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Detective Conan, Shaolin Girl drop but stay in top 3

Moyashimon, Träumerei, Gou-Gou honored; Umimachi Diary 1 comes in 2nd

Major League Eating comes to DS this week, so you can, I dunno pack your face using the stylus while you chow down at a McDonald's on a lunch break or something. Remind me to tell you all sometime about the abortive fried chicken eating match contest I nearly got into at West Wendover, Nevada back in 2001.

Actually, that's about all there is to the story. A lawyer friend in Las Vegas, unintimidated by my claim to clean drumsticks in two bites, proposed we meet at middle ground (between Vegas and Denver) and settle up. But we couldn't get the International Federation of Competitive Eating to sanction the duel,. And my attempts to get the local chamber of commerce to give us free shit didn't pan out, either. Also, the idea of spending an entire weekend in eastern Nevada eating chicken was not, shall we say, palatable. So we both mutually bowed out. But I'll take any of your asses on, especially if you live near a Bojangles.

Anyone picking up any of these? Let us know in the comments.

Deca Sports (WII)
We Ski (WII)
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King (WII)
Assault Heroes 2 (X360)
Ford Racing: Off Road (PC)
Drone Tactics (DS)
Myst (DS)
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (X360, PS3, PS2, WII, DS)
Rocketmen: It Came from Your Uranus (X360, PS3)
Major League Eating: The Game (WII)
Castle of Shikigami III (WII)
Toki Tori (WII)

New Releases — Week of May 11 [Gamespot]

May 1st 1980 I came home from school to find my mother waiting there for me, a giddy smile on her lips. She always loved birthdays. Back then we were living in an apartment, my younger sister and I sharing one room, my older brother and sister sometimes sharing another, and birthdays were the one time my mother, taking care of four children on child support and a modest income from the dancing school she ran, would really get to splurge on her kids.

Seven year-old me knew this, so I was nearly as excited as she was as she handed over a small wrapped package, my shaking fingers tearing at the colorful paper to reveal the prize beneath. Space Invaders for the Atari 2600! My heart leapt! At that point I had only been exposed to video games at my dad's house or when my brother borrowed a friend's Odyssey 2, but I had already developed the hunger that would one day lead me here. I looked around the room for the missing piece of the present...behind her, in the kitchen, on the glass coffee table my brother would eventually put his foot through in a bout of teenage rebellion, but it was nowhere to be seen.

"Where's the Atari?" I asked, my voice shaking with excitement.

"What Atari?" she replied, looking perplexed.

My heart sank a little, but I ventured onward with my questioning.

"This is a cartridge for the Atari 2600. You need an Atari to play it."

My mother frowned. "Oh. I thought it was one of those handheld games," she replied, even going as far as to mimic playing a portable game with her hands.

I was crushed, completely. Not because I wasn't getting an Atari, but because of that disappointed look on my mother's face as I explained the problem. A very emphatic child, I could almost feel how upset she was about her mistake. Here she was, struggling to raise us and wanting to give me one special day out of the year and she messed it up.

I went into my room and cried for an hour. She didn't stop me.

An hour later my father arrived with my Atari 2600.

The whole incident is the clearest memory I have of my childhood. At first I was a little hurt by her deception, but soon I saw the humor in it, and over time and across many birthdays I would grow to appreciate my mother's little tricks, whether it be hiding my presents under my own bed, knowing that whenever she told me to clean my room I just stuffed everything under there without looking, or the time I came home on May 1st and she told me to clean the bathroom, having hidden a bicycle in the shower, catching me in a lie when I came back out without having bothered to open the curtain.

It was my mother who raised me, along with my stepfather who would come along later to provide a logical balance to her whimsical ways. She taught me to appreciate words, and to see the humor in any situation. She taught me to look beyond situations and see what was happening behind the scenes. She implanted in me a thirst for knowledge as well as a joy of sharing said knowledge. In short, she's the reason you are reading this today.

Or, to put it another way, she's to blame.

Today is the day for celebrating motherhood. Not the biological process, but the artistic one...taking a young mind and shaping it into something that carries over all the best things in you.

I hope I've made her proud.

To all of the mothers out there, especially mine, Happy Mother's Day!

Not even two weeks since its release and the ingrates at Kombo.com already have eight things they want to see in Grand Theft Auto from now on. Everyone has an ultimate GTA experience list, and I'm betting that GTA IV represents someone's wishful thinking from the Vice City days (the controls represent mine). But some of these have already been introduced.

