We’re cleaning up the Blast Newroom over the next few weeks, and right away we found a few things (like porn).

We have official E3 t-shirts for Wet, Rogue Warrior, and Red Steel 2. Do you want them?

Well we’re gonna make you work for’em.

You need to review something. A video game released in the past two months that we somehow haven’t reviewed yet. A rare peripheral. A brand new PC game would be great. Write us a 400-700 word review with a 1-10 rating. We’ll PUBLISH the best reviews in Blast and the best three reviews will win these rare pieces of cloth. First place gets choice, second, and so on. Reviews must be your own work and not be published anywhere else.

How do you do this? Register as a Blast user — it’s FREE and takes 30 seconds and post a comment on this story with your email address. We’ll be in touch.

LOS ANGELES — Two of the four main characters in Heavy Rain were playable at E3 this year. The first is Norman Jayden, an FBI profiler who has been asked by local police forces to investigate the case of The Origami Killer. The second is a sexy photographer named Madison Paige.

Here’s a look at both:

Flip takes a platform concept we saw a bit of in the latest Paper Mario iteration and just blows it out of proportion. This is a very, very difficult looking game. Even the demoer had a difficult time staying alive in the game and not plummeting to the character’s death.

In Flip’s Twisted World “It started as an ordinary boring day for Master Fulcrum’s apprentice, Flip, when he messed with the wrong magic artifact and got sucked into the crazy universe inside. Now he must fight and puzzle his way through five topsy-turvy worlds to return home and put everything back before The Master returns.”

This is a game that literally forces you to think outside the box, since the entire game world is one big cube that you have to flip around to your advantage. The goal is to get through fully 3D levels by manipulating the world. By flicking the remote, a wall in your way becomes a path to freedom and a bottomless pit becomes a useful corridor.

There are also two play styles. You can use the Wiimote and nunchuck or plug in the Gamecube controller for more traditional play. Each gives a unique challenge.

There is something very “Mario” about this game. Maybe it’s all the coins, castles and lava?

The only downfall to Flip’s Twisted World is that it’s not scheduled for release until January. It would be the perfect, wholesome holiday season gift.

“Blob” turned 20 this year, and nobody has touched the franchise since the original until now. Majesco and WayForward are developing a brand new Wii title due out this fall.

Majesco is known for taking something small and turning it into a big deal, (ever hear of Cooking Mama?) and they are poised for a real winner with ABAHB.

Story goes that when Blobolonia is threatened by an evil emperor, the blob comes to earth looking for help. Instead, he finds a young boy. Help the blob dethrone the evil Emperor that’s terrorizing Blobolonia and establish a friendship with the blob that will last a lifetime.

The Wii version, which we got to demo at the Majesco meeting room, looks and plays very true to the original. You feed the blob special jellybeans which turn it into a ladder, a hole, a canon, an anvil, etc, to creatively help you get though the platforms and enemies.

The result is 40 levels of classic video game play.

This is a totally new game, with a totally new development staff, but we talked to Sean Velasco from WayForward during the demo, and he really seems to have kept true to the original. Even the artwork feels retro.

The Electronic Entertainment Expo is back. It’s better. It’s … over. Damn.

While it still wasn’t the spectacle of the 90s, the conference was easily three times bigger than it was last year, and there was some actual news this time.

Here’s what we took away from the conference this time around:

BEST GAME
Uncharted 2

The first Uncharted is still one of the best games on the Playstation 3, and that’s not a knock on the console’s library either. This sequel looks to improve on the gameplay of the fantastic original, while also including a brand new multiplayer mode–one we will have impressions of for you in the near future.

BEST WII GAME
Super Mario Bros. Wii
Nintendo
Q4 2009

Mario is back. This new four-player side scroller is the first game to remind us of the good old days since the good old days, except now, with that multiplayer involved, it gives you a reason to want to punch your friends in the face.

BEST XBOX 360 GAME
Mass Effect 2

Bioware is promising a darker, more developed game than the first, which is saying something considering how well-done the original was. We’ll need to see it for ourselves, but what we saw was impressive.

BEST PLAYSTATION 3 GAME
Heavy Rain
Sony/Quantic Dream

This is a sleeper, but IGN also recognized the potential for Heavy Rain by nominating it for Best of E3/Best PlayStation 3 game. Blast got to play a demo, and we were thoroughly impressed by the control, decision-making abilities, dialog, and visuals. This is an excellent-looking game.

