News from Play Asia

Welcome to this week's Movie/Music news roundup, containing all new Japanese and Hong Kong Video and Music releases from this week listed at Play-Asia.com. Around 650 new items are covered in this week, including new J-Pop, Anime as well as Japanese, Hong Kong and Western movie releases and much more.

Here's a summary of all new releases that were published between Saturday, April 21st and Friday, April 27th.

J-Pop Music releases (163)
ENKA Music releases (24)
Anime Soundtracks & Drama CDs (67)
Video Game Soundtracks (14)
Hong Kong Version Music releases (4)
Blu-Ray Disc Movies (6)
HD DVD Movies (6)
Hong Kong Version Movie releases (13)
Japanese Movies (77)
Non-Japanese Movies / Japanese Version (94)
Anime DVD releases (150)
J-Pop DVD releases (22)
ENKA DVD releases (1)
Idol DVD (32) ...

Skity and Stewart have released a new lua game for the PSP,

Heres the translated details:


Download and Give Feedback Via Comments ...

Becus25 has released a new version of his Custom Firmware for the PSP, heres the release info:

New and important improvements are this :

· Total Compatibility with two recoverys. If flock one, loads the other.
· If flock of flash0 the file vshmain_real.prx you will be able to be acceded igniting the PSP and pressing SELECT to a special menu that will allow you to connect the PSP by usb, to write in flash0 vshmain.prx official of firmware 1,50 and to write in flash0 recovery.elf to recover the PSP of possible brick.

Download and Give Feedback Via Comments ...

Converting web games to the handheld systems seem like an extremely popular (and profitable) thing to do. Games like Elf Bowling and Cake Mania have already hit the Nintendo DS system, and other casual web browser blockbusters, like Line Rider, are on their way. Diner Dash, one of the internet's "biggie" games, is on its way to the Nintendo DS as well as the PlayStation Portable, and we got a chance to tinker around with the versions made for on-the-go gaming.

Diner Dash is a fast-paced game that's along the lines of the Cake Mania design, which is, admittedly, a design derived from classic games from yesteryear like Rootbeer Tapper and Pressure Cooker. The idea in Diner Dash is to keep customers who wander into your restaurant happy by getting them in and out as quickly and as satisfied as possible. Customers waiting in line must be seated, served, and billed, as quickly as your hands can move...otherwise they'll get upset and leave without paying.

full article ...

Ever since Nintendo launched the incredibly successful Nintendogs franchise on the Nintendo DS platform, other publishers have been trying to grab the younger crowd with their own take on the interactive virtual pet genre. We've had games featuring cats, dogs, hamsters...and now Eidos is ready to trot to stores this summer with its own Virtual Pet game, Pony Friends.

Clearly taking a few pages out of the Nintendogs design document, the developers working on Pony Friends are doing with horses as Nintendo did with puppies. In Pony Friends, players buy a pony and care for it: feeding, accessorizing, grooming, and training are all part of the experience in this DS game, all leading up to the competitions where you'll "cheer" on your horse (through the use of the Nintendo DS microphone) all the way to the finish line. There's also a mode where you can take a stroll through nature trails, taking photos of wildlife in a challenge that's not unlike Pokemon Snap on the Nintendo DS.

Full article ...

The Nintendo DS system is not only excelling at moving handheld gaming forward in the industry, it's also doing a fine job approaching the market as a way to get people who might not play videogames a chance to find out why Little Timmy's completely addicted to his portable systems. Nintendo approached the whole "non-gaming" demographic early on and hit a home run, and now other publishers have been pouncing on the touch-screen focused system to bring more non-gamer friendly designs to market.

And no game has been "non-gamer friendly" as Midway's casual Touchmaster series. You've seen them sitting at the end of bars in clubs and pubs all over the country, and chances are, if you're over 21 of course, you've drunkenly dumped a handful of quarters to play a few of the games in its library. Midway's taken many of the successful items from its Touchmaster machines and converted them for play on the Nintendo DS. And considering each game's "touch sensitive" design, it's not a surprise that these games are hitting the Nintendo handheld.

