1. NeoEndGame submits a story that leaves Captain America asking only one question:

   “WHERE’S MY BURRITO?! WHERE’S MY BURRITO?!”

   Seriously, a doc dresses up as the late Captain and assaults a woman with a burrito… what the hell?

2. Ah, I weep.

   Seems that some Targets in the US are putting TransFormers Classics on clearance. And I still don’t have a damn one yet…

   Other TransFormers news shows off new pics of movie Thundercracker and BotCon exclusive Thrust. Plus, word comes of a movie pillow and comforter set, and Reprolabels has decided to enhance some Classics Minicons with Grave Digger and General Lee stickers for the little guys.

3. Raving Toy Maniac reports that Burger King is having a five-week Spider-man 3 promotion, featuring toys and a contest with prizes that range from the cool to the tasty.

   The contest itself, wherein you choose between Spider-man’s classic duds or his venomous new attire, sounds like a neat tie-in, though it leads one to wonder how many prizes are to be won by taking the darker path…

4. Capcom reports in a press release that Ace Attorney 4, aka Gyakuten Saiban 4, has shipped over 500,000 copies in one week, bringing the series total to over 2 million worldwide.

   It has already been selected for the Japan Game Awards 2006 ?Future Award? and has been promoted with the help of the famous lawyer and television personality, Kazuya Maruyama. Both of these have helped Ace Attorney 4 garner a large amount of attention from fans across Japan.

   Congratulations to Capcom for the well-deserved success of this franchise.

   1up gives their thoughts on an import here.

5. So, Ken Kutaragi will be retiring come June 19th.

   While I’m not exactly a fan of the Sony brand, I do believe in credit where credit is due, and for that I do carry some begrudging respect for Kutaragi for helping take Sony from floundering in the video game industry (check out their earliest games for SNES and Genesis) to the kings of the mountain.

   Of course, if one considers Kutaragi to be the Sony parallel of Nintendo’s Yamauchi, then Nintendo and Microsoft had better be careful; Yamauchi stepped down after the launch of the GameCube, much as Kutaragi is now that PS3 is in the market. If history repeats itself, we could wind up seeing some big things coming out of his successor’s reign, just as Nintendo turned around with the DS and Wii.

   Of course, that’s all just speculation at this point.

   At Game|Life, Chris Kohler has assembled a timeline of the life of the PlayStation. Well, mostly PS3…

6. Game Head is going to air a tribute to Miyamoto, presumably this Friday night at 1am. Should be fun, Game Head is a pretty good show for games anyway, and some of the stuff lined up sounds interesting.
7. Nintendo plans to increase Wii production, but the question remains, “will it be enough?”
8. Well, that didn’t last long…
9. If you have a PlayStation 3, then it may interest you to know that there’s a pretty cool-sounding demo of Ninja Gaiden Sigma available for download, featuring a Rachel mission (which you can see footage of here) and some neat stuff with Ryu, too.

–LBD “Nytetrayn”

1. TransFormers news, courtesy of The Allspark!

   Looking to eBay for an unmodified Masterpiece Megatron? Better think again, that ship looks like it’s sailed.

   Movie fun shows off an “international” poster for the film, bearing what I believe is the Japanese logo. There are also Japanese press kits available, and for toys, Entertainment Weekly of all places has reviewed deluxe Barricade, while Remy has a new gallery of Legends of Cybertron Ratchet and TFW2005 shows off some other movie merch, such as keychains and the like.

   Other goodies include in-package pics of the Nike transforming shoes, and my personal must-haves, a real MP3 player Soundwave and his “headphone hellions” Rumble and Frenzy.

   On the comic side of things, Newsarama interviews IDW artists and writers Eric Holmes and Nick Roche. But the big news for some is that this July, Fun Publications will be selling through Diamond Distributors the TransFormers Classics Summer Special, which features the latest toys from the Classics line in a story that takes place 15 years after Marvel’s original “Generation 1” comics, supplanting Generation 2‘s place as successor (at least for one timeline).

