A book review! Imagine. This here book covers some 500 game machines, with nice clear pictures, release information and sales numbers, all in one softbound book. It makes for good reading. The review...perhaps not as much. OR! Perhaps...more? Impossible to discern.
It was thanks to one of those investor relations documents which Cave publishes in PDF format that we got to first hear about the development of Cave's latest arcade games (the sequels to Espgaluda and Ibara) and now the story repeats regarding the development of the forthcoming arcade titles from this company over the next few months. Unfortunately, we have bad news this time. Cave's next arcade games after Pink Sweets will take the form of a mah-jong-based medal game and a card game for children. There's no mention of a new shooting game (or a non-dedicated arcade game, for that matter) in the whole document aside from Pink Sweets' location test report. Not a good sign. It also lets us know that Cave has formed a co-participated company with Tamiya to publish online games based on Mini Yon Ku, and more interestingly, that a 'kouryaku DVD' for Ibara and another one for Espgaluda II are being made. Ibara is also going to receive a 'digital comic' of which you can see a small preview in the document.
Genki Videogames, a small import shop in the UK, has put up a little Animal Crossing story using the Animal Crossing toys/playsets, and a rapidly defrosting refridgerator (or so I've heard). Quite cute, and not in any way offensive (unlike this guy). Give it a look.
News: Trigger Heart Exelica - A brand new NAOMI shooting game
You may have heard about Warashi. Formed in the 90s (some say it's composed of ex-Seibu staff), this company has basically developed two types of video-games: mah-jong and classic shooting games, of which Shienryu (arcade, Saturn, PS1/2) is its best known piece. We thought we would never see again a new shooting game from it due to the current status of the arcade industry, but we were wrong. Unexpectedly, a preliminary page on Warashi's site has emerged today announcing a location test next Sunday and Monday for a brand new shooting game named 'Trigger Heart Exelica'. It reveals some facts: it will be a vertical-scrolling, single-player game which will use vertically-oriented monitors; it will use a three-button plus control stick set-up; it will have real-time 3D graphics (quite sadly - Warashi's Sengeki Striker and Shienryu proved that it knows how to draw good sprites); and it will feature a 'Variable Stage-Boss Attack System' (that is, auto-adjusting-difficulty bosses, which will vary their patterns depending on the player's skill). Now, the speculation - I believe it will be a NAOMI GD-ROM game. Think about it - the only real alternative would be Type-X, but there's not a mention or visible logo of either, this platform or Taito, when there has always been for every Type-X game announced with a preliminary site. And then there're also the game centers for the test - Sega's Club Sega in Shinjuku West and Akihabara. We may be wrong, since Warashi's latest games have used Type-X, but it would be nice if we weren't, and we rarely are, are we?
Update: The test has just finished and Exelica's preliminary site (which has its nicely illustrated front page here, by the way) mentions 'NAOMI' as the hardware to support this game now. So the prize is for us once again.
It's the last game to come from the Falcom/Taito agreement, which included the PS2 port of Zwei!! and the remakes of Ys III, Ys IV and Ys V for this platform (and not counting the ports for mobile phones, that is, for which Ys IV is in development right now, as Chaz noticed). Like the previous episodes, the Ys V remake (originally a SFC game, and one of the very few Falcom has developed for consoles) will not only modify its name (which is now 'Ys V ~Lost Kefin, Kingdom of Sand~'), it will get some story changes, and more importantly, brand new graphics and gameplay. Judging by the small screenshots on Rakuten (the very first ones which have appeared), we can say it will use the Ys IV remake engine, which isn't good news, since both the sprites and 3D backgrounds (trying to mimic Ys VI's original presentation) were considered an aberration by everybody. Taito promises, according to Rakuten, compatibilty with the previous PS2 episodes in the form of equipment data and dungeon configuration (seems you'll gain access to play the Ys V Expert versions). Out on March 30th. You can check G-Para's announcement here. Also, the latest Falcom newsletter points to a secret download space where you can get an over seven minute long sample of the Sora no Kiseki drama CD. The normal link is much shorter!
So Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII is out in Japan, and Gackt takes the cover of this week's Famitsu. Famitsu does not review the game, which is okay. I can tell you with reasonable certainty that they're going to give it four nines in next week's issue. Don't ask how I know that. There is a chance that one of the nines will be bumped up to a ten as the editors actually play the game. Keep that on the down-low, dear reader.
This week's Famitsu contains a wonderful poster of Gackt, which has two sides -- one of him wearing a really nice jacket, and one of him trapped inside that really tacky outfit he has to wear in Dirge of Cerberus. I'd love to scan the cover and show you the badass outfit he's wearing; I cannot, however. You know. Famitsu would have our balls if I did that. So there's what Gackt looks like in-game. It's public domain. Pause and reflect on that photo up there a bit.
I wrote a little bit about Gackt in my column on Next-Gen.biz today, mostly because the Japanese games industry isn't really doing anything at the moment. You can go check it out. There's a little bit more in there. If you can, try to click through every page at least fifty times, even if you don't read it. I'm getting paid to write it, and they might fire me if it looks like no one's reading it. HONKING
As for Dirge: I kind of like it. I haven't met Gackt yet in it. If you'll check the link above, you'll get cryptic hints about how Gackt was inserted into the game's 3D engine using "multiple tens of retakes of multiple scenes using multiple cameras." Do check it out. I mean, it's a little chilling. I really can't wait to see how well he's implemented in here. I really hope it looks better than the blinking digitized faces on the characters in Siren 2. They could be onto something. The age of CG-worship might be coming to a close. Then again, Gackt is a man who aspires to . . . look like a CG model, so . . . uh.
In closing, yes, Gackt's song in Dirge of Cerberus is actually really good. It doesn't have the Really Irritating Two-minute Bridge In The Middle (TM Gackt 1999). It's got actual electric guitar and everything. We never stopped believing in you, Gackt -- except for those, uh, four years there.
Also in the column is bizarre news about Bobby Orogon, the K-1 fighter whose likeness will be used in the PlayStation2 release of New Power Instinct Matrimelee, which will be released on February 23rd, 2006. Check out the column for information on why you should contact your favorite importeras soon as possible to ensure your copy of this game before it becomes a collector's item. Haha! Now you have to read it!! Go!!
News: Silent Hill - The Devil's Lyric, Homebrewed For The Virtual Boy
At this point, we're all pretty familiar with homebrew games based on out of date, yet still generally popular consoles. Well how about the Virtual Boy? It seems there is a community for such a thing, and one potentially interesting title to come forth from it is a Silent Hill game. While the combination of Virtual Boy and Silent Hill might seem a bizarre, but rather ingenius combo, it is slated to be text adventure game, like the GBA version. Also be sure to check out some of the unreleased games, such as Zero Racers and Space Pinball
So, following up with the Cenix GMP-M6 which we posted about some time ago, there's now a full, devoted page. There's also one in our old friend english! So it looks as though you purchase the console, and it comes with two games already loaded; shooting game Star Force and Strategy RPG Battle Armor (at the very least they're available for free). All other games can be purchase for 2,000 won, which is just under $2 US. Not a bad price really, but I've still no idea how much the unit itself costs, or if there are functional buttons aside from the one that says 'play.' I can't even find a way to buy it from the online store - perhaps you can help. To paraphrazy Ryo in Shenmue - Do you know anyone who speaks the language of Korean?
