All Topics Gaming older than one year ago

#free It took almost 10 months since we heard Mechwarrior 4 was gonna be re-released for free, but that day has finally arrived. You can grab it through MekTek now; it's a 1.7GB download. More »

#twitter EA Canada is offering to immortalize 50 people in virtual spray-paint or sharpie in Crysis 2, under a Twitter promo running over the weekend. It ends on Monday. More »

#valve This weekend, things are going to get even harder for the poor Survivors from Left 4 Dead 2, thanks to the game's latest rule-changing "Mutation." And one Mutation is up for permanent, not weekly, contention. More »

Some of these may pertain to the 360/PS3 game, but some characters are also in the Wii version.

If you are interested in some new Mega Man 10 wallpapers, new trailers and artwork, you might want to hit up the official site. It’s been updated to reflect all the DLC that has come our way. Click the link below to check it out.

click to enter our Tournament Edition Gallery
Do you want a Mad Catz Tournament Edition FightStick, but ... bluer? Mad Catz and Aksys have just announced a BlazBlue: Continuum Shift FightStick, featuring imagery from the upcoming BlazBlue sequel. Like the latest revision of the Super Street Fighter IV stick, this controller features genuine Sanwa parts and internal storage for the 13-foot cable.

Only 3,000 sticks will be produced: 1,500 each for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The only place you'll be able to get one is through Aksys's online store. Pre-orders will ship in June for $199.99. With those limited quantities, if you want one, you should probably look into that soon. We're holding out for a BlayzBloo DS arcade stick.

Bungie talks directly to fans about its future with Activision.

#lists This week, Kotaku's reviews took the fight to the streets and to the skies. They fought battles in the Old West and feudal Japan. And they involved one unsightly beanbag, nearly capable of launching a kitty cat into the stratosphere. More »

#mma Earlier, THQ revealed the roster of fighters for UFC Undisputed 2010, with three of them exclusive to the game's PS3 version. PS3 MMA fans also get another five classic bouts on top of the 15 offered in Ultimate Fight Mode. More »

It's as if millions of wallets cried out and were suddenly silenced, stripped of their precious cash money and left hollowed out and dead. We imagine that ringing in our ears has something to do with Valve and Gaming Heads, who just inked a deal to produce a line-up of collectibles based on hit Valve franchises. Pictured above is The Heavy, which will be the first in its Team Fortress 2 series -- available in Red and Blue varieties, of course.

Gaming Heads will also produce statues based on other popular Valve properties, such as Half-Life 2 and Left 4 Dead 2. And if some decorative shelf or desk items aren't really your thing, there's the promise of "life-sized props," meaning there's a possibility you could actually own a Portal gun without having to make it yourself sometime in the future. Just imagine: you'll be the hit of the Halloween party!

The Heavy will be available for pre-order on Monday, May 3.

[Via Team Fortress 2 Blog]

Yes, you can actually purchase a cart to create music on your NES. This cart is made by none other than Eurocom founder and director Neil Baldwin, who is known for cranking out some absolutely amazing NES games/music. What better way to create NES tunes than with the best hardware?!

Some nightmares don't fade with time.

The official Super Mario Galaxy 2 site has opened up for North American gamers. It doesn’t really have anything new at all, but I’m sure that will change in the not-too-distant future. Site here

Worried about Stranger Danger in Quake Live? Well, the still-in-beta browser-based frag-em-up has been updated, allowing would-be murderers the ability to invite friends to their match or join their pals' sessions currently in progress. Why you would want to hurt your friends in this manner, we'll never know.

On a less backstabbery note, this update brings another interesting change that's currently only in private testing: the "Start a Match" feature. This particular function grants leagues and players the ability to start their own servers. Then, you can set the game to have no password, enable invite-only servers and even designate your own map cycle. Sadly, there's no word as of when this will be available to all participants.

For the full list of changes in the latest update, hit up the Quake Live forums.

[Via Bethesda Blog]

Obsidian talks about how things are changing in Sin City.

#racin As part of our neverending mission to tell you what video game is now turning left four times at 100 mph on Saturday, let's check in with Joey Logano and the No. 20 GameStop Toyota. More »

It's no secret that we're eagerly anticipating Guybrush Threepwood's second HD-ified return to the the world of Monkey Island. Today a handful of new comparison screens dropped for Monkey Island 2: Special Edition that have mutated our anticipation level to critical altitudes. Remember that game we played the last time new screens were released? The one where we dared you to not be impressed by the graphical fidelity of the images? Round Two begins right now, folks.

#obsidianentertainment If you've already spent hundreds of hours combing the wastelands of Washington D.C., Pittsburgh and Anchorage, Alaska in Fallout 3, what might convince you to revisit the post nuclear version of Sin City in Fallout: New Vegas? More »

Online retailers are beginning to understand exactly what it takes to get shoppers interested in their discounted products: Free money. Or, rather, pseudo-money. Amazon's learned this lesson well, and has added a nice little bonus to its already appealing offer for Atlus' punishing RPG Demon's Souls: Pick up the game for $33, and you'll get a free $10 Amazon gift card to boot.

