Neo Geo Battle Coliseum will be the last game using AW-Net service. As such, it has its own page on AW-Net, which now features five videos displaying the introduction of the game as well as boss characters Mizuchi and King Lion.
The guys from Cosplay Teahouse Girls (not necessarily work-safe links) are one of the more interesting game studios on the doujin scene, after a bunch of arcade-action hits. They're now trying their hands at puzzle games, with Porindama, a Puyo Puyo clone based on the universe of Ragnarok Online. Porindama, which is rated "for adults only," and scheduled for Comicket 68 (next august), will come with a specific scenario and voice acting for each character. There is a nice demo available here (direct link).
Alchemist has just opened the website for its next PS2 game - a port of Giga's 2004 Windows-release Duel Savior (which is soon to get a sequel). Originally developed by the same team behind Baldr Force, this was also originally a hentai action adventure game, only this time, battles take the form of a side scrolling fighting game. Similarly to Guardian Heroes, the CPU controls up to two allied characters and the player's character may coordinate with them for more elaborate 'combos'. The port will get a new opening, new voices and new illustrations (besides the obligatory removal of the pornographic scenes, we suppose). While the game has been announced for this fall, IT Media and Game Watch are already previewing the game with a nice set of screens and artwork pieces.
The amazing japanese duo Angel's Rest has a new RPG in the works titled Megami no Namida TRUE , as shown on their main page via two recent screenshots. The character design is still taken care of by the talented Takashi Konno, who provided their celebrated Tenshi no Bishô (released in 2004) with some of his best works. Megami no Namida TRUE should be available on RPGMaker as a shareware for a few thousand yen, later this year.
Further down the "always paranoid that the UK Resistance is making fun of me" track, the pundits have a new Chief Executive of Operations, under the masthead "STAFF: It's a hilarious satire on the AmericaniZation of the internet!" has the first name of Brandon. The plot thickens! Since this should actually be semi newsworthy, I'll also point out that there's a speed run of Mario 64 online - 70 stars, 1 hour, one minute. Grabbed from Simoniker's linklog.
4 Color Rebellion has news on Orbital, previously responsible for the retro-fabulous Racing Gears Advance. They are now working on the upcoming Pirate Battle, which looks like a promising tactical adventure game for the GBA. The graphics are cute and the studio is talented, so what could possibly go wrong? Pirate Battle should hit shelves by the end of the year.
Provided you register to Falcom Mail Magazine, you will have access to a secret address (shush!) with brand new information on Xanadu Next, the next big release from Nihon Falcom as Ys ~The Oath in Felghana~ hits the shelves today. In Xanadu, the gameplay, mixes side-scrolling cave exploration and top view dungeon crawling, Some found it very addictive and curious gamers can find a flawless port of the original on the Saturn via the Falcom Classics compilation. There's also a nice homage to be found on the famed ece4co shockwave nekogame page.
Another homebrew for the DS has been revealed, and it's none other than the classic 'port to everything' game, Doom. The game's development began as an answer to the positive response to the Metroid Prime: Hunters demo not being followed by numerous First Person Shooter announcements, to the dismay of numerous fans of the genre. Although it remains as faithful to the original game as the DS' limitations will allow it to be, DoomDS will feature 3D graphics, and there's already a tiny media section to watch for. Check the About section for details such as how it will play, what version of Doom it will be most like or what engine is used.
The Penny Arcade Expo DVDs from last year are out now, and feature musical performances from musicians such as The Minibosses, Optimus Rhyme, and MC Frontalot. Apparently there's also something about the expo on there, I'm not sure. We link it because Penny Arcade shares with us a mutual, secret shame.
GP32 Theatre is back up - it's a site with loads of public domain movies and cartoons for download, already encoded for the GP32. This includes stuff like Night of the Living Dead and Master with Cracked Fingers, so be sure to give it a look!
In more Atari-related news, Adventure II for the Atari 5200 and 8-bit computers, now has an official license from Atari Corp to use the Adventure name. There's a movie available for download on the site, as well as some screens - it's planned for a physical cart release before the end of the year.