Days of Memories 2 has been announced. Confirmed characters in the second edition of the SNK gals cellphone love simulator include: Kisarah Westfield, Mature, Hotaru Futaba, Fio Germi, Chizuru Kagura, and an original heroine in the form of a white haired, red eyed girl. I can't read her name though - help? The game will be released on february first. Thanks to Arngrim's MMC post for the news.
Kobayan and Ojakan have been gathering the first images and impressions from the test (no good screens for now, though). Seems there are lots of gameplay and esthetic changes when compared to its predecessor, starting with the protagonists - the player selects one of the Rose Garden girls, followed by the bullet patterns and style, much more 'cave-ish' this time. There's a tiny video of a boss fight and stage ending here which we've mirrored, originally from Gamerslife.
The game was announced back in august, but it's finally been released! DragonShadow Industries (not to be confused with DSI Games) has released a Nuon port of two games originally for Sony's PlayStation-based development kit the Net Yaroze. The games are Katapila (original platformer) and Invs (french Space Invaders clone), if you've forgotten. All you need to do is burn it to a disc and put it in your Nuon! Assuming you have one. It seems as though DragonShadow's Scott Cartier will use his Decaying Orbit libraries (which he used to port these games, as previously mentioned) to bring over a larger compilation of Net Yaroze games at some point, though it doesn't appear as though the process is simply plug and play. He's got a contest up for Invs, which I'll let him describe in his own words: "Think you can create better sound effects? Philippe (Invs creator) has given the go-ahead to do a total replacement of the in-game sounds. The winner will receive a signed NUON Games & Demos disc and have their sounds immortalized in a future version of the Yaroze Classics collection."
In other Nuon-related news, head over to Nuon Dome to check out a newly retitled (in a previous contest!) homebrew by the name of Sheshells Sea Adventures, an undersea shooting game.
You might have missed Raiden III's Type-X-powered arcade version, or when it came out on PlayStation 2 last september (published by Taito). Cyberfront is willing to give you another chance by releasing a PC version in Japan on march 17. Unlike recent ports of PlayStation 2 games to the PC such as the shameful Onimusha 3, one can expect Raiden 3 to be less of a disappointment. It should in fact be quite faithful to the arcade version, since the Type-X's architecture is not much more than a stripped-down PC itself. In case you question the quality of Raiden 3, the game does have some fans.
News: Nintendo announces the new Nintendo DS OMG; "bleach" is released
Nintendo has shocked the world once again, by announcing that they will release a smaller version of their one-year-old handheld gaming machine with a precious few of the features people wanted from the start tacked on. They call this new one the "Nintendo DS lite." Nintendo's press release says, "'Light' is an English word meaning 'light' and 'light.'" Wait, actually, that doesn't work so well in English!
Next paragraph: the machine will be thinner, lighter, and brighter than the original DS, which is, yes, currently still sold out all over Japan. The unit will apparently have four brightness settings, and refined buttons. Now, if it also has fixed screen ratios for GBA games, and if it offers you the ability to map the GBA's L and R buttons to the DS's X and Y buttons, we'll be onto something. My guess is that it will indeed allow such remapping -- however, configuration of the DS's four buttons so that Y acts as a GBA's B and B acts as a GBA's A (which would make Super Mario Bros. 3 actually playable on the handheld), will have to wait for the Nintendo DS lite SP micro edition (or this ~BS).
Nintendo's press release does not indicate that Gameboy Advance game compatibility will be dropped, as many had been whispering. In fact, it says that "all of the DS's unique functions will remain intact." This is Japanese market-speak for "we didn't take anything away." Example: when you're looking for an apartment in Tokyo, if the apartment has a gas stove (as it should) the real estate classifieds listings will say nothing about it. If it doesn't have a gas stove, the top of the ad will exclaim proudly, "Compatible with gas stove!" Another example: Konami once released Contra Spirits on Gameboy Advance; it was a horribly neutered port, missing most of the fun and the two-player simultaneous function. A big red burst on the front of the Japanese box read "EXCLUSIVE ONE-PLAYER ACTION!!" So there you have it. That is how professionals accentuate the negative.
I personally welcome the new DS, as long as it's at least as bright as the ultra-bright GBA SP2. I don't even mind that the thing looks like an iPod (I mean, I'm going with my gut and saying they went with the exact same designers who did the Revolution controller -- and the iPod). I just really hope they announce a red one, because that's what I'll get. And I'll look so sophisticated! My old DS makes me look like a dude who's hip with pop-culture (only in Japan), and this new one will make us all look like egg-drinking power-stock-brokers. While playing cavia's Dragon Ball Z against the schoolkids across the train and muttering curses occasionally.
The Nintendo DS lite goes on sale (in Japan) on March 2nd, for 16,800 yen (about $150). I have resolved to buy one of these, and sell my old DS cheap to a friend. Nintendo's current entrepreneurlike business strategies have inspired me. You can read more about Nintendo's current success in an article I wrote here. If the lead-in advertisement doesn't jinx you.
Also, to commemorate this announcement (?), Treasure and Sega have released their Bleach for DS today. I'm going to Akihabara to buy it in just forty minutes. I tingle! Famitsu gave it an 8, 7, 8, 8, which is fitting, because anime/manga fans don't care about review scores (or else Bandai would be bankrupt by now), and Treasure fans would never buy a game that a mainstream publication scored a "9," anyway. It's a lot like Treasure's YuYu Hakusho for MegaDrive, a favorite game for hardcore gamers everywhere to pretend to have played!! Consider this research, and do it!! They could totally release this in America as "Bleach: Dong Slasher." WANKING
Who hasn't had the thought of driving to New Mexico and digging up all those lost copies of E.T.? I know I have, and these four midwest->Los Angeles transplants (though I only see three in the video) do just that in their video for the song When I Wake Up. Or they pretend to anyway - I don't know that anyone's actually found the things. A rather nice video, so give it a look, eh?