   This cover also hints at possible new Club-exclusive toys to come, such as perhaps fan-favorite-femme-fetale Thunderblast as Elita-1, Armorhide as Huffer (he looks more like Micromaster Mudslinger to me), and my personal favorite, Cybertron Defense Hot Shot as Springer.

   Hopefully Diamond will do a better job of getting this out than they did last November’s Beast Wars prequel by FP…

2. Oh, this ought to be good.

   Star Wars and Robot Chicken are no strangers to one-another.

   But a whole special? 30 minutes? With George Lucas, Mark Hamill, Conan O’Brien, Hulk Hogan, and more?

   This ought to be grand.

3. “So, what are we going to do tonight, Brain?”

   “The same thing we do every night, Pinky…

   …watch our cartoon on DVD!”

   Not to mention, Animaniacs vol. 3.

4. GameDaily reports “Blue Laser Costs Coming Down; Could PS3 Price Cut Be Far Behind?”

   *cue laughter*

5. Someone has a sick sense of humor, and I spit in their face.

   For the past several weeks on my way to my job, which ended yesterday (for a couple of weeks, at least), I would always pass a Wendy’s. Not always go in, but it was always there.

   Now, look what happens damn near THE VERY SECOND I can’t get to one conveniently.

   This makes me sick.

6. “Drink Coke, Win Nintendo.”

   Hey, I drink LOTS of Coke, and I could stand a new DS…

   …sucks that it was Pepsi that was on sale today, though.

   As for Wii… bad news…

   Oh, and DS too.

   Well. That was a waste of a post.

7. Don’t know if you’ve heard of Powerpuff Girls Z, the anime inspired by the Cartoon Network hit series, but evidently it got game. As so much else in Japan does.
8. New Gundam details for the Wii have surfaced.

   No mention of “good” being a feature, unfortunately, so the verdict is still out.

9. New Dragon Quest IX info reveals that combat may be more traditional than at first thought, along with other tidbits such as custom appearance.
10. Seems that Punch-Out!! and HDTV don’t play well together. But is this an isolated incident, or are there more problem games out there?
11. Oh, Cracker Jack, you silly bastard.

    Every time I want to ignore the guy in the news, there’s usually one part that compels me to give him the attention he so craves.

    So of course, today would be different… Not!

12. If you’re in the market for an XBox 360 HD-DVD drive, I hope you have a Sam’s Club membership.

    Which can be pretty worthwhile on its own, anyway.

13. Oh goodie, MS will be unveiling Halo 3 in two weeks.

    I don’t have a 360, I never played the first, only barely played the second (the launch party was fun, tho), but I admit, I’m curious.

–LBD “Nytetrayn”

I’m getting really sick of having to delete spam comments from entries here, especially bad porn spam, so don’t be surprised if things change so that you have to register to comment.

1. Be afraid, Superman, because “Kryptonite” is real!

   Not radioactive, though. All the same, it’s fascinating what things there are yet to be discovered, even in this day and age we live in.

2. The Toronto TransFormerscon is this weekend, and attendees will get a chance to walk home with a pretty nice lithograph, featuring several TransFormers Alternators, as well as Masterpiece versions of others.

   In other TransFormers news, there are new pics of Fast-Action Battler Barricade and Starscream’s Barrel-Roll Blaster, as well as Legends of Cybertron movie Starscream and Blackout.

3. GameSpot has some new screens from NiGHTS.

   Quite gorgeous.

   And CVG has a full-blown preview available.

4. …

   The Simpsons Movie. To feature full frontal nudity.

   I’m sure there are those on the internet who have dreamed of this moment. I’m not one of them.

5. In the UK (and I’m sure they mean it elsewhere, too), Nintendo says mod chips are bad.

   I still think if they didn’t region lock the damn things, people would be less inclined to want mod chips in the first place. Two words: Mother. 3.

   …at least, I think a number can be a word. Regardless, just one example of a good game without a domestic release that people would want to play…

   …despite being for the GBA, which features no such lockouts. BUT, the point is, such games exist.

   And Kotaku backs me on this one.