Forget Sony's PSP, and mock Nintendo's Play-Yan, because here's the real hardcore experience for movie fans: a movie played on the Atari Lynx. Sure, right now it only runs at 12fps and lasts about 4 seconds, but the Lynx has never been the bastion of long playtime anyway... Too bad the author, Exceed, had the poor taste of testing it with Taxi 3.
Apparently this guy is very excited with all things related to Atari and even has things to say about the Amiga, so you might want to keep a bookmark somewhere. Thanks Kanu for the link.
The crazy scottish guy responsible for the saturn shooting special has another retrocore episode up for viewing at the internet archive. Also see 9 and 10. Big downloads, but might include some games you've never seen before.
The Behemoth have announced that they will be unveiling a new console title at Comic-Con in San Diego this year. The event begins on the 14th of July, so details should surface around then. Is it another flash port? Is it Alien Hominid: After Dark with Missus Hominid? Only time will tell you!
News: Grev, Milestone, Triangle Service interviews
Edge Online has put up a very nice series of interviews, which originally ran in the proper magazine. It's called The Small Guns, and deals with the trials and tribulations of these three small companies, none of which has a staff size larger than eight. Of particular note is the Milestone interview in the middle, stating that the group are all ex-compile staff. Ranging from very logical to a bit delusional (Triangle!), these are all worth reading.
For those PSP users who were wary of swapping memory sticks to perform the recently exposed hack for 1.5 firmwares, Killer-X and PSP-Dev bring you KXploit, allowing gamers their homebrewed fun (Emus? Those are animals, right?) without the swap.
News: Ryuuko no Ken, Samurai Spirits and World Heroes, on their way to the PS2
It already was a loudly-spoken secret, but now it has an official nature thanks to Nikkei: The next volumes in the Neo-Geo Online Collection after The King of Fighters: Nests Hen will have the (provisional) names of 'Ryuuko no Ken' (Art of Fighting), 'Samurai Spirits' and 'World Heroes'. They supposedly will include more than one game per volume, but it hasn't been revealed yet. The first one, 'Ryuuko no Ken', is scheduled for this year.
The official US site is up for Riviera, including screens and movies. Watch the last three to get a good taste of what the dialog is like...it seems to have largely been left intact. The game is also rated teen, meaning that nothing has been cut from the original. The game comes out tuesday (the 28th), so buy it!
There have long been unofficial servers for the dreamcast version of PSO, but now there's also a homebrew quest! The author is french, so the dialog is very frenglishy, but it's quite cool to see people doing things like this with the game. Thanks to Sweaterfish for the news.
As we reported back in September, Atlus is preparing a PSP version of Saturn's fabulous Princess Crown from 1997. Today, Rakuten has let us know some bits of information. The game will presumably be a direct port, with the possibility to adapt the screen format to 16:9 and change the text font. We don't know how they are doing the change to the PSP screen's hi-res display, though. Release date is September, 22nd.
SNK Playmore now has a dedicated webpage for their recently released The King of Fighters Volleyball on Vodafone cellphones. The game, which costs 210 yen to download, follows the rules of 2-player beach volleyball with the subtle addition of trademark special moves. KOF Volleyball features a bunch of famous backgrounds from the main series and (as of now) six characters to select from: Iori, Kyo, Terry, Athena, Mai and Yuri (although Rugal can clearly be spotted in one of the tiny screenshots).
Genki revealed, through a new and rather empty page, a new adventure action game from LightWeight (Bushido Blade, Kengo) called Hissatsu Urakagyou ("My secret occupation is to murder people", roughly). The game puts you in the role of a doctor during the Edo period that, with the help of an heteroclite supporting cast, turns into an anonymous and bloody server of justice at night, to punish those who perform the crimes he witnesses through his day job. Hissatsu Urakagyou features gameplay sequences for both occupations: as a doctor you'll help victims and investigate on the bad guys, whereas at night your sword will do the talking. The game is scheduled to come out on PS2 by the end of the year and is reminiscent of Genki's Fuun Shinsengumi and Fuun Bakumatsuden, although these were not produced by LightWeight. Genki's success with Fuun Shinsengumi was partly due to the popularity of a japanese TV show that aired around the time of the game's release, which focused on the same subject and era (In a similar fashion, Shinji Okamoto's Genji occurs in a similar period as a popular japanese TV show of last year - itself based on a famous historical tale). Instead, with Hissatsu Urakagyou, one could see an analogy with several classic chanbara series such as the TV drama "Hissatsu!" which, besides the obvious title similarity, also featured an team of justice-enforcers in a corrupted Edo period (and led to a nice action platformer from Bandai Visual on the Sega Saturn).
