Reports are flooding in from all over the place of the first ever death by video game. Early this morning 25-year-old Juan del Locomotion, a resident of Sacremento, CA, was found bludgeoned to death by a copy of Viva Pinata for the Xbox 360. His body was found by his neighbor, Chesty Laroo, who said she had heard exclamations of childish glee before nothing but silence for many hours. When she entered the room she found del Locomotion dead on the floor with the bloody Viva Pinata box learing over his body. Scared for her life she quickly retreated to her apartment where she called police.

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Cruis’n USA (Nintendo 64, 1-2 players, Rated E for Everyone, 1,000 Wii Points) is literally the greatest racing game ever made. I have absolutely no idea how this game became one of my favorite racers of all time since it really isn’t that great, but it is. Maybe it’s because I only owned an N64 so the variety wasn’t that great to begin with, and I played this game non-stop over and over. Now that it is out on the VC will I be downloading it? No. I think the fond memories I have of the game need to stay that way as I’m 100 percent positive that playing it now would only ruin them. Alas, time is a harsh mistress and I do not think that Cruis’n USA has aged well at all. Oh, for the days when race tracks weren’t made of real city streets and national monuments and landmarks were all closely grouped together on fictional race courses.

*wipes a single tear from eye while looking wistfully out the window*

Sigh. Well the other game is Wonder Boy (Sega Master System, 1-2 players, Rated E for Everyone—Comic Mischief, 500 Wii Points) which is just Adventure Island on the Master System. Legal stuff happened. Same game made twice. What’s the point. I’m too depressed to go on.

Download these games at 9 a.m. Pacific time. More after the jump if you can bring yourself to read.

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Word of a very pretty tech demo on the PS3 hit the internet a few days ago and a bit of buzz started swarming around it. Of course, pretty and PS3 go hand in hand as we’ve seen with plenty of games coming out for it. Good, complete, non-glitchy and best version are all totally debatable descriptions of games on the system, but pretty is something that the PS3 has down pat. Still, this tech demo was rumored to be truly impressive as all the graphics were gorgeous and totally in game. Today we get some video of it, which you can see above, courtesy of Youtube and Gametrailers, and a name to go along with it: Linger in Shadows.

As a tech demo the thing is pretty impressive. Graphically it looks strikingly good and the physics are spot on. The dog looks a bit funny but it still seems really interesting. But rumor now has it that this is more then just a tech demo and is actually a game itself. If that is the case…What!? I don’t even know what could possibly be going on here to make a game. My best guess is you’d play as one of the characters shown in the beginning of the video and that the dog and the cat were just there to show off how well the system can handle hair (a true sign of any great game). Otherwise would you be battling shadows the entire time, or just robots who can’t seem to stop bumping into things? I guess it doesn’t really matter, tech demos are set up to show stuff off not make sense and the reliability of the source for this being an actual game is a bit in question. Nothing wrong with watching a very interesting tech demo though and hoping it turns out to be a truly interesting game.

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Bleck, bleck and triple bleck. You would think the day after Easter would be the perfect time for Nintendo to celebrate the second coming of a great game. You know, bring back some hard to get game from death and let it rise from the ground to walk the earth once more, much like the Christ purportedly did way back when. But instead of raising Christ, who for the sake of this metaphor is representing Mother 3, the lord (Nintendo) seems to have accidentally raised the two thieves crucified along with JC: KING’S KNIGHT (NES, 1 player, Rated E for Everyone - Mild Fantasy Violence, 500 Wii Points) and POWERBALL (Sega Genesis, 1-2 players, Rated E for Everyone - Mild Fantasy Violence, 800 Wii Points). I think that metaphor worked out pretty well.

King’s Knight is a landmark game in that it was Square’s first release in the U.S., but the game is more of a sign of the greatness to come than greatness itself. It’s a shooter (yes, another shooter) with RPG elements and leveling up but it never really jumps out at you in any way. Powerball on the other hand jumps out by being a totally made up sport about the power of balls. Never played this one but from the youtube videos it isn’t looking like a must buy either. Pretty damn uninteresting week if you ask me.

If you like to read press releases hit the jump.

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In my other life (read: real job), I’m a film critic and as a professional film critic I have to tell you that the new Street Fighter Movie coming out sometime in 2009 will most likely suck. As bad as the first one? No, but it’ll be pretty damn bad. I say this because the casting information for the film was just released and I just want to say before you get angry at any casting choice you don’t like… just remember that they could have cast the best actors in the world to play these roles and the movie would most likely still suck.

That being said the casting doesn’t seem too terrible. Michael Clarke Duncan as Balrog seems a decent choice and while Kristen Kruek isn’t really Asian and doesn’t have monster thighs, she does have breasts so that kind of qualifies her to play Chun-Li. Look at that, Taboo, from the Black Eyed Peas is going to be playing Vega. That could be nice…oh, who am I kidding. None of this sounds very good except for Duncan being a big black guy. I guess Charlie Nash as Chris Klein works OK. At least it can’t get wor…Neal McDonough as M. Bison?! Screw you Hollywood, screw you to hell. Here I am not listening to my own advice.

