It seems that the backlash against the PlayStation 3's high price is continuing to resonate across the industry, as CEO of the newly formed Tecmo Koei has joined Activision in voicing his desire for a PS3 price cut. Kenji Matsubara claims that he has constantly asked Sony to lower the system's price, but to no avail. 

"Whenever I discuss this with Sony reps I always ask them: 'Please cut the price', but I don't have a clear view on Sony's situation," confesses the Tecmo Koei boss. "Yes, from a publisher's point of view we would welcome a price cut for PS3, and we are waiting, definitely.

"It's definitely a way of boosting the PS3 market, but it's Sony's strategy and I don't know their cost structure. Sony introduced cutting-edge technology in the PS3, that's why people in the industry accept that the PS3 cost is so high, but we'd welcome a price cut."

Slowly but surely, Sony must be feeling the pressure mounting. The platform holder doesn't seem to care what customers think, but now that publishers are starting to mutter rebellious things, it's almost do-or-die time. There's no question that a PS3 price drop is now an imminent necessity -- but can Sony afford to cave on this issue before it's comfortable?

So was I the only one that completely missed it when Ubisoft finally "officially" confirmed the Turtles in Time remake for XBLA? I mean, we knew it was coming. I just don't ever remember Ubisoft officially announcing it.

Re-Shelled will of course feature four player co-op and it looks like it will have four player local co-op as well. You'll even be able to do some system linking for some multiplayer fun. How that is even remotely neccessary since everyone shares the same screen anyway is beyond me.

GameVideos did a comparison video of some of the sections with the classic version to the new version. The action looks so good and best of all, the music is similar to the original score.

Check out the video after the break. What do you all think of it? 

view full story + comments

Ok, before we even get started, I should warn you all: the video after the jump is gameplay for the upcoming PS3-exclusive Katamari Forever.

It's still a Katamari game, and that's really all there is to it.

If you're an observant fan of the series, however, you'll notice a few things: the new visual filters look gorgeous, and you can jump (!!) in the newest installation. Of course, we already knew those things, but watching the little Prince launch himself through levels that I've played often enough to have memorized was definitely cool. 

I'll admit that I missed out on Me and My Katamari and We <3 Katamari, so I'm not sure if the water-the-flowers sequence is new or not. However, it's an example of the original and creative things that can be done with the ostensibly repetitive ball-of-crap-rolling mechanic. One of the few good things about 2007's Beautiful Katamari was the way it changed up the formula without switching up the core gameplay.

There might not be anything Earth-shattering in the gameplay video embedded below the vid (Katamari is Katamari, after all), but a.) cel-shading is pretty and I like pretty things and b.) a little reminder about an innovative and interesting franchise never hurt anybody.

[Via GiantBomb]

Edit: Seems that the video below the fold is a Franken-video of three clips that Namco Bandai released about a month ago (here, here, and here). Oh well. I like it better in one digestible chunk, anyway.

view full story + comments

If we created a “Bulkiest Space Marine Armor of the Year” award it’s quite possible Section 8 would run away with the it. The men of Section 8 are wearing some of the bulkiest, most burdensome stuff we’ve ever seen. But there’s a point (beyond beating Epic Games at their own rough-and-tough-dude game): the soldiers in Section 8 are sci-fi paratroopers and when they jump, they hit the ground hard.

Below the fold is a lengthy trailer for the game. It focuses on the jumping gimmick and shows off a few of the equally armor-burdened enemies in the game. You’ll see plenty of pew pew lasers, rockets, weird robot things, and even knives if you choose to brave the page break.

When we saw the game at E3 2009, we came away pleasantly surprised: The loose shooting (as seen in the trailer) and the jumping mechanics impressed. In a few words, it looks like this SouthPeak Interactive game will be better than Velvet Assassin -- not a mighty accomplishment, but reassuring nonetheless.

The PC and Xbox 360 versions of Section 8 hit retail August 25.

view full story + comments

Have a good Fourth of July weekend, Dtoiders! Eat meat, get drunk and blow some stuff up!

The Friday Night Fight tournament is well underway, we looked at the top ten games in Japan, 'Splosion Man wants you to feel the shame, we have the best review of Mad Dog McCree you'll ever see, Jim is at the ScrewAttack Gaming Convention, Japanator is in Los Angeles for AX 09 and plenty more happened on 07/03/09.

Destructoid Originals:
READY TO FRIDAY
RetroforceGO! episode 94: Naughty retro games
How to set up a match in Quake Live
Art Attack Friday: captainosaka
Top Ten Gaijin Games: Bionic Commando Edition
Retroforce Recap: so what about those dirty games, now?
Friday Night Fights: Fourth of July weekend edition
'Splosion Man lets you skip levels at the expense of shame
Fanboy Friday: New Orphus edition

Community:
Community blogs of 07/03/09
Forum of the day: The Conduit (add your friend code!)

