There are a couple upcoming games that are going to be awesome, in my opinion anyway.

The First one thats going to be coming out is Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Dungeon™. It comes out on July 8th. This seems to be a more advanced version of the game Chocobo’s Dungeon 2 on the Playstation. one of the cooler features that they added is the ability to change jobs.

The official press release can be seen here.  The official web-site is here.

Some of the highlights of the Press Release are as follows.

STORY
Chocobo and Cid, FINAL FANTASY mainstays-turned-treasure hunters, are magically transported to a mysterious town whose people’s memories are lost with each bell toll of the clocktower. One day, a strange boy named Raffaello arrives and creates dungeons of memories to help the townspeople remember who they are. Now it’s up to Chocobo to journey through the dungeons and retrieve everyone’s memories!

FEATURES

• A compelling gaming experience utilizing a variety of classic FINAL FANTASY job classes such as the knight, black mage and white mage to aid Chocobo in his fight against evil
• Duel against friends via Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection in addictive card battles featuring popular FINAL FANTASY creatures in a unique 3D pop-up book style
• Collect hidden letters throughout the adventure and form special phrases to unlock secret dungeons and job classes
• The signature Mog House offers arcade-style mini-games that can be played with intuitive Wii Remote controls

The next one coming out is Gauntlet for the Nintendo DS on July 15th.

The official press release can be seen here.

• The Classic Heroes Return – The Warrior, Valkyrie, Elf and Wizard return, complete with 8 different colors, each with individual strengths and weaknesses, and an exclusive set of 4 Power Moves that are earned throughout Story Mode.
• Massive Cooperative Story Mode Campaign – Travel as a lone Hero, or with up to 3 companions via local or Wi-Fi play, through 40 maps across 3 realms. Begin in Ascendia high in the clouds and finish your epic journey in the bowels of the lava-ridden Abyss.
• Experience Based Combat System – Seek out gold to increase your hero’s fame level, strengthen their projectile attacks, and unlock 4 power moves for each character. Join a friend’s game and gain experience, and then take the same enhanced character into your own single player game.
• Ranked Competitive Multiplayer – Compete locally or through Wi-Fi in Death Match, Team Death Match and Treasure Hoard game modes, a first ever for the Gauntlet universe! View your rankings in Death Match and Treasure Hoard through your Nintendo DS.
• Captivating Audio and Graphics – Full 3D on both screens creates beautiful, immersive maps which are complimented by original scores of dramatic orchestral music.
• Microphone over Wi-Fi – Communicate with other players with VoIP using the Nintendo DS microphone!

Lego™ Batman™ doesn’t have a Solid release date as of yet but they are saying September 2008.

They announced this game on 18th April 2007 so it’s been building quite a lot of anticipation.

The official release can be seen here. Although I think everyone would rather just see a trailer which can be seen here. This game will have the same basic set up as The previous Lego video games with a Batman twist on them.

And last of the games is Star Wars™ The Clone Wars™: Lightsaber Duels™ which should be coming out sometime in the 2008 Holiday season. This game is going to have a Motion based battle system for you to be able to play out being a Jedi.

Official press release here and the Official website here. The press release only gives vague details about the game. Even though I don’t like the Star Wars movies being able to sword fight on the Wii should still be cool.

Star Wars™ The Clone Wars™: Lightsaber Duels™, in development by Krome Studios exclusively for the Wii, delivers fun-filled Lightsaber battles for the entire family while it immerses players in the characters, locations, and epic duels from the all-new Star Wars featured film. Built from the ground-up for the Wii, Lightsaber Duels features an intuitive motion-controlled combat system that puts the Lightsaber™ weapon in your hand for non-stop fun.

You can see The Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duels Debut Trailer here.

This week there were 3 games 1 Wii Ware and 2 Virtual Console games

WiiWare™

Gyrostarr™ (High Voltage Software, 1-4 players, Rated E for Everyone-Mild Fantasy Violence, 700 Wii Points): Gyrostarr challenges you and up to three additional players to pilot your ships through a series of twisting, turning technoplasma tracks while battling a variety of deadly alien foes at ever-increasing speeds. While fighting and maneuvering, you must collect enough energy to activate the ancient warpgate at the end of each track. Succeed, and you can journey to the next, even deadlier track. Fail, and the gate will slam shut, destroying your ship. Enhance your ship with weapon pickups, coordinate attacks with your friends to fire powerful combined blasts and use your grapple to snag energy and pickups in the midst of combat. Control your ship with the Wii Remote™ controller, Nunchuk™ controller or Classic Controller™, or use the “paired” control system that allows two players to use a connected Wii Remote and Nunchuk or Classic Controller at the same time. Offering 50 levels of intense action, powerful pickups, high-speed bonus levels and mayhem for up to four players, Gyrostarr is a killer arcade challenge.

