The latest game releases from Japan have been given marks out of 10 by the 4 judges, heres the scores:

Ayakashi Fighting (DS) 4, 4, 4, 3
Unou no Tatsujin Soukai! (DS) 8, 7, 7, 8
Super Robot Taisen W (DS) 8, 8, 8, 8
Akudakan (PS2) 7, 6, 6, 6
Gundam Musou (PS3) 9, 8, 8, 8

Game of the Week was a PS3 game, will that interest people to buy the PS3 in Japan ? ...

Some one has got a heck of a load of Rubiks Cubes and made a Pic of Mario with them.

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Remember when bits were everything? 32 bit versus 64 bit...the "24-bit" neo geo, the Jaguar "do the math" controversy - then the Dreamcast came along, the first 128 bit system, and pretty much everyone stopped talking about it. I even remember a time when I thought the intellivision and 2600 were 4 bit, because they came before the NES. You doubled the bits with the next system, that was just how it worked! But then it started to be about how emotional your engine was. Anyway, I decided to mail sony and ask how many bits the PS3 has. A gajillion? Six? Here's the official answer (bless them for indulging me, thanks to Sony PR boss dave karraker for getting a tech guy to respond to this - I can't think of anyone else that would do something this awesome):

"The PS3 is 128 bit, but it is more 128 bit than the others. The number of bits isn't really a very good measure anymore. To be honest, it hasn't been a good measure since PS1 days. That said...

Most single pieces of data fit in 32 or 64 bits. The benefit of 128 bits is that you can operate on 4 pieces of 32-bit data at the same time, which is called SIMD (Single Instruction, Multiple Data). This is only useful for data that needs the same operation on all 4 pieces, which is common in games for things such as 3D graphical transformations, physical simulation, collision detection, etc. 128-bits is the "sweet spot" of price and performance, so that is what everyone seems to have settled upon.

To get more power, people have instead now been moving to more processor cores. (PS3 has 8, Xbox 360 has 3, Wii has 1, PS2 had 1 + 2 special-purpose, Xbox had 1, etc).

For graphics, it is even trickier to explain. The biggest difference is that in the past, graphics chips were "fixed-function". Now, they are programmable. But people don't really talk about it in terms of bits; instead, they usually measure in terms of flops."

Aside from maybe a little fudging in terms of the PS2 cores, because by that logic the Saturn had three, that's pretty interesting! So the PS3 is 128 bit - just like the Dreamcast! Which means the Dreamcast is still top of the line! The Intellivision, which I mentioned before, was actually 16 bit, according to the all-knowing wikipedia. So this clearly means the PS3 is worth 8 Intellivisions! I was also assured that the 360 and Wii are 128 bit as well. So while I knew bits no longer really 'mattered', I guess this is official confirmation that the bits war is over. It's all about cores now, and flops. Now that's a loaded word! As a bonus, here are some fun equations for you. Create your own!

Jaguar + N64 = PlayStation 3
Intellvision + Genesis + Jaguar - Saturn + Neo Geo + NES + 32X = PlayStation 3
Dreamcast - Wii + NES x SNES = PlayStation 3
Dreamcast / PS2 x supergrafx + PC-FX + Neo Geo Pocket Color - CD-i + Nintendo 64 + 3DO = PlayStation 3 ...

As Pipeworks cranks down on the Wii version of Godzilla: Unleashed, Santa Cruz Games, the development studio that worked on Superman Returns for the dual-screen handheld, is hard at work on a Nintendo DS version of Atari's giant monster franchise. Atari was in the office today showing off Godzilla: Unleashed, and while the Wii version's more of a fighting game, the DS edition's taking the form of an old-school arcade-style action game. The Wii version was way early, but the Nintendo DS version was even further away from "not quite ready for Prime Time". At least in this early stage we could see the concepts that the designers at Santa Cruz are aiming for as their game's working through its development cycle.

Godzilla: Unleashed is a side-scrolling game that puts focus on two monster cooperative play -- the scrolling environments spread across both screens vertically, with flying monsters taking care of the upper-screen and ground creatures marching along the bottom. It's almost like a cross between a horizontal shooter and Double Dragon, and players are encouraged to swap between their two selected characters to wipe out enemies that wander across both screens.

