In 1994, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle franchise was waning in popularity. As it would soon go dormant for a while, Konami decided to make one last attempt to cash in on the franchise by releasing a trio of fighting games for the SNES, Genesis, and NES. In an era where the difference between multiplatform releases meant more than simple graphical upgrades, the three games were vastly different.
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In 2001, the last thing anyone would imagine is Final Fantasy characters running around with Disney characters. Then Square’s Kingdom Hearts came, and it’s action RPG gameplay, deep plot, and high production values made it an instant classic amongst gamers. When the game concluded however, there were many questions that had been left unanswered, and even more were left over from the Game Boy Advance spin-off, “Chain of Memories”. Of course like any good series, this merely left players anticipating this eagerly awaited sequel even more.
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This is not Morgan Webb. This is not Adam Sessler.

X-play is the gold standard. Its still the most popular show on G4 and was one of the most popular on its previous home TechTV. Why not? When gamers turn off their boxes, they often turn to game news in magazines and on the internet, so its only appropriate they be able to see games on TV too.

But its hardly without competition, and it many cases its surpassed. If you’re still watching X-Play religiously because you think its the only show on TV talking about games (G4’s clusterhump “Attack Of The Show” does not count), you’d be missing out on more informative, more balanced, and in some cases, funnier shows. Allow me to focus on some of X-Play’s direct competitors, shows with similar production values and connections to the industry.
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This is actually the second game in what is know in Japan as the “Rushing Beat” series. It’s the sequel to what is known over here as “Rival Turf” and the predecessor to what is known over here as the Peacekeepers. Lousy names aside, the Rushing Beat games added their own small but innovative spin to the side-scrolling brawler formula popularized in games such as Final Fight. Rival Turf featured a secret code that allowed players to rename the game’s characters and enemies while Peacekeepers would feature exploration elements. Brawl Brothers little quirk was that at the start of the game, you selected two characters to start with. The main villain Dieter would kidnap the other three, clone them, and force you to rescue them throughout the game’s 4 levels. They tried to work in some exploration elements, but players would find themselves stuck if they didn’t follow the right path. Other than that, nothing stood out in the game, but there was no glaring weakness either. Just a nice game which you can play with a friend. their is also a one on one versus mode for when players wanted a diversion from the main game.

Oh yeah, as an added bonus, the original Japanese version is hidden on the cart as well, accessible by a code (repeatedly press BAXY in that order before the Jaleco logo appears) It removes the exploration elements, changes the character names, and adds in a new Time Attack multiplayer mode. This is probably one of the nicer easter eggs hidden in the game.

In 1996, Midway released Mortal Kombat Trilogy, a “special edition” version of Mortal Kombat 3 for Playstation and Nintendo 64 which included all the characters and most of the backgrounds from all of the games up to that point. It was to serve as the final chapter of the current storyline before the series received an overhaul of sorts with MK 4. Since then, the series experienced a fair share of ups and downs, until 2002’s MK Deadly Alliance completely revitalized the series. The franchise continued right along with 2004’s MK Deception, which included a plethora of new gaming modes, including an expanded version of conquest, puzzle kombat, and what was a first for 3-d fighting games, online play. Last fall, Midway re-upped again with Armageddon, which serves as the last game of the current storyline and the last game on current generation systems.
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A scan from Japanese Mag Famitsu reveals the rumour of a Resident Evil 4 port is true. RE4 will hit Wii in June with all of the PS2 re-release bonus missions and new waggle controls. The pricetag is going to be a very affordable $29.99.

Sadly, thats the good news. The Umbrella Chronicles game we’d heard would feature a “best of” all the Resident Evil games is actually a rail shooter. The Wii control will act like a light gun, not unlike the (terrible) RE: Dead Aim on Playstation. The story focuses on the downfall of the Umbrella Corporation and… oh come on, a rail shooter? This is the big news? I can’t believe they actually found a way to make another release of RE:4 sound interesting.

If you’re one of the 5 or 6 people who didn’t play Resident Evil 4 or were just PO’d that you got the shaft by not buying the enhanced PS2 version, looks like June is your time.

In what may be the most ambitious music game ever conceived, the developers of Guitar Hero have teamed with MTV and mega-publisher Electronic Arts to release Rock Band for PS3 and Xbox 360 this winter. USA Today brings us the story.

Take Guitar Hero II’s guitar/bass co-op play, add in some Karaoke Revolution singing, and keep the beat with a set of drums. Theres been no mention of how the drums will look or operate, but with so many successful music games under their belt, Harmonix should be able to find something that works for casual and hardcore gamers alike.

Game|Life reports from the press event early Monday that there will no longer be cover versions of songs, instead you’ll be treated to the real thing. Latency problems that kept Guitar Hero II from having full online multiplayer have been resolved and Harmonix promises your band can have practice online instead of in your garage. And though not formally announced at this time, a Wii version is inevitable.

Now… is it too much to ask they get The Clash in there?

This has been a long time coming. The countdown clock to the first look at the proper sequel to Grand Theft Auto III has been running at Rockstar’s site for a while, leading up to this final moment.

Check it out. Hopefully it was worth the wait. I don’t know myself yet because I wrote this post a while ago and programed it to appear when the countdown clock reached zero.