You can see a video of Gyrostarr here.

Virtual Console™

Alex Kidd in Miracle World (Sega Master System, 1 player, Rated E for Everyone-Comic Mischief, 500 Wii Points): In this platformer from the 1980s, you’re Alex Kidd, looking for your lost brother Egle. In order to find your brother, you’ll have to contend with the evil Janken the Great, who will send his henchmen and monsters at you to thwart your progress. One aspect of this adventure is that you’ll have to play the classic game of “rock, paper, scissors” against the henchmen in order to defeat them. With 16 different levels to conquer in order to save Egle, this classic is sure to test your skills and your wits at the same time.

BURNING FIGHT (NEOGEO, 1-2 players, Rated E10+ for Everyone 10 and Older-Mild Suggestive Themes, Violence, 900 Wii Points): Released in 1991 by SNK, BURNING FIGHT is a side-scrolling hand-to-hand-combat action game. In pursuit of Casterora, leader of a huge syndicate that has escaped from New York to Osaka, the protagonists are three detectives: Duke, Ryu and Billy. Each character fights using a combination of punches, kicks and jumps, plus his own particular special move, activated by simultaneously pressing the jump and attack buttons. These lethal techniques have enormous destructive force, but they also consume a great deal of energy. For this reason, players must use their special moves with skillful timing. Luckily for the detectives, new weapons and additional health can be found by breaking things like phone booths and street signs along the way. A boss, who must be defeated in order to continue the mission, awaits players at the end of each stage. You can also take on the gang with a friend, but beware-attacks by one player can damage the other, so keep an eye on where your partner is in the heat of the battle. End Casterora’s reign of terror once and for all.

There really isn’t too much to Talk about this week if you like Side Scrolling brawlers Burning Fight is for you. If you like Platformers Alex Kidd seems like it would be a good game. The most interesting one is Gyrostarr it seems to be a Railed 2d shooter that can be played with the Wii Remote.

So, as a robot father, I was given the new Lego Indiana Jones video game for Father’s day. This was quite a thoughtful gift as most of you who read this site all full well know that I am something of a Lucas and Spielberg nerd.

I’ve been a big fan of the 3 previous Lego Star Wars games (the Prequel Trilogy, the Original Trilogy and the Saga Edition) and was chomping at the bit to get this game. The long and short of the game is that it’s fun and the puzzles are a little more sophisticated than in the Star Wars games. Which is good for single player but makes an enemy of your co-player, more-so if your co-player is under seven years of age. (Come on, you’ve all played Lego Star Wars with someone and it always causes preposterous amounts of frustration. It’s worse with a kid, trust me.)

The game is exactly what you’d expect out of a Lego game with two glaring exceptions.

First: I don’t think they beta-tested this game. Jesus. This is the buggiest game I’m ever played in my life. During the truck chase for the Ark in Raiders, my characters (Sallah and Indy) spent 30 minutes standing on top of a speeding truck across a continuous loop of countryside because the game didn’t recognize the commands to climb into the truck and hit the gas. After trying every possible button and move permutation I could think of, I spent 20 minutes trolling sites like GameFAQ’s looking for some direction for how to get into the God damn truck.

Finally I assumed something must be wrong and so I restarted the level (which sucked since the truck chase is the last stage of the level and comes after a boss battle) and then played through instantly without incident.

Temple of Doom had a frustrating moment or two with Willie Scott who’s special power is to shriek so loud she shatters glass (no lie) but other than that it played fine.

The real problems started during The Last Crusade. Remember the part of the movie where Indy’s Dad scares the birds into the airplane? Well, finishing that level froze my Wii. Seriously, it stopped on a horrible high-pitched tone and wouldn’t even let me use the home button.

So I started over, figuring my problem would be once more solved by restarting the level.

3 times I ended up having to go through the level, each time with the same result.

I could go no further.

I took the game back in case it was just my copy, but my experience with it was such that I haven’t even put it back in the Wii since I got the new copy.

I’m sure I’ll get back to it, though. It was fun.

You should just beta-test your fucking games before you put them on the market.

What’s that, you say? The second glaring omission? Oh, yes.

Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is not included. This is the “original adventures”. Which is pretty stupid since this game came out AFTER Crystal Skull. If they needed to take the time to add 5 more levels and beta-test the whole thing, they should have done it. As it is, you all know we’re going to end up two years from now with Lego Indiana Jones: The COMPLETE Adventures.

And we’re all going to have to buy it.

