This fall will be a heavy time for Castlevania fanatics, as it’s been announced by Konami that both of the newest titles of the acclaimed series, “Order of Ecclesia” and “Judgement” will be released sometime later this year.

Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, reported upon earlier, is the Nintendo DS title following upon the footsteps of previous games such as Symphony of the Night and Aria of Sorrow in terms of gameplay, as an action-adventure 2D platformer. It takes control of newcomer Shanoa as she searches for the lost Belmont family while battling the minions of Dracula.

Castlevania: Judgement, if you haven’t heard yet, will be a 3D fighting game; a first for the series. (for obvious reasons) Castlevania characters from all over the series continuum will be thrown together in a style leechingly-similar to Soul Calibur to fight one another in a (hopefully) non-canon battle royale. A even more shocking twist is the hiring of Death Note’s Takeshi Obata to do character designs, completely overhauling pre-existing designs mostly coming from series-usual Ayame Kojima.

This fall will surely prove to be an interesting turn of events for Castlevania fans. Many debates have already begun as to the fate of both games as numerous fans, while liking the usual-style Ecclesia is going with, denounce Judgement as straying too far from the Castlevania norm and claim it to be merely Konami’s cash-maker. Come this autumn, we’ll see what’s what when both games are launched to brave public scrutiny.

With Metal Gear Solid 4 having hit stores earlier this month, we took a look at Metal Gear Solid: Ghost Babel, which was a Metal Gear game set outside of series continuity. This week’s lost classic will take a look back at another non-canon Metal Gear game. Snake’s Revenge, developed for the NES by Konami under its Ultra Games label, can be considered the red-haired stepchild of the Metal Gear franchise. It was developed without the involvement of series creator Hideo Kojima. After the original Metal Gear was successful in the U.S., Konami commissioned its developers to create a sequel. After meeting one of the developers and being told that Snake’s Revenge wasn’t meant to be a true Metal Gear game, Kojima was inspired to create the true sequel, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake. Surprisingly, despite hating the NES Metal Gear game, Kojima has stated that he likes Snake’s Revenge, saying that it’s in the spirit of the Metal Gear series. If one gives this game a shot, then it’s easy to see why.

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Fans of Blizzard’s Diablo series may now rejoice. After 8 years of anticipation since Diablo II’s release and wondrous results, the big boys at Blizzard finally broke the long silence about another sequel to the dark fantasy MMORPG – Diablo III.

Diablo first came out in 1997 for the PC, and after a fairly positive reception, Diablo 2 followed a few years after with resounding fan approval. It featured elements that would later be seen in Blizzard’s money-making giant, World of Warcraft. After the success for the first two games, word of a third Diablo game remained strictly amongst fans, as Blizzard seemed to keep a tight lip as to even remote possibilities of a game ever being produced, and truly the idea was overshadowed once World of Warcraft came out. However, with announcements last year of Starcraft finally getting a true sequel, whispers once again started to stir of Diablo’s resurrection. Thankfully, fruit has been borne of those desires.

The launched site features a surprising amount of eye-candy in terms of media and visual accounts of actual gameplay. Two classes have been released thus far on the site: the return of the Barbarian-class from Diablo 2, as well as a Witch Doctor-class that no doubt will be replacing the Necromancer from the previous game. New and old monster classes have been released in small doses as well, and no doubt additional character and monster classes will be revealed as time goes on.

Check out the site here – Official Diablo III Site

No announcements on a projected release date for the game have been given, though speculation suggests that it will be either before or after Starcraft 2, to give the respective giants their space.

Bumblebee screeches down the road in Love Park on Penn’s campus during a shoot on Friday 6/13/08

Josh Landow comes through again with another set report. This time star Shia Labeouf and his bitchin’ Camaro were shooting at some frat houses at the University of Pennsylvania!
As usual, possible spoilers follow.
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After Josh Landow went On set with Transformers 2 in Philadelphia, another Y100 DJ, John Von, has supplied Powet.TV with more photos and video!

John’s video is comprised of the aerial camera rig and helicopter taking sweeping shots of a cemetery. Who died? Jon did get the first known photograph of the Chevy Beat concept car thats joined the cast. A separate eyewitness report yesterday suggested the Beat was racing across Philly’s Ben Franklin Bridge with Bumblebee!
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	Subscribe to iTunes POWETcast  Choose your own reader Famicom Dojo – Video Netcast Promo Famicom Dojo – Wii Launch Day Special

When people first hear about Famicom Dojo, one of the first things they ask is “got a link to the feed?”

Feed? What is this “feed” you speak of?

Well, wait no more! The Famicom Dojo Video Netcast premieres this month, featuring full-resolution (480i, anyway), spruced-up versions of all our Season 1 episodes and specials. Videos will be added twice per month until we’ve caught up to all the existing episodes.

New episodes will still premiere here and on 4 Color Rebellion via YouTube through the rest of the season. Sound like a deal?

The feed will also feature some exclusive video content. Nothing terribly extravagent. The current Video Netcast Promo, is a fairly good example. It will also be available on YouTube (in a little while) to alert any subscribers who don’t regularly visit Powet.TV

Nothing’s changing, we’re just adding more content and another delivery system. We’re probably not going to post every time the feed is updated, but we’re certainly going to mention it every time a new Season 1 episode goes up. You can still check your favorite geek sites for new videos, and — as always — stop by Powet.TV for our show notes, and other great shows!

So what are you waiting for? Subscribe already! And be sure to leave feedback at our free iTunes storefront to let others know how great this show is! And feel free to become a fan on our new Facebook page!

Zac Shipley and Sean Orange took in the latest Harrison Ford epic and wonder aloud if it was all worth it, and if we deserve another.

I’ve touched on this a few times with the topic of feminism in games, but I think this guy does the topic justice more than I have.

After the cut, another video Daniel Floyd made about Storytelling.
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