More Street FIghter II action in glorious HD comes your way in this new trailer for Street Fighter II Turbo HD. The flame in Ryu’s Hadouken gets hotter, and Zangief feels the heat. Sagat shows he hasn’t gone rusty in the next bout, while the classic Guile-Bison matchup heats up in another.
Many more matches in the vid, but it’s better that you seem them for yourself. Man, oldschool Street Fighter looks damn good in HD. I take my hat off to Capcom.
More Street Fighter II Turbo HD
Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix: new trailer, lots of new screens
Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix screenshots: Dhalsim, Ryu, Guile
Okay, scratch that December delay dated for Rise of the Argonauts (Xbox 360, PS3, PC). A Codemasters rep has spilled the beans that it is, in fact, delayed until 2009 for the UK region.
The rep did also say, however, that there’s still a chance that the game may launch in the US and other EU markets by this Christmas season, although it’s more probable it’s not gonna land till the new year for those in UK.
Oh, but what’s taking Jason and his Argonauts so long? In the meantime, you Brit folks hold on tight. It’s not that long of a delay anyway. Hopefully.
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Not content with the success they had over Sega’s pullout of a Samba de Amigo ad with a chimpanzee as a cast member, animal rights group PETA has now set their eyes on Nintendo’s Cooking Mama (DS and Wii).
Yes, the domestic food-loving mama has found herself the new target of PETA as she allegedly serves dishes made from dead animals. Explains the org,
Why is PETA picking on poor Mama? Because the games are so heavy on dishes made from dead animals that the only things missing are the blood and the slaughterhouse. So in the name of accuracy and honesty, PETA decided to introduce a little of both…
We wish that all cooking games would allow to prepare more vegetarian dishes instead of just slicing up animal flesh over and over - so on our site we encourage players to contact Majesco to ask for an all vegetarian-recipe Cooking Mama game.
They’ve even thrown in their own version of Cooking Mama in flash, complete with the subtitle: “Mama Kills Animals” for good measure. It’s got several of stages, too, from plucking the turkey feathers to removing its internal organs under time pressure and a shrewd-looking Mama’s gaze all the way to stuffing it and taking off the head. Speaking of which, you think Majesco Entertainment will succumb to the pressure and come out with an all-vegan Cooking Mama edition?
If you think you’ve got the stomach for it, you can check out their game via the source link below, leading to PETA’s Cooking Mama site.
Looks like the Iron Chef shows (Japan and US) are gonna be in trouble next. Cos you know, they have meat for their secret ingredients.
Related PETA on games Articles:
Sega heeds PETA request, pulls out Samba de Amigo ad
NCAA Basketball 09 operates on a new gameplay engine with over 1,000 new animation sequences that deliver a more responsive experience with improved ball physics and more intelligent AI. The new animation system enables gamers to apply pressure defense with new full-court presses and traps. Plus, improved AI and animations enable quicker players to get up and down the floor faster and make better decisions running the lanes and driving to the rim. Animations can be interrupted at any time, enabling you to read and respond to the action on the floor, just like real life. Feel the excitement of game night with the band playing fight songs, the student section leading the cheers and popular ESPN college basketball broadcasters Dick Vitale, Brad Nessler, and Erin Andrews providing the commentary.
The year is down to its last few weeks, and Gamasutra reveals the top-selling games for the year so far. In the BMO Capital Markets Conference last week, Take 2 claimed GTA 4 has sold to 32 of PS3 owners, and 28 to Xbox 360 owners through the start of October 2008. Gamasutra used this info as a springboard for these charts.
Up first, the top 5 games based on unit sales, year-to-date.
The figures for Super Smash Bros. Brawl and GTA 4 are estimates, but Gamasutrabelieves that the maximum error for the figures will not affect the rankings. Additional FYI: GTA 4 for PS3 had likely sold about 1.8 million units by the end of October of this year.
Now let’s compare that with last year’s unit sales.
Notice that Wii Play actually makes it to both charts. If it sells the way it did in November and December last year, it would be in the top 5 for two years running, and posting higher numbers on the second year.
Lastly, let’s take a look at 2008’s top earners so far.
Coming in at #1, with its higher price, is Wii Fit, earning an estimate US 250 million in revenue. GTA 4 also out-earns the games that outsold it, owing to its pricey retail value. Regardless, it’s clear that from these figures and the ones by the NPD, 2008 may be called the year of the Wii.
Related articles:
NPD US: Wii still king, Xbox 360 outsold PS3 in October 2008.
Guitar Hero World Tour, not in NPD October top 10, WHY?
Guns and hookers lose: Wii Fit poised to outself GTA 4
One of Square Enix’s current goals is to broaden its horizons and expand its international portfolio, with one specific mark being to generate 50% of its revenue from outside of Japan (up from the current 10-20%). Senior VP Michihiro Sasaki explained, “We need to seek cooperation with a US publisher — we need local content. Our strength is in role-playing games and fantasy titles, so it is a bit difficult to appeal to the US market.”
Just last week we learned about the bizarre partnership between Square Enix and Gas Powered Games which will have Square Enix publishing Supreme Commander 2 — a game that hardly fits inside the fantasy RPG genre you’d expect from the creator of Final Fantasy.