Though the game is strictly a 2D affair, at least in its action, the game pushes a 3D engine across both screens of the DS. The visuals are more stylized for this handheld-outing -- creatures are a bit more "deformed" with larger and more exaggerated body shapes, and the addition of a cel-shade across the characters, enemies, and environments jazz things up a bit. Boss creatures can be half-screen, full-screen...even two screens tall.

Because the game has a huge multiplayer focus, the developers have enabled the Nintendo DS system's Download Play feature so that only one copy of the game is needed in the networked two player cooperative option.

The Nintendo DS version is clearly in more of a "conceptual" pre-Alpha stage at this point since only one stage could be played and the multiplayer wasn't enabled quite yet. And though the style of the 3D in Godzilla: Unleashed, with its cel-shaded look and huge monsters, certainly looked impressive, the framerate was not. Hopefully this less-than-fluid frame rate is an area of focus as the game's worked on back at the studio.

We'll have more on the Nintendo DS version of Godzilla: Unleashed as we creep closer to its Fall 2007 release date. Click the links below for the first screens and artwork of the handheld game in action.

via ign ...

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Playing something like Spectrobes just serves to highlight how incredibly boring real-life pets are. Rabbits can't find ancient magical fossils hidden deep in the ground. A parrot is unlikely to be able to stop an alien invasion. And, last time we checked at least, a hamster couldn't unleash powerful lightning attacks that shake the ground and send bolts of electricity crashing down from the sky. But, in Spectrobes, the animals you collect and train can do all this and more - something that will no doubt be familiar to anyone that's ever tried the Pokémon games.

It almost goes without saying, some might find it easy to dismiss Spectrobes as yet another Pokémon clone. After all, it's possible to see the creature collecting and monster fighting Poké-DNA running right through the game. You almost expect some of the cuter critters to say "pika". However, after just a few hours' play, it's clear that the Pokémon comparison is relatively unjust. Spectrobes takes the "gotta catch 'em all" ethic of Pokémon and runs with it. Even if the direction it runs isn't always the best.



For the majority of the game it runs - with teeth bared and claws extended - into scrap after scrap. Thankfully, Spectrobes loses the frustrating random-battle mechanics of Pokémon titles. Enemies appear as black swirling whirlwinds on the map, which it's possible to run past instead of fighting, if your Spectrobe is low on health. When you enter the eye of the storm, you're faced with three aggressive alien invaders known as Krawls. Normal weapons are useless against the Krawl and the only way to kill them off is by using an assembled team of - gasp - Spectrobes.

It's only possible to take a pair of creatures into battle, so it's essential that you've formed a decent team. Once the fight begins, orders are given to your Spectrobes in real-time while running around the battle arena. Pressing either L or R tells a particular Spectrobe to attack. Once they've attacked, it'll take a few moments before they're ready to strike again. Some Spectrobes even have more complicated moves, such as the samurai-like critter that's able to guard and distract enemies, alongside its standard attack. This adds extra depth to tussles because, in this instance, it's possible to have your samurai distract enemies while his partner readies for another round.

What's more, as Spectrobes fight alongside each other, they actually develop bonds. So, the more they engage in a bit of rough and tumble, the more powerful their combined attacks become. Combined attacks are essentially "special moves" that can be charged up and unleashed during a fight. Depending upon the element of your combatant creatures, combined attacks can see lightning shoot down from the sky, meteors shower towards enemies or massive shards of ice pierce through the ground. They're certainly spectacular to look at. However, the fact that your combined attacks are limited only by how quickly you can recharge means that Krawl encounters can be over within a few special moves. We're hoping the difficulty ramps up when coming across more powerful Krawl because what we've played so far has been a breeze.