Hit the jump for the press release.

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Well, who would have guessed that the Wii would still be in short supply after all this time? I wouldn’t have thought so, that’s for sure. If you asked me a year and a half ago, I would have put my money on any of the other systems being in short supply. Nevertheless, here we are with the Wii reportedly in low supply for the next six months.

During its investor’s phone call GameStop COO Dan Dematteo was asked by investors if he saw an end to the post holiday shortages that affected the 360 (were those true?), DS (who doesn’t own one?), and Wii (is Nintendo causing these?). He chose to focus on the Wii since it seems that it is the only system that still might be in shortage, saying that supply “won’t meet demand for the next 2 quarters.” That’s a bit of time, huh? I can’t believe Nintendo would be intentionally doing this still, even though I never believed they were in the first place.

Dematteo also commented on the other systems, saying that the 360 and DS were in good supply while the PSP was getting a bit hard to find. As for the PS3, he said they have plenty of those for all the people out there wanting to pick one up when GTA IV releases… which is also coming out for the 360. I guess it could still spur sales.

GameStop CFO David Carlson also had a word to say about some price cuts coming for both the PS3 and 360. The company is predicting a $50 price cut for each system within the next year. With the positive response the 360 had in Europe after their recent price cut, this can’t be that far from the truth. At least for the 360; do you think that Sony can lose even more money on every system they sell?

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Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you all! Evidently Nintendo doesn’t celebrate the holiday as none of the games released on the VC today endorse drinking till you vomit and then rallying and drinking again. But never here I’m here to help. I am 100 percent positive that we can get two really good drinking games out of Spelunker (NES�, 1 player, Rated E for Everyone, 500 Wii Points) and SUPER R-TYPE (Super NES�, 1 player, Rated E for Everyone � Mild Fantasy Violence, 800 Wii Points).

So let’s see. If you want to get totally trashed you can drink whenever you’re in a cave while playing Spelunker, since you’re always exploring caves though this might require a 40 strapped to one hand and some pretty amazing single handed game playing. Maybe we can scale it back a bit, especially since Super R-Type is a great shooter and you’ll probably want to appreciate it a bit. A shot after each amazing boss might work, though not sure how far you’ll get playing that way. But beating the game isn’t the point, getting plastered is. So download, drink and be merry.

Drinking games go live at 9 p.m. Pacific time. Hit the jump for the press release. Do you think someone at Nintendo was a bit drink already? Look at all those random question marks.

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eNe3, which is an abbreviation of something in another language, has posted the first screen shots of the new Incredible Hulk game coming out for the 360 and the PS3, based on the film of the same name. I’m hoping the movie has nothing to do with its predecessor (Ang Lee just isn’t built for action), but the story will be a different for the video game. While the latest movie, Hulk, was a bit boring and horribly plotted, the latest video game, The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Rampage was anything of the sort, allowing you to rampage through cities and destroy at will, all in the name of good of course. Now it looks like Sega is taking a hint and not only basing the new game on the open world gameplay that Ultimate Rampage featured, but taking cues from the comic book as well as the film.

Still, Ultimate Rampage had its flaws. I’m very, very happy to see that these screen shoots look incredibly realistic and while they’re probably doctored to no end, it gives me high hopes that throwing cars and knocking down buildings will be even more fun this time around than ever before. The game is going to feature plenty of destructible environments and an open world recreation of New York city. It’ll be like Spider-Man, except now you can destroy all the buildings instead of swinging from them. This is just a guess, but I doubt it’ll look that good on the Wii, DS and PSP; which it is also slated for.

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That’s a Ron Burgundy reference in the title and it means that Starcraft 2 is kind of a big deal. I suppose if I have to explain my joke it isn’t funny but it’s done now so I’m keeping it. You may have heard of this Starcraft game, especially if you live in a country in Asia. Its sequel is pretty hotly anticipated and we’ve got some brand new videos of it for you all to see. So sit back, relax and prepare for what should be the next step in RTS gaming.

Looks pretty good, right? RTS was never my thing, the original Starcraft being the last one I played, but even I’m impressed by how good the game looks. I’m guessing it’ll live up plenty well to its predecessor. Hit the jump for one more video with a little Terran love.

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Sorry this is a bit late but the only thing I’m really concerned about on my Wii is Brawl, so VC games seem kind of inconsequential. I’m even finding it hard to drag myself away from the TV to work, let alone type this at all. There are trophies to be collected and I’m here telling you about DoReMi Fantasy: Milon’s DokiDoki Adventure (Super NES®, 1 player, Rated E for Everyone – Alcohol Reference and Comic Mischief, 900 Wii Points) and Puyo Puyo 2: Tsuu (Sega Genesis, 1-2 players, Rated E for Everyone, 900 Wii Points)! What’s the point, man? One is an adventure game; the other is a puzzle game. I’m sure they have some interesting history. I suppose if I had to come up with something clever I’d point to the fact that both these games have titles that repeat a word. You know they’ll be live at 9 a.m. Pacific Time so I don’t see why I have to tell you that either.

Happy? Good, I’m going to go back to work so I can play Brawl sooner. Ugggg, fine. Press release after the jump.