Wraggster grabbed a report from Asian Toy Source, stating that the latter company has gotten rights to create plug and play systems using 48 licensed sega games. Right now they have calls to other companies to create systems using their license, but have announced that they have their own LCD-based system in development, which is perhaps the most exciting news. These may all be Master System-based games, but still exciting. The SMS Gunstar is way better than the GBA one, after all! Here's a direct quote: "We are developing a Sega hand held system also (like Gameboy), which will contain 20 games of your choice and have a high quality 2.5 inch LCD screen. For an additional cost, we can create a cartridge based version as well, so you can have 20 games inside plus sell multi-game cartridges also. "
Rakuten has some information on a new DS detective game, Osawari Tantei Ozawa Rina. The main scenario will include four different tales, and twenty mini-quests will spice up the adventure. Unlike popular detective games such as the Tantei Saburou Jinguuji series or Famicom Tantei Club, the cases will not involve gruesome murders but rather stories for the whole family to enjoy together. The game will be released on April 13 at a regular price.
I forgot to mention the traditional pre-release promotional trailer is up at Falcom, this time for Sora no Kiseki Second Chapter. As usual, a higher quality version is also available on 4gamer.net. Looks sweet. The game is scheduled to be released on the 3rd of March. - No Falcom newsletter transcription lately for lack interesting content.
I waited for tim to write about it, but it might have skipped his large prime radar, or he might be waiting to get some more information before writing about it: we now have a date for Mother 3, from Shigesato Itoi himself. The much awaited postmodern(!) sequel should come out on April 20. This newspost's picture was found, via the IC forums, on Dan Owsen's blog. Among other jobs at Nintendo, Dan Owsen translated Mother 2 for the US release (retitled Earthbound, as most of you know). One's hopeful he will also get to translate what is possibly the last important GBA release.
My old pal Mash has redone his website, and has a brand new set of mods. Most notably, he has this chip for your DS which will allow you to remap your L and R buttons to X and Y when playing GBA games - on the fly. You toggle between the two by pressing L and R together, continuing the long tradition of hackers fixing things Nintendo should have done themselves. Other nifty mods include an internal rumble pack for the GP32, and - perhaps most impressively, a touch screen for the Game Boy Color. It has three layers - LCD screen - front light - then touch screen. He's definitely got it working, though I'm not totally clear on how it's implemented in-game. The full writeup is coming soon, so watch for it!
According to Next-Gen.biz, the ESA (the organization that holds E3) will enforce a $5,000 fine to show exhibitors if "nudity, partial nudity and bathing suit bottoms" or anything "sexually provocative" is displayed anywhere on the show floor. This is interesting indeed, because, well -- E3 has been becoming a vertiable swamp of booth babes lately. The worst offenders are (were?) the G4 booth babes, who wore tight shirts that read "G4 BOOTH BABE." I mean, my lord, if I ever catch myself merely speaking the words "booth babe" (as it stands, I have only ever typed), I'll check myself into some kind of criminal institution for stupidity. If I ever wake up wearing a T-shirt with "booth babe" written on it, I'll call the police as quickly as possible.
This new sanction amuses children of all ages, on all levels. Not only will it eliminate booth babes, it will also eliminate any male bodybuilders who were thinking of taking off their shirts and flexing. It will not prevent me from wearing my favorite T-shirt (see image). It will make it much easier for journalists to concentrate on fairly, accurately, and objectively writing previews of all those games they're supposed to be playing. It will not, however, make any games starring gangster rappers shooting innocent people in the head any less bitchingly popular. It will, however, please Tomonobu Itagaki, who told me a few E3s ago, shaking his head at booth babes, that "American women don't understand men."
We here at insertcredit.com pause to reflect on the booth babes of the past, and to muse: wouldn't it be cool if, say, SNK hired girls in glasses and big ankle-length coats, with scarves and mittens? Have you ever hugged a girl wearing a thick coat and mittens? If you haven't, you're really missing out. It's the tactile equivalent of knowing there's a Tootsie Roll in the center of your Tootsie Roll pop.
BREAKING NEWS: A story that just reached my virtual news desk says that the ESA will prohibit the entry of insertcredit.com's own Brandon Sheffield into the Los Angeles Convention Center during E3, stating that his very being falls under the "sexually provocative" adjective. Furthermore, the ESA has stated, "Not only is he sexually provocative no matter what he's wearing, he's just too durn gorgeous." This is not the first time the ESA has used the word "durn" in a press release. JOKING
It has just been announced on Cave's website that the location test will be conducted from January 26th to January 30th at Akihabara Hey. So, as we thought, Pink Sweets ~Ibara Sorekara~ will be a brand new shooting game from Cave conceived as Ibara's true follow-up and not the mere revision, named 'Ibara: Black Label', and which will be released next month. In the meantime, the PS2 version of Ibara got an official site along with a whole page on Playstation Dot Com where they confirm that the new Arrange Mode will differ substantially from the Arcade Mode, with a new shooting/options system, no two-players mode nor instant continue possibility and a new in-game rank meter to show how the auto-adjusting difficulty feature calculates your level.
A guy named colin wilkes has written a feature - a feature you can read right here. It's about securing the last copy of Electroplankton in New York by any means necessary. You might not approve of his methods, you might not approve of his smug attitude, but hey...it reads ok. Really, he could have just ordered it on the internet.
You might believe last year's best april fool joke from Irem was the Exidna. Think again, as it appears more and more that the release of Zettai Zetsumei Toshi 2 -Itetsuita Kiokutachi- on PlayStation 2 is turning into another kind of joke. Whereas a playable demo version of the game was already available at Tokyo Game Show 2004, Irem as yet again postponed its release to an undetermined date, according to Namae no nai Heya. After numerous delays, the sequel to their oft-praised natural disaster survival simulation was supposed to finally see the light on February 23. A second demo had been distributed in japanese retailers last december, and a Zettai Zetsumei Toshi promotional manga is currently running in Shounen Ace.
Doujin highlights of the last few days, from the usual sources. Takase released a new version of Arm Joe, the lovable fighting game set in Victor Hugo's Les Misérables universe. Version 1.4 discards a few bugs, adds a character and includes a nifty new BGM. The game now weighs around 300MB unpacked!
There has been a bunch of other interesting fighting projects in the news. One example is Circle J.F.K.'s Ninja Bugeiden Karyuudo, scheduled for a demo release at Comiket 70. The game feels a bit like Ninja Master's, and its protagonists are popular characters from old anime licenses, such as Kamui Densetsu. There is a trailer to download here. Another game that got a new footage is Kizuna Fighters Zero, released by Nekketsuya for Comiket 69, which adapts their own Kizuna Zero (from Comiket 68) into a fighter. You can get the video as well as a demo version via their download page. Meanwhile, a new test version of Muteki Kakutou Musume -Miki the Fighting Girl surfaced on AuSystem's website.