Co-op play was kindasorta in San Andreas (albeit offline) and everyone shrugged. To fully integrate that into the main game experience seriously disrupts the at-your-own-pace narrative of what is basically a cinematic video game. Multiple cities: also San Andreas — including (technically) Liberty City. Robberies: Vice City, although I agree, I wish they had them in San Andreas and here, too.

How about a Godfather-style intimidation engine? The first two missions for Vlad were laughable — throw a brick through a window? Bump into a van? (I did it with a Blista Compact, too). God damn, those clowns would pay protection money for their seat at the Yankees game if you breathed on them hard.

One thing I do not want to see, or wouldn't use anyway, is an in-car view. I am constantly reliant on the elevated perspective of third-person driving, and always thumbing the right stick to peek before taking a corner or passing to the left on a hill. Lowering the POV and holding it inside the car would have you stuck in traffic half of the game.

8 Things We Want to See in GTA [Kombo.com]

OK, I think I get the gist of this piece. TeamTeaBag takes a look at gaming achievements on the 360, and it's hard for me to assess the tone: Either SmellyGeekyBoy (the writer)

• resents the hell out of all achievements and is parodying achievement whores OR

• knows that cynical motives on behalf of Microsoft and the developers are the reason for game achievements. But he can't help himself from collecting all of them or

• agrees completely with and loves the concept of achievements.

I think it's between 1 and 2. And for myself, I'm between 2 and 3. I look on it this way, when you get a game that you really, really enjoy, the achievements show that you got your money's worth. Hokey, I know, but for those titles that don't have a 100 percent-completion model (and for some that do) the achievements can add another reason to keep on enjoying it.

Why Achievements are Awesome {TeamTeaBag]

Also, you can get that bumper sticker via CafePress

Rock, Paper, Shotgun linked to this nice retrospective of Roman-themed games over the years, starting with Legionnaire (1982) and ending with Rome: Total War (2004). The series of musings includes wrap ups and discussion, strengths and weaknesses. I began my academic life as a classicist with a knack for lyric poetry — while I hopped ship to history (East Asian at that), I still have many reminders hanging around of those halcyon days spent with Horace and Livy. A nostalgic look back at how and why these classically-themed games have succeeded (or not) is a welcome reminder of many games I played as a youngster:

... SimRomes stick around for a reason. As much as I loved the alien nature of the Egypt in Tilted Mill's Children of the Nile, Rome remains the most accessible ancient city. A century of movies and books have primed us for gladiators, togas, legions on the march...much moreso than, say, Sophoclean drama, chitons and peltasts.

Oh, sure, they're generally wildly historically inaccurate (what else is new?), but panem et circenses, people - who needs realistic class conflict, slavery, and rioting when you've got red-caped legions and chariot racing? The wisdom of Roman satirists still holds true today. Anyways, it's a fun look back at one popular theme if you're a closet (or not) classics geek, or just a fan of some of the titles.

A History of the Ancients Game [Flash of Steel via Rock, Paper, Shotgun]

• Batman Gotham Knight Writer Azzarello Interviewed

Lots of sites are posting these, I saw them on British Gaming Blog first. Here's two new screenshots from Banjo Kazooie. This follows rumors that the Xbox's "Newton" Wiimote clone is being built specifically for this title's gameplay.

Looks like some serious Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang action in the first shot. Another after the jump. Click on them for full size.

First Banjo 3 Screenshots [British Gaming Blog]

Finally getting to grad school was — in some ways — a rude awakening for me; I still haven't mastered the art of balancing the demands of my work with, uh, everything else, which had never been a problem to this point. My gaming life has been sporadic at best since January, and I spend more time writing about games than actually playing them. But despite my ineptitude, I felt a little hopeful after reading a nice piece over at GameSetWatch that explores the art of growing up and balancing a beloved hobby (gaming) with the demands of adulthood, like parenthood:

In retrospect, it was silly of me to be so worried that being an "adult" meant I wouldn't be able to play videogames. I believe that part of my maturation into what I consider to be real adulthood came in the form of learning to juggle all the new "adult" responsibilities I've taken on with the hobbies I've always held dear, most notably gaming.

Thinking back to when I was growing up, my parents kept up with their hobbies just the same as I do now .... I can vividly remember both of them pursuing their favorite pastimes on a daily basis while still keeping up with their parental and familial duties.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel! Balance is a hard skill to master, and I'm looking forward to having more time to game in future years when I've nailed down the best way to fit in everything I love to do. It's occasionally painful to come to grips with having to reconfigure well-loved hobbies in sometimes dramatic ways (I've given up much loved hobbies entirely until I get out of grad school, mostly because the time-money conundrum cannot be worked out), but it is nice to 'have it all' when you can make it work.