As well as fighting with your Spectrobes, you also have to collect them. Unfortunately it's quite a long and complicated process. First, using a young Spectrobe's ability to sniff out fossils, you must locate a dormant creature. This involves standing still, tapping an accompanying Spectrobe, waiting for it to scan the area and then jumping for joy when flashes appear on the ground to indicate something's waiting to be unearthed. The fossil locating process has to be repeated a lot because it's also used to find special minerals that Spectrobes eat to level-up. The novelty tends to wear off after about the 40th time.



However, your quest for new Spectrobes isn't over once you've managed to locate the fossil… oh no. Now it's necessary to excavate it by using the touch screen. Rather like an extreme version of Time Team you take to the soil armed with a series of drills. "Digs" last a few seconds as you chip away at the ground with a large drill until the fossil is exposed, then use a slightly smaller drill to carefully extract the fossil. It's no good just wildly scratching at the touch screen either because the fossils are quite delicate and it's possible to break them. This makes the whole process quite tedious and, although we've managed to snag a device that automatically excavates minerals, we've yet to acquire a similar tool to retrieve fossils.

So with fossil in hand it might seem like your Spectrobe gathering quest is over. Well, not quite. Next, it's necessary to head back to your spaceship and "awaken" the Spectrobe with a special machine. Developer Jupiter seems to have taken the idea of awakening something fairly literally, requiring that you bellow into the DS's mic to rouse the fossilised Spectrobes. Depending upon the Spectrobe that's being awakened, you're ...

There are two types of Wii games. There's the "now that we have our Wii dev kits, let's start making a Wii game kind of game," and there's the "now that we have our Wii dev kits, let's take this GameCube game we've been working on and put it on the Wii instead since you'd have to be crazy to release a new GameCube game now" type.

Usually, developers of the latter group make an attempt at hiding the hardware switch by adding Wiimote controls, or maybe even a 16x9 mode. But Nintendo is being quite open with Fire Emblem Akatsuki no Megami (Goddess of Dawn), which just hit Japan this Thursday. This first Wii Fire Emblem game, and the celebratory 10th entry in Nintendo's much loved strategy franchise, is really a GameCube game that just happens to be on a DVD. I bet if the disk were smaller, it would run just fine on that old purple box that's gathering dust in closets everywhere.

Akatsuki no Megami is missing a lot of what one might expect from a next generation, or even a new generation, Fire Emblem title. Looking for Wiimote waggle or pointing controls? Look elsewhere. Says so right on the box: "The entire game is played with the Wiimote's buttons." Ironically (I'm pretty sure this is irony), Akatsuki no Megami is one of the first Japanese Wii releases to include a pamphlet warning users against waving the Wiimote around too hard (in Japan, Nintendo actually has public service commercials showing proper use of the controller).

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It seems that comic book licenses are a permit to print money these days. Even if the comic books themselves don't quite have the mass appeal they once did, the characters are American icons guaranteed to generate sales. Look no further than the recent success of Ghost Rider for proof. It almost goes without saying that the upcoming Spider-Man 3 movie will have videogames released on nearly every conceivable platform to accompany it. We recently had the opportunity to see a guided demo of the hi-def iteration running on Xbox 360, courtesy of publisher Activision and developer Treyarch. From the looks of this first in-game demo, Spider-Man 3 appears to be a refined version of the last movie-inspired Spidey game, capitalizing on its successes while scrapping some of the more ill-conceived ideas.

As the demo opened, we were given a rooftop look at the new and improved vision of Manhattan that will serve as your playground. Running in HD, this is easily the best looking Spider-Man we've seen on a console with a nice draw distance and slick animations. Spider-Man himself is looking good, especially in his black suit and Treyarch did a good job modeling the villains to look just like their movie counterparts. The city looks crisp, though we were a little let down at the lack of visual tricks such as the windows not having reflective surfaces. Still, the transition to new and more powerful consoles looks to be a smooth one.

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We hate to say it, but after Konami cranked out three nearly identical button-mashing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle (TMNT) titles on the old-gen systems, game fans, turtle fans, and pretty much everyone else in their '20s who remembered Vanilla Ice's great achievement in acting were left longing for something more. We've all been waiting for a publishing/development team to treat TMNT material with intelligence, humor and design savvy. And one might say we're still waiting.