6. Goatse.cx is for sale, but you can’t afford it.
7. So word is that Square-Enix doesn’t dig digital distribution.

   That sucks. Not that there’s much I want out of Square’s half, Super Mario RPG is about it, but Enix has some nice stuff like Actraiser that I wouldn’t mind seeing on the DL, or Illusion of Gaia and its Euro/Japan-only sequel Terranigma.

–LBD “Nytetrayn”

1. As usual, kicking off with TransFormers news!

   Starting things off is the first look at Fast-Action Battler Bumblebee from the upcoming movie line, followed by a preview of the TransFormers: Identification & Price guide book and a GameSpot preview of the DS movie-based game.

   Other news is that “Optimus Lime” is a flavor of Starburst candy, and BotCon has given us our first look at their Thundercracker convention-exclusive toy.

2. Evil Avatar has word that Miyamoto has been nominated for Time Magazine‘s “100 Most Influential People of the Year” award.

   The year? I’m uncertain. It places a lot of sole credit regarding Wii on his shoulders, it seems.

   Now, of a decade, or a century, taking his many titles and influences into account…

3. Three new titles have hit the Virtual Console, in the form of Gradius III for the Super NES, Wonder Boy in Monster World for the Genesis, and Battle Lode Runner for the TurboGrafx-16.
4. A sneak peek at the new Nintendo Power came out today, revealing a NiGHTS cover, a Miyamoto interview, and features on Super Paper Mario, Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword, Mario & Sonic, and more.
5. “Intimate.”

   I believe that was the word that used early on to describe the forthcoming new version of E3, and with the latest news from Next Generation, it sounds like “intimate” is right, with a mere 32 exhibitors planned for attendance as opposed to last year’s 400.

6. Sonic Rush Adventure has a new character!

   And it’s not a ninja (that I can tell), dammit!

7. Remember that bit yesterday about Square-Enix going the remake route?

   Eh, forget about it.

   Oopsie.

8. Ninja Gaiden Sigma is getting a special edition.

   …

   …what IS “high-res packaging?”

–LBD “Nytetrayn”

Since I had an awkwardly-timed update early Friday evening, I figured I’d do a weekend wrap-up here to try and catch things up a little for tomorrow.

1. To start off, TransFormers. Some images of movie Thundercracker have surfaced, revealing that he seems to have a remolded head, in addition to the newer, more Thundercracker-esque paintjob.

   In addition, lots of other merchandise has surfaced. Interesting to see a more “toon-ified” version of the movie characters on the coloring sets. And it looks like Dreamwave’s art is still making the rounds, too.

   TakaraTomy have a catalog of movie toys, which you can see here, and more info on the “movie-vision” Optimus Prime, exclusive to Target, can be found here.

   It might seem a little old-hat at this point, but Entertainment Weekly reportedly has a new image of movie Optimus Prime, plus a Q&A with Big Bot himself, all of which can be found online.

   As to the last question? Oh, SNAP.

   A new two pack that names Optimus as Leader for the Ages? Well that’s just Prime.

   And speaking of which (as we usually are), IDW has revealed a little about the upcoming TransFormers: Spotlight to star Big Red himself.

   On the game side of things, 1up has a preview of the upcoming PS3 game based on the movie.

   Finally, Ben Yee’s BWTF.com brings a bevy of reviews: Titanium Scourge, Cybertron Defense Red Alert, and Cheetor and Rattrap from the BotCon 2006 Dawn of Futures Past set.

2. Racketboy’s Retro Gaming looks at the best undiscovered GameCube games, though as of this writing the site seems to be experiencing some difficulties that prevent reading the full article.

   However, it opens up with one of my personal favorites, Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, a very unique and very fun sidescroller. When I first got to play this at Nintendo World the day before the Wii launched, I was instantly in love, and was heartbroken to find that despite having it on display, they lacked any copies for sale (Donkey Konga 2 with the Bongo controller was going for about 20 bucks). Fortunately, I was able to eventually find the game in a two-pack with one of my wife’s Christmas presents, Donkey Konga 2, at Wal-Mart. So we still lack an extra set of bongos, but at least we got game.

