All Topics Gaming older than one year ago

We think it's great when video games make stabs at humor with a timely pop culture reference or pithy back-and-forths between its characters. However, the Skate franchise has always had its finger on a direct line to our funny bone with its "Hall of Meat" mode, in which skaters hurt themselves in the most unimaginably hilarious ways possible. Judging by the trailer above, Skate 3 will further increase the game's capacity for laughing-out-loudz by adding a few more aerial maneuvers and allowing your characters to push themselves off the ground post-crash.

The developers have also refined the "jump off a building and judo kick an unaware pedestrian on the street below" mechanic, which might just be our favorite feature in any game ever, ever released.

With only one download per service, Japan's Wii and DSi Shops this week resemble the kind of updates we're used to in North America. At least the content is mostly good. Darius Twin, the SNES debut of Taito's horizontal shmup series, provides multiplayer shooting against a variety of giant robotic sea creatures. And Rakugaki Hero is the World Game Parade-localized Max & the Magic Marker.

As for, Let's Make a Zoo on DSiWare, it was released elsewhere as Zoo Frenzy. It's all the fun of managing a fake zoo! The full list of weekly releases follows:

• Darius Twin (Super Famicom, 1-2 players, 800 Wii Points)
• Rakugaki Hero (WiiWare, 1 player, 800 Wii Points)
• Let's Make a Zoo (DSiWare, 1 player, 800 DSi Points)

Japanese Nintendo downloads: Darius Twin, Max & the Magic Marker

Looks like Blaster Master: Overdrive is finally going to get some action outside of hte states. It hasn’t been a terribly long wait, but all we have right now is the rating. No telling on when the game will actually launch.

Good news for the digital gearheads and livery artists out there, as new DLC for Forza Motorsport 3 is available on Xbox Live Marketplace. Up for grabs is the Road & Track Pack, which is being released in cooperation with Road & Track magazine. The pack includes ten new cars for 400 ($5).

As usual, Turn 10 is also offering a free sample car, the adorable MINI Coupé Concept seen above, to give players a taste of the content included in the pack. See the full list of cars below and check out stats for each on the official Forza website.

• 2010 Volkswagen Golf R
• 2009 Holden HSV w427
• 2010 Ford Taurus SHO
• 2010 Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG
• 2010 Renault Megane RS 250
• 2010 Vauxhall Insignia VXR
• 2010 Mini Coupé Concept
• 2010 Bentley Continental Supersports
• 2010 Mazda MX-5 Superlight
• 2010 SEAT Leon Cupra R

Xbox.com: Add The Road & Track Car Sample to your Xbox 360 download queue
Xbox.com: Add The Road & Track Car Car Pack to your Xbox 360 download queue ($5)Forza 3 Road & Track DLC out now

What could n-Space be working on for the Wii? Looks like something is going on behind-the-scenes. I think it’s a little too much to hope for Winter to come back to life, but hopefully this title will be just as interesting.

#column The most common email response I received to my previous column ("Japan: It's Not Funny Anymore") was a perplexed question: "Why do you still live in Japan?" More »

#legalmatters The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has overturned the 2008 verdict of an East Texas jury that would have resulted in a ban on sales of the Nintendo Gamecube controller, Wavebird, and Classic Controller due to patent infringement. More »

If you've played beyond the first mission of Splinter Cell: Conviction while connected to Xbox Live, you've likely run into a freezing glitch. A few minutes into the single-player campaign's second mission, the game just locks up -- but there's hope!

Thanks to a pretty comprehensive thread on the Ubisoft Forums, a temporary workaround has been discovered, which requires clearing the system hard drive cache and logging out of Xbox Live. "I assure you everyone is hard at work to resolve the issue," posted an Ubisoft technical support representative in the thread.

Check out the glitch and workaround in action above.

The release of Monster Hunter Tri will mean the release of an updated peripheral.

Click to necromorph image to full size
Looking to bone up on your knowledge of the Church of Unitology? Tor Books, in collaboration with Visceral Games, will release Dead Space: Martyr this July -- a book that will not only explain the origins of the fanatical church, but also that of the "Black Marker," the powerful alien artifact discovered on Earth in Dead Space's fictional future universe. The book stars Michael Altman, the geophysicist who first discovers the potential for crazed-out hallucinations from alien artifacts.