Jeez.

Yesterday Nintendo announced that Gamestop would be holding two events that you could get the Rare Pokémon Deoxys. One is this weekend from the 20th to the 22nd, the second starts on 27th the and ends on the 29th.

There are many ways to catch a Pokémon, but for two special weekends in June, there’s only one failsafe way for fans to get one of the most unique characters in the enthralling Pokémon® universe on their Nintendo DS™.

From June 20-22 and June 27-29, Pokémon players are invited to bring their Nintendo DS systems and Pokémon® Diamond or Pokémon® Pearl games to the nearest GameStop store where they can receive Deoxys™, a legendary character with transformative powers and an impressive set of battle-ready moves.

With an imaginative roster of characters and richly interactive game play, the blockbuster Pokémon game series has attracted millions of fans worldwide. According to the independent NPD Group, Pokémon Diamond and Pokémon Pearl have sold more than 4.2 million combined in the United States alone, while Nintendo DS continues to be ranked as the nation’s top-selling hand-held game system. For more information about Pokémon Diamond and Pokémon Pearl, please visit www.Pokemon-Games.com.

You can’t get Deoxys any other way So for any of you Pokémon nerds that feel your Collection isn’t complete this is for you. Even if you don’t want to admit that you like Pokémon.

 With yesterday’s release of Metal Gear Solid 4, it seems that the new generation of gaming is finally out of its sophomore slump, with PS3 finally bringing some A-game to the table. So what else? Gaming’s never looked better with some of the games on the horizon, for example:

Brutal Legend. By the Double Fine Studios and Tim Schafer, the genius behind “The Secret of Monkey Island” and the awesome (but underrated) “Psychonauts” is working on a new game based in the dark world of Metal. The cast is looking amazing, featuring Jack Black as roadie Eddie Riggs, who just happens to accidently have a magic, brutal belt buckle which transports him to a new, Heavy-Metal meets Nordic myth world. Also slated to do voice work is Lemmy Kilmister from the band Motorhead as “Kill Master”, and Rob Halford frontman for Judas Priest will be voicing the game’s villian, General Lionwhyte. (Let’s hope they have the sense for him to half-sing all his lines) Finally, we have the immortal Ronnie James Dio in an unspecified role. 

The gameplay is tight under wraps, but it appears to be large-scale action combat, enabling Eddie to befriend and command troops. Those feature more general staples of the metal world, such as Headbangers, Bouncers, Roadies, and the all-girl Runaways referring to the female metal band “Runaways”

 The release is slated for this year, but no date has been set. For now, enjoy the trailer, then visit the official website. 

For those of you who don’t realize how perfect a game Street Fighter II was, this post probably isn’t for you. If you never rode your bike to an arcade or a 7-11 to pound buttons against your buddies over a slurpee and if you have no idea what the significance of placing a quarter on the frame of the monitor is, you should just go back now and turn in your Nerd ID card.

So, us bots at Big Shiny Robot! got a sneak peek into Capcom’s HD update of the game and I have to say, it looks great.

I’m already greatly impressed with how Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo remix HD turned out and I can see this game, too, will waste a lot of time at the office.

As of now, the game has no firm release date, but should be available through both Playstation and Xbox’s online shops soon.

Enjoy the pictures (be sure to click for larger sizes):

So, we’ve got a few new releases today.

The single virtual console release was an old Neo-Geo game called Ninja Combat (Ninja Combat (NeoGeo, 1-2 players, 900 Wii Points). Here’s some video.

It looks old-school cool.

Wii-Ware:

Protöthea, Ubisoft, Shooter 1 Player, 1000 Points: Ubisoft has created a remake of the 2005 PC shooter Protöthea. The game is a top-down vertical-scrolling shooter which thrusts players into the role of spaceship pilot charged with the considerable challenge of single-handedly taking down a huge, deadly asteroid called Maqno 01 and simultaneously disrupting the evil plans of a political faction called “The Core.”

The second release is Toki Tori (Two Tribes, Puzzle/Platformer, 1-2 Players, 1000 points). This looks like a side-scrolling puzzler that looks mildly interesting. $10 interesting? I doubt it.

I wonder if they’ll start letting you download free demos.

Today sees the release of four games, most importantly, though, is Dr. Mario Online. This is a four player and online version of the classic game for the Wii-Ware platform.