A little late on his 6-month cycle of game releases, but it's worth it - Kenta Cho, AKA ABA Games, has released Gunroar, his first game with environmental obstacles. The game takes place on water, composed of complex vectors, into which particles of downed enemies can sink...very nice graphical style this time round. Your ship is now a boat, one which can point in any direction while not firing - holding fire will make your ship strafe in that position. The system works well, and is supplemented by a torpedo attack. Bosses come up when you hit zero on your timer, with much more complicated ship designs than you usually see from his vector-style games. Very nice game, this one!
Hamapika has listed two new forthcoming titles in the Sega Ages 2500 Series for the PS2. One of them is Space Harrier 2 ~Space Harrier Complete Collection~ which presumably (and this is just our speculation), would include the Mega Drive game and the original Space Harrier in the form of a direct arcade port (unlike Volume 4's 3D remake). The other is more interesting, though, since it has the name 'SDI & Quartet ~Sega System 16 Collection Vol. 1~, which could mean that 3D Ages has plans to release a whole subseries based on the System 16 (1986~1991) arcade games, this time as direct ports instead of remakes with 3D graphics. Both titles have even a release date: September, 29th. Regarding this 2005 retro arcade fever, Hamster has recently opened its website for the Oretachi Geesen Zoku, a collection of one-shot arcade conversions for the PS2 with games like Nichibutsu's Crazy Climber or Video System's Sonic Wings. It is rumored that Konami's Xexex might appear under this label in August. NOTE: Seems that Hamapika took the information from some shops: 1 and 2.
Mukuro on MMC noticed G-Rev's dedicated website for their upcoming shooter Under Defeat just opened. Screens, poor web design, and not much else, so far.
For those of you who wait eagerly for Recap's newsposts, you can also check out his editorials - provided you can also read spanish. He's the head of a small game review/editorial/news site called Postback, which has some good text to it, along with lots of pictures, and lots of blinking. Not for the seizure-prone, but a very nice site.
...at least according to MTV. While it's news to me, who am I to argue with another's perception of our existence? Too hot for TV?
And now, the gaffe has been caught, and we're alive once more. We can only thank our lucky stars, as we arise, christ-like, from the ashes of our crumbled lives.
Here's some news that doesn't directly concern obscure japanese games but shows an interesting reaction from a similar niche to rejection of their hobby by mass media. It comes from The Sugoi's (ex-)webmaster's blog, and from next paragraph I will only be translating his informative entry:
I don't know if anyone talked about it, but there's something quite funny happening in Japan right now. Fans of J-Pop and other musical disasters have certainly heard about Oricon, a local Top of the Pops that tracks back the current best album sales. Although we are far from seeing the same outstanding numbers of copies sold by some LPs in the mid-nineties, the Oricon is still a reference for young Japaneses that want to know what's trendy and hip. Yet last month, at the third place of the ranking, one could find a Character Song Album from (popular Harem-Anime) Mahou Sensei Negima. Although it's not the first time such a thing has happened, media and show analysts totally zapped this fact, giving more attention towards other artists - although these were standing way lower in the Oricon. Not only that, but one of the hosts even criticized "AniSongs", arguing they had nothing to do in an overall music ranking.