Today an announcement of another move was made, although this is a far bigger deal than a single publishing deal. Square Enix will be opening a new development studio in Los Angeles, California (El Segundo). The studio will be working on an original action game and is currently seeking to fill various positions, including software engineers with experience developing for the Xbox 360 and Wii.
One of the job postings (via Gamasutra) reads, “How often do you get a chance to make sure that a studio starts off in the right direction? How often do you get to be one of the starting members, but also have medical insurance? This is a rare opportunity to have the creative control of a start-up but the backing and funding of a major publisher.” Listings also mention that Square Enix is seeking “to lay the foundation for a solid development team.”
“We see great opportunities in North American and European markets, both of which are expected to be maintaining sustainable growth over these coming years,” said the company’s President, Yoichi Wada.
If the Supreme Commander 2 announcement didn’t have you convinced (and understandably so), this goes a long way in reaffirming that Square Enix is serious about becoming a more significant player outside of Japan. Anyone want to take a guess at what the game the new studio is developing might be like? My one hope is that it doesn’t star any teenage boys with spiky hair.
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Created by Harmonix, the leading developer of music-based games, Rock Band is the ultimate platform for gamers to experience music, giving players the chance to rock out in the shoes of the biggest guitarists, bassists, drummers and singers of all time – as a solo superstar or as part of a hard rocking band. Built on unprecedented deals with top record labels and music publishers, the music featured in Rock Band spans all genres of rock and includes many master recordings from legendary artists.
Rock Band Track Pack Volume 2 is a standalone software product that allows owners of Rock Band Special Edition and Rock Band 2 Special Edition or Rock Band (1 or 2) peripherals to keep the party going with more hit songs from the pantheon of rock music, hand-picked with care by Harmonix.
Not even a week removed from the launch of the second expansion to World of Warcraft, and Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime is already talking about future expansions. In an interview with MTV Multiplayer, Morhaime admitted that Blizzard is already thinking about what to include in the massively popular MMO’s next expansion although — for now — they remain completely focused on Wrath of the Lich King. Obviously it’s far too early to go into any specifics as to what the contents might be. He did, however, say, “[W]e will continue making expansions as long as we have players that want to play World of Warcraft — we want to keep them entertained.”
Asked if that means Blizzard will be making expansions forever, Morhaime replied, “Well, probably not forever. But for the foreseeable future, we’d like to be doing regular expansions.” That sounds good, but what constitutes “regular” expansions? Blizzard originally said it wanted to release expansions every year, but the span between The Burning Crusade and Wrath was nearly two years. Are yearly releases still the plan?
[O]ur goal that we’ve talked about is to put out an annual expansion, but we haven’t quite been able to do that. We had one early last year and now we’re sort of late this year, but we do want to decrease the amount of time in between expansions. Although we’ll probably never get it down to a year [between each one] because there’s just so much content. We do want each expansion to be considered a big value for players.
Morhaime realizes there’s a potential fatigue that could come with frequent releases. “I agree — I think putting too many expansions out too frequently, you probably get to the point where people do need to start taking a little break,” he said.
However long it is that Blizzard continues making expansions, you shouldn’t expect to see the monthly subscription fee to drop anytime soon. Morhaime said he thinks the $15 per month “feels right to us and our players,” claiming “there really isn’t a better value you can get in entertainment.”
Having surpassed the 11 million subscribers mark not too long ago, it really doesn’t seem like there’s any imminent need for Blizzard to change what it’s doing.
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MK vs DC Universe `Finishing Moves` Trailer 4 - HD
Midway has unveiled this new video showing off the last few fatalities/brutalities for Mortal Kombat Vs. DC. In all, you can see three finishing moves from Liu Kang, Batman, and Baraka. The best though probably has to come from Liu Kang, who goes into a fiery pose…before an old Mortal Kombat arcade machine drops from the sky onto his opponent. I don’t know if I’d call that a “Fatality” necessarily though, since The Joker is clearly still moving afterwards. The finishing moves in this game may be tamer than past entries in the MK series, but at least Midway seems to be making up for it by including a few zanier ones.
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Gamers beware: some of the new expanded ESRB descriptions may contain minor spoilers. This goes out to all you gamers who’d like to know as little as they can about a game’s storyline before they actually play the game.
Folks at 1UP decided to dip their feet in the water to see how much spoiler content there is. As it turns out, the descriptions for Resistance 2 and Fallout 3 do have info on the game that may be considered as spoilers.
It’s not as bad as it sounds, really. The tidbits of spoiler info aren’t enough to ruin the game for anybody. Even if you read the descriptions, they’re still vague enough to keep you guessing when you actually play the game.
For parents who simply want to check out what ESRB has to say about a game, this isn’t a problem. They won’t play the darn game anyway. Just don’t tell your kids about the spoilers.
Okay, scratch that December delay dated for 
Gamers beware: some of the new expanded ESRB descriptions may contain minor spoilers. This goes out to all you gamers who’d like to know as little as they can about a game’s storyline before they actually play the game.
