Sony has teamed up with veteran gaming monopoly Konami, and vested its efforts into releasing digital distributions of Konami’s video game music library. Song from Castlevania to Silent Hill, and from Contra to Gradius, will all be digitally released by Sony’s BGM Entertainment.

“Music has been at the foundation of Konami’s games for decades, and now consumers will be able to enjoy these classic tunes on their own”, quotes Konami’s music manager of Digital Entertainment Michael Rajna. Music will be availible for purchase from places such as iTunes and Rhapsody, as well as for mobile-phone download.

Seems like a bit of a stretch to me for Sony and Konami alike, seeing as how most of these VG tunes can be downloaded for free either by fansites or from torrent downloads. I suppose only sales will tell whether or not it’s an actual money-making venture. Konami’s music has been a keynote of it’s games for over two decades, and something like this is only just now being released? Kinda slow on the uptake if you ask me, but that’s just my humble opinion.

I’ve already spoken of the pure excitement I have over the forthcoming Half Life Orange Box, but this trailer in particular is quite entertaining. The art style is perfect for a game. While Valve has the best visuals in the industry for rendering regular people, the highly animated look of Team Fortress 2’s players is reaching Pixar levels. Yeah I’m saying it. We’re out of that glass eyed uncanny valley of Spider-Man 3 visuals and squarely into spirited animated movie territory.

IGN’s Matt Casamassina posted a rumor stating Nintendo may cease producing the publication known as Nintendo Power by September, 2007. If the rumor turns out to be founded, it would mark the next step in what looks to be a massive restructuring of Nintendo’s internal teams. Last week Nintendo announced that the bulk of its Advertising and Marketing Departments would be moving to either New York or San Fransisco.

Sources close to IGN state that massive layoffs are currently taking place and that other employees have been told to begin looking for other employment.

“Nintendo Power” has been Nintendo’s official internal publication since 1988, and despite its reputation of being a propaganda instrument, the magazine recently went through a major retooling and became quite level-handed.

Check out the initial report here

I, for one, will be sad to see the mag go the way of the dodo. They offered decent swag from time to time and has remained a staple among the Nintendo faithful for almost 20 years.

Before FPS, RTS, and MMORPGS became the norm, it was adventure games that dominated the PC. These games challenged players to think logically in a way that can’t be surpassed by today’s games. Weather it’s the point/click interface, command prompt, or first person adventure, the games challenged players to think their way out of predicaments rather than simply blow away their enemies. They came in all different flavors from Sam and Max and Leisure Suit Larry, to Myst and Monkey Island. Sierra’s King’s Quest series was one of the great standouts of the genre. With stories penned by Roberta Williams, the series told about the trials and tribulations of the royal family of Daventry.
[Read the rest of this entry…]

Now we all love our console games, but I think it’s time we start showing the PC some cheap gaming love. I’m no computer snob, but PC games have certain perks over their console brethren (i.e. more precise control settings, user-created content) just as console games have their advantages over PC games (i.e. not having to pre-install a game to their hard drive or buy $200+ graphics and sound cards in order to have their copies of Oblivion and Far Cry look halfway decent). Only time I’ve ever featured a PC game on here is when it’s a PC port of a console game. Now that I finally got a computer capable of running games, it’s time to spotlight the other side of gaming, and we’re gonna do just that with this week’s $20 GOTW and Lost Classics.
[Read the rest of this entry…]

This weekend’s Square-Enix party in Chiba, Japan revealed some more interesting tidbits and videos about upcoming titles and plans for the future. Did you expect anything less?

Amongst the flurry of closer video presentation and excitable cosplayers, Square-Enix dropped some more information regarding the new Final Fantasy: Dissidia game for the PSP, including playable characters for the title such as Zidane and Kuja from FFIX, Warrior of Light from the original game, and….big surprise….Sephiroth! Or at least, that’s what has lead viewers of the footage believe. Of course, we won’t know until the official confirmation as to whether or not the famous villian would truly be playable.

Some new footage of a new entry to the Kingdom Hearts series was also featured, but was left vague as to whether or not it was related to the KH3 teaser at the end of the second game, or if it is part of a side-story and new game altogether. Word has it confusion probably won’t be cleared up until the Tokyo Game Show in September.

Ah Square-Enix, you are the cock-tease of the gaming world.

A message board post at NeoGAF shows a scan from a Japanese magazine showing screens from a 3D Nintendo DS version of Final Fantasy IV, the greatest Final Fantasy game ever made.

Showing a clear resemblance to last year’s Final Fantasy III DS this would be the second DS remake of a Final Fantasy game. This move is puzzling after the recent Gameboy Advance release of the game in December 2005, but not unwelcome.

I found the remake of Final Fantasy III for the DS to be a great adaptation and look forward to this update of the game, whose graphics have been untouched since its original release in 1991. While all 3 of the Nintendo/Famicom Final Fantasy games have had their graphics enhanced in more recent versions, the 3 Super Nintendo/Super Famicom games had not been enhanced in their many ports.

A mirror of the magazine scan can be seen after the jump.

[Read the rest of this entry…]

Gotta love Square-Enix for their teasers.

Yesterday, a new site was launched representing the newest addition to the legendary Final Fantasy series : Dissidia. Obviously, not much is out right now in terms of information about the game, other than it’s for the PSP, and Nomura is doing the character designs. The unconfirmed info concerning the game is that it very well might not be a traditional RPG, like the rest of the series, and that it may be based off of Final Fantasy XIII. This is also meant to be a part of the “20th Anniversary” stint of special goodies being released by Square-Enix.

More details will supposedly be released at this weekend’s Square-Enix Party. No release date other that “TBA” has been given as of yet.

You can check out the teaser site HERE.