at its official website where the actual gameplay can be seen in motion, along with the full motion animation sequences from the game, along with the opening theme. The game is planned for August.
According to IGN, the Mile Stone-created, and critically acclaimed (as mediocre!) shooter Chaos Field will be coming to the Gamecube in the US, from publisher 'Q-3'. Do they mean O~3? Probably! It will be playable at E3, so we'll get you more info at that time. For bonus fun, find the three largest errors in the original news piece.
Gaijin Punch has put up a translation of the interview and background story published in Gamest Graphics Vol. 1: the World of Esprade. Tsuneki Ikeda (main programmer) and Junya Inoue (main graphic artist) speak about Cave's Esprade - its conception, design and gameplay.
The Zodiac may be down, but it's not out. Though official support from Tapwave is waning in favor of creating devices for other companies, fan support continues unabated. Zodiac Gamer reports that a coder by the name of Vilmos has ported ABA Games' seminal shooter Noiz2sa to the Zodiac, allowing user-selected midi files for the sound. Download it here,. with info about the updated version here.
Harmonix, of Amplitude and Frequency fame, is planning to release a Guitar Freaks clone in fall of 2005 by the name of Guitar Hero, which will play with a special guitar controller from Red Octane. They are calling for band submissions, and likely want something very straight, but still a nice opportunity.
Edit: So, the pages have been taken down, as this was probably supposed to be announced at E3. But hey - cached pages. The band submissions are supposed to be in by July 1, 2005, and will be in the game alongside songs from Jimi Hendrix, Sum 41, Red Hot Chili Peppers, White Zombie and others. So likely they expect songs of that ilk. There are further details, but we'll leave those til the official announcement.
Buyrite, perhaps the most crooked online import shop around, even more dodgy than the random no-name HK shops, has been closed by the Better Business Bureau, based on some 414 complaints about the company in the last three years. The company has been around and fooling gamers since 1995, so I doubt anyone will shed a tear. Independent stores have been going down left and right recently, especially those with actual storefronts. We still recommend WolfGames for older stuff, though he's going out of business as well, marking most games down by 40% or so. And naturally Play Asia for new/rare stuff.
Taito's forthcoming arcade game 'Spica Adventure' for the Type X system was revealed back in February's AOU Amusement Show, and had a location test one month ago, but little else has been brought out about it since then. It's an anticipated game, though, since it will be the very first 2D side scroll action game for the japanese arcade market in more than six years. Amusement Journal now has some information regarding the game's premise (which is similar to classics of the genre from the eighties) and a new screenshot, while Taito has an official pre-site for the game. The game is being ported from a mobile phone title and will have retro pop-styled bitmap-based graphics similar to Namco's Star Trigon and Mr. Driller series.
Bit Shifter, nullsleep, Bubblyfish, and The Tank, the ever-so-humble art venue which is soon to be kicked out of its current location in New York City. The show will be on May 5 at 10:00 p.m. Get your bum out there and support these 8-bit saints and a fine art venue... it will only set you back $5.
According to the Professor over at the MMCafe, SNK Playmore has just filed and trademarked the image you see to the left - King of Fighters XI. This game would be the eleventh in the main series - thus the name. No further details or confirmation, but as the madman says - they wouldn't copyright and file it without reason.
Arika's vice-president, K. Mihara, loves Cave and loves to speak about it in his blog. We love all this love, 'cause now we know thanks to it that a port of Cave's Ketsui ~Kizuna Jigokutachi~ from 2002, could be coming to PS2 soon. Notice this is just his wish/speculation, though. He also suggests that Cave itself will be the one in charge of the PS2 Mushihime-sama port. A preview of Ketsui from 2003 can be found here.
In a move that will likely be frightening to many, Bandai and Namco have decided to merge entirely, pending shareholder approval - this includes the game (home and arcade), toy and animation divisions. The new company will be called Namco Bandai Holdings. While potentially just another fruitless merger, ala Sega into Sammy or Hudson into Konami, the company's main objectives don't overlap terribly. So it's quite possible that this could be more along the lines of the Square-Enix merger, with a publisher and a developer sharing assets and IP, but not necessarily treading on each other's feet too much. What's been announced so far is that Bandai's stores will be attached to Namco's amusement centers, Bandai will market Namco's software-originated IP, an apparently the companies will be co-developing - likely Namco will indeed be making a few more licensed anime games from the looks of it.
Remember that cute MMORPG named Wiki, that 
As 
This weekend's loketest gave away a lot of details on the first Samurai Spirits for AtomisWave. Most people were favorably impressed by the game, although it is still not clear who is responsible for the development. Here's what we know right now: Tenkaichi Kenkyakuden is a "dream match", which means it doesn't follow any specific storyline, therefore allowing a mix of characters that wouldn't normally meet (As in KOF '98). However, in order to fit the setting of the Samurai Spirits series, "Tenkaichi" is set during a 
A curious (dark!?) fact recently made itself known to me: Thomas Haden Church, co-star of Sideways, and the TV series Wings, was the 
For those looking for an Ys VII fix, check out this 
About 17 seconds ago, Crystal Light Stage released a new version of their conventional but cute puzzle game 
For those of you who need some delightful BGM when going to the office in the summertime and enjoyed 
As expected by the most optimistic people amongst you, the Nintendo DS' (japanese) line-up is indeed filling up with a bunch of unique titles which give a fresh look at videogames, their quality notwithstanding. As another example, check out the newly released 
About a month before the release of 
Seems that the recent Down Town Nekketsu Monogatari EX was successful enough for Atlus, as they now have 
Roni has been mysteriously missing in action for a few months now, thus his great 
The forthcoming 2D action game from Taito has finally a 
Riviera was on display in video form at the Atlus booth this E3...here are some 
The Brazilian guys at Pirex have 
Taken from yesterday's location test and uploaded to one of those image hosting services by, well, somebody (and now, down), the first screen of Arc System Works' Hokuto no Ken has appeared, revealing true hi-res graphics not unlike the Guilty Gear X series. The picture has been mirrored at 
The excellent 
Firstly, it was the 
While a power outage, a technical disaster, and a slight mess with hair styling paste did their best to make today the worst it could be, Parfait Station from 
After years of operations, insert credit now has the 
The June 2005 issue of 
Same sources, newer news, and let's focus on what was left out in the 
Matt a.k.a. 
According to a representative of 
Ask not for whom the bell tolls, Microsoft - it tolls for thee, not me. Jeff Minter, obsessively loved by fans of quirky llama-based games, is apparently making a 
...At 
Character profiles, background story, hi-res screenshots and a new BGM piece are available at the 
Here's the most important thing happening at next week's 
Thanks to 
Flight Plan's forthcoming 'fantasic action RPG' has now a promotional video at its 
The Zodiac may be down, but it's not out. Though official support from Tapwave is waning in favor of creating devices for other companies, fan support continues unabated. 
Taito's forthcoming arcade game 'Spica Adventure' for the Type X system was revealed back in February's AOU Amusement Show, and had a location test one month ago, but little else has been brought out about it since then. It's an anticipated game, though, since it will be the very first 2D side scroll action game for the japanese arcade market in more than six years. Amusement Journal now has 
Arika's vice-president, K. Mihara, loves Cave and loves to speak about it in 