   Anyway, this works well as something of a “stress relief” game. Much like Burnout, you can work off a bit of stress or frustration after a long day by pummeling at those bongos.

3. Word is that Square-Enix may be looking to adopt a more remake-heavy business model, based on the success of past ventures.

   Me, I say remake Bushido Blade and Super Mario RPG already.

4. GameTrailers has an exclusive Ninja Gaiden Sigma trailer available for your perusal.
5. Over in the UK, existing technology has been implemented to create a way for celphone users to help find missing kids.

   Sounds cool to me.

6. “Nintendo doesn’t make games for hardcore gamers.”

   I think I agree with RMC on this one. What-freakin’-ever. If it’s true, then maybe it’s for the best, as I don’t have that kind of time to spend on a single title; going through Zelda: Twilight Princess is a rather daunting task as it is. But I’m enjoying it quite thoroughly.

   So maybe I’m not a hardcore gamer. I’m happy to simply be a gamer.

7. If you’re a Wii owner with a Sam’s Club membership, this may interest you…
8. I missed this at GameSpy, but Go Nintendo found a Top 25 list of cinematic video game moments.
9. Tom Green and Tony Hawk talk Wii.

   Now with less Desu.

   Actually, the clip’s nothing that grand, but it’s a slow day, what do you want?

10. Kotaku has found an interesting item, Game Over! The world’s most inaccessible game.

    A free download for Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux, it’s “a 21-level game built to illustrate the frustrations of inaccessible game design by making each level an example of how limiting certain design decisions can be for disabled gamers.”

    Interesting stuff.

And that’s pretty much a wrap for now, see you tomorrow!

–LBD “Nytetrayn”

Ok, first get the “4/20″ jokes out of your system.

Done?

Good. Moving on, sorry this is so late. A bit has accumulated over the day, not all of it particularly noteworthy, either. But here are the juicy bits:

1. Great Xaaron’s ghost! Quite a bit of TransFormers stuff piled up over the past day or so…

   The 1986 TransFormers movie soundtrack is being reissued, Skywarp’s getting the Masterpiece treatment, movie trading cards are coming, Masterpiece Megatron might get a second production run, you can ask questions to Simon Furman for a future Q&A, new Titaniums go European, the BotCon-exclusive Dirge has been revealed, TransFormers Lunchables are showing up at retail with toys (I wonder if those will be in Canada), Pepsi and Mountain Dew are joining the movie hype machine with bottles and a website, respectively, and IDW has news and covers regarding their prequel comics which will be released each week of June, leading right up to the release of the movie in theaters.

   Plus, another release on the DS games. As much as I typically like Optimus, I have to admit that the thoughts of playing as Bumblebee, Jazz, and especially Ironhide really appeal to me.

   Wow, I wonder what else is to come…

2. Great, just great. This looks like a year I’m going to be missing one great convention after another.

   The latest on the list? Power Morphicon, a convention to celebrate the mightiest morphin’ team of heroes ever, the Power Rangers.

   All I can do now is hope that it’s successful enough to last until I can go. Like BotCon, Wizard World, the Heroes Convention, Anime North, maybe even Otakon…

   But, just because I suck doesn’t mean you have to! Info on guests, features, location, and more are available on the webpage. Some of the guests are former Black/Green Ranger, Johnny Yong “Vash the Stampede” Bosch, Jason “Skull” Narvy and Paulie “Bulk” Schrier, Neil “RiD Optimus Prime/Diabolico” Kaplan, and some of the lovely female Rangers, too!

   Wow, I could just cry.

3. …Spider-man: The Musical?
4. A new peek from Newsarama of Avengers: The Initiative #2, featuring:

   - Untrained heroes going into action! Just what we had Civil War to prevent!

   - A heroically self-sacrificial President Bush!

   - Using transporters to wear down the point between positive and negative space to hop around the country! (I’m not even sure what that means, but I bet that enough road trips is going to have repercussions down the line.)

   - And my favorite, a part where the rookies are told that using their guns is “…like playing Halo. Just point and click,” doing its part to show that maybe video games CAN be used to train killers.

