All Topics Gaming older than one year ago

We may already know a bunch of information on Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2, thanks to the latest round of Japanese magazines. Today Square-Enix made the game announcement official, showing off the clean logo. With the game hitting Japan in this April, I’m sure we’ll be hearing a lot more about it in [...]

We’ve talked about Syobon Action before, and showed just how absolutely insane it is. Obviously, the game has a lot to do with Super Mario Bros., and now someone has put together a Wii port of this homebrew title. If you’re up for some frustration, you might want to check this out. Article here [...]

Looks like there’s going to be some new tracks from The Who on Superbowl Sunday. According to the image above, those tracks aren’t coming to the Wii. I wonder what’s up with that. Let’s hope we see the tracks shortly thereafter.

Considering the extent to which Farmville has enraptured the hearts and minds of 95 percent of the Facebook-using populace, we're not surprised that Natsume has decided to bring yet another installment in the Harvest Moon franchise to the States. According to Siliconera, American store shelves will play host to Harvest Moon: Hero of Leaf Valley for the PSP in April. The game will task you with staving off the expansion of The Funland Corporation's chain of amusement parks into your home town of Leaf Valley. You'll do so in the most logical manner imaginable: By repeatedly performing various agricultural chores. Yeah, that'll show 'em!

Beginning February 3, the first issue of the four-part comic series Mass Effect: Redemption will be available on the iTunes App Store. To celebrate its release, Dark Horse and EA have announced the issue will be free for a limited time. How limited is the "free digital comic" window? One day only. After February 3, the digital release is bumped up to 99 cents. Of course, if you're a Mass Effect 2 fanatic you probably own the collectors' edition, which included a mini-version of the first issue. But, if you love moving pictures, a free digital comic is a hard thing to ignore.

We love Nobuo Uematsu's work on the musical accompaniment for the Final Fantasy franchise, but we often find ourselves wishing those games' scores were infused with a touch of Jay-Z. Maybe a light smattering of Outkast. The faintest hint of Ghostface Killah. The mixologists from Team Teamwork (creators of the similarly-spliced Ocarina of Rhyme album) have once again worked their magic on a classic video game soundtrack. This time around, it's the score from Final Fantasy VII, which has been mashed together with tracks from over a dozen hip-hop artists, as well as Tom Waits, which is just weird. You can pay whatever you want to download the cleverly-titled Vinyl Fantasy 7 -- though we're betting you'll probably settle on zero dollars. [Thanks, Mike!]

As confirmed by parent company Koch Media to Develop, Cursed Mountain developer Deep Silver Vienna has apparently been closed. Citing "the overall economic situation" and noting "this decision is not easy for us," the 20-person staff was recently cut and told they would receive pay through the end of March. Develop posits that the studio's other game -- Ride to Hell -- will likely remain unaffected by the shutdown, as UK dev house Eutechnyx is handling development and Koch Media's Munich offices will oversee the game's management. Deep Silver Vienna was formed in the wake of Rockstar Vienna's closing back in 2006, and originally called itself Games That Matter. Ex-Rockstar Vienna heads Hannes Seifert and Niki Laber launched the studio, and it is said that Siefert has moved on to a position at Square Enix Europe as a creative director. As with every case like this, we'd like to wish those affected the best of luck.

Blizzard recently released yet another batch of gameplay screenshots from Diablo III, showing off some of the game's arid environments. They're attractive as all-get-out, but we've become extremely distracted by their subject matter. For instance, we see some sand, and then we see some blood on that sand, and then we think of how awesome it would be if Blizzard did a top-down RPG version of 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, and then that's all we think about for the rest of the day. Curse you, overactive imagination! Gallery: Diablo III (1-30-10)

Sure, you could take Bungie's latest foray into Mythbusters territory as full on confirmation of Halo: Reach not having Project Natal support, or you could be like us and remain skeptical of the developers still-not-straightforward wording. In a recent post on Bungie.net, the company attempted to answer a mess of "myths" about its upcoming Halo game, including "Myth: Reach is being built for Natal!" In answering, the post states, "Halo: Reach is NOT a Natal title and is being developed expressly with the traditional Xbox 360 controller in mind." That said, rather than outright saying, "No, there's no support for Project Natal in Halo: Reach," Bungie instead chose to loosely word the answer. It certainly doesn't help the situation that multiple Bungie employees have expressed interest in seeing Natal incorporated into the Halo series, with Bungie prez Harold Ryan even saying he could "absolutely" see Reach specifically incorporate Natal. So, about that myth ...

We spend a lot of time talking about all the games and other goodies coming out for the Wii. Of course, we cover every bit of DS news that we can find, but it seems like people spend more time talking about the console side of gaming than the portable. When you look [...]

We've been wondering why it's taken Square Enix so long to churn out another installment in the core Final Fantasy franchise, seeing as how the last game came out approximately forever ago. The answer recently came in the latest Dutch issue of Official PlayStation Magazine, which contains a revealing interview with Squeenix's Yoshinori Kitase. According to a fan translation of the interview, Kitase said "Final Fantasy XIII was originally meant to be a PS2 title, but we had to switch systems due to the arrival of the PS3. That cost us about one and a half years and was constantly a case of trial and error." Considering it took Square Enix roughly "one and a half years" to develop and release Final Fantasy IX, that's a pretty substantial amount of time lost. Hopefully the developer will have an easier time when working on the next current-gen Fantasy. [Via VG247]

iNiS may not be a very well-known name for most gamers, but this team has been behind some of the industry’s best music games. Elite Beat Agents, Ouendan, Guitaroo Man…so many great music-based games. Time for a return to music games iNiS…please?!

Wouldn’t it be nice to get some real stereo sound out of your NES? Okay, not exactly ‘real’ stereo, but close to it. You can actually make that happen if you’re willing to do a bit of modding! The finished product above looks so simple, but the steps to get this done [...]

I wouldn’t mind seeing the Helmasaur King make a triumphant return for Zelda Wii. I think this guy could look pretty damn amazing in 3d, and I’m sure he could put up a pretty good fight after learning some tricks during his last battle.

Shigesato Itoi is the big brain behind the Earthbound series. We haven’t really heard much from the man lately. What has he been up to? Is he working on a new game? Could he be planning something else altogether? Nah, he’s doing…that. Apparently Itoi has been dieting, and he says it’s [...]

What fun is Aliens vs. Predator without the knowledge that the Predator whose face you just ruined with your secondary baby-jaws isn't being controlled by a real person? Thankfully, that's a question we no longer have to ponder -- as promised, the original Aliens vs. Predator Classic 2000 has received multiplayer support on Steam, complete with Steam overlay integration. There's no support for dedicated servers, unfortunately, but we're hoping the game's age will dissuade PC gamers from boycotting it for this reason alone.