'All Grown Up: A Gamer Comes to Grips With Adulthood' [GameSetWatch]

This site is full of win: Game Music Jukebox. You should really give this a look. More than 120 video game soundtracks. Double Dragon. Marathon. Mass Effect. Hitman: Blood Money. Lots of stuff from 8-bit synth to full symphony scores. And not just the title track, but the full score, broken out by tracks.

Maybe not everything, but definitely a lot and certainly something to tickle your nostalgia fancy. Looks like they update it, too, last one was April 29.

I'm listening to the Metroid Theme now, Brinstar to be exact. IMHO, best score for an 8-bit game ever. I want to make it into a ringtone, I just need to pick the right refrain.

Just saw this on Reddit so, the buffering might be a little slow on some of the larger tracks as people go to it.

Reliver Your Favorite Games Through Music [Game Music Jukebox]

Kieron Gillen has a nice meditation on difficulty and games over at the Escapist: where do you find it these days? Gillen opines that real difficulty, something "balanced expertly on the precipice between hard and unfair" (like his example of God Hand), is increasingly pushed towards the edges. As the rules of the economic game have changed, many titles are forced to balance challenge with "completability," with the balance being skewed towards easy (or 'easier):

Once upon a time, games were competitors. Now, primarily, they're entertainers. They aimed to beat you. Now, to be beaten. Our language says much, really. While we've talked about difficulty curves forever, the problems now are "difficulty spikes." No one ever critiques a game for a difficulty-trough - because the former stops you getting anywhere and the latter is just something you coast throug

I'm not one of those gamers that particularly enjoys having my ass handed to me to the point where I simply cannot complete a game, though there are plenty of games that have challenged me to (my) max - I'm also the obsessive type, so the pattern of having side quests and optional challenges galore in my games of choice usually means I have more than enough to keep me busy. This question of balancing the commercial needs of AAA titles with what 'real' gamers (however you want to define that) want to see is an increasingly pressing problem — though not one that I expect will be resolved any time soon, other that to push more and more 'styles' of games towards the fringes.

Hard Times: The Future of Difficult Video Games

Mr. Juandrful over at Kezins.com has pieced together a backstory on Niko Bellic, in a VH1 "Behind the Music" kind of biography. Counterintuitively, I should put up a spoiler alert here, because although it's all about stuff prior to his arrival in Liberty City, naturally it draws on dialogue and events in the game, which you may not have played yet. Mr. Juandrful also says some of this was built on "inside info" about Niko's past, given to him by Rockstar.

Anyway, spoiler warning, don't click the link if you want to get Niko's backstory through the game for yourself. Otherwise, if you want a quick read that humanizes the character, go for it.

Behind the Game: Niko Bellic Before GTA IV [kezins.com]

Steve at PlayNoEvil noted this little news story, which involves two Chinese gold farmers who have pulled in over $200K USD being arrested in China. Why? How, exactly? Well, it would appear that one of the pair felt they were being swindled out of profits and reported his partner to the police:

Chengdu's Shuangliu county has arrested two virtual item and currency traders, surnamed Li and Zhang, focused on tapping out The9's (Nasdaq: NCTY) licensed MMORPG World of Warcraft (WoW), reports Chengdu Evening News. Police arrested the pair after Li reported Zhang for unfair revenue distribution. Going into business last August, the gold miners accumulated more than 20 employees with 20 computers to generate RMB 1.6 million in seven months of dealing.

Oopsies. I'll be nosing around for more on this story (like exactly what the pair was arrested for), but if any intrepid readers come across anything, send it my way. As Steve at PlayNoEvil notes, "Turn up the Irony Meter to 11. After all, with all of the complaints in the US about gold farming, it takes the Chinese to stand up and do something about it."

WoW Gold Miner Offers Himself Up To Police [Pacific Epoch via PlayNoEvil

A low-resolution cell phone photo appears to show a page from the June issue of CoroCoro that announces Pokémon Platinum, a new Nintendo DS game that features Giratina. Because the magazine has not yet been released, the authenticity of the photo has not been confirmed.

The other day my co-worker Sander (he used to work at 1up) lamented his complete inability to finish Mass Effect. Likewise, I'm simultaneously interested in finishing Bully and completely uninterested in playing it. We were playing these titles when our Xboxes RRoD'd, Sander's in late January, mine in March. It is now mid-May.

So here's a question I wanted to put to the gaming community here: How important is momentum to finishing or playing a game? I'm wondering if, in the timeline of developing, we've reached a tipping point. The 50-hour gaming experience is upon us. In sports simulations stretching an entire season, it can be even longer. How, if at all, can a developer create and sustain momentum in players to complete something that long? Because these campaigns are only going to get longer, not that it's necessarily a bad thing.

