A bit delayed, but we’ve finally got a video review for Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles all set up and ready to view. Take a look if you’re interested.

When I first played Metroid Prime Hunters on DS, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was an elaborate Quake III mod. Now id software’s less PC-specific branching out to consoles, mobiles, and portables is getting us a port of not only Quake III Arena but also their FPS classic (and my first introduction to floating-gun-gaming) Wolfenstein 3D.

Says John Carmack of id:

“…we’re currently looking at potentially two more DS titles in the next year a Wolfenstein title and a Quake Arena title. Wolfenstein 1 being done in concert with a mobile title, the Quake Arena title would be DS specific”

Now cross your fingers for WiFi support.

from Advanced Media

This one is firmly in rumorville, but since the names are big, I’m going to pass it along.

EGM’s “Quarterman” column this month suggests EA will be announced as the publisher for the videogame companion to the big budget GI Joe movie.

With a writer’s strike on and the exact status of the Joes uncertain, the movie could well come out later than the intended summer 2009 release. This could be good news for a game, as the one thing holding back many license games is a rush to get the job done by the movie release date. Activision’s Transformers was a good game, but was about 2 months worth of adjustments and tuning away from a great game.

GI Joe has certainly been the subject of games before, with 2 pretty good NES titles and a fun coin-op entry as well. A next gen third person shooter with all the goofy joe vehicles, characters, and gadgets is just the thing we need to shake up the overly serious shooters. In fact, its high time I log on to Halo 3 and see if I can’t build some kind of Joes vs Cobras map…

In 1996, the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis were on their last legs. Won over by their technical capabilities, long time publishers and developers were abandoning the 16-bit cartridge based systems in favor of new stand alone 32-bit disc based systems such as Sony Playstation and Sega Saturn. One of these publishers was Square. Before leaving Nintendo’s side however, Squaresoft joined forces with Nintendo to produce one of the best role playing games ever. Sadly, along with being the last Squaresoft product released on the Super Nintendo, this would also be the last Mario game released for the system. Even so, this game managed to push the Super Nintendo to its limits by providing cutting edge SGI rendered graphics, innovative gameplay, and a solid story line. The game starts off as any other Mario game does. Bowser kidnaps Princess Toadstool, and Mario runs off to rescue her. However, when a new enemy arrives causing chaos, things immediately spin out of control and Mario finds himself teaming up with his arch nemesis (along with a few other characters) in order to set things right.

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Eidos/IO Interactive’s Hitman series has always been the thinking man’s stealth action game. You don’t into heavily fortified military bases to take out genocidal terrorists (most of the time), you are sneaking into public locations to eliminate a designated series of targets. Simply not being seen isn’t enough, you have to cover up evidence of your presence and eliminate any cause for suspicion. You don’t just hide in ventilation shafts and cardboard boxes. Often times you’ll have to disguise yourself and figure out how to sneak your weaponry onto the mission site. Your job isn’t just to kill your target and move on, you’ll also have to avoid (or reduce the possibility of) innocents being killed. After 2 successful games and a weaker third title, Hitman returns to top form, just in time for the next generation of gaming.

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THanks to G4TV, we have the first footage of the Ghostbusters game we only found out about 2 days ago.

Also new online is the official website, though it opens with a teaser trailer with no in game footage. It does however have some great screen shots of Slimer, Ray, and Mr Stay Puft.

The site also reveals some of the game’s story. You’ll be playing as a new recruit who will team with the original Ghostbusters team to take on the latest outbreak of the dead, undead, and recently dead.

No, this doesn’t have anything to do with Dave Chappell, conscious hip hop music, or a brief Fugees reunion. However, Ultimate Block Party (known in Japan as Kollon) is a fun little anime-inspired PSP puzzle game brings back memories of Tetris Attack. You arrange colored blocks in groups of four to clear them out. As with many good puzzlers, things aren’t nearly that simple. When playing against a CPU or friend, the disappeared blocks are sent to the other player’s side, adversely affecting their game screen. Blocks can glue together, become harder to move, or even cover up the playing field. Clearing out blocks can earn magic squares, which give certain advantages such as changing all the blocks in a row to a certain color and blowing up clusters of blocks. As expected, you can chain together blocks and add on to your score. You play as one of 8 characters, but there are no real differences between them. It offers a Vs mode, an arcade mode, and a single player endless mode. There is also a campaign mode, but all it is is simply Arcade mode with just one character and some intro animations. In a nice little touch, the game offers Ad-Hoc play (something that wasn’t in the Japanese release), but good luck finding another player who has a copy of this game.

Ultimate Block Party may not be Lumines, and it doesn’t offer a whole lot in the way of game modes, but it’s still a solid title for casual gamers. It’s hard to find thanks to the lack of decent marketing around its release, but puzzle fans should definitely check this game out. Now that I think about it, this would make a good Xbox Live Arcade game.

In 1995, late into the Super Nintendo’s life cycle, Square-Enix, then known as only Squaresoft, released Chrono Trigger. Chrono Trigger was a role playing game which took place over the course of several time periods. It had an innovative battle system, beautiful graphics, an awesome soundtrack, and multiple endings. It was, and still is to this day one of the greatest RPGs ever made. Half a decade later, Square would release a follow up. While it wasn’t as critically acclaimed as the original, it would be an excellent game in its own right.
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