BEST MULTIPLATFORM GAME
Rogue Warrior
Bethesda Softworks
PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Fall 2009

Rogue Warrior looked great in a demo, and nothing is cooler than getting to play out the experiences of a real life badass navy seal voiced by Mickey Rourke. This game is full of pure action, explosions, and a great mix of stealth and offensive firepower.

BEST SPORTS GAME
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 Wii with MotionPlus
EA Sports
Nintendo Wii
June 8

Wii MotionPlus adds an amazing new dimension of reality to games, but nowhere was it more noticeable than in the latest Tiger Woods game. You have to position your wrists straight and do a full swing with follow-through. The MotionPlus makes you get off your couch and actually do stuff, and where better than at a virtual Bethpage?

BEST MUSIC GAME
The Beatles Rock Band
Harmonix/MTV Games
Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii
Fall

With The Beatles Rock Band, Harmonix officially takes back the music game genre, eclipsing Guitar Hero and coming out from its shadow. Beatles Rock Band will feature the most recognizable songs in history from the most recognizable band in history.

BEST PC GAME OR MMO
Star Wars: The Old Republic
Lucas Arts

This ambitious massively multiplayer game promises all voice acting and no text dialog — thousands and thousands of lines of voice acting. And it’s Star Wars.

BEST PERIPHERAL
Mad Catz Rock Band Wireless Wooden Fender Stratocaster
$299
September 2009

Mad Catz had Fender build them a real guitar, and instead of strings, they wired buttons into it and unleashed it for Xbox 360. It uses no dongle — it’s compatible with Xbox 360 wireless technology. It’s a real guitar, with wood and a shiny finish. If you like to play fake guitar, this is as close to real as it gets.

GUTSIEST PROJECTS

Heavy Rain
Sony/Quantic Dream
PlayStation 3

We’ve been looking forward to this one for a long time. From the same team that put together Indigo Prophecy comes Heavy Rain, a psychological thriller adventure that’s more about story and drawing you in than it is about shooting endless bad guys.

Wet
Bethesda Softworks
Xbox 360, PlayStation 3

Eliza Dushku is awesome.

M.A.G. Massive Action Game, 256 player online multiplayer
Zipper Interactive/Sony
PlayStation 3
TBA

Second year in a row for M.A.G. on the gutsiest projects list, and it still stands. This game is either going to be huge or a huge disappointment.

James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game
Ubisoft
December

This is one of the first video games from a movie that stands on its own merits.

Biggest letdown: Atari. Where were you this year? One word kids: Ghostbusters. Or is that two words? Either way, with the failure of some recent releases, it’s the best chance for Atari to impress this generation. Despite a hell of a showing over the past year, the company hasn’t been able to blow up. Ghostbusters should sell millions, given it’s on every console, so let’s hope that’s a step in the right direction.

Marc Normandin and Bradley Ouellette of the Blast staff contributed to this report.

They didn’t bite, so it took a small new developer called Epicenter Studios to bring the fire hose to the Wii.

Game design partners Nathaniel McClure and Bryan Jury are both former Call of Duty producers who wanted to tackle this genre for years.

“We wanted to have the action, and we wanted to do the excitement but get rid of the violence. Let’s save people instead of killing them,” said McClure in an interview with Blast.

The guys set out to create a fun and challenging video game while trying to be true to real life. They brought on a 27-year veteran California fire captain and several career firemen to consult on the game while bringing the developers’ own action game experiences to bear on this untackled genre.

“It’s been tricky balancing the realism and hardcore aspect with the fun,” McClure said. “We have a lot of action that will pull in the more hardcore gamer, but the difficulty efforts can be really insane. I challenge anyone to do expert mode and blast through it.”

My father is a firefighter, so I was dying to grab a Wiimote and attack the flames.

The game has nine levels, ranging from a simple house fire to an entire amusement park ablaze (there’s even a TV news studio fire) and the fire is completely organic. It will react and respond differently each time you play. You can point the nozzle directly at a hot spot or turn on mist mode to attack a larger area, depending on how your fire is spreading.

The game is hard. It is a good mix of timing your Wiimote actions with bluntly pouring water by the gallon from your 3″ attack line. But it’s not just about the hose. You’ll be caught in tight spaces with nothing but a handheld extinguisher, and you’ll be using various tools for car accident extrication and prying open doors.

“There are plenty of mini game collections out there. We really wanted to make an adventure game,” said Jury. “It’s single player, with a story mode. You’re a working firefighter (in) a fake LA kind of city.”