Most shooting games from Comiket 69 got their usual patches. Suguri is one of them (patch here), but it also has a revised demo version and a new opening movie to download. Yoshiba Works, already responsible for Danmaku Buster and Yoshiba Mini Virus Crusher, has a new version of Bad Rally II to download. Another oldtimer, Hachimitsu Kuma-san revealed his new project Thoho Soccer (I'm going with his romanization here, although it should obviously be spelled touhou). As its author puts it, Thoho Soccer mixes 40 characters from the Touhou universe with "a certain soccer series on Famicom". From the first screenshots, fans will immediatly recognize that the inspiration comes from Captain Tsubasa. The manga and anime being far from realistic, the Famicom adaptations by Tecmo opted for a very peculiar gameplay - somehow closer to a strategy game with special moves. Captain Tsubasa's rights for a video game adaptation are currently owned by Konami.
While working on the fan translation of Gyakuten Saiban 3 for Gameboy Advance, Comeback Court released another interesting translation. They subtitled the Gyakuten Saiban Yomigaeru Gyakuten promotional footage, broadcasted during Tokyo Game Show 2005. It's quite hilarious, especially if you are into GS. Here is a link to the video, and we are hosting the sub here until someone complains about it. To fully understand the video, it's important to put things in context. Gyakuten Saiban Yomigaeru Gyakuten was released on DS on September 15, one day before TGS'05 opened. And the events depicted in the video are supposed to happen on September 17 (presumably the very day the video was filmed by someone in the audience). [edit] Actually the video was presented on the official webpage as a flash video. It's that version that got ripped and converted here.
Niche italian publisher Hobby Media has quite a nice magazine, it seems. It's called GX, and it seems to cover bishoujo games and visual novels - the more naughty kind. It also has bits on hacking the DS, mahjong, and ipod hentai. Sounds altogether a wholesome read. It's in italian only, but I'd wager anyone in europe should give it a look. They also have a DVD pack-in with demos of upcoming h-games and the like.
My recent post about tototek's PCE flash cart has produced a flurry of emails from across the globe about various new projects. The first was added as an update to the original post, and since then I've learned that the tototek one should also support supergrafx games. That aside, Francesco pointed me to this - a PCE flash that just came out from Neoflash. This one is 128 megs in size, again very bare looking, holds 63 games via a rudimentary OS, and uses a USB slim loader to add content. Interesting!
As Iggy and Gpara noted, Kojima Productions updated their 'secret' site for MGS fans (the site's address was to be discovered in Metal Gear Acid˛ and MGS3 Subsistence). There is now a download section filled with nice wallpapers as well as an official version of the Otaclock (in case you did not install the amateur-made version yet).
News: Saturn emulation shows progress
January 20, 2006, 08:44 AM
by chazumaru, via Sega's glorious past - [permalink]
The Saturn is known for being one of the toughest consoles to emulate, in part because of an intricate dual processor architecture. Four major emulation projects exist to this day: SSF, GiriGiri, Satourne and Saturnin. Recently, a new version of SSF has been made available. SSF Ver0.07 beta R2' is a huge step towards a simpler and broader emulation of Sega's cult piece of hardware. You'll need a pretty high-end config to run the emulator correctly, such as a processor which can handle the SSE2 instruction set. I decided to try the emulator before posting about it, and I must say the result is pretty impressive. Only Bandai Visual's Hissatsu! failed to launch, whereas the technically challenging Burning Rangers was perfectly rendered. Definitely worth a try if you own a Saturn USB pad.
News: Silent Hill's movie trailer
January 20, 2006, 08:41 AM
by chazumaru, via MetroFilms/TriStar/Konami - [permalink]
After a first teaser trailer, Tristar and MetroFilms unveiled the full trailer of the much awaited movie adaptation of Konami's Silent Hill series. The film takes a lot of elements from the first three episodes, and fans will obviously notice numerous references in the trailer alone. Director Christophe Gans is a long-time follower of the series himself. He had for instance written an interesting feature on the series in Les Cahiers du Cinéma a few years ago (he also used to be a movie critic). Gans already has experience with adaptations from his movie version of Crying Freeman - based on the Manga of the same name - that was deemed solid, if not spectacular.
On a personal note: I have been regularly trying to get into contact with producer Samuel Hadida and director Christophe Gans for a few months now, as these two live (part of the time) in the same town and speak the same language as I do. Yet I have kept getting rebuked by charming secretaries for various pointless reasons such as "we are doing no promotion until the final cut" or "you must ask the people from Columbia TriStar in Hollywood instead of our small MetroFilms office which is about thirteen meters away from where you live" or "who the hell are you anyway and why are you standing naked in my office with a rotten eggplant in your hand?" I know Gans is a dedicated gamer and has gamer friends, so if any faithful reader of insert credit actually knows him, tell the man I'll pay the beer or the wine or the condoms for an eventual interview in Paris. Meanwhile you can still read this interesting, if months-old interview of script writer Roger Avary on Edge's website.
With the recent announcement of Under Defeat for Dreamcast and the shy figures of the Xbox 360 in Japan so far, Grev had put a question mark on their early announcement of a Senkou no Ronde port for Microsoft's new system. Doubts are now swept away with a double page in Famitsu revealing Senkou no Ronde Rev.X ("rev" is for revision, obviously). It will be compatible with the Xbox Live service, and the Xbox version will also feature new exclusive costumes for all characters.
The official website for the AtomisWave-powered Metal Slug 6 opened, with a bunch of clean screenshots inside. It is obviously the first game in the series to get released on another arcade format rather than the old MVS board. Seeing the Sega logo here and there, on the website or during the game's boot sequence for instance, still feels a bit awkward. Sega-Arcade's webpage tells the game is listed for a spring 2006 release but rated "red" for "Animated Violence Strong" content! Children, beware! Remember that one of the games Sammy launched the AtomisWave with was a challenger to Metal Slug called Dolphin Blue. Matthew and Brandon had given their thoughts on that game a long, long time ago.
Those of you who don't know Hideo Kojima's Japanese blog, well, probably don't care. Those of you who do, well, maybe you don't check it every day. This is forgivable! However, today would be a heck of a great day to check it. See, lately he's been doing a downloadable radio show called "HIDECHAN!" (I have them all on my iPod.) The day before yesterday's installment, which you can see here (and download directly here), is basically the greatest thing in the history of the internet, because it begins with two minutes of insertcredit.com's official favorite voice actor, Akio Otsuka, the man we all want to be (except for the Kangol hat) (and maybe the beard), talking nonsense. It begins with him narrating his thoughts as he wonders: where is he? Where is he going? What day is it? What time is it? He walks into a bar, and the bartender asks him, "What'll it be?" And he says, "Tell me an encouraging story."
Anyway, yeah. It's Kojima's new radio show thing, with plenty of surf-rock or free jazz in the background, with Akio Otsuka as a special guest. Also: secret background information on Hideo Kojima's short-lived indie music career. I'd write up a translated script if any of it was really interesting. You can very much enjoy it just listening to Akio Otsuka's voice.
Fun fact: Did you know Akio Otsuka's Chinese zodiac sign is the rabbit? He is three years older than Hideo Kojima. Also: dig the really weird ending, with the duck sound. It has certainly been a Hideo Kojima production.
