Tecmo’s Team Ninja is bringing the highly anticipated Ninja Gaiden 2 to Xbox 360 very soon. What better way to celebrate than to take a look back to the very beginning, when Ninja Gaiden was at the peak of its popularity on the 8-bit Nintendo? Even back then, Ninja Gaiden was known for its cutting-edge action gameplay, catchy music, and punishing difficulty. After three well-received games on the NES, a game boy spin off , various Sega-developed games featuring the title, and a Super Nintendo compilation pack of the three NES games, the most we would ever see of the series would be Ryu Hayabusa’s appearance among the cast of the Dead or Alive series. When the Xbox was nearing its release, one of the games announced for it was Tecmo’s Ninja Gaiden, an all new game unrelated to any previous game in the series. It would finally see a release in 2004, and became as much of a favorite among Xbox players as the originals had been among Nintendo players. The Xbox game took what was awesome about the NES games and bought it into 3-d. As a nod back to it’s past, it even included the three NES games as unlockables. Lets take a look now at this franchise’s 8-bit roots.

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Ubisoft showed this scene with no set up and no announcement at their Ubidays Conference today. While clever game journalists were quick to identify “The Pig” as Uncle Pey’j from Beyond Good & Evil, theres very little happening in this preview. Is the unseen woman with the umbrella Jade? Wheres the aliens? Wasn’t their world mostly covered with water?
Its possible that the game isn’t not going to be called “Beyond Good & Evil 2” but without a doubt, we’re actually getting a sequel. Fans, you actually won this one. Ubisoft listened to demand and now even though BG&E wasn’t a platnium seller, we’re going to get a next gen follow up. Lets make sure this one sells well so we won’t have to spend 4+ years worrying about whether the story gets told.

I know what you’re thinking. Botcon was weeks ago. We know everything already. Well, do you? I always found it hard to keep track of what news flowed out of Botcon because every site had a different post for each comment, picture and mention of something new. I have put together one big brain dump of every note I took during the convention with some pictures and links to more pictures and some design notes on Transformers.com. If you have any further comments, questions, or praise for the upcoming products, feel free to leave a message as a comment to this post.

Also, you can see more photos from the convention in my personal galleries here.

More after the jump!

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OK, so Guitar Hero is going the Rock Band route and introducing drums. I wasn’t eager to see this, as I don’t think my living room needs another drum kit. But after watching this video where Travis Barker, Chad Smith, and Stewart Copeland scrutinize the set, I’m eager to at least try it out. Will Guitar Hero reclaim the crown from all the Rock Band devotees? Hard to say, but Activision isn’t fooling around.

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In the world of 3-d fighting, there are two kings: Namco (Tekken and Soul Calibur) and Sega’s AM2 (Virtua Fighter). Tecmo’s Team Ninja and its Dead Or Alive franchise is closely behind the two, and is quickly gaining steam. Although Dead Or Alive has been criticized for it’s more simplistic play mechanics and heavy focus on the female form, it has earned praise for it’s envelope-pushing graphics, gorgeous backdrops, awesome looking player models, and robust online system. While DOA may not be a huge innovator in the fighting world, Team Ninja’s fighting franchise becomes deeper and more enjoyable with each iteration, and the series’s first appearance on the Xbox 360 is no different.

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Happy Towel Day, everyone!

Episode 1 – Fit the First Episode 2 – Fit the Second Episode 3 – Fit the Third Episode 4 – Fit the Fourth Episode 5 – Zaphod Episode 6 – Fit the Fifth Episode 7 – Fit the Sixth Episode 8 – Secondary Phase Episode 9 – Trillian

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This week we’re sitting down with Alice Ecker — voice of Trillian, the surprised looking sperm whale, Deep Thought programmer #1, and one of the Galgafrinchan survivors — to talk about her various roles, the role (and fate) of women in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and the upcoming Towel Day on May 25th!

Check out more details about Towel Day after the jump.

(Check out our new POWETcast thread in the forums to leave some feedback about the show. Alternatively, you can write a comment below and let us know what you think, and/or leave a review at our iTunes store to let others know what they should think!)

Show notes:

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It would seem like the recent revelations of “Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe” isn’t the only oddly-matched versus title in the works. In an interesting twist, “Tatsunoko vs. CAPCOM: Cross Generation of Heroes” is in development for an arcade release in Japan in winter of this year. A article in the upcoming issue of Weekly Famitsu Magazine will reveal more tidbits about the game.

For those who might not be anime buffs, Tatsunoko is an anime production studio famous for classic animes such as Speed Racer, Gatchaman (Battle of Planets), and also provided animation work on Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Whether Capcom means to include a lineup similar to it’s “Marvel vs.” games or not has yet to be confirmed, but one can simply imagine the thought of Speed attempting to beat Ryu senseless with a tire iron. Or maybe that’s just me. Regardless, it’s hard not to think that such a game isn’t grasping at straws in terms of good versus material, but given the aforementioned MK vs. DC game, I suppose nothing is out of the question for game developers these days.

At the time of its release, this Data East-developed game was second only to Konami’s X-men game in terms of multiplayer beat-em-up action, and even today it maintains its charm. Taking control of either Captain America, Iron Man, Vision, or Hawkeye, you battle your way through various supervillians in order to make it to the Red Skull’s moon base. You’ll meet Whirlwind, the Wizard, Ultron, Crossbones, and several other familiar Avengers villains. You’ll even run into Juggernaut and the Sentinels from the x-men comics. Quicksilver, Namor, the Wasp, and Wonder Man make cameo appearences. There are even some shooter segments to mix up the action. The game’s English translation took some hits (“Why should it goes well?”) when it came over here, but the game is still enjoyable, especially when you bring along friends. There is an absolute zero chance of this being re-released in any way (primarily due to the fact that Data East no longer exists and Activision holds the licensing rights to most major Marvel properties), so you’re going to have to do some searching to find the cartridge or cabinet. If you do manage to run across the game, check it out, and it will tide you over until Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 hits sometime down the road.