The adventure game motif shows well with voice actors from “Backdraft” and television’s Rescue Me.

While playing the game, you’ll have objectives like rescuing trapped people or killing power to an electrical fire. In between, you’re free to roam and focus on putting out the flames around you.

It’s a great game so far. Real Heroes Firefighter is the first potential hit in the fire genre, and it’s fun to boot.

The title should have been multiplayer, which could have been accomplished by adding an arcade mode where you and a friend compete to see who can put out the most flames.

Jury and McClure said they’re hoping the firefighting genre takes off, allowing them to develop more games like Real Heroes.

“This is our baby that we’ve been working on for years now. (Multiplayer) is definitely our goal — put it online, everyone rushes to the firehouse, you know?” McClure said, “It’s got a lot of potential. Hopefully the consumers will agree and we’ll go from there.”

A portion of the proceeds from this game will go to benefit the Firefighter Cancer Support Network.

This year, with the Electronic Entertainment Expo being 3-5 times bigger, there was, we experienced, a return of the phenomenon known as the booth babe.

These are not gamers, but the girls are expected to know just enough about the product to direct expo-goers to the nearest adult.

There was one glaring exception: The G4TV miniskirt girls. They were idiots. They made idiots look smart.

They popped over to The Beatles Rock Band booth and took over one of the mini stages so G4TV could shoot a promo of hot babes playing The Beatles Rock Band. The MTV Games guys made sure to set the game to “no fail mode,” which is fine; it’s a promo video.

But what made me keel over laughing, and what I just can’t get G4TV get away with, was when — and did I mention this was at THE BEATLES ROCK BAND booth? — one of the girls (the drummer in the pics) screamed to the entire room, “YEAH Let’s do Guns N’ Roses!”

The room went silent, followed by laughter.

Viva la booth babe.

Heavy Rain is the latest work of cinematic adventure by French developer Quantic Dream, the studio behind Indigo Prophecy, the best adventure game of the 21st century so far.

I first heard that Quantic Dream was collaborating with Sony for a PlayStation 3 exclusive about a few years ago, and I pushed my contacts at Sony Computer Entertainment America for answers, only to come up empty. So I forgot about the game for a while, and going into E3 I really didn’t have it on my mind.

Then I saw this cinematic, dramatic, dark, dreary, realistic adventure game being demoed at Sony’s booth, up some stairs, above the audience, appointment only.

So I played through a demo of Heavy Rain, which is currently in the alpha stage of development.

The game is definitely dark and mature. It combines exploration with cinematic, and instead of drawing your machine gun and blasting everyone in sight, you have to make conscious decisions and make certain movements with the controller or push certain buttons with split second reflexes to determine gameplay.

I died three times before getting past the first few minutes. After getting the hang of it, it was easy to see how decisions and even simple conversation points could dramatically change the story.

Controls are unique. It’s not a shooter or a fighting game, so buttons usually used for firing a weapon or punching or kicking are open. Thus, you actually use a trigger button to move your character forward. It actually feels strangely natural.

The entire game is voice acted and very well animated with lots of detail and ambiance.

When it was over, I told Sony’s Alex Armour that the game reminded me of a PC title called Indigo Prophecy. He smiled and said “yeah, it’s the same studio. The CEO is right over there. Do you want to talk to him?”

Yes.

Read the next page for an interview with Guillaume de Fondaumiere, the Co-CEO and executive producer of Quantic Dream

And then sometimes you get (fake) protesters.

We got to experience both with Dante’s Inferno, Electronic Arts’ latest attempt to show off its recent creativity.

“Inferno” takes you to hell, in an interpretation of the Italian poet Dante Alighieri’s epic, “The Divine Comedy.”

It’s a third-person action game that cycles you through a tour of the afterlife as you descend, sin by sin, through the the nine circles of hell.

You assume the role of Dante, who descends into Hell after returning home to find his beloved Beatrice murdered, with Lucifer seducing her soul into the underworld. Dante sets out to save her but has to face down his own demons first.

You get to use two very different weapons: a scythe that Dante steals from Death, himself, and the Holy Cross, given to him by Beatrice. The cross lets Dante use spiritual powers and spells as you progress through the game.

Watching the gameplay, Dante’s Inferno looks a lot like God of War with crazy combos and giant enemies you have to get past. One thing I liked was that Dante gets to tame and take control over some of his larger enemies, like a giant demon that can lay waste to most smaller enemies.