But for now, the question that we here can answer: Is there a period of time where, separated from gaming (a week's vacation, a borked machine, a ton of work or school obligations) you're just unable to get back into it?

I know Bash had a TUD on Friday, but I'm curious here, so Tell Us, Dammit! In the comments after the jump.

flOw is one of those interesting little games that keeps on kicking (it's certainly made the rounds at this point) — it's spawned a lot of interest and discussion since its first appearance. Brandon Sheffield sat down with Jenova Chen (flOw designer and co-founder of thatgamecompany) at this year's GDC to talk about Sony's strengths, game design, and why making traditional games is 'too easy':

I think it's just too easy for us. And, also, if I just want to make violent games or fun games... It's not to say that fun games are bad, but I could just go to work for Blizzard, or go to work for Maxis. And they make fun games, they make creative games. I could get a lot higher pay, and a much more stable job. Why not?

Why would I start a company just to make the same kind of game which I can get a much better life in another company? You know, the reason we started this company is because nobody is making this kind of game, and to expand that emotional spectrum of video games — having more people be able to enjoy video games. The only way to do it is to just do it yourself.

The interview touches on a lot of issues — from Sony to Passage to Spore — and worth a read through.

Finding A New Way: Jenova Chen And Thatgamecompany [Gamasutra]

And now for a value-added post, if you're a Devil May Cry 4 Special Edition owner, and live in the U.S.

There's an offer out on the Internets for a swell DVD case for the animated series DVDs included within. You also get $5 off your purchase of Vol. 2 of the anime. The Right Stuf International is taking the orders on behalf of publisher ADV. The site has the details and everything you need to order. It's $3.99, but clearly, this thing pays for itself.

Devil May Cry DVD Case/Insert/Coupon Offer [Anime Superstore]

I'm really fascinated by the success of MMOs aimed at kids — both in terms of their current (and potential) earning power, as well as the attachment people have to them. Club Penguin has been a massive success, and GamesIndustry.biz chatted with Lane Merrifield, one of the co-founders and current general manager, on Disney, the business model, MMOs for kids, and the birth of Club Penguin. Asked whether or not the success of CP was a surprise, Merrifield had this to say:

Absolutely, I'd be silly if I said I wasn't. We built this for our kids - I mean we built it scalable, and part of why we didn't have any VC money, no investors, was because we didn't build it as a business - we built it as a side project.

Lance, another of the partners - his oldest child and mine are about three months apart, and we were talking about how they were learning to use the mouse, starting to use the computer and the internet.

And it was that dialogue, and some technologies that Lance had been working on that really was the birth of Club Penguin. So a lot of this has come as a surprise.

I think there's a tendency to brush off these niche games since they're not 'serious' MMOs — even though they've done an incredible job of pulling in the subscribers with reasonably limited advertising and so on. Where will these types of games go from here — and their players? Club Penguin player today, WoW addict in a decade? I guess time will tell.

MMO Week: Club Penguin [GamesIndustry.biz via PlayNoEvil]

newVideoPlayer("usebob.flv", 463, 387,""); Parents! Do you lack all authority to control your child's video game playing? Do you lack opposable thumbs, or an appendage suitable for TURNING OFF THE TELEVISION???? Well, fortunately for you, now there's BOB

Yes, BOB takes all the guesswork, temper tantrums, hurt feelings and, you know, parenting out of refereeing your child's time in front of the tube. Now when you tell little Johnny he has only five hours to kill hookers and drive drunk in Grand Theft Auto IV, BOB is there to show you fuckin' mean it!

As the product's website says, "BOB becomes the bad guy in screen time negotiations." That means you can get back to being the cool mom or dad! And kids! Make sure you save your progress every three minutes because YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN BOB'S GONNA LAY DOWN THA LAWWWWW. It's like Russian roulette with gamesaves!

Seriously, there was a kid in Missouri who destroyed a vacuum cleaner in order to play video games. I'm betting at least one BOB's power cord, locked or not, gets introduced to a pair of scissors. AND THEN WHO'S GONNA BE THE BAD GUY????

Can you believe the "Today" show touted this as "fun stuff for summer?" You mean something that deactivates the fun stuff I do in the summer? Honestly, I'm wondering if I can reverse engineer BOB to not shut off my TV. Because I have Netflix and Gamefly rentals piling up while I do stuff like THA LAUNDRY, and DINNER, and CLEANING MY TOILET.

BOB— The Screentime Controller [usebob.com, hat tip to Richard Blakeley for the video again]

By the way, whenever you see me type all caps, you should imagine a monster trucks voice — Owen