OSAKA — There weren’t many Western games on display at Games Japan Festa this year, and of those that were, nearly all had already been released in the United States. A notable exception was Avatar, the game based on the James Cameron film that is coming to theaters in December (it’s the one with the blue people). While the film’s trailer has led to much derision on the internet and a recent episode of South Park, the Ubisoft game has been drawing some positive attent... Read Full Story

OSAKA — The Samurai Shodown series was one of SNK’s biggest successes back in the 1990s, adding medieval weapons to the crowded 2-D fighting genre with a cast of characters rooted in Japanese history and mythology. The newest game is called Samurai Shodown: Edge of Destiny (Samurai Spirits Sen in Japan) and it’s coming to the Xbox 360 in Japan following a year in the arcades. Instead of using 2-D sprites, this new game makes the leap to 3D. Again. I got to try it at Games J... Read Full Story

On the latest installment of 1up.com’s podcast Retronauts, I join Jeremy Parish and Ray Barnholt to discuss the 16-bit era of Mario games. Join us as we talk about why Super Mario World was a pivotal moment in the series’ evolution, why Mario and Wario was the best Mario game you ever missed out on, and why Yoshi is so awesome. Retronauts Episode 81 [1up.com] Read Full Story

Did Penn and Teller ever imagine that the unreleased Sega CD game bearing their images would raise nearly $100,000 for charity? On Friday, the masochistic sketch comedians from LoadingReadyRun will play one of the must punishing videogames ever created: For the third year running, Desert Bus For Hope will collect donations for Child’s Play charity, an organization that provides games and toys to children’s hospitals. They’ll play a marathon-length session of the infamous &#... Read Full Story

MTV Games and Harmonix released the second major batch of downloadable content for The Beatles: Rock Band on Tuesday. Each one allows you to complete one of the albums that is partially represented on the disc already. Last month, they added the rest of the tracks from Abbey Road, and you’ll have the rest of Rubber Soul in December. This week, it’s Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band tracks that weren’t on the disc. Guitarists will find that they’re playing mu... Read Full Story

Adding Twitter and Facebook to game consoles is a good idea, but both Sony and Microsoft are missing the point. These social networks are tools that can be used for all kinds of things. Their usefulness to gamers doesn’t spawn from the ability to learn in real time that your best friend’s wife is psyched to see New Moon. Social networking on game consoles must make it easier to find and connect friends to game with. And the way that they’re implemented now on Xbox 360 and P... Read Full Story

OSAKA — Why isn’t the Metal Slug series as well-known as Contra in the United States? Sure, Contra came first but Metal Slug took that basic gameplay concept and threw in wonderfully animated sprite-based graphics as well as a sense of humor. Perhaps it’s simply a case of diminishing returns. 2007’s Contra 4 on the Nintendo DS was hard as hell, but the overall experience was exactly what its fans were hoping for. By contrast, Metal Slug 7 on DS managed to screw with t... Read Full Story

OSAKA — It’s entirely forgivable if you’ve never heard of Umihara Kawase before. This cult classic Japanese action game is a bit like Bionic Commando, only your character is a little girl and instead of killing Nazis you battle overgrown fish. Umihara Kawase first appeared on Nintendo’s Super Famicom and had a sequel on the Sony PlayStation but neither was released outside of Japan. I played the latest chapter, Umihara Kawase Shun Second Edition, on the Nintendo DS at ... Read Full Story

Kevin McKidd, the actor who provides the voice for Modern Warfare character “Soap” MacTavish, says there’s a Call of Duty movie in the works. “There are talks of a feature film,” McKidd told the New York Post. The actor joked that he wasn’t Infinity Ward’s first choice to provide the voice for the British SAS commando. “They were looking for a rough, Scottish actor in Hollywood,” he said. “They probably couldn’t get Gerard But... Read Full Story

Role-playing giant Square Enix and casual gaming juggernaut PopCap unleashed their first collaboration this week. Gyromancer, available on the Xbox 360 for $15 and on PC through Steam, looks a lot like the megahit Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords at first glance. But the devil’s in the details. You’re an adventurer looking to capture Qraist Kingsley, the leader of a rebel group called Temperance. You move around a map, encountering enemies which must be fought by playing a... Read Full Story