The next time Otsuka voices a character in a game, I'll be sure to let you all know, for whatever reason. It's been a while. Maybe because he did the voice of Blackjack in the Blackjack movie, I don't know. I'm . . . going to go over there now.
I'm going to get political with you for a moment: a website run by some people I respect -- MetalGearSolid.org (which coincidentally used photographs of Hideo Kojima that I'd taken myself in its layout) -- has been shut down by "a government agency" following an AFP newswire story (reported on Yahoo! News and CNN, among other places) about how a member of their forums broadcasted his suicide via webcam as other forum members egged him on. Apparently it was big news for a few moments over there in America.
Well, the worst thing is, it's not true. For one thing, the forum member, who did in fact commit suicide, did not broadcast his death. Moreover, the forum members tried with all their might to talk him down.
Some of you may know me as a vicious liar and all that. And I'll admit that I do lie about a lot of things, though usually only in things as inconsequential as videogame reviews. I'm not Yahoo! news or CNN or anything; I'm just a guy with a hobby. This kind of misreporting is fun (for me, at least) as a hobby. As something done by professionals in the field of journalism, it's terrible. It's probably the worst thing that has happened in the media, regarding how people who play videogames are portrayed. It's worse than the EverQuest guy killing himself; it's worse than guys in Korea dying on gaming binges; it's worse than a lot of other things. This kind of journalism is even worse than Jack Thompson. That stupid son of a bitch.
What you can do, after you've appropriately read up on this, is contact the AFP wire organization telling them, plainly, that you think this is horrible, that they should fire the reporter responsible for these bizarrely malicious lies, and then apologize as widely as possible. Chances are, the APF have fired the guy already, and are as upset about this happening as we all are. However, the general public aren't going to forget what they heard first, and even if a retraction is issued, the damage is irreversible. So. It helps to spread the word around. So go for it.
Here's something that slipped under the radar (though not by much, it just came out on the 14th). DJmax Emotional Sense Portable is a DJ game for the PSP (with mobile and online PC variants), with a very nice art style (with some images from a Falcoon draw-alike), good music, and a bunch of extras. For instance, you can listen to all of the music on its own in OST mode, view all of the images and movies (which play in-game) as well. Check out the official SCEK site for screens and music samples (toward the bottom). I happen to like five out of the six songs they've provided. That's a good ratio!
The game uses the top six face buttons of the PSP for control - that is to say left, up, right, square, triangle and circle. So likely you'd want to place this on your lap (or similar!), and use your fingers, rather than thumbs, like with the better DJ games out there.
Pentavision is the company that made this, and it appears to be their first effort. From the look of things, a right solid one, too! While we wait to see if someone picks this up for US distribution (I wouldn't rule it out!), Play Asia has the game in both normal and delux (with artbook and CD format OST!) flavors.
Look at that, a new feature! Herein, chaz has dissected the two hitofude games (the DS version came to the west as Polarium), from design to implementation, with some particularly interesting thoughts on the GBA sequel tsuukin hitofude, which was designed specifically with the micro, and trains, in mind. In the second part, he interviews Roy Ozaki - president of Mitchell Corporation - about hitofude, law suits, and the old days of the arcades. A good read, I'd say.
Famitsu has newer (though tiny) images of the Panzer Dragoon remake. It's looking quite nice! Unfortunately I think we've a long way to go before we ever see a Saga redux. Sega, if you're listening - I'll do it!
Pascal pointed me to this unique item - the PCE Pro, a flash multi-cart for the PC Engine/Turbo Grafx across all territories (with NTSC and PAL support too!). It has a rudimentary OS which allows multiple games to live on the 32 meg flash cart simultaneously (up to 31), and supports cheat codes, some of which Tototek supplies here. The cart also supports the 20 meg games (Street Fighter II'). The site has pictures of the cart inserted in all sorts of PCE devices, but as far as I know, Supergrafx games are still not supported.
The creator of the PCE Pro is Biu, an ex Lik-Sang fellow, and was the originator of some of the later grey market products they manufactured. Biu is now only working with the classics, though. None of his many products have cases, so he uses scotch tape to protect his PCE Pro. Good stuff. There's lots of other interesting tech to look at on the site, such as the game gear flash cart (good for playing Sylvan Tale with the english hack. Hey, you could do that anyway!), complete with instructions for how to make your own rudimentary case from a spare GG cart.
Update! Thanks to Tobias and Lawrence for pointing out this PCE flash cart. It's a bit more elegant, has 64 megs of space, comes with a docking station, and also supports Supergrafx games. Unfortunately it's only available in Japan, so finding one would be tough, unless someone picks it up for larger sale.
Yet more Ibara-related news. 'Ibara Bakuretsu Kouryaku Shuu' is the name of the strategy guide Cave and Taito will be including within the game package of Ibara's first PS2 edition, according to Game Watch. A 16-page, full-color booklet made by Arcadia Magazine which will be given free with your game copy.
Our good friend (maybe?) Jim Rossignol has just (as in, like, ten days ago?) posted "Sex, Fame and PC Baangs: How the Orient plays host to PC gaming’s strangest culture," an article what he wrote about the gaming culture in Korea for the UK's PC Gamer magazine. In the article, he describes going places and doing things; he has a translator and he interviews people and everything. It was well-planned, well-laid-out, well-researched and, well, in the end, it ends up well-written. So it's well worth a well-read read! So go read it well.
Little does Mr. Rossignol know -- I caught wind of his Korea operation and attempted to beat him to the punch. I threw a trip together out of nowhere and hopped over from Japan to Pusan a month ahead of his little safari, thinking I'd be the one to break the scoop. Well, it didn't work, because my plane landed in three feet of snow and I spent a week of hell. His article turns out better than mine in all criteria except for length -- his is only 5,597 words, and mine is 71,558. I'm actually not making either of those numbers up. (Though to be fair, at least half of my words are some conjugation of the F-word.) I suppose I cover all the same ground in my article as he does, though probably not as clearly; I also cover a whole lot of other topics, like noodles, and the fashion slum of Dongdaemun.
Rossignol's piece ends shortly following a question: "could this explosion of social gaming really be just an Asian phenomenon? Or could the whole world one day share in a trans-continental culture of massively multi-player virtual worlds? Are we all stumbling towards some incredible net-game future that lies beyond any present-day imagining?"
Mine, written on location during three trips to Korea, usually while slurping down noodles and cackling like a psychopath, contains "interviews" with game cafe owners, tonsilitis, gluttony, guitar solos, a train called "The Frankenstein Cylinder," a Russian string quartet, and an interview with the president and CEO of GamePark, yet ends with me commanding the reader: "Shame on you all, for ever feeling that love is something worthy of vindication!" and then digressing into "Go forth, then, and be gorgeous!" Its title is "The Most Gorgeous Situation in Korea." It's so long that I try to call it a novel sometimes. It usually doesn't come off as too convincing.
