Dale, Tim Sheehy, and I are here at Anime Expo in Los Angeles. Here at America's largest anime convention, with well over 30,000 people attending, there are plenty of opportunities for some amazing cosplay -- and it doesn't hurt to have Ace0fClub5, one of our community members, taking his professional-grade photography (as he has done in the past).

So what we've got here for you is a teaser of some of the cosplay photos that we've got over on Japanator, with plenty more to come over the next three days. Seeing these Street Fighter cosplayers together (they planned it out as a group, naturally) was really impressive -- there's a lot of attention to detail there that really comes out in these photos. Sirs, I applaud you.

It's a little early to tell which cosplay is going to be overplayed at the con, but right now it's looking like Pyramid Head is itching to be the overplayed costume of the year -- although people are still being inventive with the outfit, so who knows. Anyways, enjoy even more photos over on Japanator!

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Outside the main convention halls, I was hanging out with a few members of Dtoid Austin (after having photos taken with some fans of mine which was great because I could pretend to be famous when I am just a blogger) when a very special guest walked by. I had just missed him at E3 and didn't have my camera when I visited Sega Europe. This time, however, opportunity would not slip past me.

As you can see, I got very excited and kind of look a bit like a mentally impaired. I told Sonic he was my best one out of all the characters what do videogames and that I thought he was awesome in Super Mario Bros. I think he was really impressed by me and that we're now friends. 

Sonic the Hedgehog is now officially the most famous person I know. 

FMV-based games with live actors are something of a guilty pleasure for me. There's nothing more overtly kitschy, yet weirdly enjoyable than seeing an underpaid, underenthusiastic actor recite awful dialogue while looking straight into a camera as stuntmen fall exaggeratedly to the ground behind him.

That in mind, I positively jumped at the chance to review the Mad Dog McCree Gunslinger Pack for the Wii. Costing only $20, the single-disc anthology collects Mad Dog McCree, Mad Dog 2: The Lost Gold, and The Last Bounty Hunter and upgrades them with Wiimote IR sensor support.

Finally, gamers can now play the original Mad Dog McCree games just as intended: with a gunlike object in your hand. Granted, you'll also be playing with a decidedly unintended sense of condescending irony, but that's probably beside the point.

If you're ready to experience the most unconventional videogame review of all time, hit the jump for my review.*

*Upon reading that sentence, you may have thought: "Hey, I saw Destructoid's review of Saints Row 2, and that was barely a review at all. Surely, this Mad Dog McCree review couldn't possibly be any more unusual than that. You thought wrong.

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Art Attack Friday is your weekly look at videogame fan art created by a talented artist.

Art Attack Friday is all captainosaka today. Usually I'd wait until the artist pumps out more videogame related art, but I've been waiting to feature captainosaka for a long time now. There's only five pieces in the gallery from him, but they're all pretty amazing. Plus the Super Smash Bros. Brawl one could totally be like three images, man!

I adore his Samus slapping five with Snake. Everything about it is amazing. Plus, they're slapping five in front of an explosion and we all know that explosions make every image better! 

There's also a ton of Gurren Lagann fan art over on captainosaka's deviantART. That has nothing to do with videogames, but it's Gurren Lagann. Best anime ever. SPIN ON!

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I'm here in bloody hot Dallas where the sun is shining and the aroma of geeky nerds clings to the walls of the Westin Hotel like Tupac fans cling to the notion that he is still alive. It's day one of the ScrewAttack Gaming Convention and already I saw Stuttering Craig walk past me. I think he pretended not to notice me, but I will find him again and make him give me a job as their new Yahtzee. I think it's Yahtzee that does ScrewAttack, right?

Here are some photos from early on today, giving you a brief idea of what things looked like before all the fourteen-year-olds registered and filled the place up with their curly hair and the undeniable stink of wet dreams. There'll be plenty of fun to come from SCG, including our shakily recorded footage of a bit of the cartridge-blowing competition and a photograph of me with a very special celebrity.

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I had a feeling something was going on with gorgeous sidescrolling platformer Trine right after I saw it at E3. It was displayed at the Atlus booth and advertised as an Xbox Live title, but shortly afterwards Southpeak announced they would publish the PC version of the game for release later this year. Ok ... but what about the 360 version I already played? And why is the PC version supposed to cost more than the PSN version?

Edge Online reported today that a Eurogamer interview with Frozenbyte spokesperson Joel Kinnunen sheds some light on the situation. Kinnumen refers to the situation with Trine as "a big mess", but says in the end of the game is the important thing. More detail from the interview:

"We would love to have the game sold at the same price point across all platforms and methods, but these things are sometimes unbelievably complex when there's so many partners involved. The same goes for the EUR/USD disparity, it's just out of our hands."