Reviews:
Mad Dog McCree Gunslinger Pack

Contests:
Friday Night Fights begins! Win $9,000 in Cyberpower PCs
Twitter Friday: Serious bunny, Cell Factor (winner update)
FNF: I played Cosmic Cannon and all I got was a 9800 GTX+
And the Halo Uprising contest winner is ...

Anime Expo 09:
West coast videogame cosplay is hot hot hot!

ScrewAttack Convention 09:
Stuff, things, happening, yes
Jim meets a personal hero
ScrewAttack blows ... NES cartridges

News:
Alpha Protocol to hit in early October
Milla Jovovich confirms a new Resident Evil film ... sigh
Monster Hunter Freedom Unite gets its first free DLC update
Left 4 Dead 2 boycott didn't change Valve's plans
Undead Knights comic features zero zombies, two boobs
Cliffy B blames tech for bald space marine overload
Two Worlds II announced, set to hit this winter
There's a pun in here somewhere: Risen coming out October 2
Media Molecule hints at LittleBigPlanet Ghostbusters content
Qix headed to XBLA, possibly Minter-ized
Frozenbyte admits Trine project is kind of a trainwreck
Crawford/Rohrer documentary now available online...sorta
Steam can cause spikes in retail game sales too

Offbeat:
Take your Zelda on the go with these handpainted Vans
Mega64 dies of dysentery

Media:
Battlefield 1943 hitting LIVE and PSN on July 8th and 9th
Dante's Inferno gameplay footage looks hotter than, uh, hell
Bayonetta's rival looks like Cruella de Vil
Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles is lookin' pretty
27 million balls busted in Combat Arms and other fun stats
XSEED announces The Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces for Wii
Splinter Cell Conviction will take around 12 hours to beat
Three new gameplay trailers for Madballs in Babo Invasion
Dead Space: Extraction requires a controller to play
17 minutes of Brutal Legend and Tim Schafer

We at Destructoid cannot get enough of Brütal Legend. Everything about this game is going to be so awesome!

A new video for the game was released and it shows off the first 17 minutes of the game. All of this was covered in our preview already, but this video also has Tim Schafer walking us through the entire thing, which makes it 100 times better.

There’s just something about Tim Schafer that’s so ... magical. Like, he could be selling a wrecked car filled with flaming dog sh*t and I know he’d be able to convince me that it’s the best thing ever. I'd end up buying three off of him due to his charm.

I am so looking forward to Rocktober when Brütal Legend is released. How about you? Hit the break to check out the new video.

view full story + comments

One of the highlights of today's ScrewAttack festivities was the great cartridge blowing competition, an epic contest in which hopeful gamers relived their childhoods in an attempt to get old games to work. The lads at ScrewAttack put fourteen NES cartridges through the worst possible Hell -- dirtying them, drowning them, even putting them in the toaster.

The aim was simple -- blow into the cartridge as hard as possible, pop it in an NES and see if it works. It was tense drama that not even Jack Bauer could hope to rival. Hit the jump for some footage I grabbed of the event, even though a bunch of nerds kept getting in the way and whatever footage ScrewAttack puts up will be ten times more professional and less shakey. 

view full story + comments

Breaking: Dead Space: Extraction will require the use of a controller.

Earlier this afternoon we were shocked by a trailer Electronic Arts sent around to the media. The scandalous trailer (available below the fold) clearly shows two Visceral Games employees using the Wii remote and nunchuck attachment to solve puzzles cooperatively and dismember anorexic aliens in the Wii-exclusive title. The two staffers even go so far as to explain how to play the game. Whoa.

We haven’t contacted Electronic Arts about the content in the video and certainly have not asked what the publisher was thinking when choosing to add controller support. To be frank, we’re just kidding about controller thing and asking about it jokingly be a really easy way to make EA and Visceral Games think we’re retards.

[Update: Talk about clumsy. Wii remote, confirmed.]

view full story + comments

Mega64 has gone way back and spoofed the classic Oregon Trail game. Watch as they ford the river, barter for goods and die of horrible diseases.

You know, I never really knew what dysentery was before this. I mean, I knew it was a deadly disease. I just didn't realize you sh*t yourself to death because of it. That sh*t is gross, man. 

Check out the new Mega64 video after the break!

[Thanks, Frank]

view full story + comments

Madballs in Babo Invasion is an upcoming XBLA title where you'll be playing as murderous disgusting looking ball demon things. I brought you a preview of for Madballs yesterday and it's actually a pretty fun game. It's promising to be one of the deepest experiences on XBLA thanks to all the features that developer Playbrains has put into it.

