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Smash Bros. Dojo Opens

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Action, Corporate News, E3, Trailers, Wii,

Smash Bros. Snake Since Nintendo’s surprise announcement of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, the Smash Bros. Dojo has opened. The Dojo currently features excerpts from Weekly Famitsu, where the creator of the game, Masahiro Sakurai, on how the Wii version of the game came to be. There is also a music section, featuring a track from the soundtrack created by famed Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu. Finally, the sneak trailer shown at E3 is also online, and it is here that viewers can see the upgraded character models and environments, plus a peek at some of the new characters in the game, including MetaKnight from the Kirby series, Wario, Zero Suit Samus, Pit from Kid Icarus, and possibly the most unexpected character, Snake, from the Metal Gear Series. The site promises more information in the future, including more in depth character information.

New Super Mario Preview

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Action, Nintendo DS, Screenshots, Trailers,

Craig over at IGN got a hold of the review copy of New Super Mario Bros. to be released on May 15th in the US, and managed to get some early movies and screenshots posted on his blog. The movies kind of complement those that are slowly being doled out on Nintendo’s site, and show a little more of some of the different environments. The movies and screens look great, and really capture the feel of the old platformer series, while updating the characters and some of the environment to polygons instead of sprites. Purists may shudder at the use of 3D graphics in a platform game, but it really gives the game a modern feel, while still instilling that feeling of nostalgia when gamers first played Super Mario Bros. for the first time.

Shadowrun Teaser Online

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Action, E3, Role Playing Games, Rumors, Xbox 360,

TeamXbox.com points out a new teaser image online at Shadowrun.com. The guys at TeamXbox.com have been tracking the game’s release for a while now, trying to put together the pieces, and this seems to be the final confirmation that a Shadowrun game will be appearing soon, possibly at E3. Shadowrun is one of FASA Corporation’s original pen-and-paper RPG properties, and the game made appearances on both the Super Nintendo and the Sega Genesis, with the Genesis version gaining a fairly large cult following since it more closely approximates the original role playing game. While the pen-and-paper version has gone through some revisions (and passed hands from FASA to Fantasy Productions when the former went out of business) the game concept has stayed the same: a futuristic world, where technology and magic mix. Microsoft’s rendition of the game will almost certainly be more action-oriented than previous releases, possibly as either a first-person or a third-person shooter.

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Full Auto 2: Battlelines PS3 Exclusive

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Action, Corporate News, Driving, PlayStation 3,

Sega has announced that the sequel to Full Auto on the Xbox 360 will be released exclusively for the Playstation 3. The new game, Full Auto: Battlelines has been “combat-enhanced and fully re-designed with an extensive list of features entirely new to the franchise.” The original game received strong, but not great reviews, and of course, it will be interesting to compare the two games when more details are released at E3. Exclusivity doesn’t necessarily mean a lot; while the specific Battlelines game may be restricted to the PS3, a parallel game developed with a different title and slightly different content could still potentially see a release on the Xbox 360.

Full Press Release follows.

Click to continue reading Full Auto 2: Battlelines PS3 Exclusive

New Too Human Screenshots

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Action, Adventure, Screenshots, Xbox 360,

Gamerscoreblog has just dropped some new Too Human screenshots into their Flickr account. Too Human is being developed by Silicon Knights for the Xbox 360, and is scheduled for a Holiday release. Silicon Knights last handled the port of Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes to the Gamecube, but is probably more known for their mind-bending release, Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem. Too Human is another game with a long history; the original concept for the game was pitched for the Playstation, and then when Nintendo formed their partnership with Silicon Knights, the game was rumored to be heading to the Gamecube. However, when Silicon Knights ended their partnership with Nintendo and wound up at Microsoft, the game surfaced there. The Xbox 360 may finally be the platform that will support Silicon Knights’ ambitions with the game universe, and looking at these new screen shots in Flickr, one is almost glad that the game never saw the light of day on the Playstation. Some of the screenshots have huge resolutions available, all the up to 4200x3255, which may mean these are frame buffer grabs or target renders. There’s a lot of detail and varied environments in the screens, and it looks like Too Human will be awesome visually, at least, upon its release.

Sin: Episode 1 Gold, Half-Life 2: Episode 1 Preload Next Week

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Action, Corporate News, First Person Shooters, Internet, PC,

Head Crab: It's What's For Dinner Valve Software posted a quick update on their Steam website with some notes about some upcoming games. SiN Episode 1: Emergence has gone gold, and is available for pre-load via Steam now. The last SiN game was published back in 1999, and eventually would spawn an Anime movie, released in the year 2000. The new episode will be officially available on May 10th. In addition to the new SiN content, Valve announced that Half-Life: Episode 1 content will start pre-loading next week as well.

And, apparently, gamers can pick up a plush headcrab now. Just the thing to spice up a geek’s cube.

Gears of War Community Site Live

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Action, Corporate News, First Person Shooters, Screenshots, Trailers, Xbox 360,

Epic Games have launched their community site for their upcoming Xbox 360 game, Gears of War. Scheduled to ship in November, 2006, the game was one of the most anticipated releases for the Xbox 360 when it was shown off last year. The site contains sections for community and news, as well as screenshots and trailers. Currently the only trailer is the same movie that was shown at X05 2005 in October, but the trailer has some good shots in it. Gamers will get to see how far the game has progressed at E3 next week, but in the mean time, there is some good stuff to peruse on the site.

New Mario Bros. DS Movie

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Action, Corporate News, Nintendo DS, Trailers,

Mario DS Nintendo updated the official Mario Bros. DS game site with a fairly long video highlighting some of the new power-ups in the game, including the new Mega Mushroom. Mario Bros. DS will be the first new version of the 2D Mario platformer series since the Super Nintendo, and should hopefully capture the feel of the original games and gameplay while updating the visuals to modern times. Looking at the video and the various elements, it is hard not to feel nostalgic for the original games in the series. Nintendo will be updating the site with more videos leading to the eventual release of the game on May 15. Maybe gamers will see the new DS Lite as well…

Sony Drops New God of War II Screenshots

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Action, Adventure, PlayStation 2, Screenshots,

Sony has dropped four new screenshots of God of War II on the official game site. The sequel takes place with Kratos having replaces Ares as the God of War. The new screens show of some of the new environments and creatures that Kratos will have to fight in the upcoming game, and the models and detail look extremely good, and look to be a great follow-up to the original game. Gamers can look forward to some more Kratos-style evisceration in 2007 on the PS2.

Man Versus Mouse

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Action, Culture, Simulation,

Mouse VR If you have ever wanted a chance to take on your hamster in one-on-one combat, this might be your chance. According to Wired.com, the Researchers at Emerging Art and Architecture Research Group, or RASTER, and Singapore’s Mixed Reality Lab are working to build integrate virtual worlds with reality to make this happen. RASTER’s technology in development allows a human to control a digital character that maps to the location of a piece of bait for the hamster. The hamster, chasing after the bait, is mapped through a specialized environment so that its movements are translated into the digital arena. Wired states that the group hopes to have a functioning prototype by November, with other games in the works as well. Game interaction is very rudimentary right now, but future applications could give insights into animal behavior as well as more complex mixed-reality games. For the time being, virtual reality gamers will have to content themselves with fighting it out with rodentia.

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