EA’s Visceral Games studio is behind this title as it prepares to put out Dead Space: Extraction, which I loved.

EA was criticized for staging fake protesters at the event. They were even saying “we’re not against video games, just Dante’s Inferno.”

By the way: This version corrects our incorrect reporting that the protesters were real.

Blast Magazine staff writer Bradley Ouellette contributed to this report, also from Los Angeles.

The controller feels a little strange at first; the board is kind of rounded on the bottom allowing it to tilt left and right, which you don’t get just from standing on a real skateboard. You can jump the skateboard by quickly moving the skateboard’s front upward. While the skateboard is in the air, you can tilt the board left or right to flip it in flight. The “Ride” as this new controller is called, can do everything a traditional controller was able to do, mostly because the controls are context sensitive. The accelerometers will even detect if the Ride has been spun around. This allows you to even do 180s and 360s.

In the demo they showed off, the player has to kick beside the board to get started, then lean forward and backwards to direct the board down the path. The game will then ask you to do a “manual,” which is raising the front of the board slightly; all I had to do was lean on the back of the board a little. Then it goes up a ramp, and you need to get the board to jump. This was accomplished by pressing on the back a bit to make it go up at just the right spot. After that you ride by a railing that you can jump up onto; like the earlier jump, just pushing on the back will launch you into the air and balance you on the rail. This part really is cool for the new controller, since you need to actually balance by leaning, rather than using an analog stick or button presses.

This looks like it’ll be another good example of getting up and truly interacting with a game. I like how you don’t have to ever pick up the regular controller at all once you start, much like in the aforementioned music titles. To go through the menu you can just move the Skate board around to navigate it. If the game is as good as it looked from the five minute demo, and offers enough of a challenge, and enough variance, this should help revitalize the Tony Hawk game brand.

But lots of hardcore gamers and some reviewers saw the title’s potential at the time, and Red Steel 2 looks like an excellent choice for Wii gamers when it comes out… “soon.”

Playing through an E3 demo of the game, which is designed specifically for and will come bundled with a Wii MotionPlus, it’s easy to see why people held out some hope.

The first thing I noticed about Red Steel is that you really have to give it a mighty swing. You have to really hack and wave your arm around to do what you want to do. The MotionPlus control is amazingly accurate. I’ve been very pleasantly surprised with how much more responsive the MotionPlus is than just the remote.

I got to tackle some obstacles, like slicing through a mighty thicket of bamboo or using my katana to whack open a metal door. Then I got to tackle some punk bad guys.

I guess “punk” is the most accurate way to describe them.

This is a weirdly stylized game. It seems to be set in the wild west, and your player has a pistol and a katana. So do the bad guys, and some of them are armored. You’ll have to slice through that too.

It was fun using the sword, and the pistol is a nice backdrop in this game instead of the main focus. The MotionPlus lets you effectively block attacks and then make quick counter moves.

The best part about this game is that you’re not just going through the Wii motions. This isn’t Wario where you can sit on your ass and fake it. You really have to get up and move to be effective in this game.

The comic book styling of the game and the lack of gore — no blood or severed limbs — also makes it suitable for most ages.

Even with just this brief glance into the game, I feel like Ubisoft has a winner. Red Steel 2 gives some much-needed tender lovin’ action to the Wii. Check out the E3 trailer below for a glimpse of what Red Steel 2 looks and plays like.

• Pictures of Ecto 1 Ghostbuster Mobile
• Pictures from Los Angeles
• New Super Mario Bros. Wii announced
• Avatar game may be as big as the movie
• Golden Sun DS announced (trailer)
  
• Super Mario Galaxy 2 announced (trailer)
• Wii Fit Plus announced, coming this fall
• Metroid returns to Wii, now in mature form (trailer)
  
• Mario & Luigi RPG: Bowser’s Inside Story gameplay footage
• PS3 exclusive Agent coming from Rockstar
• Wii Sports Resort info and screens
• Bethesda details Brink
• PSP Go to cost $249
• PSP development kit price reduced by 80%
• Mario & Luigi RPG screens and art
• Super Mario Galaxy 2 screens
• All PSP titles to be available in digital and physical form
• Kojima graces stage, announces new Metal Gear PSP game
• New Super Mario Bros. Wii details and screens
• Gran Turismo PSP unveiled
• Metroid: Other M screens
• 256 player MAG gameplay shown
• Golden Sun DS screens
• Sin & Punishment 2 screens and trailer
• God of War 3 shown and dated
• Sony unveils motion control technology
• Resident Evil on the way to PSP
• Perfect Dark coming to XBLA this winter
• Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopulos interviewed by Blast
• Steve Wiebe gets Kill Screen in DK World Record attempt

How did he do? Sadly, after 4 dramatic tries at the record, Wiebe ultimately fell short in every instance.  Was it the pressure packed scenario? Not likely. Wiebe has competed on live television before.  Was it a failure of mental aptitude? Again, not likely, as Wiebe is an advanced Algebra teacher and is known to break down the game to a mathematical base.