   I’ve been pretty cool with most of what Marvel does and has been doing, Initiative included, but frankly, this is looking like five pages of tripe.

5. Evil Avatar applauds MSNBC sticking it to Cracker Jack (and rightfully so), and calls for people to rise up against this parasite.

   And for all of Thompson’s claims that violent video games are the cause of school shootings, Sternheimer points out that before this week’s Virginia Tech massacre, the most deadly school shooting in history took place at the University of Texas in Austin? in 1966. Not even “Pong” had been invented at that time.

   “One thing that people often don’t realize is that in the years since video game sales have really exploded, not only have youth violence rates decreased but violence rates in the U.S. have declined precipitously,” she added.

6. Speaking of Cracker Jack, looks like he and Take Two have settled some things.

   Take Two seems to have come out ahead, but it looks like Thompson’s happy (for the moment) with his part of the settlement, which ironically he wouldn’t have had to even deal with if he wasn’t such an ass in the first place.

7. Some new info has surfaced for NiGHTS: Journey into Dreams.
8. Chris Kohler at Game|Life has done some serious legwork in tracking down all that’s to be expected for the Virtual Console in the near future.
9. Ok, figure this out.

   Things are a bit tense lately. Perfectly understandable.

   Therefore, it’s natural for panic to be the reaction when a bomb is found at the G4 offices in LA.

   And upon further inspection, it turns out to be a fake bomb at that. Still, it’s reasonable to be safe and sorry.

   But the stupid part?

   It was their own fake bomb from one of their shows!

–LBD “Nytetrayn”

Yaaaaaaaaaawn~!

Tiring day. Hope there’s not too much going on…

1. Kontinuation Damacy.

   Beautiful Katamari Damacy is going to continue the series on PS3 and XBox 360. As for Wii?

   “…Nintendo’s unique controller provides some difficulties that have to be worked out first.”

   Um, Classic Controller, anyone? Eh, whatever. I assume this means he’d like to do something more unique than that.

2. So Microsoft and Quiznos are sponsoring a Pac-Man tournament on XBox Live, which is cool. Just not my thing so much, believe it or not. Though I do wonder if Gabe will be entering…

   But the Pac-Man cartoon on the Marketplace? Now we’re getting somewhere.

   Find a way for me to download Pac-Man cereal with MS points and we’ll really be in business!

3. Well, they say that bad things come in threes…

   What next?

4. Oooh, I think he’s done it!

   I think that Jack Thompson has just gone kamikaze!

   Mr. Thompson, I fully support you in this endeavor, and encourage you to push forward with maximum aggression and with all due haste.

   …

   (Bury ‘im in the sewers, Bill!)

5. Meanwhile, more people like Richard Abanes in the media spotlight might not be a bad thing.
6. Religious broadcasters, Rush Limbaugh, and now Chris Matthews, all standing up for gamers (the latter against Jack Thompson himself)? I don’t know whether to be excited, or scared. This is all so sudden…
7. I dig Ratchet & Clank.

   And now, a paralyzed boy will be added to the next game.

   Now, don’t read into this the wrong way, but I seriously wonder how they plan to do it. Will it be his head on some other body? Will he be himself, but with robot gadgets allowing him to walk? Is that in poor taste? Will he be as he is now in real life? Would that be in poor taste?

   I would truly, seriously like to know how one goes about approaching something like this, especially when dealing with a high-tech alien setting like Ratchet & Clank‘s.

   As always, thoughts are welcome. Because you people are too damn quiet.

8. An important yet understated man in the video game business has passed away.

–LBD “Nytetrayn”

1. I’ve seen it mentioned before, but thanks to jackscarab: Get bent, Dr. Phil.

   I’d be willing to concede that maybe video games were a detriment to this person’s mental state if only guys like this would first concede that maybe they had deeper problems to start with, given that millions upon millions of people of all ages play these games (whether some of the younger should or not), and the fact that World Wars III, IV, and V haven’t erupted in rapid succession yet.

   Fair? I think that’s fair. Do you think that’s fair? Because I’m pretty sure that’s fair.