Dr. Mario® Online Rx (Nintendo, 1-4 players, Rated E for Everyone, 1,000 Wii Points): The doctor is in! Mario™ takes a break from his adventuring ways and once again dons his stethoscope for a new generation of germ-battling mayhem. In addition to the classic mode of using vitamins to exterminate viruses, you’ll find two battle modes and an online multiplayer mode where you can hone your skills against players from around the world. Feel like challenging a friend who doesn’t have Dr. Mario Online Rx? Then the WiiWare-exclusive Friend Battle Demo is just what the doctor ordered. Or maybe you’d like some help taking on those nasty viruses? Try out Virus Buster, where four players can simultaneously move capsules simply by pointing at them with a Wii Remote™ controller. Any way you look at it, Dr. Mario Online Rx is a prescription for fun that everyone can enjoy.

And then, as if there weren’t enough versions of tennis or table-tennis for the Wii, here comes another from Aksys Games:

Family Table Tennis (Aksys Games, 1-2 players, Rated E for Everyone, 500 Wii Points): It’s time for some good old family fun, and what’s more fun than table tennis? Just like a real family, choose your character from a cast of four, which includes Daddy, Mommy, Sarah and Billy. There are four table tennis-tastic stages where it doesn’t matter if you’re an indoors or outdoors table-tennis player. Pick your poison from a gymnasium, a forest park, a beach or even an amusement park. Choose from Single or Versus mode, or select a minigame to play. In Versus mode, you and a friend can play against each other to see who is the better table-tennis player. And if Single and Versus modes aren’t enough, select between three minigames, which include Target Table Tennis, Thrilling Table Tennis and Matching Table Tennis. The appealing cell-shaded graphics and endearing music, on top of the super-fun game play, will have you and your family playing from morning till night. Get your paddles ready.

Of the two Virtual Console releases, Metal Slug both excites and puzzles me. Metal Slug is a great game and one I used to spend a lot of time in the arcades playing, but one of the first releases on the Wii was a fairly comprehensive Metal Slug Anthology. I didn’t buy it, so I’m glad I can buy this one, but it was just a bit confusing.

Virtual Console™

City Connection™ (NES®, 1-2 players, Rated E for Everyone – Comic Mischief, Tobacco Reference, 500 Wii Points): Based on the arcade hit, a young man born in California sets out to tour famous sites and cities around the world. As he drives the highways surrounding these locations, the road is painted white as proof of his visit. Only once all sections of the road have been painted will he move on to the next location in his world tour. Not surprisingly, the local police will chase the driver and do their best to stop him from completing his goal. In addition, cats roam the highways and spikes lie in wait for unsuspecting drivers. To combat these dangers, the driver’s customized car can jump, fire cans of oil and collect balloons to warp to a new stage. It’s the ultimate road trip.

Metal Slug (NEOGEO, 1-2 players, Rated T for Teen – Blood, Violence, 900 Wii Points): Released in 1996 by SNK, Metal Slug is a side-scrolling military-action game. Players control Marco and Tarma, both members of the special-ops force Team Peregrine Falcon (commonly known as Team PF), and battle their way through stage after stage of intense action. The goal is to try to overthrow General Morden and win back the stolen weapon, the Metal Slug. Players must blast through waves of enemies and machines (while also jumping over any obstacles in the way) to advance through the stages. It’s not as hopeless as it might sound, though—weapons such as heavy machine guns, shotguns, rocket launchers and flamethrowers, as well as the Metal Slug itself (which appears frequently in the game), will make the battle easier. Take on General Morden with a friend to lighten your load and ramp up the excitement even more.

And is it just me, or is anyone else running out of room on their Wii? I’ve had to delete so many games and save files to keep up with all the channels and games they’ve been putting out. Mario Kart and Wii Fit both have their own channel, I’ve got tons of old games and just no room to put them.

Does anyone know if Nintendo is planning any memory upgrades? Even just a gig of flash memory in the USB ports in the back would be a great help.

Read this. It’s pretty huge news for gamers out there. As most of us know, Jack Thompson has been one of the main forces in anti-gaming legislation, using fear tactics, event-dropping, (Columbine, Virginia Tech) and many other outright lies to attempt to push bills through to basically infringe upon electronic gaming’s right to 1st Amendment protection.

 Well, it’s all turned around on him. This latest charge, plus the anticipated guilty charges could have this hack disbarred. So breathe easy for a bit.

 In other, slightly late, gaming news, The GDC (Game Developers Conference) was held a few months ago. Well, in that convention,  Sony invited several members of the media to a private screening of a new game in development. Here’s the thing: Sony required everyone to sign a waiver not to talk about what they saw until Sony said it was okay. I’m expecting to be revealed in this year’s E3, but for now, the suspense is killing me. My guess is that it’s either the Final Fantasy VII remake for PS3, or Legend of Dragoon 2. That last one’s a little far-fetched, but I personally would kill to see that. How about you people? Any guesses to what it could be?