Having played it, I can say, it is a stunning looking title. But looks will hardly quiet users who don't understand why they are paying different prices based on the platform they choose.

So what's the story currently? Well, you can buy the game for $29.99 on Steam or Metaboli The hard copy for PC from Southpeak is coming later down the line. And what of the PSN version? Well, no one knows. Let's hope we get some clarity on it soon, as I was looking forward to playing this one PSN (and my puny little laptop probably can't run it anyway).

Are you all excited for our Quake Live tournament, but you can't figure out how to actually get a match going? Don't worry, it's actually really easy once you figure out what you're doing!

If you've been having trouble getting everything started, hit the jump for our simple guide on signing up, finding an opponent, and setting up a match.

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Happy Friday, listeners. While our show is never exactly what you'd call "safe for work," this episode is seriously NSFW. Conrad joined us this week, to discuss all the dirty, pervy things that game developers used to be able to get away with. Stuff like:

• Beat 'em And Eat 'em
• That's what she said
  
• Boong-ga Boong-ga!
• That's what she said
• Sexy Parodius
• Boobies, asses, dongs, vag00s, etc
• Why is this stuff so shocking?
• That's what she said

You can check it out right here to get the standard rubdown, or subscribe to us on iTunes for the full release, happy ending version. You perverts. Very special thanks once again to our beloved Coffeesash, who created the deliciously pornographic piece of music you'll hear in this episode.

Additionally, we've got a new thingy we're gonna be doing to help enhance your listening experience and fill you in on a few things. Colette will be bringing that to you later today, so keep an eye out for it.

According to ze German USK rating board, which is famous for spilling the beans on many an unannounced Taito remake headed for the land of downloadable games, the classic arcade title Qix is on its way to XBLA, (and if history is any indicator, quite possibly Wii Ware), under the name Qix++.

If you remember this bastard offspring of a Tesla coil and an Etch-A-Sketch, you know how addictive it could be. Having killed many hours of my adolescent life with the Game Boy version, I'm pretty excited to hear this news, as I think it's among the more underrated games in Taito's library.

Considering the neon rave party makeover the company has given its other gems like Space Invaders and Arkanoid, one would assume that Qix++ has undergone the same treatment. The only disturbing part of that idea is the llama-scented "++" that's been tacked on to the game's title -- a notation that usually means Jeff Minter did something to it. If the core game is still as fun as I remember, we're probably safe, but perhaps we should join hands and pray just in case.

[Via GamerBytes]

 

You may remember Combat Arms. A few months ago we showed you a hilarious trailer for the free-to-play MMO first-person shooter featuring nothing less than the best FPS mechanic ever -- the nut shot. In the American version of Combat Arms, the game rewards you for busting dudes in the junk with large bubbly text and a cartoon image of said dangly bits. In a few words, it’s awesome.

People seem to like it as much as we do. Since the game was updated with the “Nut Shot” mechanic in April, about 27 million characters have been nailed in the balls. Whoa. And that’s just the one of the stats we have for you.

Nexon America is celebrating the first anniversary of the game this month. As a gift to us, they’ve handed over some flooring statistics. Since the game launched:

• Over 3.2 billion solders have been killed, 517 million of those via headshots
• Over one million games have been played per day
• And over 154 million terrorists have died in Fireteam Mode since May

The guys at Nexon are happy with these numbers, of course, but they’re always updating, tweaking and bringing out new content to ensure the Combat Arms community continues to grow. This summer, a new mode of play will be unveiled. It’s called Quarantine Mode. It will have zombies. Playable zombies.

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And the winners are in!  Congratulations to the quickest to tweet back about our mysterious psychokinetic powers.  Our winners are: tr0tsky0 + DarthMazza + milereb + Bug42 + ZombieEmily + zippyduda1989 + Reetesh + Trevkor + FirewalkR + RedFox_ARG.  Look for the code in your Twitter inboxes in a few minutes to start playing.  Didn't win it? There's always next weekend.  Thanks and have a great 4th, b*tches!

Oh look, it's Twitter Friday again, where we give away free stuff and people complain about how much you hate Twitter and hate us and hate everything. That's cool though, because we like abuse. We thrive on it, in fact. That's why I'm going to keep giving away things for free even though people like to be mean. Because we love you no matter what you do to us! *sniff* Also, there is a bunny here who'll chew your face off if you get too testy, and I'm sure you can see he means business.