Part of my article -- about donuts, actually -- inexplicably got printed in the Korean version of GQ, so who the hell knows. Someone found a use for it. If you'd like to read the whole thing, paypal two dollars and sixteen cents (or else just a really good excuse; ie, research for school, doctor prescribed word porn, et cetera) to tim@insertcredit.com, and then a note to tim108 (at) gmail (dot) com, and I'll send you the manuscript. You can amend it and change it as you wish, and send it to bigshot publishing company editors with your name on it.
Or you can just read Rossignol's. It's better, I guess. Kind of. Cleaner, at least. More to the point. Not as many sentence fragments.
In more Sikamoto/RSF-related news, check his personal site, which includes a web log, and perhaps most interestingly, a Dosei pictoblog. Dosei is an odd little fleshy character whose name means 'saturn' in japanese. I believe he came as an extra with the limited Mother 1 and 2 pack. In the latest entry, he attempts to create a domino effect with famicom carts in order to topple an xbox. There's also a very odd game entry, in which Dosei plays through a dating sim (True Love Story Summer days - official site here, though it's currently down). And now you know just about all you could ever care to about RSF/Sikamoto.
Mojipittan is a small game series from Namco, which began on the GBA in 2003. After that it moved to the PS2 and most recently the PSP. The game itself is essentially a mixture of scrabble and shanghai, in which you create words by joining simple characters. Another interesting thing about the game is the music (some of which you can download here). I found the game through RSF, who has no less than two flash projects devoted to it, including his very first, and this one, portentiously released almost exactly 11 months before the PSP best version, which came out the day before Michael Fantasy. Coincidence? Definitely. Though RSF does say something along the lines of "This is the game I would have liked to create myself. Since I didn't, I'll just make some flash about it." With a dearth of DS-like casual/genre broadening games on the PSP, the game has sold 500,000 copies in japan since in its original release, in spite of basically being a bit of a port/revision. Unfortunately, the game is rather reliant on the japanese language, and so can't really be ported into english.
[tim's note: the Mojipittan theme song is sung by the squeaky karaoke-sounding girl who sings the famed "Lonely Rolling Star" from the original Katamari Damacy. "Lonely Rolling Star" is a better song by far, though, if you ask me.]
Michael Fantasy is an excellent flash that's been floating around the net for the last two months - the newest work by the famed Sega Fantasy guy RSF/Sikamoto. If you haven't seen it, give it a look (Michael takes on the NES universe, and ultimately Princess Peach riding Zangeif towards earth's destruction). It's the sequel to Michael Quest, which was released in June. There are a couple of things worth mentioning beyond the flash movies themselves. There are two excellent game cover bands associated with these. For Michael Quest, the artist is Kemoryu, who has more of an electronic bent. Lots of Square and Enix music in there. The musician for Michael Fantasy is Akineko - a bit more guitar-based, with more of a STG focus (though there's RPG stuff in there as well). Both are good companions to SSH, who you should certainly know by now.
Some of this is old news, but curiously, Target.com, outlet for the giant chain of stores, sells several arcade cabinets, from the smaller (presumably emulation-based) SNK, Taito, and tabletop variants to the larger scale PC-based cabs.
The mini cabs are made by PVG Tech, a joint venture of Jazwares, a small toy company, and Jam'ng Five, a warehouse/distro company (they may all be owned by the same people for all I know - but they make a point of calling themselves different companies). I've heard reports of faulty fuses in these mini cabs, and that the buttons are rather poor, but this is still not a terrible idea (though it is terribly overpriced). All of these seemed to be based on a limited PC architecture (based on the "intel microprocessor" statement here). By all accounts, you're better off building your own MAME or JAMMA cab, but still interesting to look at, especially given that they have game package upgrades planned for 2006.
Abel Inc. opened the official webpage of their new PlayStation 2 game this morning, just a few days after revealing in Famitsu that the game was in development. Scheduled to be released next may, Mystereet ~Yasogami Kaeru no Jiken File~ is a port of a Dreamcast detective adventure game from 2000, already adapted to the PC in 2004. You can still download a demo movie of the Windows version here. The fully-voiced investigation will feature over 40 characters and 20,000 spoken sentences. The limited edition of the game will feature an original drama CD.
The man behind Mystereet is Hiroyuki Kanno (real name Yukihiro Kenno). That's the guy in the picture on the top left of this newspost. Although virtually unknown in the western media, he is possibly the most important japanese adventure game author (or "scenario game designer" as he prefers to describe himself). Most of his productions follow the traditional recipe of a detective story filled with ingenious plot twists, some paranormal shtick and gorgeous babes that will often get pretty intimate with the protagonist. The PC versions are strictly for adult only, whereas the console ports are toned down in order to keep a bit of kink and flesh in the games without crossing the border of porn. Some of his most famous work includes Eve Burst Error, Yu-No, Desire, Exodus Guilty (Brandon's note: one of the only such games you can play in english) and the Tantei Shinshi series. His masterpiece must be Eve Burst Error, originally released on PC-98, and voted by japanese Saturn fans as that system's greatest game in one of the last editions of SegaSaturn Magazine. Eve Burst Error subsequently spawned numerous drama CDs as well as sequels (written by other authors and of variable quality), then eventually got its own remake on PlayStation 2 in 2003. But Kanno had already left Elf and C's Ware to found Abel Software (now Abel Inc.) in 1997 - which is also when he switched to his current pen name. At Abel, Kanno wrote and produced numerous games for PS, DC and PC. His main work is the Tantei Shinshi series (tantei shinshi means "detective gentleman"), of which Mystereet is considered the second chapter. I never got to play or see Kanno's early works for the PC-98 such as "the college of pleasure" or "forbidden consanguinity" but I would guess from their titles that they did not focus as much on suspense and mystery as the detective games that later defined his career.
Not sure why this game is appearing on Western and Korean media sites before Japanese ones, but what really bugs me is the ugly iterations the Bubble Bobble series is getting lately. It started with Bubble Bobble DS and is following with this PSP episode, supposedly coming soon and getting the 3D treatment. Craptacular 'evolution', this one.
News: Spectral vs. Generation - PS2 version website opens
It's going to be released on March 23rd, but it already has a fully operational website where we learn that the only extra for this port are some unattractive game modes and, maybe, a new full-motion-video intro. Most of the major Japanese media have previews of the game today, and Game Watch is the one with the best coverage, as usual. There are some big screens there which, besides the inappropiate capturing method they were taken with, show how this game's original graphics have been upscaled and filtered for PS2's hi-res mode. Not that surprising, given the weird resolution the original arcade game runs at but still not quite tolerable.