   As far as guns go, I’m no gun nut, but I think that this could potentially have been a better-case scenario than if he didn’t have access to guns. What if the lack of access to firearms forced him to be more… “creative.” I’m talking bombs and other stuff here.

   Simple fact is, what happened here? There is no simple answer. Society has formed various layers of problems over what was this man’s life, and his brain just couldn’t handle being smothered. There is no simple answer like “video games” or “music” here. There’s talk that his girlfriend dumped him, or that he was being faced with failure in school. Maybe the two came in close proximity, and he couldn’t handle it all at once.

   Chris Kohler sums it up best, thanks to some help from Chris Rock.

2. …and now, my brain just broke.

   Reading over this, he makes some good points. Kotaku cuts to the meaty parts.

3. Game|Life has got a video featuring Jack Thompson’s immediate response to the happenings, which Kotaku’s Brian Crecente dissects piece-by-piece.

   For the record, I could only watch about 25 seconds before my stomach started turning.

4. I suppose all the above makes this just a little ironic.
5. Lighter news. So much lighter, you’ll need shades… which allow you to view the world on the radio-wave-spectrum level.

   Despite the lack of MegaMan NT Warrior Axess sequels Stream, Beast, and Beast Plus, it looks like VIZ is set to jump on board the Star Force Express right at the first station this time out, as news came from the VIZ Media International Show the anime known as Ryuusei no Rockman is coming our way, with 13 20-minute episodes. The release had the following to say:

   “In the year 220X, a new technology has been developed to enable contact with extraterrestrial life forms. A mysterious accident occurs during the first communication attempt and Geo Stelar’s father, an astronomical
   scientist, disappears. After the accident, Geo is determined to follow his father’s footsteps and unravel the secrets surrounding the disappearance. Geo finds his father’s visualizer, which allows him to see invisible electromagnetic waves, and soon after witnesses a fight between two sporadic waves, one of which unexpectedly rushes toward him!

   Geo learns that what he’s seen isn’t an electromagnetic wave, but an extraterrestrial life form – Omega-Xis, and FM-ian who has escaped his home Planet FM with the mysterious Andromeda Key. Other FM-ians are determined to destroy Planet Earth and release FM viruses to succeed in their cause. When Geo and Omega-Xis merge by exchanging electromagnetic waves, they become Mega Man – the only one who can protect humankind and save the planet!”

   Naturally, it’s the beings who dwell on Planet FM who are so violent… on Planet AM, they just sit around and talk a lot.

   One can hope that VIZ and Capcom are working more closely than before, so that we don’t wind up with two different localizations. As regards Star Force‘s prequels and their fates in the US, I suppose I’ll have to investigate, as well as if any Star Force merch is to be expected.

6. That’s not the only news out of VIZ, however! In a further example of awesome, Death Note is coming, with 37 half-hour episodes!

   “DEATH NOTE, based on the Shueisha manga series of the same name, is currently one of the hottest anime titles in Japan. It depicts the adventures of Light Yagami, an ace student with great prospects but who is bored out of his mind. All of that changes when he finds the Death Note, a notebook dropped by a rogue Shinigami death god. Any human whose name is written in the notebook dies, and now Light has vowed to use the
   power of the Death Note to rid the world of evil. But when criminals begin dropping dead, the authorities send the legendary detective L to investigate, and he is soon hot on the trail of Light, who must now reevaluate his one noble goal.”

   The question this poses to me, however, is how Death Note gets a full 30-minutes. Is it straight to DVD? Broken up by 30 minutes of commercials? Or is it just a simple inconsistency?

7. Other announced releases that I don’t care so much about: MÄR, Honey and Clover, and Zoids Genesis. If you want the release for any of those, say so in the comments and I’ll add it tomorrow.
8. Brian-Michael Bendis writing Halo?

   I am so sold.

9. The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are coming to XBox Live Marketplace.

   Ok, not being a 360 owner (yet), I don’t have a full grasp on this “Marketplace” thing. But when I hear “market,” I think “money.” So of course, they’re charging 160 points/$2 a pop for these. Well, that’s why I have cable.

