Tekken is a game that doesn’t set out to try and win over any new fans. But instead keep the old ones happy, in the hopes that perhaps one or two curious souls will want in on what the fuss is about. But for the most part Tekken 6 is very much for the old skoolers who have been rolling with The king of iron fist tournament for years. It’s not to say anybody new to Tekken won’t enjoy the game. But they probably won’t go wet in the pants as fans will when they first boot up the game.

Read more!

My incredibly long title should get you primed to reading this long, powerful, and scathing personal account of the recently passed legislation banning violent videogames in Venezuela. After the jump you’ll find the essay in its entirety. I’ve taken the liberty of inserting some pictures lest you find yourself wandering.

If I get fined for writing this (Article 13, promoting the use of violent videogames), so be it. If I go to jail because I carry rooms in my hard drive or in an R4 card for my brother, next time I return to the country, so be it. But I’d rather go to jail than betray the gamer culture, partially responsible for making me the person I am today.

[BoingBoing]

Read more!

To kick off the North American release of The Darkside Chronicles for the Wii Capcom released what they dub as the first interactive game trailer. While being very similar in style to the Super Mario Youtube smash video, Capcom get us ready for some zombie killing. Have your mouse ready…

[GameTrailers]

Square Enix released their latest trailer for Final Fantasy XIII at this year’s Tokyo game show. And it’s bloody epic. We’ve got love, heart attack, conflict, pain, talks of death, mecha’s, magic and a warblicious Japanese ballad plying all the while. If you didn’t want this game up until this point, you will after having watched this.

Read more!

This week marked the start of the shooting of the game/movie franchise that keeps coming back from the dead. Yes, I’m talking about Resident Evil: Afterlife.

After the  train wreck that was Apocalypse and their lame attempt at forcing a sequel with the ending you’d think they’d let it die and be forgotten but evidently that wasn’t the case. The movie made money and now we’re getting a 4th one.

What we know: Takes place in LA, with Alice trying to unite the few survivors in a single place. The film will be shot in 3D (hurray for 3D Milla?). Wentworth Miller (Prison Break) and Ali Larter (Heroes) have joined the cast. There are really strong rumors about Leon S. Kennedy joining the story, despite early marketing materials for previous films where it was mentioned that Leon was killed. And to top it off? Well, it appears that it will by no means be the last Resident Evil movie. Earlier this summer Paul W.S. Anderson, the producer of the series, stated that Afterlife would mark a “rebirth of the entire franchise”.

The film’s planned release is set for August 2010 and I’m going to go out on a limb here and say it will suck. Will I see it? You bet. But if the previous two movies are any indication of the next, Resident Evil: Afterlife will consist of Alice getting more mental magical powers and killing everything in a thousand mile radius by blinking.

This one slipped by me until Fidgit editor, Tim Chick found the hidden gem from the land down under. Compiled by Australian Adam Mathew, the list includes such gruesome deaths as the chainsaw decapitation in RE4, Jenny’s passing in The Darkness, and my personal favorite, the first scene in Silent Hill. I’ve included some choice picks after the break (possible spoilers).

*note* As some one who now loves survival horror games, Silent Hill was the first to suck me in. I had played Resident Evil before, but playing SH made me scared…I probably shouldn’t have played it at night with the lights off.

Anyone play a game that just gave them the willies or had a lasting impression for months/years that followed?

[Gameplayer.com.au via Fidgit]

Read more!

Speaking as someone who’s listened through Activision  conference calls for the stockholders, I can say that I have a pretty strong-willed attention span. But Nintendo’s press conference was quite possible the most boring thing I’ve ever sat through. At least I was able to catch up a bit in Fullmetal Alchemist while waiting for the “announcements” to start.(I lost half my show notes during the conference, so I’m missing the little that was in the beginning) Check out what was said after the jump.

Read more!

Square Enix have gone on the record to say that Final Fantasy XIII will not be a typical J-RPG and that it will straddle genre’s. Game producer Yoshinori Kitase said…

“There’s a trend these days to strictly categorize games as western RPGs or Japanese RPGs, but Final Fantasy is something that we don’t try to categorize as either, or. For us, the game straddles genre’s”.

If Final Fantasy XIII isn’t a J-RPG, then Princess Peach is black and from Kijuju. We all know full well Final Fantasy XIII will feature a theme song sung by a female J-Pop artist, complete with warbilicious vocals. That there will be magic. There will be a love interest that will never fully come to fruition. There will be a kakkoii boy or two. There’ll be a girl with big eyes, pig tails, mini skirts and boots. Some Mecha’s. A couple dozen beasts. Bahamut. And shit loads of FMV. Shoot, with seen 90% of this stuff in trailers! Of course it’s a J-RPG!! Final Fantasy had continued to pretty much define a J-RPG all by itself.

I know games developers in Japan are currently feeling the crunch to lob loads of western appeal into their games. But there’s nothing wrong with a full on, unashamed Japanesey title. I just hope Square don’t bastardize Final Fantasy further than they have up until now. Although given the hash job they’ve made of the series so far, there’s not much more Square can do to make things any worse. (Although I wouldn’t put it past them!) And no matter what they do, whether the end results are good or bad – Square Enix will rack a shit loads of sales, a broken record or two and commercial success. With XIII releasing on 2 successful platforms this is already guaranteed. Square’s so called straddling genre’s and injection of western influences is probably making the lead main character a white female and chucking in a black guy with a gun and an afro. I hope it ends there. The last thing I want is for Square to try and deviate too much and ruin the game as a result.

The problem with Final Fantasy has never been it’s never been western enough. It’s been that Square seem to have lost sight of what made the games so good originally. I just hope that Final Fantasy fans do not end up greatly disappointed. This could easily go the Resident evil 5 route: a game which sells loads, gets decent reviews across the board, but ultimately ends up a game that falls really short. Although XIII has something in its favour and one less burden that Capcom had: the game that came before it wasn’t all that brilliant, and can easily be bettered.

[CVG]

It’s fair to say that Resident evil 5 was one of 2009’s most hyped and anticipated games, and that given Resident evil 4’s critical acclaim across the board – expectations for it’s sequel were running sky high. Trailers seemed to indicate the game would be everything and more, but unfortunately: the game comes up short. So where exactly did Capcom go wrong?

Read more!

Today Capcom announced that Resident Evil 5, along with Street Fighter IV and Bionic Commando, will be ported to the PC. With SFIV and Bionic Commando coming out in July and RE: 5 in the fall this marks the newest step in Capcom’s attempts to bring its blockbusters to the PC.

No additional content has been announced for the PC version of RE:5 but it will sport a fancy new feature: 3D! The game will be compatible with Nvidia’s Geforce 3D Vision technology, allowing you to not only see Zombies in 3D, but Chris’ bigger-than-his-skull biceps and Sheva’s well endowed buttocks will also feel like they are coming out of your screen.

You may or may not know that Capcom actually released Resident Evil 4 for the PC as well and it was considered one of the worst PC ports ever, with basically no keyboard and mouse support basically forcing you to the same experience as the console versions. Now with this press release Capcom promises full keyboard and mouse support for all 3 games but adds that “for God’s sake, go buy a gamepad with analog sticks.”

To this humble editor this seems like Capcom is missing a big part of the point of releasing games for the PC, mainly that PC gamers are not that fond of controllers. So with this kind of attitude towards the PC its still to be seen what they actually mean when they say “full” keyboard and mouse support. But hey! At least there’s the promise of 3D ass, cant ague with that!

[Capcom]