That was the last straw for AniSong fans. A rebellion has been organized on the popular 2ch board and a massive campaign is taking place right now. Its goal : to turn the next Character Song Album from Mahou Sensei Negima (with character Evangeline on the cover) into the next number one of the oricon, at a rank where no one will be able to ignore it. Furthermore, this campaign named "Happy Ready Go !" (and subtitled : A revolution in the Oricon for 700 yen) is a bottle in the sea sent to traditional media so they show more respect towards this sub-culture which takes more and more importance inside Japan's social life and economy. And this campaign is already a success, judging from numerous articles already covering this strange manifestation. Shops also jumped on the bandwagon, promoting the campaign with informative flyers. Results of this action will be known by the beginning of july.
Two bits of shooter news. Raiden III is making its way to the PS2. Taito will produce the home version. Raiden III will come out september 22nd, but optimists can already pre-order the game on Play-Asia.
I got that news from shmup.com, which is jumping in the pool of indie shooters through some major members of it's community and their game Drill. They started the development more than a year ago on PC yet plan to release their Cave-inspired manic shooter on Dreamcast only, with a demo to be avaiable by september. There's already a little teaser footage of the first stage avaiable here.
<Brandon's note: Thanks to Recap for pointing out that Taito did not do the home port of Gigawing Generations, it was in fact Takumi themselves. We reported this correctly back when the game came out, but incorrectly just now, so it has been fixed. Aside from that, GG PS2 wasn't especially worse than the arcade original, ie poor by design, not because of the port.>
Ko-Hatsu displays flyers from Namco's CounterStrike Neo, the (hardly fathomable) japanese game centers-oriented version of Half Life's most famous mod. The scanned document shows a massive dedicated 10 players game station as well as interesting unique artwork: apparently Namco changed the realist SWAT Vs. Terrorists opposition to a more fictional, less polemic setting.
<Brandon's Note: Early reports indicated that the game was planned for the Type-X, but now it has been revealed that counter strike will be released on Namco's own System N2, which is a similar PC-based board, but will run on Linux, not Windows XP.>
Speaking of digital editions, the second issue of The Gamer's Quarter magazine is out. You can download it here for free. Famous indie game Seiklus is on the cover because there's an (interesting) interview of its author inside, and the rest of the issue is both more complete and better managed than the first one, so it's definitely worth a look. By the way, almost all of TGQ's staff are regulars on the IC forums, in case you miss them.
Game Developer Magazine now has a digital edition, and there's a sample issue up for viewing - not my absolute favorite, but not so bad, either. Has a good EA/PSP article in it, with some atypical statements made. Check the GD Mag site for older covers. My favorite cover is left, but this one is nice too.
1up has an amusing feature from EGM, in which a female 'spy' asked naive questions to various game clerks to see how they would respond. One wonders if the gamestop and EB employees, at the very least, would have reacted differently if they knew they were speaking to Carrie Shepherd, of GMR fame.
I am a month late on this one, but L'Oeil du Kraken (Eye of the Kraken) is now avaiable for free download. It's a pretty neat point'n'click adventure game from 2002 with a welcomed mix of litterate humor and oldschool flavor. Canadian producers Absurdus also added a spanish translation for the occasion. The first chapter of their new game, Carte Blanche, is coming out next september.
Due to a stupid bug, forums have been wiped. We'll be back online with a new system at some point next week, but don't cross your fingers about the timing, as we're redoing it from scratch. Yes, you'll have to reregister, yes, it's a pain in the butt, but there we are! Thanks for your patience.
By the way, if you're hurting for some conversation, try the insert credit IRC channel. It's a very different environment, but people like it! Hey, that's probably why... irc.esper.net #insertcredit
TIGSource reports an interesting "one key game" contest held by Retro Remakes, featuring a bunch of compelling freeware avaiable for download here. There's also a forum covering the competition and providing the results. Derek on TIGS thinks Sky Puppy is the best one in the lot, and the game is definitely worth a spotlight. 'One key games' are one of the most sought after genres in the mobile phone gaming industry, so expect a few of these titles to be either ported or shamelessly ripped-off for your cellphones. <Brandon's note: The Rothware guys that made Sky Puppy are very nice, too - they're ic pals from way back. Support! Also note that this is being done for Oneswitch.org.uk, a site dedicated to bettering the lives of disabled poeple - these games are designed to be played by those who can only hit one switch.>
Check Game Watch for an interview with three voice actresses from the new PS2 version of Twinkle Star Sprites (out July 28th for 6,090 yen), who are apparently from space from the looks of things. There are also lots of new pics of the higher resolution and 3D graphics. Very low-tech, but as long as it plays well...