So what did the man who was first to break the 1,000,000 barrier in the legendary arcade game suffer from in his attempts?  Pure, cold, bad luck.

A first attempt yielded a mighty score of 923,400.  His second try garnered a tally of 653,700. A third attempt was disrupted by a brief power failure forcing the man to try again, and this time, believe it or not, the infamous “kill screen” halted Wiebe’s efforts at an impressive mark of 989,400.

This event marked the first time ever a Kill Screen was broadcast on live TV, and man oh man, what an unfortunate time for its occurrence.

A kill screen, for those unaware is, according to my main man Wikipedia, any stage or level, most commonly in Arcade games “that stops the player’s progress due to a programming error or design oversight. Rather than “ending” in a traditional sense, the game will crash, freeze, or behave so erratically that further play is impossible.”

Was legendary rival Billy Mitchell behind the power failure and happy to see the kill screen?  The world may never know.   As far as we know the man resides in Antarctica perpetually practicing Donkey Kong only to arise when his record is broken.  Nah, he lives in sunny Florida, and is a respectable man, but we know Wiebe should be king.

Blast: So, The Beatles. It must feel good.

Alex Rigopulos: It feels incredible. This is a band that’s been close to my heart personally since I was a small child. So this is really a dream project for me and a lot of people on the Harmonix team in a very big way. For a lot of us it’s still very surreal that this was able to happen at all. So for us to unveil the game to the world today is a big deal.”

Blast: I’m not going to go into inter-corporate politics but does it feel good to have this coup for your company over your biggest competitor Activision?

AR: This band’s music is incredible and for us as, I’ve said a number of times in the past, we make music games, but we consider it to be music first and games second. We really consider what we do in this category to be making new kinds of music experiences and to let people experience music in a new way, and this music is so rich and so beautiful and so joyful that to have an opportunity to take that to an interactive dimension to the first time is an honor and a privilege and something that the development team has been delighted about since the very beginning.

Blast: Personal favorite Beatles song?

AR: Well first of all there’s no one favorite just because it’s changing constantly, and it has changed constantly over the course of this project as well. One of the real pleasant surprises of making the game and what will be a real pleasant surprise for people playing the game is just that everyone has heard these songs hundreds of times in their lives, and you think you know this music but when you start learning to play the drum parts of the baselines, you discover all these little details and hidden gems in the music that you never noticed before.

I have this experience with Taxman which is one of the very first prototype songs that we developed early on that we built into the game in interactive form. The first time I played it I was playing the bass line and I started playing the bass line that I know and was familiar and was kind of bouncing and having a great time playing and there’s this one moment in the song in the bridge learning into the guitar solo that all of a sudden the bass line goes crazy and starts running all over the place, and that lasts for just four bars and then falls back to the old bass line that you know. And in all the hundreds of times that I heard that song I had never noticed that insane moment in the bass where Paul just started going crazy.

And its fun to play and its an amazing little moment that I had never heard before. I think that’s a big part of what we’re giving to the world is people are going to find all these hidden gems in the music.

For me, going back to the original question, discovering those hidden gems has been changing my favorite Beatles song through the duration of the project.

Blast: You must have met Paul and Ringo over the course of this…?

AR: Yeah many times. All four of the principles (including Olivia Harrison and Yoko Ono) were very creatively engaged in the project from the very beginning. So yeah they were integrally involved in every step of the project from conception to fine tuning the details at the end.

Blast: What was it like working with them?

AR: “It was completely surreal. These are titanic figures, right? And they also made some of the greatest art that I’ve experienced in my life, so to actually be in a creative collaboration with them its just stunning. Its intoxicating. But what was most surprising to me as how engaged they actually were. They weren’t just making kind of superficial comments. They really got the vision. They helped us craft the vision, and they were really focused on details as well. They held our feet to the fire and were pushing us.