10. Speaking of the 360, if you’re looking at the Elite and think it’s pretty sweet, EB/GameStop is actually doing something good for a change, and increasing the trade-in value on the old boys. But it’s only good until April 27th.
11. So SEGA has scooped up some Marvel licenses.

    Fun fact: Since THQ held the rights to The Punisher, he couldn’t be used in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance.

    Thus the question must be asked: should Activision wish to make an Ultimate Alliance 2, would Captain America, Thor, and Hulk have to sit that one out?

12. Hopefully it can be taken as a good sign to Ace Attorney fans that Gyakuten Saiban 4 is the highest-selling entry in the series.
13. Sounds like Wii is continuing to succeed in Nintendo’s mission. No, not the one about making as much money as possible, but the other one, the part about bringing back old gamers who put the controller down years ago.
14. Get ready to update your Wii ‘ware, Neo Geo is coming to Virtual Consoles worldwide!

–LBD “Nytetrayn”

1. So good news from Viz today, as they’ve been named the Master Licensor for the anime series of Blue Dragon, based on Microsoft and Akira Toriyama’s RPG for the XBox 360.

   The BLUE DRAGON Anime is a classic adventure story of magical Shadow powers, flying air fortresses, and unbounded heroism! Brought together by fate, Seven Soldiers of Light must awaken the Shadow within themselves in time to overcome a despotic power and bring peace to their land. Their ensuing journey through a rich fantasy world is also an internal journey to awaken the great power within each of them. Journey with them into the world of BLUE DRAGON!

2. NinjaTurtles.com has added the preview for the official TMNT movie adaptation to their website, plus a cool Brazilian promo for the movie.
3. The new TransFormers cartoon’s logo has been unveiled.

   I don’t know. It’s not bad, but I feel like I’m looking at the original as I’m on the verge of passing out or something.

4. In other TransFormers news, The Allspark has new images of Mr. Potato-Head’s Optimash Prime, new shots of Heroes sets Starscream and Mirage and (if you can log in) many more, including Unicron!

   Plus, Remy has a sweet movie Ironhide gallery, and Activision reveals TransFormers DS.

5. Not to be outdone, BWTF.com has several updates as well: Alternators Ravage and Titanium Scourge are reviewed, a gallery for More Than Meets The Eye part 1 has been opened, and Mass Appeal Magazine will feature TransFormers as its April story.
6. Nintendo.com reveals the secrets to smoother internet browsing through your Wii, as well as Monday’s Virtual Console releases, consisting of Punch-Out!! Featuring Mr. Dream for the NES, Virtua Fighter 2 for the Genesis, and Bonk’s Revenge for the TurboGrafx-16.

   Pretty decent selection this time out, and Toastyfrog wastes no time in telling you why… or why not.

7. Press The Buttons follows up their revealing of the Sonic Rush Adventure trademark last week with the official announcement of the title this week.

   Guess it didn’t take SEGA very long to remake the brand, did it? First we had Sonic vs. an evil Arabian overlord, now pirates? I’m glad that they’re trying new things. But now it demands Espio as a second character, just by virtue of the whole “pirates vs. ninjas” thing.

   Meanwhile, I still need to see if I can find a copy of the first…

   GameSpot has more images here.

8. The Madden Curse: legit, or just a load?

   Either way, the Chargers don’t want to take that chance.

9. Sony of Europe to employees:

   “Thanks for helping make the Sony PlayStation 3 launch the most successful in the history of Europe. Here are your walking papers.”

   Ouch.

10. Wanna be a TV star? Microsoft might be able to help.

    PMO on XBox Live… nah, never happen.

11. Guitar Hero 3 on Wii will use a guitar, but they’re still trying to find a new way to use the remote.

    Back-up on drums? That’d be cool.

12. The Return of the Arcades?

    God, I can only hope.

13. A little more info is revealed about Capcom’s recently-announced Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law game.

    Glad to know it’s not going to be a cut-paste job of Ace Attorney. Also glad it’s for PS2 instead of 3.

14. …of course.
15. Opening tomorrow is the art show to which I most wish I could go. I Am 8-Bit.