The page for Kenran has been up for a little while, but I wasn't sure what it was until iggy sent this link, which indicates that the game is in the same universe as the popular Gun Parade March 'realtime drama simulation' game. Kenran is coming out on PS2 on july seventh (just like katamari), for 7,140 yen. Also check out Sony's official site, where you can see a video promo.
Apparently this is not a GunParade sequel, it's just been made in the same universe, which it seems all Alfa System games are part of. They share similar obscure characters, taken from linking novels and website descriptions. Odd!
The DS homebrew scene sure is progressing fast, but the PSP isn't that far behind. For instance, Qubitz did some pretty respectable work with his own Arkanoid, complete with vertical screen display, background music and several levels. Here's a tiny video and, even better, here's the game itself. Note that it will only work on non-updated v1.00 firmware, as all PSP homebrew games do right now. Thanks to Shito for the news.
Musashiden II: Episode Zero is a cellphone game designed to link the worlds of the first and second Musashi games from Square. And cellphone game graphics continue to advance! Available as a one-time download for 525 yen.
The team behind the many homebrew ports of the semi-famous chinese arcade game Super Fighter is proud to announce that they are on their way to translate and import a 1996 unofficial(?) taiwanese Megadrive/Genesis RPG from C&E Inc. for the western world. The game, formerly known as Xin Qi Gai Wang Zi, will receive the title Beggar Prince for it's nine years-late adaptation. A bunch of information can be found on the webpage, like the fact that it will be released on a Genesis cartridge, that the original team is very excited about the translation, and who will publish the game. There are a handful of other (little) known taiwanese RPGs on the megadrive, one can hope they too will make their way to the western world one day or the other. Thanks to Shapermc on the forums for noticing.
<Brandon's note:> In other Oldergames news, longtime partner in oldergames-crime Charles Doty has started his own game company, called Raster software, and is releasing a new game on a multitude of platforms. This guy seems to know the ins and outs of almost every console around, and is porting his game Frog Feast to pretty much any obscure CD-based console you can think of, minus perhaps the PC-fx, Pippin @mark and Bandai Playdia. Now's your chance to buy a new FM Towns game! Also check out the nifty Frog Feast development blog.
The amateur games that participated in the GBAX 2005 Coding Competition have been released. The final roster includes software for the GBA, GP32, DS, PSP and Zodiac. Meanwhile, Gentil Graphiste (of french website Bouledefeu fame) is working on some new graphics for an amateur Abalone game that was released recently on the DS. Looks insanely cute so far.
6/13 update: The new version of the DS abalone game "OMalone", with aforementioned improved graphics and a bunch of extras, has just been released.
We reported recently the interest of K. Mihara (Arika's vice-president) in Cave's shooting game 'Ketsui ~Kizuna Jigokutachi~' and his hope to see a PS2 version soon. His blog has let us know once again that he's trying to get Sony's approval to port the game under the Arika label itself for the PS3, with no luck - He wants to expand the original game (which used a PGM-based PCB, like Dai-Ou-Jou and Espgaluda) with new modes which would force the PS2's processing power beyond its limits. Thanks to Click-Stick's board crew for the find.
Apol from #ic pointed out Forrester, a newly released title for the MegaZeux text-based PC game construction kit, itself a derivation of the legendary Tim Sweeney-authored ZZT. You can grab the latest MegaZeux client from DigitalMZX.net, and then try Forrester, subtitled 'a game about remembering', and revolving around the main character, who has lost his daughter - unashamedly retro, oddly abstract stuff, and deliberately designed by the author as 'a game that was like the classics we all grew up on. ZZT, SuperZZT, and that family'. Oh, and the MegaZeux Sourceforge page has a list of great MegaZeux-made games, if you're looking for other potentially intriguing brand-new-they're-retro titles.
