Ready? It’s the second of our three-part coverage of TGS 2007!

In this installment, we cover:

Soul Calibur Legends
Oneechanbara R
Final Fantasy IV DS
Sony Presser

YouTube

Video Netcast
 Subscribe to iTunes POWETcast
Famicom Dojo – TGS 2007 Special – Part 2

Show notes at FamicomDojo.TV:
TGS 2007 Special, Part 1

Episode links after the jump!

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Take Geometry Wars, pour in a cup of music rhythm game, and add in a dash of puzzle. Stir it all together and bake it for 45 minutes, and you get this downloadable surprise hit. Created by Jonathan Mak, Everyday shooter takes the familiar dual analog control scheme (left stick for movement, right stick for shooting) and integrates music into the gameplay. You play through several levels, each with their own graphical style, music, and play mechanics. The trick is to create explosions, and chain them together to add on more points. Each level has a different method of creating chains, and only by practice will you discover them all. Besides competing for high scores, the points you earn can be used to unlock features in the game’s shop. The play mechanics of Everyday Shooter are as simple as they get, yet it’s addictive and hard to master. For only $10, you can download this title from the Playstation Network’s online store.

We’re a bit late this week due to the outage, but we’re back. I’m gonna give you the $20 GOTW and the Lost Classics at the same time this week, as to not to overshadow aDam’s Mexican Independence day. One of this week’s featured games is one of the all time greats of the RTS genre, while the other is one of the few good movie based games of the 16-bit era. So, lets waste no further time in getting started. Click the jump and come ride with me to your local video game dealers bargain bin.
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Captain Planet’s got nothing on Sony.

In a turn of planetary charity, Sony has announced that they are setting up a program that would allow people to turn in their old broken or unwanted Playstation consoles in for recycling. The Sony “Take Back Recycling Program” will launch September 15th, and will accept any of it’s own consoles for free, and any other consumer electronics for a fee. Yes, if you don’t have a Sony product, you must pay to help conserve resources with your puny Xbox’s or Gamecubes. Imagine that.

The company has partnered with 75 Waste Management (WM) Recycle America eCycling centers across the country, and you can mail your console in if you don’t live near to one. The number of centers to accept the consoles will hope to increase within a year, Sony predicts.

“We believe it is Sony’s responsibility to provide customers with end-of-life solutions for all the products we manufacture,” said Stan Glasgow, president and chief operating officer of Sony Electronics.

What kind of incentive do you get for being so environment-conscious? Nothing. You get the satisfaction of knowing you’re helping to save the planet. Somehow, I can’t see this exactly being a great way of motivating people, when people have enough trouble keeping from throwing their beer and soda cans out their car windows. Though I must admit, it would be pretty humorous to see if people littered the sides of highways with broken and useless Sony consoles in the same fashion.

Gamers have long been demanding keyboard and mouse support for first-person shooters on the next-gen consoles. Today Epic Vice President Mark Rein made a rather epic announcement on the company’s official message board:

Folks,

I checked with Steve Polge and he said that YES we are supporting keyboard and mouse in Unreal Tournament 3 on PS3. He is confident we are doing it in a way that will be balanced without feeling “gimped” for either side. We’ll also allow people to choose whether or not they want to allow mixed controller vs. keyboard/mouse games or not.

I think you guys are going to love UT3!

More details to come later.

Still no word about KB/M support in the eventual Xbox 360 version of the game, but this news should make quite a few PS3 owners very happy.

Yes, we all saw it coming a mile away. Kotaku reports that Sony’s David Karraker announced the Sony PlayStation 3 will immediately begin selling for $499 in North America.

In addition, in August Sony will sell a model with a larger 80 GB hard drive installed and a copy of Motorstorm for the old price of $599.

OK, how about now? Is everyone done bitching about the price now? Oh you want more cuts? Sheesh.

What do you do with the discontinued 20GB PS3? Cram it on top of the 60GB model, of course!

MSNBC reports that the new model will go on sale in South Korea this June.

Coming only days after Starcraft II was unveiled at the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational, it is completely unlikely that this ill-timed news will make a dent in the current euphoria.

There are presently no announced plans to bring this model to US shores, so for those of you extremely jealous of the Korean peninsula this week, relief will not be immediately forthcoming.

Source: MSNBC – Sony may sell 80-GB Playstation 3 in US

E3, the once great video game Exposition, has been reduced to a shadow of its former self. What was once a never-ending cacophony of lights, sound and swag is now an invitation only press event. While we can still expect industry-shaping keynotes from the big three hardware developers, the show floor is barely recognizable. Industry giants, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Electronic Arts, THQ and others have been relegated to a 20’X20′ space.

Quite a contrast to previous E3s where developers battled each other for total show supremacy. After last year’s expo, which was completely dominated by Nintendo and the newly revealed Wii, Sony and Microsoft decided that paying millions or dollars for little or, worse yet, negative press coverage just wasn’t worth the effort. They basically took their ball and went home. The other big companies followed suit and now we have, what I’ve dubbed, Neo-E3, or the E3 Media & Business Summit.

Moved from May to July, and Los Angeles to Santa Monica, the newly redesigned expo is meant to create a smaller, more intimate environment for developers and publishers to talk shop. Neo-E3 is also designed to make it easier for independent developers to roll out their wares to potential publishers, (even though next to no indie devs are on the roster).

Hopefully we can expect more direct feed footage and one on one interviews with the movers and shakers of the industry. The E3 Media & Business Summit will take place from July 11-13th.

What are your thoughts on the redesigned E3 expo?