Joystiq older than one year ago

Listen, we know how hard Valentine's Day can be on some of you jilted lovers out there, so we went ahead and got you a little something to keep you occupied tomorrow: A copy of ThatGameCompany's microbiotic PS3 title, flOw. You can download it right now from the PSN for free, without having to deal with any cumbersome coupon codes. Our generosity only extends so far, however -- the free download will stop being offered at midnight EST tonight. Hurry up and grab it -- and don't say we never gave you nothin'!

(Fine, we're not the party responsible for the game's free-ness. We suppose you can say we never gave you nothin' to your heart's content.)

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]

Oh, Sunsoft, you shouldn't have. Here we were, thinking no news from this day would cause our hearts to swell in our chests, sending us into fits of nostalgic joy. Then you come along and announce that a new installment in the long-dormant Blaster Master franchise not only exists, but is coming out in two days.

Yes, according to a recent Sunsoft press release, Monday's WiiWare update will see the addition of Blaster Master: Overdrive, a 2.5D sequel to the NES classic, priced at 1000 Wii Points. Like the original, Overdrive features both side-scrolling and top-down action sequences. Looking at the images posted on Sunsoft's official site, it certainly seems to retain the same charm of the first game -- if it also preserves the original Blaster Master's completely awesome theme song, we might not be able to stop ourselves from purchasing the game two or three times over.

It's hard to believe it's been 10 years since we discovered how hilarious it was to lock a Sim in a doorless room with nothing but ovens to keep him company, but there it is: The Sims franchise has turned 10 years old today. The press release announcing the series' first decade also reveals that the franchise has sold 125 million units lifetime-to-date, which is an impressive figure -- especially when you consider EA is only reporting the PC franchise numbers. That figure doesn't include console ports.

The Sims franchise has managed to generate $2.5 billion in revenue for EA. The latest iteration in the series, The Sims 3, was 2009's top-selling PC game and has sold 4.5 million copies so far worldwide. While one could argue the latest game's success is in large part due to the series' ability to appeal to just about every type of gamer, we'd argue that the inclusion of Ludwig Kietzmann really helped push it over the top.