According to some evil Famitsu "indiscretions" found on the net, Saru Getchu 3 will feature a Mesal Gear Solid mode (sal = saru = "monkey") in which the handsome Pipo Snake and his SoCom banana gun will penetrate a military compound to destroy Metal Gear, with the Codec help of guest stars Solid Snake and Roy Campbell. The areas will be filled with posters of female(?) apes in bikini swimsuits - another vibrant hommage to Kojima's twisted series. This part of Saru Getchu 3 is obviously connected to the previous deal between Konami and Sony towards the appearance of Saru Getchu's characters in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. Taking usual the role of Sony's summer title for japanese kids, Saru Getchu 3 will come out next july 14th.
Namae confirms that Lunar's DS iteration will in fact be developed by Game Arts, even though it is published by Ubisoft. The same character designer will be returning from previous games. Curiously, the game comes out in July in the US, a month before the japanese release.
Iggy pointed out that this newly released mobile game from Sega is actually the shooting bit from Segagaga for the DC. Note how you're fighting a giant saturn. Good stuff!
The recent announcement of Taito Memories was one of the most exciting "making us pay for souvenirs from our youth" projects in a long time. Rakuten published today the list of games featured in the second volume (and apparently planned as last one for now), which will be released on the 25th of august :
Space Invaders
Space Invaders part II
Crazy Balloon
Balloon Bomber
Qix
Wild Western
Elevator Action
Chack'n'pop
Frontline
Kage no Densetsu
New Zealand Story
Rastan Saga 2
Raimais
Insector X
Cadash
Violence Fight
Gun Frontier (scenaristic predecessor to Metal Black)
Hat Trick Hero
Mizubaku daiboken (a.k.a. Liquid Kids)
Arabian Magic
Akkanvader (a.k.a. Space Invaders '95)
Gekirindan
Puzzle Bobble 2
Raystorm (a.k.a. Layer Section II)
G-Darius
News: Minna Daisuki Katamari Damashii cover "art" unveiled
The game comes out in Japan on July 7. GameWatch has a new, amazing trailer up, featuring new stages and music. And the soundtrack will be featuring Dokaka, a crazy but talented voice performer which was a guest on Björk's latest acapella album. (Site currently down, but here. He does acapella covers of such bands as Slayer and Nirvana as well.) Isn't it the best day of your life?
An odd coincidence : the real-life DARPA works on a device reminiscent of the CODEC found throughout Metal Gear Solid 1 and 2, in which DARPA held a major (fictional) role. Thanks to the forums for noticing.
It's one of the highest critically acclaimed 'simulation RPG + adventure games' for Windows and now it's heading for the PS2, as Namae no Nai Heya announces. Seems that Flight 'Summon Night' Plan is behind the conversion process and that new scenes are being added. Leaf/Aquaplus' website for the original version is here.
News: 'The World of Progear no Arashi' article translated
Once again thanks to Gaijin Punch. This appeared on Arcadia Magazine a few years ago and included some background story write-up's and an interview with the two main developers.
Kiken (ic alum) has produced an 80 minute video reviewing the 16 shooting games released on the Neo Geo. 500MB megashock! If you have a healthy connection and some space left on your hard drive, don't miss this gem avaiable on Archive.org.
News: Demo for Tobitsuki & Senko no Ronde at Rid's
There is now a demo avaiable for the horizontal shooter Tobi Tsukihime, mentioned in our recent doujin news digest. <Brandon's note: I neglected to point this out last time, but this game is based on tsukihime's characters, and Abogado Powers' shooting game Tobi Divine. Neither site is totally worksafe.> Also, shooter fans interested in G.Rev's Senko no Ronde should remember to check Majoria News quite frequently these days, as Rid is on a related news roll.
News: a careful look at two recent sport games announcements
FiPro Returns has been recently announced on PS2, and PawaPocket Koushien has been confirmed in the latest Famitsu. Two announcements that the regular IC reader might not have really felt connected to, yet are interesting to comment on nonetheless, for a few reasons.