While previews are nice, videos are always better and we have three videos for Madballs for you all to check out. Find out what Invasion and Avatar Attack mode are all about and see just how hectic battles can get after the break.

view full story + comments

There were some good entries in the Halo Uprising photoshop contest but only one person can win the graphic novel. Mastersystem, congratulations! You've won the novel for your Wolverine, James Bond and Iron Man photoshop entry. No one will stand a chance against you with a team like that! Check the e-mail address that's registered to your account on Dtoid so we can get this book shipped off to you.

Sad that you didn't win? Well why not give our Friday Night Fights tournament a shot? You might win a computer worth $9,000! Also, expect another contest from me next week where you'll have to do some dressing up to win the awesome prize! 

LAUNCH GALLERY (1 IMAGES)

Ahh, the 4th of July weekend. A Friday off from my day job, fireworks, parties, and fanboys. It's been a relatively slow news week for the video game industry, but, fanboys will still find something to whine about. If it's not a game announcement or a statement from an industry figurehead, it's review scores. While not as extreme as last week's raging over The Conduit, some people are really mad about IGN giving Overlord II a 6, which struck me as odd since the Overlord games have never really been super popular. Usually we get calls for reviewer firings over major releases that get 8s instead of 9s, but some people are just really upset about Overlord II. It's fun, it's flawed, and apparently some people see it being on par with Half Life 2 or Super Mario World and can't deal with people who don't. Those silly fanboys! view full story + comments

When people talk about the inevitable downfall of retail videogames from digital distribution, the one topic that always gets mentioned is undoubtedly Steam. However, Valve is here to set the record straight, and clear up what the company views to be a common misconception.

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Valve's Doug Lombardi says that "A lot of the 'Steam is there to compete with retail' stuff is sort of sensationalized." Not only do Steam's free weekends lead to more players, and more digital downloads, but in the case of Left 4 Dead, the promotion also gave the retail PC and Xbox 360 versions of the popular game an increase in sales.

"[Steam is] about making the games better," says Lombardi. "It's currently a great marketing and promotions channel, and yeah we sell games over it and that's great, but whether people buy games at GameStop, or GAME UK, or on Steam, we get paid."

"So for us, whichever cash register you want to pay at, that's fine." Love the honesty, and you know what, it's all about consumer choice in the end.

In a conversation with Official Xbox Magazine, creative director Maxime Beland, said Splinter Cell Conviction will take around twelve hours to complete on the “Normal” difficulty setting. And those twelve seemingly orgasmic hours won’t be filled with “Game Over” screens -- Beland reckons players won’t be eating baddie bullets often.

“We’re going to ship with difficulty levels,” Beland said, “at least a normal mode and realistic mode -- like we did on Rainbow Six Vegas. And ‘Realistic’ is going to be really f--king hard -- you’re going to need stealth, two bullets is going to kill you, the enemies are going to be super-lethal.”

Beland then noted that in Normal mode players “are going to spend 12 hours playing our game and not 30 because they’re dying all the time.”

Twelve hours of Conviction sounds good to us, however, we wouldn’t mind more time with Mr. Fisher. He seems so lonely.

[via 1UP]

While The Sky Crawlers: Innocent Ages was released by Namco Bandai in Japan last year, it's going to be all new to the US very soon thanks to XSEED, who announced today they'll be bringing the game here this holiday season with the help of Namco's Project Aces team.

Based on a series of novels from author Hiroshi Mori, the game is a flight sim that fully utilizes the Wii control scheme to fully immerse you into battle. If you've either seen the Mamoru Oshi film based on Mori's books or read any of the manga that was serialized in Monthly Comic Blade, you know the Sky Crawlers universe has a lot of story, too, and it looks like we'll also enjoy that in the game, which promised to tell it through animated cutscenes.

I have to admit, this looks awfully pretty, but since I've never enjoyed flights sims I may end up passing on it. Having been a fan of the film, though, I can't help but be curious about the new story the game will tell. Does anyone still really get into flight sims, though? I feel like it's been ages since I've heard a gamer say they were really into playing them...

view full story + comments

LAUNCH GALLERY (6 IMAGES)

There's been a lot of hubbub about the "Demo Play" mode in the upcoming Super Mario Bros. Wii. This optional mode reportedly will allow the game to take over for the player, getting them through tough areas they'd been having trouble with. 

This is an interesting approach to games, especially for casual players looking for "fun" rather than "frustration." Playing through an early preview of Twisted Pixel's upcoming Xbox LIVE Arcade game 'Splosion Man this week, we've seen another approach to getting players through those tough spots. One that ends in, of all things, a bit of humulation. 

After I had been dying a lot, the game was called to action. 

"You've died a lot," it told me. "You can now choose 'Way of the Coward' from the pause menu to skip to the next level."

Slightly ashamed, but ready to move on, I did. The results were... unexpected. 

view full story + comments