Midway will release Touchmaster on the portable this June, but the company let us tinker around with what appears to be a near-final build of the game. For better or worse, each of the near two dozen games look, sound, and play extremely close to the version programmed on the larger bar-top version, just scaled down for play with the Nintendo DS stylus instead of the finger. In this collection, you get simple, easy to understand games like Wordsearch, Trivia, stand-alone classics like Solitaire and Shanghai-style Mahjongg, renamed classics like Pond Kings (Checkers) and Five Star Generals (Yahtzee)...even a rendition of Wheel of Fortune in the form of a game called "Wordz." Then you've got puzzle games like Crystal Balls and Mahki where you'll have to tap spheres or tiles in strategic places to remove them from play.

Full article ...

Publishing giant Ubisoft today announced that it saw a 37.4 percent increase in its fourth quarter sales due to strong sales of TMNT across eight platforms and GRAW2 on Xbox 360. The company's fourth quarter sales beat projections, which is undoubtedly good news to investors, but Nintendo fans will more likely find the following news interesting.

Ubisoft also revealed that its Wii launch titles Rayman Raving Rabbids and Red Steel have respectively sold 830,000 and 950,000 copies around the globe so far. Both are likely to cross the million barrier in the next couple of months. Strong starts to what will surely be two continuing Wii franchises for the publisher.

Last year, Ubisoft posted a want ad seeking a game designer to help on the "... continuation of the Red Steel [sic] project." The ad requested that applicants be experienced with online gameplay.

via ign ...

Last time we took Colin McRae for a spin we only got to go hands-on around a couple of tracks so, while we were bowled over by the eye-popping visuals, we didn't really get to experience the full breadth of what DiRT has to offer. Now though, we've had the chance to properly give the game a thrashing and can report that things are progressing nicely, with Codemasters well on schedule to steal the off-road crown from MotorStorm this summer.

But before we talk about the stuff we did see in the game, a brief mention of what's not in there at the moment: Unfortunately, while we got a sneak peak at the mammoth career mode, we weren't able to play through any of the races. However, what's clear is that this will certainly provide the backbone of the game, with rookie drivers proving their skills over a whopping 66 events.

Full Article ...

Converting web games to the handheld systems seem like an extremely popular (and profitable) thing to do. Games like Elf Bowling and Cake Mania have already hit the Nintendo DS system, and other casual web browser blockbusters, like Line Rider, are on their way. Diner Dash, one of the internet's "biggie" games, is on its way to the Nintendo DS as well as the PlayStation Portable, and we got a chance to tinker around with the versions made for on-the-go gaming.

Diner Dash is a fast-paced game that's along the lines of the Cake Mania design, which is, admittedly, a design derived from classic games from yesteryear like Rootbeer Tapper and Pressure Cooker. The idea in Diner Dash is to keep customers who wander into your restaurant happy by getting them in and out as quickly and as satisfied as possible. Customers waiting in line must be seated, served, and billed, as quickly as your hands can move...otherwise they'll get upset and leave without paying.

The original game was developed with mouse control in mind, since you're clicking and dragging customers to their tables, as well as clicking Flo from table to kitchen and back again to cater to your customers' every need. On the DS, you control using the stylus on the touchscreen, tapping and dragging customers and Flo all over the game field. On the PlayStation Portable version, the controls have been modified due to the system's lack of direct clicking ability -- all action's handled via the L and R button as well as the X button, maneuvering Flo from hotspot to hotspot by cycling her using the shoulder buttons. Both versions have their own pros and cons -- the PSP clearly has more screen real estate to work with so, like the PC version, all of the action takes place on-screen. On the DS, however, the camera has to scroll to follow the action due to the system's smaller display.

Even though Diner Dash shares a lot in common with Cake Mania, Diner Dash is a lot more rapid-fire and has a lot more injected into its design to make the action a lot more "maniacal". Players will have to keep track of elements like how many people are in a party, if they have a child who needs a booster seat, what color shirt each person's wearing (putting them in the same colored seat nets a big bonus). Diner Dash also has a two player competition mode, something that Cake Mania doesn't have.

Diner Dash will be released in just a few weeks time on both handheld systems.

via ign ...