Lets get the biggest news out of the way: PlayStation 3 launches Nov 17th in the US for $499 with a 20 GB hard drive and for $599 with a 60 GB hard drive. They’ve also ditched the boomerang controller for… a controller identical to the PS2. But wait! Its got motion sensors too! Its an obvious last minute addition, as they’ve got no games to support the feature.
Wow. Just wow. Kotaku and Jostiq have excellent minute by minute coverage of the Sony Event.

Glossed over by Sony is what else will be missing from the $499 PS3 bundle: Wireless, HDMI, and Memory stick support.

The show doesn’t even start until Wednesday officially and theres already so much to talk about!

Other big news announced today: [Read the rest of this entry…]

There is already a mountain of variations to the classic board game Monopoly, but there’s always room for one more. Kotaku posted this image of a forthcoming Nintendo version.
After some diligent investigation (aka google) I was unable to come up with any further information about the game. We’ll all keep our eyes peeled, because it would be nice to have a Mario Party where someone doesn’t curse over not knowing how to play all the minigames.

Major Leage Gaming has landed a major deal with the USA Network to broadcast its 2006 Championship Season in 7 hour-long installments.
See the MLG coverage blitz in action.
Two games definitely on the roster this year are long-time favorites Super Smash Brothers Melee on Gamecube and Halo 2 on Xbox. New games may be added later, but these 2 titles will be present at every event.
This should be a heck of a show. I don’t know how well it will play to non-gamers, but Halo and SSBM players shouldn’t miss this.

From the 7th to the 15th to the 21st
Its only another week, but New Super Mario Brothers is something we’ve waited for very patiently and we can wait a little longer. Not like there isn’t a stack of unplayed and incomplete games here at the Shipley compound…

thx mike!

Edit: OMG, Nintendo has update their site and it says May 15 again.

Since I was so enraged by both the Matrix video game and the delay of New Super Mario Brothers, only one thing could make up for it.

A shot-for-shot remake of a scene from Matrix Reloaded with Mario and Luigi.

If you got 2 hours to kill, why not watch a video from The “Mario & Zelda Big Band Live” concert, from September 14th, 2003, at the Nihon Seinenkan Hall in Tokyo, Japan. Koji Kondo and Shigeru Miyamoto make appearances, and theres a bit of (Japanese) talking between the songs.

thanks 4cr!

Take a classic style Super Mario Bros. game, switch Mario with Peach and what do you get? Super Princess Peach.

In a terribly obvious role reversal we see Mario get kidnapped (by a goomba of all things) and Peach now tasked with the role of saving him. Pretty basic concept that one would expect to produce an inferior style title. But no! This game is solid. It really does play just like a an old school Mario Bros. game. This game is what I was hoping New Mario Bros. would turn out to be like. So why are all the fanboys out there drooling over New Mario Bros. without giving this one a shot? … maybe they just don’t want to look gay like some guys who always choose Peach in Super Mario Bros. 2? I bet they don’t have such reservations about playing Metroid!
So basically you’ve got peach walking around in a world which looks kind of like Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World and a bit of Yoshi’s Island tossed into it without having that ugly looks like it was drawn with crayon style Yoshi’s Island had. She doesn’t use standard power ups but instead uses her emotions to fly, cry on enemies, burn things or heal. You can also purchase power ups with the coins you collect in levels to do things like tricks with your super parasol to get through levels. The object of the game is to rescue 3 hidden Toads in each stage and then fight a boss at the end of each world. This plays out pretty well because, through the use of your special abilities, there’s quite a variety of ways in which the Toads can be hidden. While the game starts out as being quite simple it picks up in difficulty soon enough. While not a terribly difficult game the maze like levels do offer a challenge reminiscent of later levels in Super Mario Bros. 3 or Super Mario World. The bosses all require little tricks to beat in the style of a Yoshi’s Island or Super Mario Sunshine boss. This keeps things interesting.

Simply put I recommend this game to anyone with an appreciation for side scrolling Mario games who wants to try something new.

Now check out the official site which has tons more content then your average game’s official site. And it’s just bizarre stuff like t-shirt designs and a little app to make a fake magazine. Nintendo.com also has a nice page for the game put together.

Saw some scans of New Super Mario Bros from 4chan’s video game board, so I “borrowed” the pictures…

The game looks awesome as hell and I can’t wait to play a new Mario game that wasnt made by a fan.