To win one of ten Cell Factor codes for PSN today, all you have to do is watch the Destructoid Twitter for us to say it's time to give away a code. When we do, reply with the phrase that we tell you to reply with, and the first person to reply with a regular old @ message wins a code. Simple as that! If you hate Twitter and you're not in the mood to get a free account so you can win free stuff, then go sit in the corner and pout, but for God's sakes keep your mouth shut or I'm sending the bunny after you.

Publisher Deep Silver has revealed that the upcoming role-playing game, Risen, will rise on October 2, 2009. By “rise” we mean that’s when it comes out. See what we did there? That’s clever, right?

The game is being developed for the Xbox 360 and PC by Piranha Bytes (also a clever pun!), the same folks who brought you Gothic. Risen is currently it its beta phase, with game proper being completed, the dialogue recorded, and a whole bunch of quality assurance teams on the case to make sure any bugs haven’t risen up during the game’s development.

Unfortunately, we’re out of stupid puns, but encourage you to drop a few in the comments.

"Who you gonna call?"

Anyone with their pulse on the 80s and pop culture knows the answer to that -- the Ghostbusters, of course. LittleBigPlanet developer Media Molecule is asking the same question on its blog, which may hint at Ghostbusters-related content coming soon to LittleBigPlanet. 

What could it be? We haven't a clue, but the idea of a little Sackboy running around with a proton pack has us giddy. Whatever it is, we'll be keeping an eye on this one, for sure.

So far, I have to admit that Resident Evil; The Darkside Chronicles is looking pretty darn appealing. Between the fact that's it's a follow up to Umbrella Chronicles and that it's on rails ... wait. Actually, the on rails part doesn't sound so good.I'm not really cool with on rails unless I'm playing House of the Dead.

Well, you know what, screw it. These new screens still look really pretty. And Leon and Claire and coming back, and that's ought to be interesting to say the least. As you all know, I'm a recent Resident Evil convert, but after how much I enjoyed Resident Evil 5, I'm going to be interested in anything new in the series that Capcom decides to put out. And yes, I plan to play through Resident Evil 4 very soon -- I know it's the best thing since God made cupcakes.

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Platinum Games has been blogging up a storm to promote its upcoming (and highly sexy) action game Bayonetta. In one blog, the team talks about the environments, and in another, we get to learn about Bayonetta's arch rival, the Cruella de Vil-esque Jeanne.

"I wanted to make Jeanne feel like something out of the 1960s, so she wears rather thick makeup. Her blood red lips and lower eyelashes are the key points to this design," explains Mari Shimazaki. "She actually wore her glasses at first; however, I felt it was a bit strange, so I decided to put them on her head instead. While Bayonetta is straight-forward and strong, I designed Jeanne to be a bit of a change-up if you will, with a sense that she is haughty and putting on airs."

"To be honest, Jeanne’s design didn’t require a huge amount of effort, so there aren’t any particular incidents that happened during her design to revisit here…"

Oh ... well that's not very titillating, is it?

Nevertheless, Bayonetta was incredible when I played it at E3 and I can't wait to play the whole thing. Check out the gallery for more concept shots of Jeanne.

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GameTrailers TV went Dante's Inferno crazy last night in its latest episode. The crew headed down to Electronic Arts' Redwood Shores offices, home of the game's developer Visceral Studios, and came back with the first look at the game in action.

I had a chance to play a good deal of Dante's Inferno when I visited Visceral in May, and while it was early, it showed a lot of promise to be a kick ass, third-person action experience. Meanwhile, a lot of you are too stuck on how it will adapt the revered source material to really grasp that; to an extent, I understand your hesitation. Maybe now, after you see this gameplay, some of you will get it; Dante's Inferno might be -- wait for it -- a lot of fun. Even if it doesn't take its gameplay in any particularly new directions or break down some non-existent literary-to-game-adaptations barrier.

Speaking with the game's Executive Producer Jonathan Knight, I got the sense that he probably knew a hell of a lot more about Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy than most people (yeah, that probably includes you). And being familiar with the material, intends to bring many of themes found in the poetry to the game's narrative. But above all, along with the rest of the team, the idea is to make an entertaining action title. It looks like they're headed in the right direction. 

So hit the jump for some of the first footage, which features bits and pieces of one of the game's early and memorable boss "boss" battles with King Minos, judge of souls (shown above). If you're a fan of third-person action titles like Devil May Cry or God of War, can you honestly say this doesn't look like fun?

 

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