Actually, forget what we said about "pseudo-money." Do you know how many things are on Amazon? In our humble opinion, Amazonbucks are just as good as cold, hard cash.

[Thanks Euclides!]

We used to look at Nintendo's monthly Virtual Console lineup with a mixture of anticipation (because we'd see at least a few games each month that seemed destined for our own Virtual Console) and dread (because it was a big list of Japanese game titles to translate). The May lineup inspires neither -- only a measure of apathy roughly equal to that on the part of whoever is responsible for the Virtual Console in the first place.

There are only three Virtual Console games listed for May release in Japan. That's half of May 2009's already-skimpy lineup, and laughable compared to May 2008's bumper crop. Bandai Namco doesn't announce its VC Arcade releases beforehand, so there could be more games, but still ... poor Virtual Console.

• Genghis Khan 2: Clan of the Grey Wolf (Super Famicom)
• Heisei Shin Onigashima Zenpen (Super Famicom)
• Magical Drop 2 (Neo Geo)

When a game is described as "Diablo meets Monkey Island," two reactions come naturally: "Neat!," followed by, "Wait a second ... how can that even be possible?"

Well, it is. I found this out for myself earlier this week when the 'Stiq had its first hands-on (we'd seen it at PAX 2009) with DeathSpank, the latest game from Ron Gilbert, designer of The Secret of Monkey Island (but not Diablo). His new downloadable game is a fast-paced, button-mashy loot-'em-up, as well as an adventure filled with interesting characters and diabolically funny dialog. Also, it's about bacon and a hero who's favorite number is ... plaid.

We've got vital intel on the upcoming tactical shooter.

How is Ron Gilbert's new game looking?

Ron Gilbert stops by to give us a spanking.

#consoletaisen Look, there's really no way to sex up this week's hardware contest in Japan. The battle between Sony and Nintendo is still too close to call, just as it has been for the past few weeks. More »

Filed under: Podcasts The Joystiq staff, among many other lucky gamers, was fortunate enough to get early access to the Halo: Reach beta this week. Rather than waste all this fun on ourselves, we've decided to check in with you, our loyal listeners. Grab this special Xbox 360 Fancast episode to see what we think of the Halo: Reach beta so far. Will it suck away your soul, or will you stick with Bad Company 2? Give it a listen and here what we've got to say.

[iTunes] Subscribe to the Podcast directly in iTunes (MP3).
[Zune] Subscribe to the Podcast directly in Zune Marketplace (MP3).
[RSS MP3] Add the Xbox 360 Fanboy Podcast feed (in MP3) to your RSS aggregator and have the show delivered automatically.
[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.

Hosts: Richard Mitchell (SenseiRAM, @senseiram), Alexander Sliwinski (Sli Xander, @xandersliwinski), Xav de Matos (Snypz, @xav) and Dave Hinkle (KnifefightYaDad, @davehinkle)

Music: Intro/Outro: "Electromooq" by Uma Floresta. Break: "Subliminal Message" by Happy Birthday.

For fans: Xbox 360 Fancast Facebook group

Hey everyone. I’m Tom O’Connor, and I’m working on Move Party (working title) for the upcoming PlayStation Move.

We debuted the game at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco back in March, and the response was awesome. Gamers are loving the augmented reality feature of the game. Seeing the PlayStation Move motion controller transform before your eyes into objects on-screen, actually in your hand, is a pretty magical experience. Not to mention, the game is a lot of fun and we’ve been working hard on getting all the extra content into an “Alpha” build — and we are there! We are playing the games again and again, and then some more … and then again, tweaking and balancing and making sure that we cram as much fun into each of the games as we can before launching in the fall.

We’ve been showing the game behind closed doors and conducting lots of user testing. We’ve been really impressed at how quickly people of all ages are captivated by the game as soon as they pick up the PlayStation Move motion controller. The experience is extremely intuitive. There are no special gestures to learn like in some motion control games, you simply interact with the objects as you would in real life. It’s super easy and fun to just pick up the controller and start playing. Move Party is really only possible due to the amazing accuracy, freedom and precision that the PlayStation Move delivers. Cut hair, bash moles, bounce a ball, paint a picture, fly a helicopter, zap some robots and much more.

That’s all from me for now, but watch this space for more updates and lookout for us at E3. In the meantime, check out our new behind-the-scenes video featuring Jonathan Amor, Steve Goss and Tom Heaton, the Move Party developers over at Supermassive Games for an insightful look into how the PlayStation Move allows us to bring games like Move Party into your home.

April showers bring.. unwanted moisture to games. Please keep them out of the rain.