It was very much with their help that we got there. It was surreal and incredibly invigorating to actually be in a creative collaboration with these titans.

Blast: It could have been very easy to make this a simple game. You could have made an extended track pack, you could have done this quickly and easily if you wanted to. How important was it for you and for Harmonix to add the level of detail you’ve done with this game?

AR: The Beatles, themselves wouldn’t have been interested in just an expansion pack. That was clear from the beginning in the early discussions, but that was great as far as we were concerned because that’s not what we wanted to do either. This music is so special that it calls out for special handing.I dont think for us we would have wanted to do it any differently. This is a once in a lifetime opp to work with material like this.

Blast: Your company has come a long way in the past few years. The Rock Band franchise has really taken off. Where do you see the franchise and the company going in the next 5-10 years?

AR: That’s a big question. First of all we’re going to continue to advance just on the content. We’ve already put 700 songs and growing on the Rock Band platform, and while that seems like a lot, and it’s a ton in the historical standards of video games, it’s still the tiniest sliver of this incredible music that’s out there and it’s a big part of our ambition over the coming years to fan out as broadly as possible to just get more content on the platform.

That said, there’s also the feature aspect and we want to continue to get new kinds of play and let people interact with the music and engage with the music as well. We still have a lot of ideas of how that might be accomplished on the Rock Band platform, but we also have a lot of new ideas brewing about fun new types of music play that would exist in entirely new games as well

Blast: Anything you can share with us?

AR: Not today. There will be a time for that.

Blast: Are there any bands you have not worked with yet that you’d like to?

Well there are the obvious. We’re talking to everybody all the time right? That’s just the nature of what we do, so we’re considering all kinds of options.

Led Zeppelin is a band that is another that everyone loves and everyone asks for ,and you know, U2 is another big band that a lot of people love and a lot of people ask for. All the obvious candidates.

Blast: Are any of those on the short timeline?

AR: Nothing imminent or announcement worthy.

Due out early next year, this new 1:1 motion tracking technology makes use of two wands with colored balls of light at their ends tracked by a camera located near the PS3 itself.

Two engineers on the project took the stage, revealed that the new tech has been in the works for a “few years now” and will add to the PS3 interactive capabilities, and promised that what they were showing was merely a prototype.

That said, the two showed the first capabilities of the control mechanism, and while the technology is obviously not revolutionary (see Wii), it was alluring nonetheless.

We saw motion-tracking at a very precise level as the demonstrator showed how, by using the two wands, any number of gaming possibilities can be achieved including the use of the dynamic wands as literal extensions of one’s hands to build, draw, and create any number of things in the virtual test space.

More interestingly, when an object was picked up in the virtual space it could be transfigured into any number of objects ranging from a peaceful paint brush to a hell raising automatic weapon.

We don’t know where this technology will lead in the immediate future, only that it will become available sometime next year.

Sony Computer Entertainment of America did just that today as they showed thousands of media types stunning game-play from the final chapter in the fantasy trilogy: God of War 3.

If the masculinity and awesome power of Kratos wasn’t enough, Sony slammed the faithful with a release date of March 2010.

Grab your reddest red pen and circle that month again and again, as you won’t want to forget this one.

Fine, we can try to be friends, but don’t let things get all weird. Oh, so now you’re interested in Sin & Punishment 2. Alright, alright. Why don’t you check out this trailer, and at least think about plopping the Nintendo Points down on the original. We’ll take this slowly, since you have until quarter one of 2010 to change.

I hope we have some Golden Sun fans in the audience, as the previous two games were stellar Game Boy Advance efforts–it was well past the time to see a proper sequel in many fan’s minds, but here it is, on its way.

]]> http://blastmagazine.com/the-magazine/gaming/gaming-news/2009/06/e3-2009-golden-sun-ds-screens/feed/ 2 http://blastmagazine.com/the-magazine/gaming/gaming-news/2009/06/e3-2009-metroid-other-m-screens/ http://blastmagazine.com/the-magazine/gaming/gaming-news/2009/06/e3-2009-metroid-other-m-screens/#comments Tue, 02 Jun 2009 22:20:56 +0000 Marc Normandin http://blastmagazine.com/?p=16147 Sadly, all we have for you are three screens from Nintendo’s megaton announcement, but that’s all anyone has. We will definitely post more for you if we get a hold of them, but take a look at these and the trailer again (you know you want to watch it a (forty) second time). I already want to fight the enemy in the second image, though throwing enemies around doesn’t seem half bad either.