The FiPro (Fire Pro Wrestling) series is a long succession of unlicensed (in terms of character names) 2D technical wrestling games from Human (and when Human died, Spike) that have been haunting japanese consoles for over fifteen years, gaining cult status through some decent 32bit iterations, and reaching it's peek with the excellent Fire Pro Wrestling D on the Dreamcast (arguably the most technical 2D fighter on the system). It's sequel Fire Pro Wrestling Z on the PS2 was announced as the very last episode of the series, for Spike (which is really barely more than a dozen people) would thereafter proceed to 3D licensed wrestling simulations with their critically acclaimed King of Colosseum series. It seems FiPro fans have complained enough for Spike to go back on their word and now produce FiPro Returns, once again for the PS2 - an improved version of their 2D unlicensed maverick, featuring new special effects, new edit features, new deadly techniques and wrestlers from older versions. An interesting move when sports games being licensed & full 3D have become more obvious than Mario jumping on turtles.
Now about PawaPocket, the portable subseries of Pawapuro, which you all heard about a while ago (the Konami Week 2005 was there to put that right). A new episode is confirmed on the Nintendo DS, which is interesting because that will allow PawaPocket Koushien to become the first online Konami game on the system. It will also allow the game to benefit from the trademark "cross-shaped 4 buttons layout" gameplay of the regular PawaPuro series, where each button targets a base as anyone could guess. But more importantly, PawaPocket Koushien focuses on the Koushien, as it's name suggests. The Koushien is a ritual summer event followed by millions of Japanese each year, where High School baseball teams battle for national supremacy in the Hanshin Koushien Stadium (in Nishinomiya, near Kobe). This might mean that, because of the "original image" of the DS or because of the peculiar demographic some of it's games attract, Konami felt complied or eager to try a different approach than the usual japanese baseball league formula. But more importantly, this might also be a cautious first move towards a diversification of PawaPuro on other grounds... such as Major League Baseball (were a deal to be made with current exclusive rights' owner Take2, obviously). This would be a strong but understandable change in Konami's policy concerning the PawaPuro series, as the local championship's popularity suffers greatly from the successful exodus of japanese stars to MLB in recent years.
More insanity for those looking for translations of demo versions of PC ADV games. This time, insani offers translated binaries and ONScripter source files for the Hanihani ~Operation Sanctuary~ demo, a "Hectic School Life ADV" from August Soft. Beside the usual Windows and Linux flavor binaries, Mac users will be happy to see their Japanese ADV game needs being addressed with this release.
Over at the Internet Archive, they've just posted a speed run of Gunstar Heroes - expert mode completed in 41 minutes and 15 seconds by Mike Uyama, without dying, pausing, or using emulators - impressive stuff! There's more info at the Speed Demos Archive, where apparently, 'Nate had this to say about the run: "if you know Gunstar Heroes, you want to watch this run. if you don't know Gunstar Heroes, you want to watch this run."' Other recent additions to the collection include Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Final Fantasy III, Tomb Raider, and Castlevania: Aria Of Sorrow.
Play Asia is having a ridiculous summer sale, with a huge number of titles discounted across multiple systems. Where else can you get Another Code, or Hanjuku Eiyuu DS: Egg Monster Heroes for $30? A brand new SwanCrystal for $50? There are about 1000 items listed, and some are going fast, so take a look! While you're at it, the weekly special is Guru Guru Nagetto for DS, at $16. Good price.
This is a rather nifty birth control dispenser lookalike PC controller, which folds up into a tidy cube. The images leave it a bit unclear as to where the USB cable comes from, but details aside, it looks like a very stylish, moderately uncomfortable, but certainly unique control pad. Thanks to Jason at S:NGP for pointing this out.
While you're in a controller mood, check out this little controller design/family tree diagram. Lots of huge omissions, but fun to think about.
Edit: Some news on the USB cable, from gutsman: "The top of the controller has a mini USB port on top which you plug into the cable. The other end in the picture plugs into the PC." And there we are.
