I wanted to give you some first impressions a while ago when the demo hit Xbox Live, but it was too short to fully try out the game’s features. Also, I wasn’t too sure about the new direction EA decided to take with the series, so I decided to wait until I could find it used. For those of you who don’t already know, for reasons known only to themselves, EA decided to hand the Def Jam brand off to EA Chicago, the creators of the Fight Night series. Many players agree that it was just fine with developer AKI, but Kudo Tsunoda had his own ideas for the series, mainly integrating the music into the game engine, and making use of the analog sticks in a manner similar to Fight Night. It’s clearly not gonna be for everyone, and there are a few areas that could use some work, but for the most part, it’s a bold new direction for the series.
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Famicom Dojo is back for its second episode! In this installment, we go over why the Famicom Disk System was such a tremendous boon for console gaming worldwide, even though the peripheral never made it to North American (or other) shores.

Blip.TV Version

YouTube Version
Direct Link: Famicom Dojo: The Battery Backup

Video Netcast Version
 Subscribe to iTunes POWETcast
Direct Link: Famicom Dojo – Episode 02 – Battery Backup

Show Notes
http://famicomdojo.tv/season1/battery-backup

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This is an official ad for the November release of Geometry Wars Galaxies, but it looks more like a fan vid, right down the amateur cover of a They Might Be Giants classic. Game looks sweet still.

Yes ladies and gentlemen the Wii finally gets another firmware update today, bringing the system up to 3.0U. The primary accomplishments of this update? A fairly major overhaul to the Wii Shop Channel and a clock on the main screen. Hey it’s not exactly loading games off an SD card, but we’ll take what we can get. For anyone curious about the Wii’s new abilities, we’ve got the full list of known changes after the jump.

(Thanks to NeoGAF poster EphemeralDream)
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Word cycling around the interweb recently is that a new Batman anime movie piece is going to be thrown in as a companion piece to the recent Christian Bale Batman movies. You heard me; a Batman Anime.

The animated film, which will bridge the gap left between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, will introduce a few new characters, as well as develop some already existing ones. The plot has yet to be fully revealed thus far, but hopes for a PG-13 release not long before the second movie drops into theaters. Batman Begins Screenwriter David Goyer has put his talents into this little piece, as well as comic book writer Brian Azzarello and others.

How this will classify as “anime” has yet to be seen, and will be interesting to keep an eye on.

In 1999, Capcom’s Flagship Studios was still riding high off the success of Resident Evil. They were gearing up to release not only the third game in the franchise, but also Dino Crisis, a survival horror game in a similar vein. The game was good, but it’s slow pacing and control scheme basically regulated it to being Resident Evil with Dinosaurs. Taking the criticisms to heart, Capcom released this sequel the following year which not only gave the series its own identity, but made it into a fast paced enjoyable action game for Playstation 1 games not yet ready to make the jump to the next generation. In fact, this game was a lot better than most of the Playstation 2’s launch lineup. After this game, no one would confuse Dino Crisis with Resident Evil again.
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• Marvel Legends Icons and 2-Packs
• DC Universe/DC Superheroes
• Castlevania

So read on for more details…

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Smash Bros.com updates daily with news about the new game, but today they let loose some that the game will actually have a full single player game. Super Smash Bros Melee on Gamecube had a single player game that didn’t exactly have a story, it was some light side scrolling with lots of combat.

Lots of screens and some hints for what this mode includes can be found here. I’m getting kind of a Kingdom Hearts vibe off the whole thing: many characters who don’t belong together working and fighting together.