Mario and Luigi are both playable characters, as are two Toad characters. Nintendo promises that many of our other favorites from the Mushroom Kingdom will make appearances in the game, which makes me wonder if any of them are secret playable characters, or if Nintendo is just keeping a lid on who is playable besides the Bros. and Toads for now.

The game will have some motion control, and it can be used for both co-op and competitive purposes. For example, you have seesaws in the game that can be used to get to hard to reach areas on the screen; if you’re the first character on it, you can either help your friend out, or be a jerk and mess with the incline to stall your friend. This is also important, because the game tallies your score at the end of each level to see which one of you is the highest scorer.

The game has sold me on the concept of competitive multiplayer, as well as Penguin Mario. He turns into a freakin’ penguin! That’s the most adorable thing I’ve seen since… well, Bee Mario.

Companies wanting to build games for the PSP can now do so at a much, much, much more affordable level.

We knew this was coming, as Sony hinted at the price drop earlier this year, but as E3 goes, say it hear and EVERYONE will hear it.

Good job Sony, you’ve stopped punching developers in the face in terms of asking prices.  Why’d you have to wait so long?

Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story features Mario and his brother Luigi as microbe sized characters that are traveling around inside of the King of the Koopas. It’s set to release this fall in both North America and Europe.

Graphically, it looks stunning as expected. Yoshi was featured in much of the trailer, which also showed off Mario’s Bee Suit, some sidescrolling portions, massive boss battles, and lots of screen time spent on frozen locales, including one where Mario rolled around a giant snowball.

Check out the trailer shown at E3 for yourself:

Take a look at the trailer below:

His upcoming film “Avatar” was deemed technologically impossible when Cameron wrote the film treatment 14 years ago. Even in the 21st century, the movie has taken four years of development for its December 18 release.

The movie will be epic. It’s a mix of live action and computer graphics technologies that were invented for this film. It’s set in the 22nd century, on a distant moon where humans have come into conflict with a native race.

Oh, and, it’s also in 3D.

Of course there’s going to be a video game for this kind of movie, right? But here’s the kicker: The game will be released before the movie and feature an entirely original plot.

“Games derived from movies, let’s face it, sometimes have kinda sucked,” Cameron told the crowd, “and I didn’t want anything associated with ‘Avatar’ to suck.”

So Cameron’s people gave Ubisoft complete access to the film’s CGI database and has been working closely with the game developer.

And it’s worked out well. Actually, Ubisoft has been able to create its own items and vehicles for the Avatar world, some of which are now being incorporated into the movie.

According to Yannis Mallat, president of Ubisoft Montreal, the game developer put together more than 100 shots that will be in the feature film.

“Our expertise has come full circle,” Mallat said. “Avatar is using groundbreaking technology, and the result is truly spectacular.”

It’s perhaps the best synergy of movie and video game in history.

“They’ve developed the game properly. It’s a fantastic game,” Cameron said.

The game will also be in full stereoscopic 3D. Cameron, who calls himself an avid video gamer, said it was the first time he’s ever been scared in a video game.

“I set out with Ubisoft to create the ideal model for how a game and a movie could be co-developed … with neither one being the red headed stepchild of the other, and I believe that we’ve done that,” he said.

The two things that come to mind are that this is Nintendo’s answer to LittleBigPlanet, which had four player competitive co-op for the Playstation last year, but it’s also Mario’s turn to go the Legend of Zelda: The Four Swords route, except in a sidescroller as the series classic games were, rather than top down. Details are scarce, as there was limited gameplay shown, but it looks to play as you would expect a four-player sidescrolling Mario game to play.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii is set to release this holiday season. We will publish more details as we receive them.

Remember when people didn’t respect Raiden after Metal Gear Solid 2? Yeah, turning yourself into a cybernetic killing machine changes opinions fast. Check out the trailer below.

The word “exclusive” was never uttered, so it is safe to assume that Sony fans can still get their fill of Kojima’s latest endeavor.

The game is to be called “Metal Gear Rising” and is due out sometime in the to-be-determined future.

Packed full of accelerometers and motion sensors, the board will truly revolutionize the skateboarding genre, accoridng to the man.

A video depicting various other professional skateboarders including teenage heart-throb Ryan Sheckler was shown and the board’s credibility was buffed from testimony throughout.

Boston’s Online Magazine is going to Los Angeles to bring the news back home.