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Man, anyone that tells you that all the biggest games come out near Christmas is a dirty rotten liar. March is where it is fucking at. We’ve got a plethora of hyped games flooding out this month. Other then the four we’re looking at here there is God of War: Chains of Olympus, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Rings of Fate, Final Fantasy: Crisis Core and a whole host of other games vying for your attention. Even games not so in demand like Sega Super Star Tennis are getting hyped up to no end. So since we’ve already taken a look at February let’s jump right into all the shiny packaging and pretty advertising we can. There might be more hype this month thanks solely to one game (you know which one) then any other during the entire year. So strap yourself in and get ready to ride the roller coaster of PR speak and doctored screenshots. This is The Hype Machine.

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Somone forgot to tell Capcom that third party titles aren’t selling well on the Wii. We just got word that Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles has shipped 1 million units worldwide in a little over three months time. This makes the second million seller for Capcom on the Wii, the first being the Wii version of Resident Evil 4, which is by far one of the best ports the Wii has recieved. Capcom also brought us the cult hit Zack and Wiki for the Wii so it looks like they’re doing pretty well on the Big N’s system. Guess it does pay off to actually think about the games you bring out for the Wii, even if they are simply ports.

It’s heartening to see a third party doing well on the Wii even if it’s with the same franchise. Hopefully, we’ll start getting more and more press releases like this from third party Wii developers. It would be especially awesome if they were about WiiWare games.

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If there is one thing I’ll remember last year for, it will be the games that did not live up to their hype. From the severe disappointments like Lair to the semi-successful like Bioshock (yea, I said semi), games are costing more and thus requiring more and more hype from the PR people. Many times this results in more and more disappointments from the gamer. With their hopes built up over months of teasers, previews, and interviews with attractive game developers only to find that he or she has in their hands a disc comprised mostly of suck. What is a poor gamer to do?

Well this year I’m not going to take it! Actually, yes, yes I am going to take it. But, like any good journalist, I’m not going to take it without commenting on it. Therefore I bring you “The Hype Machine,” a monthly feature that will discuss the top three most hyped games (as I perceive them). Every month I will discuss these games and the hype behind them. In the next month’s feature, we’ll see if the games lived up to the hype via the general opinion of the Internet along with the next top five games. I’ll also try to discuss a game or two I feel isn’t getting the hype it needs. Sounds like fun…or a lot of work.

Welcome to the first full month of this wondering series. Let’s all come together and take a look at the games we were all excited about at the beginning of February and see if they really deserved all the hype around them. Hit the jump to see what was good, what was bad, and if we can ever truly trust marketing and the internet.

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Well Nintendo didn’t want to take too much fanfare away from our site redesign so this week they’re only delivering unto us one game, Super Turrican (Super NES®, 1 player, Rated E 10+ for Everyone 10 and Older – Fantasy Violence, 800 Wii Points). Just when we’ve started to accept two games a week as the norm Nintendo goes ahead and drops down to one game once again. Of course it doesn’t really matter since Brawl is coming out at the end of the week and that’s all anyone is going to be playing anyway. If you need a game to tide you over till then you could do far worse then Super Turrican. I vaguely remember it being pretty fun and having a good variety of weapons and levels. Take this with a grain of salt though as my childhood memories of the Bill and Ted game on the NES were also fond and we all know that they shouldn’t be. But the enemy’s name is “the Machine” so it can’t be all bad. Now if only one of the weapons was called “the Rage,” then once you got to the boss you could use Rage against the Machine…I’m so sorry for that. Hit the jump for the full release.

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Were you wondering, like I was, why in God’s name anyone would buy the Wii version of Star Wars: The Forced Unleashed unless they desperately wanted to swing an actual light saber? You probably weren’t because you’re up to date on all the hottest news, but I just found out about the mulitplayer battle mode included on the Wii, and since some new information has been released on it thanks to GDC I figured I’d bring everyone up to date. Since the Wii is so graphically underpowered compared to the PS3 and 360, some of the game’s levels have been removed or reworked for the Wii release. To make up for this the Wii version of the game will include a one-on-one light saber battle mode where two players will be able to duke it out in a myriad of different levels.

The multiplayer mode will feature 20 characters and multiple levels to play on. Players cross sabers of light in nine different settings while swinging their Wiimotes in one of the four cardinal directions in order to attack. Power-ups will litter the stages and enivironmental hazards will be involved some how. The one level that has been seen featured TIE fighters in the background which could be flung at an opponent when a “Force Unleashed” power-up was obtained. If your light sabers collide, as light sabers are wont to do, you’ll have a quick time event in which motion controls will determine the winner. It all sounds like it could be really awesome and force me to buy a Wii version and a 360 one if the multiplayer on the Wii turns out well.

That is a big “if” though as often things like this, especially on games ported to the Wii, are simply tacked on as “we’re sorry your system is underpowered” kind of thing. Hopefully LucasArts knows better than this and the multiplayer will stand up to the high level of innovation and design that the main game has. Heck, who am I kidding. LIGHT SABER WII CONTROLS! YUMMY DELICIOUS!

[Via MyWiiNews]

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