In order to bolster sales of the tepid UMD movie market, Sony has apparently allowed a whole new genre of media to reach their cutey-pricey PSP. Glay'z is proud to announce on their (miles away from worksafe) official website that five of their productions will be avaiable on UMD videos next july. The titles speak for themselves:
Title: Kyonyu Nurse Mitsu Amai (The Nurse of a Big Breast)
Release: 2005/7/8
Media/length: UMD Video, 120mins
Digital Mosiac: No
Price: 3800yen
Title: Make a play of Riko Tachibana (Goku Hong)
Release: 2005/7/8
Media/length: UMD Video, 110mins
Digital Mosiac: Yes
Price: 3800yen
Title: Soap Play of Anna Kaneshiro (High Grade Class First Soap Lady)
Release: 2005/7/8
Media/length: UMD Video, 120mins
Digital Mosiac: Yes
Price: 2800yen
Title: Premature flesh is the area which became wet hotly (Hunting by Glay's One)
Release: 2005/7/22
Media/length: UMD Video, 120mins
Digital Mosiac: No
Price: 3800yen
Title: Erotic Terrorist Beautiful Body Noa (The Beautiful Body Ero Egoist)
Release: 2005/7/22
Media/length: UMD Video, 110mins
Digital Mosiac: No
Price: 2800yen
Thanks to duckroll for losing his place in heaven and warning the rest of us.
The guys from Cosplay Teahouse Girls (not necessarily work-safe links) are one of the more interesting game studios on the doujin scene, after a bunch of 
Alchemist has just opened 
The amazing japanese duo 
Provided you register to 
Another homebrew for the DS has been revealed, and it's none other than the classic 'port to everything' game, 
GP32 Theatre is 
In more Atari-related news, 
Forget Sony's PSP, and mock Nintendo's Play-Yan, because here's the real hardcore experience for movie fans: 
It already was a loudly-spoken secret, but now it has an official nature thanks to 
The official US site is up for 
There have long been unofficial servers for the dreamcast version of PSO, but now there's also a 
SNK Playmore now has a dedicated webpage for their recently released 
Genki revealed, through a new and rather empty 
A little late on his 6-month cycle of game releases, but it's worth it - Kenta Cho, AKA 
Mukuro on MMC noticed G-Rev's dedicated website for their upcoming shooter Under Defeat 
...at least according to 
Here's some news that doesn't directly concern obscure japanese games but shows an interesting reaction from a similar niche to rejection of their hobby by mass media. It comes from 
Two bits of shooter news. 
Speaking of 
Game Developer Magazine now has 
I am a month late on this one, but 
Due to a stupid bug, forums have been wiped. We'll be back online with a new system at some point next week, but don't cross your fingers about the timing, as we're redoing it from scratch. Yes, you'll have to reregister, yes, it's a pain in the butt, but there we are! Thanks for your patience.
Check 
The page for 
The DS homebrew scene sure is progressing fast, but the PSP isn't that far behind. For instance, Qubitz did some pretty respectable work with his own Arkanoid, complete with vertical screen display, background music and several levels. Here's a tiny 
The team behind the many homebrew ports of the semi-famous chinese arcade game Super Fighter is proud to announce that they are on their way to translate and import a 1996 unofficial(?) taiwanese Megadrive/Genesis RPG from C&E Inc. for the western world. The game, formerly known as Xin Qi Gai Wang Zi, will receive the title 
The amateur games that participated in the GBAX 2005 Coding Competition have been 
Apol from #ic pointed out 
According to some evil Famitsu "indiscretions" found on the net, 
Iggy pointed out that this newly released 
It's one of the highest critically acclaimed 'simulation RPG + adventure games' for Windows and now it's heading for the PS2, as 
There is now a demo 
FiPro Returns has been recently announced on PS2, and PawaPocket Koushien has been confirmed in the latest Famitsu. Two announcements that the regular IC reader might not have really felt connected to, yet are interesting to comment on nonetheless, for a few reasons.
More insanity for those looking for translations of demo versions of PC ADV games. This time, 
Over at the Internet Archive, they've just posted a 
This is a rather nifty birth control dispenser lookalike 
In order to bolster sales of the tepid UMD movie market, Sony has apparently allowed a whole new genre of media to reach their cutey-pricey PSP. Glay'z is proud to announce on their (miles away from worksafe) 
