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!

You know you’ve done it before. You get your hands on a piece of bubble wrap, and you can’t help but compulsively begin popping the little bubbles one by one for hell knows how long, or even just twisting the whole thing in a massive fit of rapid-fire popping. It’s one of life’s little pleasures, and now someone is cashing in on the craze.

Bandai has swooped in to capitalize on this wonder with the new PuchiPuchi infinite bubble wrap toy. Designed to feel and sound like real plastic bubble wrap, you can continuously pop the bubbles on these little marvels to your heart’s content. They’ve even thrown in little twists to keep things interesting, such as unique sounds for each 100th pop!

So now, you can annoy the hell out of people around you with constant bubble-popping while also feeding your compulsion with these pocket-sized little toys. Sounds like a sure-win to me.

I’ve already told everyone I love this thing, made a few prank calls with it, and even annoyed viewers of my video blog. But since those I haven’t been able to torment with it don’t know what I’m talking about, I had to elaborate.

Now there is a variation I didn’t mention: some of these do NOT have Peter Cullen’s voice. Make sure you buy one that says “real movie sounds” and hit the button on the side of the helmet to make sure you get the real deal.

“Never escalate a battle unless Rita forces you to.”

Granted Tommy had not joined the Power Rangers when Zordon layed out that and other rules to go by to the Power Rangers when they were first formed but he still knows what being a Power Ranger is about. You don’t use excessive force against an opponent unnecessarily and that’s why when some putties show up they don’t automatically morph and call their Megazords to obliterate them.

Jason David Frank played Tommy Oliver in Power Ranger and was affiliated with the show for the better part of a decade. While best known for being the Green Ranger he’s been all the colours of the rainbow. So with all that experience why is it Tommy pulled out of a planned cage fight he was meant to have this past Saturday?

The Daily Egyptian reports that while Jason David Frank was on hand to sign autographs he bailed on the fight when he learned only boxing was allowed and that it was not mixed martial arts, which is his specialty.

Though it’s not in fitting with the Power Ranger mentality to trounce on someone with less training than you, as the fight would have been, I’m not sure that mentality would also lend to cage fighting.

Regardless this is a dissapointing outcome to a highly anticipated match. I’m looking forward to seeing where this career goes and whether or not he can fit the Dragonzord in that cage.

Thanks to Tigerpaw for helping to track down this information.

As featured on our game night two weeks ago!

Probably the second highest selling PC game ever, (The Sims being the first) it’s also one of the best real time stretegy games ever made. Player scan battle through an intensive single player campaign with three different factions (each with their own different abilities), play free online games on Blizzard’s Battle.net, or even create their own levels in the Campaign editor. This game is especially popular in South Korea, where players compete in televised gaming leagues! Even though this series has only 1 game and an expansion pack, (and a canceled third person spin-off) it rivals the entire Command and Conquer series in RTS action. With this special box set, you get Starcraft, it’s Expansion (Brood War), two strategy guides, a skill development chart, and even a free 14 day trial to Blizzard’s other big game, World of Warcraft.

So what makes Starcraft so special? For one, it’s gameplay is different. Instead of simply building units and hoping to overrun your opponent by creating as many as possible, players have to take into account the abilities and limitations of the units that are produced by their race. For instance, the Terran units each have advantages and disadvantages against different units, so creating a mix of different units is a key to a good offense. The Zerg however, are weak alone, but are cheap enough to be produced in massive quantities. Resource management is also a key factor, as you constantly need units to gather gas and minerals, while keeping an eye on their depletion levels. Between levels, a sci-fi plot complete with cinematics will keep you on the edge of your seat. With Starcraft 2 having just been announced, now is a good time to check out the original. Oh yeah, this game was also ported to the Nintendo 64 in 2000.

System Requirements:
Operating System: Windows 95 or later (including Vista)/Mas OS 7.6 or higher Power PC
Processor: Pentium 90, equivalent, or greater
RAM: 16 MB (32 MB RAM for multiplayer on MAC)
Storage: 100 MB Hard Disk space/80 MB for Mac
At least 2x CD ROM drive (4x for cinematics)
Video Card: Local Bus SVGA, Direct X compatible
Sound Card: DirextX compatible soundcard for audio

This weekend was supposed to mark the release of the Dead or Alive movie after a year of set backs but that did not happen as a result of last week’s disastrous limited release. Why is anyone surprised that it didn’t make the top 10? It was a limited release. I certainly never had the oppurtunity to go see this movie, as much as I’ve been intending to for quite a while.

Since it’s original international release in September 2006 this movie has been jerked around so much with plans for a straight to video release on and off and and eventual frequently delayed theatrical release. I’m not sure how much interest we’re expecting to have in a movie with so little studio support. Why didn’t we get this thing a year ago? The video release in Europe was months ago and people have been able to get this movie in some form for half a year.

Did anyone see so much as a commercial for this movie? I certainly didn’t. Hell I didn’t even know it had been released in Europe until after it was out on DVD. How lame. A movie’s initial weekend numbers are not based on it’s quality but rather on what advertising and hype are generated for the movie. It was treated like an independant movie and got those kind of numbers.

Oh well now we can finally get a DVD release of the movie like we should have gotten last year if the studio didn’t F this movie in the A.

Thanks for nothing Weinstein Company.

Now check out my Dead or Alive movie review from way back in March.