This one really brings back some fond memories of my youth: Penny Racers! I must have owned at least two dozen of these cute little super deformed vehicles. The premise was simple: place a penny in a slot located on the back of the vehicle, wind its motor up by pulling it backwards along the floor and let it go. Now they were said to perform numerous different tricks, but for some reason I could only get the darn things to pop wheelies. In retrospect perhaps it was all about the placement of the penny.

At any rate, no longer are the days where I need worry about penny placement. No longer shall I plant my face on the living room floor, with a flashlight in one hand and a ruler in the other, as I attempt to recover my racer from underneath the couch. Those days are all but a memory. I have since moved on from playing with toys (instead I collect them), and have found an enjoyable alternative that doesn’t necessarily require the use of a penny and most likely won’t end up lost underneath my couch. That alternative is Penny Racers Party: Turbo-Q Speedway for the Nintendo Wii.

Hit the jump to join me as I rekindle the flame of my youth and to read my review of Penny Racers Party: Turbo-Q Speedway.

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Its been a while since we last examined proof of the 1st rule of Japanese marketing: cosplay sells. Its still true though, it even sells backpacks, or bear suits, I’m not sure it matters. Here we have Becky, an anglo-japanese idol, promoting backpacks while cosplaying as a polar bear. Perhaps Coca-Cola could learn a thing or two about marketing with polar bears from Japan.

[Japan Probe]

10 years ago, Half-Life was released. And it was good. Great story, great action, and some of the best puzzles we’ve seen in a shooter. Not to mention some of the biggest pants-wetting moments in the history of games. And although it was good, Valve tried to make it better with Half-Life: Source. Sadly, all they really did was replace the engine with the newly-created Source engine and shovel it out for the masses to purchase. When they did, they found what was basically Half-Life with better physics. This didn’t sit very well with some of the fans out there, so they decided to create the true successor to one of the greatest games of all time: Black Mesa.

In case you haven’t figured it out yet, Black Mesa is a full-conversion mod for Half-Life 2 that completely remakes the setting of Half-Life in full, source-charged 3-D glory. Though the project is only about halfway done, it should be out some time in 2009. This trailer, released earlier this week, is nothing short of fucking awesome. We get to see each of the levels that have been completed so far: The introduction stage, “Unforseen Consequences”, “Blast Pit”, “Office Complex”, “Power Up”, and “Surface Tension”. The graphics look awesome, and the sound design is great so far. I, being a huge fan of everything Half-Life, can’t wait for this mod to finally come out. And yes, the Hydra made me shit my pants, too.

More information on Black Mesa can be found at their homepage. Get the HD version of the trailer here.

Time for the latest disaster in the Dragonball live action movie production. Apparently a picture showing Goku in his Oozaru form got leaked to the internet which you can see above. Its getting a lot of flack and for good reason! You see Oozaru is Japanese for ‘Big Monkey’, that’s a pretty simple description. Its a monkey… and its big, what could go wrong?

Well, somehow they managed to fuck it up and turn it into another Ivan Ooze / vampire lookalike! What the fuck?! FOX has replied saying that this was merely a test for the Oozaru form, which is another way of saying “’this was the real deal until everybody started yelling’. So in the spirit of making things better, or at least more faithful I took the liberty to fix this ‘test’ Oozaru. See it fixed after the jump.

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Hey dear readers! We’re kicking off the holiday season with a cool contest and an awesome giveaway. We’re giving away one copy of Persona 4 along with the highly sought after Social Link Expansion Pack which includes a T-Shirt, calendar, Teddy plushie and a soundtrack disk.

So what do you have to do to get your hands on this? Well its really simple, preschool kinda simple! We’re giving you a Teddy coloring template, print it out, color it and send it our way. There’s a catch though, you can only use crayons! Click the jump for details and get ready to brush off your preschool skills!

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That sound you just heard was every anime fan on the Internet shitting themselves with excitement, whether they admit it or not. To commemorate the 40th anniversary of Shonen Jump, BIRD Studio created a new episode of Dragon Ball Z. It’s about 40 minutes long, and mostly filler, but it’s still amusing, and the animation’s improved a great deal! Best of all, it can be watched for free with English subtitles on Shonen Jump’s Japanese web site until January 31, 2009. You have to install a proprietary viewer program, but it doesn’t take up much space. Link and my thoughts on the episode after the jump. It’s a total filler episode, but that’s really all it was supposed to be, and it pretty much feels like an episode of Dragon Ball Z was supposed to feel. Click here to download the anime viewer and watch it.

[Shonen Jump]

For Square, this new partnership marks a divergence of their current RPG offerings. The Gas Powered Games and Square Enix collaboration will start development of “SUPREME COMMANDER® 2, a sequel to the award-winning real-time strategy series.”

Reading the tealeaves, Square Enix is looking to increase awareness among gamers who typically pass-up RPGs to play a RTS. What does this mean for gamers? Will we be seeing mechwarrior chocobos?

[SquareEnix Via GameIndustry]

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(I endorse the Yellow/Green Space Invader)

Democracy has finally hit the MMO world. After a recent scandal in EVE Online, the space trading MMO, where insiders developers meddled with the game’s system, the developer, CCP, implemented a democratically elected player council into the game.

Called the Council of Stellar Management, the group is formed by players, elected by players. Could this be the tipping point for Democracy in MMOs? Not if you ask Jade Constantine, Andrew Cruse, President of the Council of Stellar Management:

And also, CCP, being a European company, is somewhat bolder and more imaginative/daring than most U.S.-based, big corporate clones that would probably be horrified at the thought of allowing their players to be involved in prioritizing development and holding the company to account for its actions. It’s not an exaggeration to describe CCP as a very unique entity in the MMORPG industry and it takes a lot of reckless visionary, daring to take the leap of faith they have with the CSM process.

And if something the global MMO industry is not, is daring. Otherwise we wouldn’t have ten thousand World of Warcraft clones.

[1up]

In these times of economic turmoil and with the Japanese economy officially in a recession, its no wonder the Japanese are questioning the capitalist system. How strangely coincidental then, that a manga version of Das Kapital is being released next month in Japan.

Karl Marx’ complex ideas and dense discourse will surely translate well into manga form, hell if Shakespeare could be manga why not Marx. Next month the Japanese might find they already get the worst parts of communism, loss of individuality, a group centered society and a heavy dose of xenophobia, so they might as well get the shared wealth and cool hats that come with communism.

Lets just hope no one tells them there’s no room for designer clothing in communism, unless everyone wears that one design.

[Japan Probe]

Ohh boy, do I have words to say about this. So before you get all excited, this ISN’T the Sonic Unleashed in all the trailers and stuff. This version was made for the Wii and PS2 by DIMPS, creator of the Sonic Advance and Sonic Rush games, and not to put too fine a point on it, it’s a sloppy port that entirely lives up to the infamous Sonic Cycle.

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