Konami opened the promotional website for Gradius Portable, to be released in early february in Japan. As announced before, the compilation will include Gradius episodes 1 through 4, as well as the previously PlayStation exclusive Gradius Gaiden. Unlike a few recent shameless PlayStation ports, each version will include an option to better exploit the widescreen format, as you can see in this gallery. Not quite as nice as what they're doing with Suikoden, but still nice. You can also get some extra goodies by ordering the game on Konamistyle.
Seems the suspected Ibara 2 will indeed be appearing this year as the company's next shooting masterpiece. Under the name 'Pink Sweets ~Ibara Sorekara~', AMI (Cave recent arcade publisher, meaning that this game won't be using Taito's Type-X) has announced a 'massively-destructive system-based, pink-colored shooting game' for February's AOU 2006. They're also announcing now officially the pre-order campaign of Ibara: Black Label, as we mentioned last weekend. Chou ero kawaii no love promised this time. Get ready!
Update:
You may have noticed that the Pink Sweets flyer is now down on AMI's frontpage. There has been some speculation about Pink Sweets actually being Ibara: Black Label, since they both got announced at the same time. Our guess: They're not the same thing. AMI may have realized that it's not good for sales to announce a revision and a sequel to the same game the very same day, so they took the flyer down (hi-res version here, if you need it). They clearly state, on the other hand, that Black Label will get a very limited production, something not really proper for a true sequel, which, by the way, has been in the developer's mind since past July.
News: Gun Play
January 11, 2006, 10:29 PM
by fort90, via The Chocolate Factory - [permalink]
The Chocolate Factory, a theatre group based in Queens, NYC, has created GUN PLAY, which they dub a "live action video game/performance". Real world "characters", such as Hunter S. Thompson, Ted Nugent, and Doom creator John Carmack are all realized on-stage, along with a projected video to create a "3D video game experience."
Alison Mealey is an artist who uses Unreal Tournament to create various works of art. The latest project is known as UnrealArt, in which a program tracks the movement and deaths of bots in a customized level to form illustrations. This detailed summation of the process explains the evolution of the project, in which her previous works played a part, as well as various other artists who use games.
The GameStation Blog has quite an obsession with The Idolm@ster, a successful arcade idol manager simulator from Namco. For the last few days, we have been treated with bewildering screenshots of a never heard before Famicom version of the game, including the nifty Namcot box design you see on the left of this post. Of course, we never heard of it before because it doesn't exist, but with the dedication of a few frenzied programers with too much free time, you never know whether this might become a reality someday. After all, Pokémon creators Game Freak themselves started a bit like this. The legend says their very first game, Quinty, was built up with hardware parts they got by opening up other games' cartridges. Namco later agreed to publish the game in a similar hard case as the one used here for The Idolm@ster FC. You might be interested to know what games these pics are based on. They are mostly adapting two Famicom games from 1989, Hikari Genji Roller Panic and Idol Yainuden. That last one was an adventure game that actually featured an idol as the protagonist.
Here's a little-known tidbit - Tetrisphere on the Nintendo 64 actually had its origins on the Jaguar. Rumor has it, according to Lawrence, that Nintendo saw it (the game was then called Phear) at the Atari booth at CES, and bought the rights to it. Lawrence relates the story in his neography blog, and also has linked the brochure, complete with atrocious typos. Here's a quote (not interesting for its humor, so much as its historical relevance): "Be blown away with the experience of moving, rotating, spinning and zooming into 4-demensions. Don't miss this ultimate experience! Using the power of Jaguar 64-bit entertainment system."
And some stats: Phear Specifications:
Resolution: 384x240 pixels
Palette: 65,536 colours
Polygons: 50,000+ / second
Sound: 8-channel sound / FX
Playability: Awesome
Geometry: 4-Dimensional
Lastability: Virtually Addicting
Music: 12+ Modules
Release Date: January 1995
Doujin news, from the usual sources. The weirdest game of the week is most certainly Moeyo Tokkou ~Chikyuu no tamenara shineru~. Tokkou describes the special armor the main protagonist is equiped with, but when written differently is also the tokkou ("suicide") used in tokkoutai ("suicide squad"). The subtitle means "I would die for the planet Earth" and refers to Sega's Kimi no tamenara shineru ("I would die for you", the early DS title that preceded "Where do babies come from?"). The game itself is a bizarre mix between the influences of Mother, Chikyuu Boueigun and Rent-A-Hero - stuck with the classic japanese RPG formula. There is a demo version if you are curious about the result - it's the same one that was available at Comiket 69.
While waiting for the garage kit of R-type's R-9A spaceship, shooting fans will be rejoice in the discovery of Touhou no Ronde, which - as its name bluntly suggests - takes the universe of Shanghai Alice's Touhou series and mixes it with Senkou no Ronde's gameplay. GrisGrisProject is supposed to release Dread Lock next spring. It's a promising run'n'gun mixing 3D design with 2D gameplay for a result in the vein of Assault Suit Valken and Wolf Fang Koukiba, or so. You can judge for yourself with their first playable demo. Meanwhile Blue&White is working on a Cybertroopers Virtual On clone named Iron Duel. The final version of the game will be released by the end of the month, and it seems to need quite the high specs to run smoothly.
If you babble a bit of japanese, you might be interested in kinetic novels, too. Globule has opened a webpage for the new project Cubic 3, which had some promotion material available at the last Comiket. There is a web version of the game planned for february. Globule is also working on Hyakuiromegane ~Kalos Eidos Skopeo~ (the title means 'kaleidoscope' as you can guess), another visual novel that has quite a bit of buzz around it since the demo version available at Comiket 68 last summer. That last game is rated for adults only, although I didn't spot anything unsafe for work while browsing. If you like the art, there is an extensive gallery here.
News: Dragon Quest: Young Yangus and the Mysterious Dungeon: by cavia(!!)
We have reported on this game once before, and we will no doubt report on it over and over again! This is Dragon Quest Shonen Yangus to Fushigi no Dungeon, a title I have translated as "Dragon Quest: Young Yangus and the Mysterious Dungeon." That's a good enough title for it to be released in English under. You may know that Torneko, the fat merchant from Dragon Quest IV, also had his own game. That game was developed by Chun Soft, who then went on to make a living out of making games about swarthy, bulky people getting lost in mysterious dungeons.
Torneko's popularity was a surprise. Yangus, the fat bandit from Dragon Quest VIII, was popular for reasons the writers (and the character designer, Akira Toriyama), no doubt understood from the start. Well, now he has his own Mysterious Dungeon to explore, and the game is shaping up well, with neat graphics and cut scenes. However, many corners of the internet are quietly disappointed. To wit, my big brother (and something of a mysterious dungeon hero candidate himself), games journalist extraordinaire Christian Nutt, says, in a blog entry, "NO THANKS." Perhaps the most important part of that blog entry is a comment by me, wherein I say,
Yangus is a simple guy, and I'm guessing his youth is a simple story. His introduction to world-saving stardom comes when he's old enough to have chest hair while attempting to rob travelers crossing a bridge; he probably comes from a background that more closely resembles "attack the dungeon, kill the monster, get the money, and run out screaming" than, say, the opera house in Final Fantasy VI. Furthermore, you know, the FND style of play could be done well. It would end up feeling like a perfect blend of RPG and hot sports franchise. Maybe!
