Bionic Commando Rearmed hit Xbox Live and PSN last week, so in honor of this special occasion, this week’s $20 GOTW and Lost Classics will take a special look at the new game, as well as a previous entry in the series. Enjoy!

In 1987, Capcom released an arcade game called Top Secret, which we over here would know it as Bionic Commando. It was a side-scrolling platformer in which the protagonist used a grappling arm to traverse the game’s 4 levels. It wasn’t a terrible game, but it was nothing special. When an NES sequel, which was known in Japan as Top Secret: Hitler’s Revival was released the following year however, that was when the series really took off. Players took control of Nathan ‘Radd’ Spencer, who was sent behind enemy lines to rescue Super Joe from the Imperialist Nazis who sought to resurrect Adolf Hitler. Players traveled through several stages to uncover the enemy’s plan and stop them. [Read the rest of this entry…]

Bleach, shown Saturday nights on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, is one of the most watched anime shows among adults and teens. If not for its late night time slot and liberal amounts of blood and cleavage, it would be popular with younger viewers as well. Based on Shonen Jump’s manga of the same name, the series centers around Ichigo Kurosaki, a teenager who has the ability to see the spirits of the dead. When a mysterious woman visits him, he is attacked by a creature known as a hollow. To defend himself and his family, he takes his strange visitor’s power and uses it to become a Soul Reaper, (or Shinigami as they are known in the Japanese version) who are samurai-like warriors who have special abilities they use to defeat hollows. While the series has nearly reached 200 episodes in Japan, it recently returned to U.S. TV last March after a brief hiatus, and at the time of this writing, it’s only at 77 episodes, so North American fans who don’t watch the online fansubs still have much to look forward to. While it may not be as huge and popular as Naruto, Dragon Ball Z, or Pokemon, Bleach has devoted a fairly large fanbase, and there is a decent variety of merchandise available for fans. There have been action figures, a collectible card game, English translations of the original manga, and most importantly, video games. Thus far, Sega has published two Bleach games on U.S. shores, one of which, Bleach: The Blade of Fate for the Nintendo DS, is this week’s $20 game of the week. As a special bonus, we’ll take a look at the other game, Bleach: Shattered Blade for the Nintendo Wii. Both of these games are fighters, and both vary in degrees of quality. Die hard fans of the series probably already have these two games, but more moderate fans will probably be on the fence about them. So if you want the word on how well these games play, continue forward.
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In January 2009, Marvel will be continuing their series of direct to DVD movie releases with ‘The Hulk Vs’. The DVD will contain two short animated stories each featuring a different fight that the Hulk has been famous for. The first will be Hulk vs. Thor. The second will be Hulk vs. Wolverine. The trailer for Hulk vs. Wolverine was just released as you can see below.

From ENewsI.com:

HULK VS THOR – It’s gods versus monsters in this epic 45 minute movie! Never have we explored the explosive power of the Hulk like we have in this new film, every major character from the Marvel Thor universe is thrust into battle with this Green Goliath as he brings a new Ragnarok down upon the realm of gods.

HULK VS WOLVERINE- This dark, violent, smash and slash story was first told in issue 181 of THE INCREDIBLE HULK and the rematches have continued to thrill comic fans ever since. Now Marvel and Lionsgate takes the best of those famous comic book battles and merges them into one heart pounding 33-minute story.

There will be a complete advanced screening of the Hulk vs. Wolverine story at San Diego Comic Con later this month.

If you missed out on the original SNES game or the Playstation re-release, you’ll be given a new chance this holiday season to get your hands on one of the best games ever made, period.

Square has seen fit to re-release Chrono Trigger. Sounds like they’ll be tossing in a ‘new dungeon’ as well as modifying the game to make use of the dual screens and some touch commands. But, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it: They won’t make it a 3D conversion like some of the recent Final Fantasy games on DS. This video above is from the Playstation version. No word if those new anime cut scenes will survive to the new DS version, but all are available on youtube if you’re clever.

If you never played Chrono Trigger, and there are a lot of you, then know this: its the only Japanese RPG I ever played, and I played it enough to see all the endings, including the very hard one. Its the classic story of boy meets girl, girl falls into time warp, boy saves girl, robot punches dinosaur, world falls into peril, magic kingdom summons alien, etc, etc. But its really fun with engaging combat options that do away with random battles and grinding, as well attacks that combine character abilities, and enough time travel puzzles to make Marty McFly’s head spin.
Join us in our forums to talk about what you loved about the game, or leave a comment asking us what the fuss is about.

Official press release follows
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Metal Gear Solid 4 was released earlier this week, so this week’s $20 Game of the week and Lost Classics will spotlight 2 entries from the series. So once you get done with 4, seek them out if you haven’t played through them already! Despite the similarity in names, this is not the Playstation smash hit, but it’s the American release of what is known in Japan as Metal Gear Solid: Ghost Babel. Ghost Babel exists outside of series canon, and contains a new plot, new characters, and new enemies.
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A Witchblade movie was recently announced and we now have a teaser poster. I think it pretty much speaks for itself, but for those that want more, here is a snippet from FirstShowing.Net:

The comic followed Sara Pezzini, a NYPD detective who comes into possession of the Witchblade, a supernatural, sentient artifact with immense destructive and protective powers. The artifact is actually an ornate jewel-encrusted gauntlet that gives extraordinary powers to the wearer, a specially chosen female from each generation. We can expect that the film will follow a story based on that mythology with a central female character coming in possession of the gauntlet. IMDb lists Michael Rymer, of “Battlestar Galactica”, as the director, although his involvement is entirely unconfirmed at the moment. The film is expected to go into production this September for a 2009 release.

Koei and W-force’s Musou games (known over here as Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors) are Japan’s equivalent to our sports franchises, except for the fact that they have educational value added to them. They featured anime-styled versions of historical figures and battles throughout the Warring States and Three Kingdoms eras. The games get periodic releases with a roster update, slight graphical updates, and some new features added. They also get a bad rap for their repetition and simplistic playing mechanics. While some of the criticism is deserved, the series does a excellent job of catering to it’s small-but-devoted fanbase, and this entry is no exception.
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In 1994, MGM released the Roland Emmerich-directed film Stargate. It told the tale of a portal which led to an alternate world which was not unlike ancient Egypt, but with futuristic technologies. Although it received a lukewarm reaction from critics, the public enjoyed it enough for it to eventually become a franchise, complete with comic books, TV spin-offs, an animated cartoon, novels, made-for-dvd movies, and a few video games. One of these video games was a decent if by-the-numbers 16-bit title from Acclaim. It wasn’t anything mind-blowing, but you could do a lot worse for a Super Nintendo movie tie-in.
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