Editor John Guilfoil and gaming reporter Bradley Ouellette will be ardently working for four days, mainly getting drunk and playing games, to keep you, our loyal and necessary readers, updated.

We do it because we love you.

Click here to see all of Blast’s E9 2009 coverage.

In addition to the following titles, KOEI plans on lifting the veil on two brand-spankin’ new games, marking the first time the company has done so outside of mother-nation Japan.

TRINITY: Souls of Zill O’ll

Warriors: Legends of Troy

Monster Racers

WARRIORS OROCHI 2

What could KOEI possibly be withholding from us? The only way to find out is to stay to tuned to Blast for our E3 2009 coverage beginning next week!

Why do we need more gun peripherals if Nyko has already created the Perfect Shot?  One possible answer is that the Crossfire contains an integrated remote sensor and claims to be not merely a remote shell.  And the A, B, and D-pad button positions have been altered in what Penguin United believes to be a more functionally acceptable way.

Interestingly, the Crossfire can double as a good ‘ole Wii remote, but until we get our hands on it at E3 (and indeed we will), and until we hear of a price, we’ll remain skeptical.

Why would the pals at Microsoft want a company founded in 2007? Maybe because individuals with BigPark have a combined 80 years of experience in the field working on such titles as FIFA Soccer, NBA Street, and Need for Speed? Yeah, that probably has something to do with it.

The talent at BigPark will now report to Microsoft Game Studios and actually for the past year have been crafting an uber secret title most likely to be unveiled at E3 in June.

Phil Spencer, general manager, Microsoft Game Studios solidifies this claim by saying:

“We believe BigPark has tremendous potential to create new properties and innovative gaming experiences for our platforms, one of which we’re looking forward to showcasing at the E3 Expo in June.”

There we have it, another studio gobbled up by the hungry, hungry, hippo mouth of Microsoft.  However, if you’re in the hunt for a job in games, BigPark is on a hiring spree and you’d do well to check them out if you’re interested.

A press release sent out by the ESA this morning detailed various charitable efforts going down in Los Angeles in June including the following:

• Pro vs. G.I. Joe gaming competitions in support of U.S. military personnel
• A t-shirt design contest with some proceeds going to support an L.A.-based homeless mission
• a Red Cross blood drive

Head on over to E3Expo.com for more info on the show and GiveLife.org to sign up and volunteer to have strangers deplete your life juice using the sponsor code E3.

via GamePolitics

The trade show has promised to restore the glamour and sizzle of past years and with many companies promising information packed keynotes and an overdue attempt to take back the Donkey Kong world record, things are looking up.

Microsoft upped the ante with this larger-than-life contest, with the lucky winner taking home the following:

• A trip for two to LA to attend the Microsoft E3 Press briefing
• $3000 cash  (1k for travel and 2k for car taxes)
• A home theater system that includes a Flat-Panel HDTV, Bose Home Theatre System, Xbox Elite Console, 120gb Zune, plus one year of Xbox LIVE Gold and Zune Pass. (valued at $4,800)
• A 2010 Kia Soul Sport (valued at $18,000)

To enter, because you really want you, first make sure your contact information is correct, as that is how Microsoft will contact you once you’ve won, and then download the Kia gamer picture pack (it’s free don’t worry), which will automatically add your name to the hopper.

Here’s to hoping you win! Cheers!

Verify your contact info here and download the picture pack here.

via Major Nelson

Mirror’s Edge was one of the best looking games demoed at E3 and Leipzig this year.

“In a city where information is heavily monitored, agile couriers called runners transport sensitive data way from prying eyes. In this seemingly utopian paradise, a crime has been committed, your sister has been framed and now you are being hunted.”

This fast-paced action-adventure game is coming to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 November 11 and the PC later this winter, Electronic Arts’ DICE studio confirmed this week.

The console demo will be available via Xbox LIVE Marketplace and PLAYSTATION Store. The demo will feature the prologue of the game including the tutorial and a segment of the single-player story mode.

Starting September 26, players who pre-order Mirror’s Edge at selected retailers will get an exclusive code that unlocks the Time Trial mode in the demo. This mode challenges players to find the fastest route across the rooftops and through the streets. Players can upload their best time to the Mirror’s Edge leaderboards for their friends to download and compete against. Players can see their friend’s ‘ghost’ run as they race their way through the course to the top of the leaderboards, DICE said.

Check out the game’s official website for more, including videos and screens.