Well, the point in this is that it was revealed today that the developer who handled this game is none other than the bold, righteous cavia. Why this went below the radar, I don't know. It's big news now that cavia has joined AQ Interactive, a new publisher built (arguably by Square's former king Hironobu Sakaguchi) around the idea of giving small game development houses the opportunities to work with bigger budgets. Thanks to AQ, cavia will release two games for the Xbox 360 in the next two years -- an action-RPG called "Cry On" and a melee action game called "Bullet Witch." Both of them sound exciting.
It's perhaps because of cavia's recent defection to AQ that Square-Enix, a former, red-headed-stepchild-beating surrogate parent of cavia (and publisher of their excellent Drag-On Dragoon 2) isn't mentioning the name of the developers of this Yangus title. How rude. Or maybe it's because Square-Enix did little more than throw cavia scraps and take all the credit that cavia sought shelter with AQ in the first place? It's all kind of amusing.
The one laughing most loudly at the moment is probably Dragon Ball / Dragon Quest / Blue Dragon artist Akira Toriyama. Yangus will mark cavia's first and last chance to develop a game in the Dragon Quest universe, though it will be their second time developing a game based on an Akira Toriyama property. The first was a Dragon Ball Z fighter released on Nintendo DS back on December 1st, 2005. It was a pretty good game, even. However, now cavia is with AQ, together with Artoon; Artoon is developing the new Toriyama RPG potential franchise Blue Dragon. So yeah -- it's kind of . . . confusing. If cavia hadn't gone with AQ, and if Yangus ends up selling well, cavia probably would have been a candidate for developing the Dragon Quest VI remake. Oh, well.
In other news about Dragon Quest and small game developers, I will take this moment to inform you that Innocent Life, the newest chapter in the Harvest Moon series (and the first all-new game in said series in quite a while), is being developed by Arte Piazza, who handled the excellent Dragon Quest V remake for PS2 back in 2004. Inn
A 
It was thanks to one of those investor relations documents which Cave publishes in PDF format that we got to first hear about the development of Cave's latest arcade games (the sequels to Espgaluda and Ibara) and now the story repeats regarding the development of the forthcoming arcade titles from this company over the next few months. Unfortunately, we have bad news this time. Cave's next arcade games after Pink Sweets will take the form of a mah-jong-based medal game and a card game for children. There's no mention of a new shooting game (or a non-dedicated arcade game, for that matter) in the whole document aside from Pink Sweets' location test report. Not a good sign. It also lets us know that Cave has formed a co-participated company with Tamiya to publish online games based on Mini Yon Ku, and more interestingly, that a 'kouryaku DVD' for Ibara and another one for Espgaluda II are being made. Ibara is also going to receive a 'digital comic' of which you can see a small preview in the 
Genki Videogames, a small import shop in the UK, has put up a little Animal Crossing 
You may have heard about Warashi. Formed in the 90s (some say it's composed of ex-Seibu staff), this company has basically developed two types of video-games: mah-jong and classic shooting games, of which Shienryu (arcade, Saturn, PS1/2) is its best known piece. We thought we would never see again a new shooting game from it due to the current status of the arcade industry, but we were wrong. Unexpectedly, a 
It's the last game to come from the Falcom/Taito agreement, which included the PS2 port of Zwei!! and the remakes of Ys III, Ys IV and Ys V for this platform (and not counting the ports for mobile phones, that is, for which Ys IV is in development right now, as Chaz 
So Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII is out in Japan, and Gackt takes the cover of this week's Famitsu. Famitsu does not review the game, which is okay. I can tell you with reasonable certainty that they're going to give it four nines in next week's issue. Don't ask how I know that. There is a chance that one of the nines will be bumped up to a ten as the editors actually play the game. Keep that on the down-low, dear reader.
At this point, we're all pretty familiar with homebrew games based on out of date, yet still generally popular consoles. Well how about the Virtual Boy? It seems 
So, following up with the Cenix GMP-M6 which we posted about some time ago, there's now a 
Days of Memories 2 has been 
The game was announced 
You might have missed 
Who hasn't had the thought of driving to New Mexico and digging up all those lost copies of E.T.? I know I have, and these four midwest->Los Angeles transplants (though I only see three in the video) do just that in their video for the song 
I forgot to mention the traditional pre-release 
I waited for tim to write about it, but it might have skipped his large prime radar, or he might be waiting to get some more information before writing about it: we now have a date for Mother 3, from Shigesato Itoi 
My old pal Mash has 
It has just been 
A guy named colin wilkes has written a feature - a feature you can read 
You might believe last year's best april fool joke from Irem was 
Doujin highlights of the last few days, from the usual sources. Takase released a new version of 
While working on the fan translation of 
Niche italian publisher 
My recent 
After a first teaser trailer, Tristar and MetroFilms unveiled 
With the recent 
Those of you who don't know 
Look at that, a 
Famitsu has newer (though tiny) 
Yet more Ibara-related news. 'Ibara Bakuretsu Kouryaku Shuu' is the name of the strategy guide Cave and Taito will be including within the game package of Ibara's first PS2 edition, according to 
Little does Mr. Rossignol know -- I caught wind of his Korea operation and attempted to beat him to the punch. I threw a trip together out of nowhere and hopped over from Japan to Pusan a month ahead of his little safari, thinking I'd be the one to break the scoop. Well, it didn't work, because my plane landed in three feet of snow and I spent a week of hell. His article turns out better than mine in all criteria except for length -- his is only 5,597 words, and mine is 71,558. I'm actually not making either of those numbers up. (Though to be fair, at least half of my words are some conjugation of the F-word.) I suppose I cover all the same ground in my article as he does, though probably not as clearly; I also cover a whole lot of other topics, like noodles, and the fashion slum of Dongdaemun. 
In more Sikamoto/RSF-related news, check his 
Some of this is old news, but curiously, Target.com, outlet for the giant chain of stores, sells several 
Not sure why this game 
It's going to be released on March 23rd, but it already has a fully operational 
Konami opened the 
Seems 
The Chocolate Factory, a theatre group based in Queens, NYC, has created 
The 
Here's a little-known tidbit - Tetrisphere on the Nintendo 64 actually had its origins on the Jaguar. Rumor has it, according to Lawrence, that Nintendo saw it (the game was then called Phear) at the Atari booth at CES, and bought the rights to it. Lawrence 
Doujin news, from the usual sources. The weirdest game of the week is most certainly 
