Today we have the first screenshots from BioWare's most dubious project to date, that Sonic RPG for the Nintendo DS now officially known as Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, coming from SEGA during 2008. It doesn't look bad or anything, but I sure wish they had picked another franchise. No, not Mario!

 (...)

 Continue reading 'Sonic RPG Screenshots'...

About time Square Enix did something other than good old Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts or Dragon Quest titles. Don't get me wrong, I am a HUGE fan of everything mentioned above, I, like any normal human being, have my periodical Tifa / Aeris / Yuna wet dreams, but playing the same games over and over again tends to get a bit boring after a while. Especially when you end up, like me, to get disgusted by almost every modern title and resort to the forever awesome SNES emulator and the bunch of cool JRPGs out there.

And so... Square is making yet another move on the RPG front, this time on Nintendo DS, with a new action RPG entitled The World Ends With You. We get to play the role of an underaged, unsociable and probably completely retarded when it comes to women kid which, caught in a modern-day Tokyo, receives a strange SMS - telling him “bye bye cruel world if you don't do my bidding”. Sounds interesting, sounds Japanese enough, but it also sounds rather costly, being priced at 39,99 USD. Here are some of the game's features:

- Distinctive modern art style created by a team of artists led by Tetsuya Nomura, world-renowned character designer of the upcoming FABULA NOVA CRYSTALLIS project which includes FINAL FANTASY XIII and FINAL FANTASY Versus XIII
- Innovative Stride-Cross Battle System allows players to control two characters simultaneously, unleashing special attacks with the stylus
- Collect a vast array of custom-designed pins, each with a powerful psychic ability that can be activated with the right touch or sound command
- Customize characters with Shibuya's coolest fashions and exchange items with other players via Mingle Mode
- Experience an amazing soundtrack combining a fusion of musical influences from hip-hop to rock to electronica
- Battle with up to three friends in Tin Pin Slammer, an exciting and fast-paced mini-game, via local wireless connection

And here is the press release, for your reading pleasure.

- The world of Fallout 3 will be much smaller than Oblivion, Bethesda's Pete Hines told some aussies, "but packed with stuff to do". Stuff to do is good, mkay.

- "For Sims 3 there will be new information soon", Sims Studio head Rod Humble let slip in a forum posting. And guess what: they are "actually launching less [Sims games] this year than last". Oh, and "the Sims Label was created to innovate, make original games and take creative risks". I loled.

- Aion: The Tower of Eternity is coming in 2008. How exactly is that a novelty, beats me!

- Naruto: Ninja Destiny went gold, and is now destined to launch on February 26 for the Nintendo DS. Naruto sucks dragon balls.

- April 22 was announced as the day Square Enix will release its new DS action-RPG set in modern-day Tokyo, The World Ends With You. No U.

- Unreal Engine 3 got licensed by yet another Korean developer - Dragonfly (Karma Online, Special Force), who will be using it to make a new... something, whatever.

Quake 2 was, and will always be, one of the best shooters out there. It doesn’t matter that it’s older than my grandma, or that its graphics are not powered by CryEngine 2 - the sheer amount of gore and fun that it provided was (and still is, mind you), enough to keep me busy time and again.

A good news for those of us meddling with a pink Nintendo DS is the fact that Drunken Coders have finally managed to finish their Quake 2 homebrew port, after being busy with it for quite a while. This version contains all the single-player missions, also retaining some graphical goodies that can be found in the original PC game, like particle support, or ARM7 sound effects system.

As a warning though, the game cannot run on your handheld unless you are the proud owner of some RAM expansion, since Quake 2 has some memory requirements that make the DS bleed. Other info, downloads and pictures with naked asian girls can be found on Drunken Coders’ website. Enjoy the hyperblaster, kids.

September 7, 2008, to be more precise. This is now the official new (tentative) release date for Spore, as announced in the game's first newsletter, signed by Will Wright, that popped into my inbox just now. Ironically enough, Maxis and Electronic Arts even felt the need to make a special teaser trailer for this "joyous" moment. You can watch it right here on Playkon, but there's absolutely no in-game footage, just the above release date. "Thanks again. You'll hear from us soon", he says. The nerve...


Will Wright's message: "check out our launch date teaser".
(Because it's too fucking infuriating when written down!)

- The reason why 2K Games cancelled Civilization Revolution for the Wii is now elucidated. The reason why MTV writes about games remains a mystery.

- Devil May Cry 4 (PS3, Xbox 360), Assassin's Creed DS, Sins of a Solar Empire and others are releasing this week. Next week, Duke Nukem Forever. Or when it's done.

First checkpoint reached, yay! Every now and then (hopefully every day), we'll use a checkpoint like this to quick-save the stories that we wanted to write about in more detail, but could not do so due to various perturbing factors - booze, WoW and/or animes come to mind. We'll probably drop the intro, though, and skip straight to the one-liners.

- LucasArts president Ward steps down. Darth Vader lols. Yoda is not amused.

- Nintendo announces a new Cobalt/Black DS Lite. Needs more desu.

- Mercenaries 2: World in Flames delayed. Battlefield: Bad Company also delayed. And so is my Zul'Aman raid tonight. Needs more healers.

- Turok released on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Dinosaurs are still having difficulty procreating, this time due to stressful gunfire and castrating explosions.

- EA expects PS3 to outsell 360 in 2008. I expect the sun will rise again tomorrow.

- American McGee reveals a new "[Unreal Engine 3] based, big publisher, multi-platform, twisted tale project". Grimm half-way done. Alice is still insane. So is McGee.