Yes, we all saw it coming a mile away. Kotaku reports that Sony’s David Karraker announced the Sony PlayStation 3 will immediately begin selling for $499 in North America.

In addition, in August Sony will sell a model with a larger 80 GB hard drive installed and a copy of Motorstorm for the old price of $599.

OK, how about now? Is everyone done bitching about the price now? Oh you want more cuts? Sheesh.

As announced by IGN a few days ago, the good people over at Midway Games have blessed it’s loyal fans with a bit of nostalgia to tide them over until the next-gen Mortal Kombat comes closer to realization. Come November of this year, the Nintendo DS will be getting a ported release of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. A little treat for those familiar with Mortal Kombat Deception will also come bundled in, in the form of Puzzle Kombat (aka: Tetris with blood)

As can be seen, the box art mimics that of the skulls seen on the boxes and arcade machine versions of Ultimate MK 3. The character selection is the same, though some like Ermac and Mileena must be first unlocked in order to play, and Noob Saibot is unplayable. Still, it’s a little slice of heaven for those of us who miss the good ol’ days of 2-D fighting with motion capture animation and explosions of bodies with 10 limbs, 3 ribcages, and about 40 gallons of blood. Good times.

Two guitars, a drummer, and a singer… we were kinda wondering how this would all work on one screen, and now we have a video of some of the Harmonix crew getting into Guns N Roses first hit. Rock Band will have its own guitars, but this video confirms that your 360 X-plorer will still work.

Because of the holiday, and the fact that the one of the greatest action movie franchises of all time has returned to theaters, we’re gonna dedicate this week’s Lost Classics and $20 GOTW to the Bruce Willis masterpiece. So read on after the jump to read all about the official series of video games based on a series of the finest examples of cinematic art ever created.
[Read the rest of this entry…]

Shortly after the fighting game X-men Children of the Atom, Capcom wasted no time in putting out more games featuring Marvel’s pantheon of super heroes. This game in particular is one of the more slept-on Capcom fighters (although not to the degree of Project Justice and Tech Romancer). Taking control of one of six Marvel heroes (Spider-man, Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America, Wolverine, Psylocke) or one of six villains (Shuma Gorath, Blackheart, Juggernaut, Magneto, and Thanos and Dr Doom via use of a code), you must fight your way up the ladder to meet Thanos in a plot loosely based on 1992’s Infinity Gauntlet storyline.

The game play is similar to most other Capcom fighters, with six attack buttons, three for punches, three for kicks, each differing in speed in power. Special moves are done via quarter and half circle motions, as well as charging. However, since these are superheroes, don’t expect your garden-variety martial-arts maneuvers like in street fighter. Your fighter can jump up to several feet high, ‘normal’ attacks fire projectiles, special attacks can cause serious damage, and super moves take up the entire screen. It’s not as zany as in Darkstalkers, but you’re still not gonna see any of these moves in the next Street Fighter game. The main difference that sets this game apart from other Capcom fighters, although it isn’t much, is the addition of the Infinity Gems. They appear throughout the match, and grant your character special powers when you use them. Of course this regulates multiplayer games into bouts of “who can get to the gems the fastest” although an experienced player can destroy any newbie player who plays in that manner.

This game is often overlooked due to the fact that at the time of it’s release, it was just one of many 2-d fighting games. However, it was a Capcom fighter. Moreover, it was a good game based on a Marvel property. Capcom of course went on to use the engine to produce several more Capcom fighters, most important of which being the Marvel Vs Capcom games. This is still a good game to check out if you run across the arcade cabinet, even better if you can find a copy of any of the home ports. Also of interest is the SNES spin-off “War of the Gems”, which is a side scrolling beat-em-up in the vein of Capcom’s “X-men Mutant Apocalypse”.

Over this past weekend, a milestone was hit when Sonic the Hedgehog officially turned 16 years old. Sega’s mascot has been a teenager for some time now, but still has quite a rich reputation that he’s brought to the table in the gaming world, along with bringing a few friends with him for the ride on the gaming rollarcoaster.

What does this mean in terms of what is going to happen in the future for the blue speed-demon? Well, lets first recap on our beloved hedgehog’s life thus far.
[Read the rest of this entry…]

Last night, Level Up reported via their Newsweek blog that NOA President Reggie Fils-Aime will be making an announcement about new WiiWare downloadable games: original titles similar to those of Xbox Live Arcade or the Playstation Network. Today it has become a reality!

According to the release, WiiWare™ is “a game-creation service that will allow developers large and small to create new downloadable video game content for sale by Nintendo through the Wii Shop Channel” that “paves the way for smaller, more creative games to make their way to the public at lower prices, without any inventory risk to developers.”

Projects will be announced a later date, with first WiiWare offerings will not be available until early 2008. There is no indication of who is involved, nor how the independent developers they hope to foster can gain access to this development kit.

Compare this to Microsoft’s XNA Studio, which allows developers to create games cross-compatible in both Windows XP/Vista and Xbox 360. The technology is readily available (and free!), although the development kit that allows you to test your code on your 360 has a subscription cost of $100 a year — a drop in the bucket for the development budget of any serious offering.

Check back with us as more news develops. In the mean time, leave a comment and let us know what kinds of games you’d make for the Wii!