Here is 26 minutes of Hideo Kojima, Shinji Mikami, and Suda 51 talking. Why is that important? Because they’re the creators of Metal Gear, Resident Evil, and Killer 7; respectively. Arguably the most influential minds of the playstation generation. Next year’s biggest games will no doubt be Metal Gear Solid 4, Resident Evil 5, and No More Heroes, so these guys will only get more influential.

In the early 90s, Final Fight style beat em ups were a dime a dozen. Few managed to separate themselves themselves from the pack. However, there was one that managed to make itself into something classic. Taito’s Sonic Blastman began life in the arcades as a punching game which used two large punch pads and specialized gloves to complete certain minigames. It was bought to Super Nintendo as a beat-em-up. You bashed your way from the city streets to outer space as you fought off hordes of villains. The arcade minigames came to the SNES game as bonus levels. A sequel was released a few years later adding in two extra characters (your prerequisite slow strongman and fast woman, with Sonic Blastman being the balanced team leader) and a two-player simultaneous mode so you and a friend can take on the forces of evil together. Sure there are many beat-em-ups, and many games about superheroes, but there were none like Sonic Blastman. Hopefully we can expect a Virtual Console release sometime in the near future, since Taito already has the not nearly as awesome Legend of Kage available on the service.

With Nintendo’s Wii and DS, the features that make them standout (the stylus and motion sensing control) also turn out to be their biggest liabilities. Developers often feel obligated to make use of them regardless of how well it can be implemented. As a result, we end up with games with mediocre playability due to the fact that the developers shoehorned Wiimote/stylus functionality into what would have worked just as fine (if not better) without it. This is why we should be thankful for games such as Mega Man DX, as it proves that DS and Wii games don’t necessarily have to make extensive use of fancy new features to be good.
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Check out the first official episode of Famicom Dojo, and ongoing internet television project between Powet.TV and 4colorrebellion.com!

YouTube Version

Blip.TV Version
Direct Link: Famicom Dojo: Famicom and Disk System

Video Netcast Version
 Subscribe to iTunes POWETcast
Direct Link: Famicom Dojo – Episode 01 – Famicom and Disk System

Show Notes
http://famicomdojo.tv/season1/famicom-and-disk-system

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At long last, He-Fans will be treated to the relaunched series from 2002 in DVD format. Details are scarce, but most of the details will be announced at SDCC 2007 later this month.

From He-Man.org:

On Saturday, July 28th – from 2:30pm to 3:30pm – in Room 10.
Masters of the Universe DVD release! At long last the popular 2002 MOTU animated series is coming to DVD! Come help celebrate this release with a special screening of episode 35 –The Power of Grayskull and learn the secret origin of the most Powerful Man in the Universe- HE-MAN! Q&A with Mattel toy designers to follow.

With the high anticipation of the PSP-exclusive game God of War: Chains of Olympus game on the horizon, talks of the demo release permeate through the web. I’ve managed to get my hands on some exclusive concept art for the upcoming game, revealing a few interesting points in the game – more importantly the concepts of the “Death Tree”. Whether this takes a page from 300 or not is anyone’s guess.

The game itself focuses on Kratos’s life whilst in servitude to the gods before the storyline of the first God of War game, and brings talk of new areas and new enemies adapted from Greek mythology for the Spartan to endure, including a trip to Hades. (presumably where said Death Tree is)

Chains of Olympus is slated for a November release, with the demo being available to Playstation Underground members in September.

This week we’re gonna look at one of the most prolific and underrated RPGs of the 16-era. It was unique for its time because of its hybrid RTS/Turn-based gameplay, massive scope, and a shifting alignment system which was years ahead of its time, even yielding one of 12 different endings based on your actions. Enix released the game on the Super Nintendo with a limited run. A ‘special edition’ was released on Playstation by Atlus, also having a limited run. Sequels to this game have appeared on the Nintendo 64, Playstation, and Game Boy Advance, but there is nothing better than the original.
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If you had told me 20 years ago, after the abysmal box office showing that was the original Transformers animated feature, that a Transformers film would outdo Spider-Man’s opening week gross, I would have said, “What, that weird kid that appeared in the comic book? So?”

Sorry, run that forward a little bit.

If you had told me five years ago, after Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man film made $400 million at the domestic box office, breaking records along the way, that a Transformers film would (so far) outdo that hot property the same year as the third installment, I would have laughed. If the best that the Aquaman property could hope for was to beat Spider-Man in a fictional scenario in the HBO series Entourage, surely in the real world a toy company’s property had even less of a chance.

Well, now Michael Bay is laughing. All the way to his gold-plated Camaro. (Goldbug?)

The Transformers opening 6-day gross of over $155 milion has beaten out Spider-Man’s $151 million, and so far it shows little sign of slowing down. Along the way, it garnered the highest opening Tuesday ever (by $12 million dollars — up 80% from now-second place), the third highest Wednesday ever (now fourth, thanks to Harry Potter’s new record-setting Wednesday premiere), and the title as the biggest opening week for a non-sequel in all of film history — the title which Spider-Man held until last Sunday.

Spider-Man is clearly not very happy about this development. Not content to leave the battle at the box office, our intrepid arachnid friend was last seen hurling himself into battle against the alien robot menace at the end of the first issue of the New Avengers / Transformers 4-part mini-series. Not since Transformers #3 — at the time a Marvel publication — have we seen these two clash. Guys, can’t we all just get along?

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