When the X-Box 360 had problems playing original X-Box games it was somewhat expected. It was announced a good while before launch and the reason was because the hardware was so different. Up until this weekend Sony’s claim was that backwards compatibility would be supported for PlayStation and PS2 games. Now that it’s released in Japan we see that that’s not true at all.

According to this BBC article a Japanese newspaper has claimed that 200 games don’t play properly on the new system. Though Sony has acknowledged the problem and first stated it on their web site the day of the Japanese release of the system, they aren’t giving a number of how many games are affected.

As usual promises are made to add compatibility for problematic games through patches available online. This is all so familiar.

Sony now has the following statement listed on their description of the PS3’s features:

NOTE
Some PlayStation 2 or PlayStation format software titles may perform differently on this system than they do on PlayStation 2 or PlayStation systems, or may not perform properly on this system. PS3 does not support a vibration controller.

Gamers can go to this page on Sony’s official site to check to see what games don’t work. Unfortunately it’s all in Japanese so good luck in making much sense of it. Search for nothing to get a list of all games. The right colum shows if the game works or not. In fairness it took me a while browsing through that list to find a game with a reported problem but if you narrow your search down to include only PlayStation 1 games you’ll notice that problems are a lot more common. Use this to translate.

It still remains to be seen if Nintendo shares the curse of the current generation of game systems but given their track record of backwards compatibility in their handhelds I’m not terribly worried.

I do realize it’s called “LEGO Star Wars” despite the fact that I call it “Star Wars LEGO” a number of times in this review…

Details about the most anticipated guitar simulation game of the year have slowly rolled out all summer since the initial showing at E3, but we’ve neglected to post about them until now when we’ve got a lot of new info.
First up, at the Harmonix Myspace Blog they’ve debuted the box art for the individual DVD case, the guitar bundle, and the guitar itself. Ohh, stickers!
Courtesy Logan from our forum, here’s the list of songs current confirmed for GHII

Nirvana – Heart Shaped Box
Primus – John the Fisherman
Stone Temple Pilots – Trippin’ On a Hole in a Paper Heart
Anthrax – Madhouse
Motley Crue – Shout at the Devil
The Police – Message in a Bottle
The Pretenders – Tattooed Love Boys
Cheap Trick – Surrender
Spinal Tap – Tonight I’m Going to Rock You Tonight
Heart – Crazy For You
Allman Brothers Band – Jessica
Lynyrd Skynyrd – Freebird
Avenged Sevenfold – Beast and the Harlot
Dick Dale – Misirlou
Lamb of God – Laid to Rest
Alice in Chains – Them Bones
Reverent Horton Heat – Psychobilly Freakout
Black Sabbath – War Pigs
KISS – Strutter
Rage Against The Machine – Killing In The Name Of
Butthole Surfers – Who Was in My Room Last Night?
Van Halen – You Really God Me
Guns ‘n Roses – Sweet Child O’ Mine
The Rolling Stones – Can’t You Hear Me Knocking
Rush – YYZ

In addition, Voivod announced they’ve been contacted for inclusion on GHII, but haven’t mentioned what song yet.

Guitar Hero II is slated for a November 7, 2006 release.

Continue on for gameplay movies…

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In 2000, Capcom and it’s biggest rival SNK combined thier forces together to make one of the biggest fighting game crossovers since, well, Marvel vs Capcom.  The result had lots of potential, but the point system made the gameplay painfully unbalanced.  Thankfully, it was followed up upon a year later with what to this day remains the biggest 2-d fighting game ever.  Lots of cast members joined from both companies’ various catalogs, from Fatal Fury and Street Fighter to Samurai Showdown and Darkstalkers, and even lesser known games like Rival Schools and Last Blade.  Capcom adopted SNK’s playing system well and managed to integrate it’s own.  With the 6 grooves, players could play thier favorite characters how they wanted.  In short it was fighting game bliss.

A side note, the Xbox version is the only version with online play, and it was one of the first games on Xbox Live.

Guest reviewer Ryu gives us a unique perspective on the Street Fighter Anniversary Collection and Street Fighter Alpha Anthology games for the PlayStation 2. Also includes a look at the Official Street Fighter Anniversary Edition Controller.

Before Grand Theft Auto became their major cash cow, Rockstar gave players another action franchise early on in the current console generation. At the time it first came out, Max Payne stood out from other games of it’s type with 2 major innovations; Matrix-like bullet time and a film noir plotline. The former slowed everything to a crawl in order to give players a bit of strategy in planning out their next move while the latter used graphic novel-styled cinema sequences to move the story along.

2 years and dozens of copycats later, Rockstar released a sequel. It didn’t push the boundaries as the first game did, but it gave gamers more of what they loved about the original Max Payne. The bullet time was improved slightly, and the plot was just as riveting as the first. It’s only bad point is it’s short length. The game can be completed in a weekend. Luckily for PC gamers, tons of downloadable content extend this game’s replay value a lot. Hopefully Rockstar will give us a sequel that will be a bit bigger. Until then, action game fans looking for a good plotline can’t go wrong here.