Steve Papoutsis, Dead Space 2 executive producer, hopes that Martyr is "the first of many books to let fans dive deeply into Dead Space's secrets and immersive lore." Dead Space: Martyr by B.K. Evenson will retail for $14.99 when it releases this July.

#nintendodsi Thinking about buying a new Nintendo DSi today? Think again. Nintendo of America is making the purchase of the dual-screen, dual-camera portable a little sweeter later this month, tossing in a complementary copy of Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story. More »

We’ve had a lot of requests from our diehard MAG fans to release “birds-eye view” shots of our detailed and expansive maps – and now we’re pleased to say that we’re giving them to you. Starting right now, we’re releasing ultra hi-res imagery of every competitive map in the game so that you can meticulously plan your attack routes, defensive maneuvers, and leadership tactics before the next time you set foot on the battlefield.

Below is a link to each Suppression, Sabotage, Acquisition, and Domination map that MAG has to offer. Download them, share them, do whatever you want with them – they’re all yours. Enjoy!

[Note, to see the highest-res version of these maps, click on "All Sizes" above the image in the Flickr Page, and then choose "Original"]

If you are a fan of Earthbound, you can probably spot that something is off with these screens. Wondering where they come from? They’re actually off the game box itself! Looks like someone was taking early screenshots before the game actually wrapped!

#reversal Using 3D Dot Game Heroes's built-in character editor, Game Informer's Tim Turi takes the Zelda "homage" full-circle. More »

Square Enix's original, classic-style Final Fantasy for DS appears to be heading westward. Square Enix trademarked "The 4 Heroes of Light" in the US, which matches pretty closely with the translation of Hikari no 4 Senshi: Final Fantasy Gaiden ("4 Warriors of Light"), the streamlined DS Final Fantasy released in Japan in October. To see the trademark filing, it's number 85006964, searchable in the USPTO database. It might just be the next game you pay the Square Enix tax (by which we mean the customary $40 price for Square's DS games) on!

Square Enix's subsidiary Taito also trademarked "Dariusburst," (serial number 85008406) which, unless some bizarre trick is involved, refers to last year's PSP shooter, which updates the company's classic robo-fish-shooting Darius series.
[Via Siliconera]

A portion of a C3 review… Sadly, despite having legendary status at the time of release, Nintendo’s Game & Watch titles on DSiWare so far have all been let-downs, and Game & Watch: Chef is not the one to buck the trend. Keep your 200 Nintendo Points for something else.

Newegg is currently offering The House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return for the ridiculously low sum of $12.99. With free shipping. Honestly, we're not sure how to fill the rest of this post with more relevant information. You get two House of the Dead games, both of them brimming with zombies just itching to be blown apart, for $12.99. That's about as much as a disgusting chicken sandwich and a terrible bottle of wine to wash it down with. You don't want those things, do you? Of course not. Get the game.

Better get it fast though, because it's bound to sell out quickly at this price.House of the Dead 2 & 3 for $12.99 shipped

Being a giant, beloved video game blog has its downsides. For example, we sometimes neglect to give independent developers our coverage love (or loverage, if you will) as we get caught up in AAA, AAAA or the rare quintuple-A titles. To remedy that, we're giving indies the chance to create their own loverage and sell you, the fans, on their studios and products. This week we talk with Red Button Games boss (and champion Omeganaut) Daniel Frandsen about his new Xbox Live Indie Game, Olu.


How did you get started?

I've always dabbled in game development, but it really started in a college game development course. After the course was done, a handful of us went on to create an organization for game development. The bug bit me, and I spent most of my time in my last two years of college working on games. Red Button Games came out of my spare time, and some spare money to hire a few freelancers. Why did you want to make games?

It's always been the combination of two passions: gaming and design. I remember back when I got my first console (Super NES), I would draw Super Mario Kart tracks and Donkey Kong Country levels on a sheet of paper. It's what first brought me into a desire to learn programming, and it's something I really enjoy doing, even if it's technically work.

#rumor Upset that you aren't in the alpha test for the second Final Fantasy MMO? We've got what looks to be a chunk of the Final Fantasy XIV alpha tester handbook and some videos to help you pretend you're in it. More »