So I knew there was a reason I signed up for charlieoscardelta.com other than getting the
beta. There are going to be 4 new maps and it will go for 800 MS Points. Here's some screens
from the official page:

Broadcast


Creek


Chinatown


KillHouse


There's also going to be a GOTY edition released on April 3rd, which will have "
a free token for the Variety Map Pack." You can read the official release
here and IGN's impressions
here.
Edit: Fixed first link.

Pokemon, I think we can all agree that it's a series of video games,collectible card games,
and anime cartoons created by Nintendo so they can print more money. But then comes
the internet, and it shatters my faith in humanity. Enter the
POKECLIPSE. An internet forum
dedicated to "Real Pokemon Believers". Holy shit.

The fanfic is the real comedy gold though...
-------------------------------
Chapter 1
Mario Gets Killed

It has been a whole year since the Nintendo heroes beat Tabuu and now they were
celebrating with a fight in a new stadium. Mario and Pikachu were going to fight! They
waved at the crowd. They had a battle.

Mario threw fireballs at Pikachu and Pikachu dodged them and used Thunderbolt. But Mario
dodged the thunderbolt and ran into Pikachu and punched him. Pikachu was hurt and
retalliated by using Skull Bash and Mario got hit by it. Then a Smash Ball appeared and
Mario got it. He used it on Pikachu and Mario won.

Then Mewtwo came down from the sky with primids after Mario brought Pikachu back to
life!

"Mama mia I thought we beat all the Subspace guys!" Mario yelled.
"Pika pika pi!"
Translation: Oh no, we have to fight them Mario!

Mario and Pikachu fought all the bad guys. While Mario was distracted Mewtwo used his
Dark Cannon he had to turn Mario into a trophy!

The whole crowd in the stadium screamed. Could Mario, the greatest hero ever, really get
defeated?!

Then Mewtwo set off a subspace bomb and the stadium exploded but thanks to Pikachu
everyone was okay because he saved them. Luigi was in the stadium watching the fight and
he was sad and angry that Mewtwo captured Mario. Luigi went chasing after Mewtwo all by
himself but Pikachu was too worried about Luigi to be by himself when he's so sad so
Pikachu went to chase after Luigi so he could calm him down.
-------------------------------
I would like to thank "Evan1109" for his short story on how to fail and Aerox for posting this
in IRC.

When I play Professor Layton and the curious village, I can't help but believe that this is what
Nintendo wanted with the DS the entire time. No I don't mean ridiculously hard puzzles with a
european cartoon theme, I mean something completely original that wouldn't work on any
other platform. Sure, you say, it could definitely work on the PC. I say neigh, it wouldn't. I
can't imagine sitting in front of a computer screen for hours on end trying to solve puzzles
while stuck in my my poorly lit bedroom. And that's what makes the DS awesome, I can play
it whenever I get a few spare minutes, and it's great for when I'm waiting to do something
else because I can read the puzzle, analyze it for a couple of minutes, shut the DS and let it
bounce around in my head for a while. it also makes for a great conversation started I've
learned, just asking people if they know the answer to the riddle. There, not only are you
playing video games you're being sociable in the real world.

11/10 GOTY.

From EGM issue #199, enjoy:

"My industry pisses me off.

I was a little suspicious of the cover choices one of our competitors was making, so I checked in with a contact of mine from a major game publisher. "Yes," he confirmed. "We can pretty much get whatever cover we want from that magazine. All it takes is for us to meet with the publisher, promise that we'll buy some ads, and discuss the details from there." So...that magazine's cover stories are for sale. Great.

Recently, some publicists for another game company were lamenting the fact that they couldn't get any coverage on a certain, very high-profile website out there, because they weren't advertising with that site. To get stories written up on their games, they'd have to start spending the bucks. More editorial coverage for sale. Wonderful.

Sadly, I'm not making this stuff up.

I have no stake in these two situations, so why should I care so much? Because even though they're competitors, they affect my business and my reputation. Why do so many mainstream newspapers and periodicals command respect? Because they don't act like the idiots I referred to above. But how will gaming journalism, a relatively new field, gain any credibility when certain prominent outlets or even entire publishing groups whore out their editorial integrity (if I can even call it that)?

So now I have companies thinking they can treat Electronic Gaming Monthly the same way...that we're all like this. We even heard through the grapevine that one ad buyer recently told our sales department that their client wants Ziff Davis publications to start playing ball with them, or else they're pulling support (meaning, if we don't start putting their games on our covers, we can kiss that ad money bye-bye, as well as support for normal editorial coverage of their titles). You know what? Those guys can kiss my ass. With full backing from my editorial director (former EGM Editor-in-Chief John Davison), we're prepared to tell them to go ahead and pull that "support." We've never been and never will be beholden to any outside party. If we miss out on some coverage...well, too bad. Ultimately, they're punishing their own customers (you guys), not us.

It looks like gamers won't be missing out on any of that coverage, though'a few of our competitors have editorial real estate for sale, and business is looking good for them.

--Dan "Shoe" Hsu, Editor-in-Chief"

Was he referencing Gamespot? Who knows.

Source: Dan Hsu's blog

EDIT: Yea, I probably should have said something in the post about this being from 2005, my bad.

In an interview with Gamasutra, Nintendo of America's Public Relations manager Eric Walter, had this to say about Wii firend codes when asked about their use in Monster Hunter 3.

"We're still discussing that; we don't have anything to announce today. But the way that we think about friend codes is, when folks are online, and they want to play, they typically want to play with their friends. And so, they want to keep it to groups of people they know. We've seen, in the feedback we've gotten, that people don't mind the friend codes. They like them, because it keeps them playing with the friends that they do know, and it keeps their games "undisturbed," if you will."

Source: Gamasutra