#tokyogameshow2010
Namco Bandai's idol simulator The Idolm@ster features teenage girls. But in Japan, it's not only young girls who are idols. Young boys are, too. More »
#top
The latest challengers for Marvel vs. Capcom: Fate of Two Worlds? Spider-Man and Wesker from Resident Evil. This is certainly not the first appearance for Spider-Man in a MvC title. It is, however, for Wesker. More »
Just minutes ago, immediately following the Tougeki fighting game championship finals held during the Tokyo Game Show, Namco Bandai game director Katsuhiro Harada announced Tekken Tag Tournament 2, the first iteration in the Tekken Tag series since the 1999 debut over a decade ago. We had a chance to speak with Mr. Harada following this unveiling, and learned more about the long delay, the game's arcade destination, the current state of fighting games and what's going on with Tekken X Street Fighter.
Joystiq: How long have you been working on Tekken Tag Tournament 2?
Katsuhiro Harada: Actually there was some talk at first of doing this before Tekken 6 came out, but when we discused it amongst ourselves and the team we felt like we first wanted to make a proper sequel to 6 to see how far we could push the limits of our graphics engine on that hardware before going to Tag.
As you've seen for yourself in the trailer, we have three or four characters on the screen at once so that's simply twice as much power needed than previously for example in Tekken 6. So obviously trying to do that right off the bat earlier on would be much more difficult.
If it's running on the same technology as 6, which came not only to arcades but to consoles, what are your console plans for Tag 2?
#tgs
On Saturday, the public comes to Tokyo Game Show to play video games—and play dress up, posing for hours in Cosplay Alley. We spent a few hours in the battlegrounds of TGS cosplay and returned with this report. More »
Five of the top six spots on Xbox Live Arcade aren't just Japanese; they are all ports of classic titles. When we asked Microsoft Games Studios VP Phil Spencer about the observation, he said he could challenge the assumption that ports and existing IPs dominate sales on the platform. His ammunition was Limbo, the superb platformer that kicked off this year's Summer of Arcade.
"Our number one Summer of Arcade game is Limbo," Spencer said, "by a long stretch." Other games in the five-week lineup included updates of classic titles like Hydro Thunder and existing - and highly visible - IPs like Castlevania and Lara Croft. "I think there was a time when Live Arcade was about IP that people knew," Spencer acknowledged, while conceding that those games are "always going to be important."
"It's changing though," he said. "I really think coming out of Braid, Shadow Complex, Limbo [...] that it's changing a little bit. We see that in the market, that it's becoming less about iconic IP that people know and it's becoming more diverse." And that's a good thing for everyone involved, including Spencer. "I love Limbo. I think Limbo's probably my game of the year right now." Us too.
Attendees of the Tougeki fighting game tournament in Japan, received a special surprise today. Namco Bandai unveiled a brand new Tekken game for Japanese arcades. Tekken Tag Tournament 2 is a follow-up to 1999's arcade original, updated with a new roster and a current-gen graphics engine.
Neither a US nor console release have been announced at the time, but we're certain they're in the works. Even the debut trailer (after the break) states that "other region release dates are TBD."
There's still a lot of unanswered questions about Project Dark, the next title from the Demon's Souls team at From Software, but chief amongst them is the simple query: Is this a Demon's Souls sequel? While we still don't have a clear answer on that front, the below cam-captured teaser provides some evidence that it's at least cut from the same, blood-stained cloth.
Project Dark is a PS3-exclusive in Japan, while Namco Bandai's English website lists an Xbox 360 version as well.
#tokyogameshow2010
Games are getting easier and getting easier. Developers are putting in various modes and reducing the difficulty curve. Well, not everybody. More »
Here comes a new challenger! Here comes another new challenger! Straight out of TGS's Tougeki fighting game tournament, Capcom finally, officially revealed the two new characters for the arcade release of Super Street Fighter IV: Street Fighter III's Yun and Yang.
If you're excited about these new characters, you could either wait for this arcade game to hit your local game center this December (in which case, you are in Japan), or you can start saving up for the unannounced, but inevitable, DLC.
#tokyogameshow2010
Noa Torigoe, star of adult films like Max Orgasm and Ultimate Gold, really loves video games. I guess you could call her "hardcore"? But she doesn't just love Japanese video games, she loves Western video games. More »
#tokyogameshow2010
It seemed like Hong Kong fighters Yun and Yang were going to be in the arcade version of Super Street Fighter IV. Turns out, they are. More »
#tgs
Sony is releasing a special "Titanium Blue" colored PlayStation 3—part of a Gran Turismo 5 bundle—in Japan later this year. It looks like the kind of thing a PS3 owner who's in love with cars will appreciate. More »
#tokyogameshow2010
The newest Mega Man game doesn't just limit itself to Mega Man. It's his universe. But does Mega Man Universe have universal appeal? More »
After years of hunting space pirates, alien insects and metroids, it looks like there's one bug that can defeat Samus -- or, more precisely, one glitch in Metroid: Other M. IGN reports that players have encountered a bug that makes it impossible to complete the game.
When last we heard Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, Capcom's excellent spiritual (get it?) successor to the Ace Attorney series, was due in "winter 2010." With that in mind, we have bad news for would-be phantom detectives, as Capcom's TGS fact sheet for the title includes a "January 2011" North American release date. The good news: our time with the title in Tokyo this year has further convinced us that the wait will be worth it.
#clips
This animated Half-Life 2 clip isn't your average piece of amatuer machinima. It's a cinematic trailer put together by Marco Spitoni, who works at WETA, the guys behind the special effects for Lord of the Rings and District 9. More »
In a not-so-stunning turn of events, it seems that the battle to release Zombie Cow's genitalia-based shooter Privates on Xbox Live Indie Games has been lost. Zombie Cow announced as much this morning, saying, "The guys at Xbox have been amazing. They've been really helpful and supportive throughout, but ultimately have advised that the game wouldn't pass the Indie Games Peer Review process."
Given the previous warnings saying as much, Zombie Cow wasn't exactly blindsided by this news. "It's a shame, but it's something we'd always pretty much assumed would happen," says ZC's Dan Marshall. He also assured fans that, since releasing the game on PC, the studio has been "improving it and getting it running on as many different systems as possible" as to fix various bugs.
For its part, Microsoft told Joystiq, "This game has not been approved for distribution on Xbox LIVE Indie Games. We have guidelines in place that closely track requirements of content ratings boards worldwide and, among other things, prohibit the publication of strong sexual content."
#tgs
The more we see of Tetsuya Mizuguchi's new game, the more the similarities to his previous masterpiece Rez become apparent, but that's OK. Rez with better graphics and lots of rhythmic arm waving will be lots of people's cups of tea. More »
Announced late last year, the National STEM Video Game Challenge is now underway. The challenge asks both established developers and middle schoolers to come up with a video game design that incorporates STEM concepts (science, technology, engineering and math) and encourages learning in its areas of study.
The youth competition offers a prize pool of $50,000, while the developer prize pool offers $100,000 in seed money -- $50,000 for the best developer submission and $25,000 each for the best graduate and undergraduate submissions. Both competitions will begin accepting submissions on October 12. Hit the source links below for more information on both the developer and youth prizes.
