This weekend’s Square-Enix party in Chiba, Japan revealed some more interesting tidbits and videos about upcoming titles and plans for the future. Did you expect anything less?

Amongst the flurry of closer video presentation and excitable cosplayers, Square-Enix dropped some more information regarding the new Final Fantasy: Dissidia game for the PSP, including playable characters for the title such as Zidane and Kuja from FFIX, Warrior of Light from the original game, and….big surprise….Sephiroth! Or at least, that’s what has lead viewers of the footage believe. Of course, we won’t know until the official confirmation as to whether or not the famous villian would truly be playable.

Some new footage of a new entry to the Kingdom Hearts series was also featured, but was left vague as to whether or not it was related to the KH3 teaser at the end of the second game, or if it is part of a side-story and new game altogether. Word has it confusion probably won’t be cleared up until the Tokyo Game Show in September.

Ah Square-Enix, you are the cock-tease of the gaming world.

Monty Python’s got nothing on this.

In the town of Linz, Austria, a possibly rabid rabbit attacked a 74-year old woman in her back yard while she was hanging up her laundry. The the hysterical hare launched itself at the old woman, and while it didn’t exactly “nibble her bum”, it did manage to bite her foot and caused her to fall, before her husband managed to come out to battle the beast. When police arrived on the scene, they managed to subdue the beast. Unfortunately, no holy hand granades were availible at the time, so the policemen had to improvise by shooting the rodent when it tried to attacked them as well.

No lackies were harmed during the brutal encounter.

You can read the heroic tale HERE.

This is the last Halo 3 Beta video I’ll ever post here. It opens up in less than a week and then we’ll overrun with clever videos and the urgency will be gone.
That said, I am posting this one because its the best look I’ve seen at the 3 Beta maps and a really great look at not only the portable jump pad but also the Spartan Laser. Can’t wait to see if this dispaces the Rocket Launcher as the Anti-Vehicle weapon of choice.

With Ed Norton cast as Bruce Banner, and Liv Tyler cast as Betty Ross, looks like it’s time to start casting the bad guys – And Tim Roth has been cast as The Abomination, longtime enemy of The Hulk.

The story of the Abomination – at least in the comics – is that of a former KGB spy named Emil Blonsky who becomes exposed to Gamma Radiation (the same radiation responsible for the Hulk’s powers). However, instead of transforming back and forth like Banner does, Blonsky becomes permanently trapped in his hideous, mutated form, and he retains the same level as intelligence as always. You can try to track down the semi-recent retelling of his history in the Incredible Hulk: Destruction miniseries by Peter David, but as it’s not collected in a trade yet, good luck to you on that.

Like Soul Calibur, but not a big fighting-game buff? Seems there might be an upcoming alternative.

Soul Calibur Legends has been announced by Namco to be released for the Wii, and has been dubbed as an “adventure game” rather than the series usual forte with fighting. The player will travel through the 16th century, and will run into the Soul Calibur crew along their way. Sword-based combat will obviously utilize the Wiimote for the basics of Hack’n Slash. A release date has not, as of yet, been released to the general public, and will be anxiously awaited in the future.

If this type of gameplay seems familiar, it should. A similar type of “adventure combat” was used in fellow fighter series Mortal Kombat’s newest release Armageddeon, where the character ran around in “Konquest Mode” collecting items and fighting enemies, and would occationally enter into into a Combat Mode, where you would then fight your opponent one-on-one like you would in the regular fighting mode. Whether or not Soul Calibur means to do the same or something similar remains to be seen.

This week’s edition of Famitsu has an article on the new addition to the SC series, so check it out.

Its been some time since Valve and EA announced they’d bring the stunning Half Life 2 to the Xbox 360 & PS3. Its been an even longer time since Valve commited to an episodic sequel instead of a full on development of Half Life 3.

Valve’s updated their Steam service with news that Episode 2 is nearly complete! This is great news because it means they can get it up for download very soon and the wait is almost over. Well thats great news for PC Gamers anyway.

Console folks like myself can rest easy knowing that full focus will soon shift toward completing Episode 2 for consoles, to be released in the “Orange Box” edition with the new online Multiplayer Team Fortress 2 and the gravity physics puzzle game Portal, not to mention the full release of Half Life 2 and Episode 1. Even at the premium price of $59.99 for a next gen game, thats a crazy amount of content!

Hey, thats not all, Game Head went to Valve’s offices recently, and you can watch the full episode below…
[Read the rest of this entry…]

Nova #2
written by Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning, art by Sean Chen

My surprise delight last month was issue #1 of Nova. Having read Annihilation I was definitely looking forward to the series. After all, it was the same team that wrote his lead-in book to Annihilation, and that was probably my favorite of the four that were made. While this book wasn’t as deep on story as I expected, it was one hell of a thrill-ride, all the way through. Sean Chen doesn’t have a long resume of work, but I was definitely pleased with his work here. He showed some gorgeous spacescapes, his aliens were nicely alien looking, and he did some great, great action sequences. Even better, the book was written very clearly, in a way where someone who didn’t read Annihilation could pick it up and run with it.

If you missed the first issue, you missed one of the better new series to come out in the last couple years. It’s a crapload of fun and excitement, and it’s a lot of fun to read, if for no other reason than that the Worldmind that Nova’s constantly dealing with is kind of an arrogant prick. Issue #2 lands this Wednesday, and with Nova’s newfound galaxy-class power levels, it looks like he’s about to come face to face with a post-Civil War Iron Man, which I can only hope results in Iron Man getting turned into toothpaste.

Your store may have another copy of Nova #1 lying around, so grab it if you can, and grab issue #2 while you’re at it. This book kicks ass.

Gotta love Square-Enix for their teasers.

Yesterday, a new site was launched representing the newest addition to the legendary Final Fantasy series : Dissidia. Obviously, not much is out right now in terms of information about the game, other than it’s for the PSP, and Nomura is doing the character designs. The unconfirmed info concerning the game is that it very well might not be a traditional RPG, like the rest of the series, and that it may be based off of Final Fantasy XIII. This is also meant to be a part of the “20th Anniversary” stint of special goodies being released by Square-Enix.

More details will supposedly be released at this weekend’s Square-Enix Party. No release date other that “TBA” has been given as of yet.

You can check out the teaser site HERE.