    …actually, looking at the time, it’s today, but that didn’t rhyme.

16. I know many people will be saddened to hear that Luke Smith is leaving 1up.com.

    Well, I’m sure that somewhere, someone is… probably. Maybe.

–LBD “Nytetrayn”

Sorry, these updates are a little cobbled together, but functional.

1. No more courtroom drama for the DS?

   Objection!!

   Not with Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations on the way!

   Hold it!!!

   A new challenger appears! And Chris Kohler has an artist’s interpretation.

   Thanks to gyakuten_saiban and others for the news. But why the hell would Capcom think that this is #4? This isn’t frickin’ Mega Man, there aren’t that many so that one would loseWeight Exercise count. Then again, most Mega Man games are numbered, whereas Ace Attorney games aren’t, but still.

   With the move to add more western licenses into the mix, could Capcom be returning to the glory days when they made many other western-based games, such as their critically-acclaimed Disney titles?

2. ONE PIECE, mothaf*cka, One Piece!

   I’ll be honest. I never watched a single ep of the 4Kids dub. I have no idea when/if I’ll get to see the new one, but I’m glad the option will be available in some form. I’ve only read one issue of Shonen Jump (the second issue) with a story from it, and I rather enjoyed it, so I welcome more.

3. The latest TransFormers news from The Allspark: First look at the DS games, first look at the 3″ movie Titanium figures, and WTF are TransFormers: Hybrids?

   Also, there seems to be a problem with keeping an active version of the new trailer with Prime speaking online. Why would Paramount want a trailer taken down? Is free advertising not a good thing any more?

   At any rate, keep an eye on the Super Hero Hype forums to come back up so you can hopefully catch a peek.

4. Atomic Fire has the latest info from Capcom Gamer’s Day for Mega Man Star Force and Mega Man ZX Advent.

   Rockman Perfect Memories has some coverage of their own as well.

   Meanwhile, GameSpot goes hands-on with Star Force and ZX Advent, along with full coverage from the Capcom event.

   Likewise, Go Nintendo has amassed a collection of stories and videos from around the web.

   It’s taken a lot longer than normal, but Star Force is slowly warming up to me. Maybe it’s just because I’ve been in a real henshin mood lately, though.

   And I wonder if I should be at all bothered by the resemblence the Dragon logo has to my own symbol. But then, they’re both dragons, so I guess it’s to be expected…

5. G4 is a name that makes most gamers cringe, but despite this, it may come as good news to some that they’ve made a Wii-browser-compatible version of their website. Given the lack of gaming news on Wii’s own news channel, this could be a handy thing to have.
6. According to Go Nintendo, it is possible that new Super Smash Bros. Brawl characters will be revealed in the next Coro-Coro.

   Besides the hope of Sonic, my biggest wish is to see the likes of Ice Climbers and Mr. Game-&-Watch, and others rumored to be removed shown so people will finally put that damn speculation to rest.

7. Bonk’s Revenge is coming to Virtual Console this Monday.
8. Hmm.

   On the one hand, it seemed that Soul Calibur 2 was best-received on the GameCube, due in no small part to Link’s presence, I’m sure.

   Despite this, the sequel went on to be a PS2 exclusive, and from what I hear, was more frustrating than fun.

   So one has to ask, is it a good thing that it might return to Wii? Will it follow the pleasure of the last Nintendo iteration, or the pain of its successor?

9. Hmm, with my Sam’s Club membership expired, I may have to look at a CostCo membership instead if they’re offering deals like this.

   This is the part where I laugh to cover up the sadness that is the fact I cannot possibly afford that right now.

   Just think, though, for $1,000 a pop, you can own the better arcade originals over the lackluster NES ports that Nintendo keeps releasing.

   (And I think that Kotaku us mistaken, it looks like there’s no “Super” in this Mario Bros.)

10. Udon is pure excellence when it comes to art, and that includes Street Fighter.

    Which is why I’m quite happy that they’ll be doing the art for an updated version of Street Fighter II.

–LBD “Nytetrayn”