Enter the internationally diverse publishing powerhouse, Ubisoft. Grabbing the game license based on the upcoming 2007 CGI movie, Ubisoft Montreal has blended kid-friendly action, platforming and simplified Prince of Persia (POP) acrobatics into a single turtle concoction. Coming sooner than you think, TMNT is hitting eight platforms, yes eight, March 20. You'll see it on Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, PSP, PC, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, GameCube, and Wii.


Gain momentum in "Turtle Time."

In this new adventure, you'll take on the role of every turtle, Donatello, Rafael, Michelangelo, and Leonardo, with each character prepared to lay down his own special set of moves. And not so surprisingly, you'll face dangerous and dark criminals bent on causing massive destruction to the turtles' home turf, the Big Apple. This episode's evil enemy appears in the form of the mysterious Max Winters who, after being fired from his job, pursues a new career in creating an army of monsters to do his bidding. Even though the turtles have grown apart, there is no doubt you'll combine all of their skills to defeat Winters, who threatens the very heart of the turtle family.

Visually, TMNT takes the easy approach. The turtles look more like moving comic-book characters than "realistic" super heroes. We are talking about teenage mutant ninja turtles here; you know, anthropomorphic, walking, talking turtles, so they're already distinct. One's got the red bandana (and two sai), another's got an orange one (and nunchakus), Donatello has the purple bandana and the quarter staff, and Leonardo dons the blue bandana and wields two katana. Still, Ubisoft Montreal has kept the visuals simple and easy on the eye, using very little next-generation juice to spruce things up. Let us just say that one shouldn't expect the same CG-quality visuals used in the movie.

The animations look decent in this preview build, with some of the better ones showing the turtles shimmying along rooftop walls, running POP-style over cave walls, and hopping, Mario-style, across every object possible. While none of the working public has seen the movie, which hits theaters three days after the game (March 23), the title doesn't appear to spoil too much of the movie's narrative. It does, however, use the same themes and environments as the film. Ubisoft Montreal uses a series of set-cameras, or cinematic camera positions, to capture progression throughout the game. Much like Prince of Persia, Peter Jackson's King Kong, and Onimusha, the camera is set in the most theatrical position possible, sometimes sliding along rails, and sometimes, in boss fights, remaining completely still.

Very much a kids' game, TMNT starts out and remains easy. The first few levels teach players how to perform the basic and necessary moves. All four turtles can jump, double jump, cling to and shimmy on special ridges on walls and cliffs, and they can walk, run, and perform fighting moves. Using arcade games as its model for fighting and the Jade Engine to power it, Ubisoft Montreal's combat moves consist of a simple attack button, a helicopter kick, and a jump and slam move that momentarily pushes enemies away. The attack move links out to combos by simply hitting a single button repeatedly. I gotta tell you, you'll want to link up all the moves, but, sadly, the best strategy is just pressing attack over and over. It's the best way to cream a circle of NY punks with pipes in their hands, anyway.


Team up, dude, and totally slam that harsh boss!

The game follows a basic familiar formula: Platform through an environment, fight groups of brainless and simple AI, platform some more, then fight a boss. What makes the fights a little more entertaining is the way in which you battle. Along with the basic attacks, an evade move sets up counter attacks. There is also a momentum meter that appears on the upper-left hand side of the screen to indicate multiple uninterrupted attacks. By nailing about 10 to 15 uninterrupted attacks in a row, the turtles will jump into "Turtle Time" (i.e. Bullet Time), slowing enemies down while cleaning them up without restraint. They basically crouch down into their shells and "spin attack" enemies by slamming into their shins until they lose momentum. It's silly, but satisfying.

While the turtles share basic moves, each wields his own weapon and delivers a special move set. Donatello, who wields a quarter staff, uses a pole jump to cross large gaps and pummel enemies lined up in a row. Rafael ...

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Over his half-century-plus of life, Godzilla and his Toho-created crew have destroyed metropolis cities more times than is probably healthy for mankind. But those nuclear beasts continue to wreak havoc across the planet in Japanese flicks. And the fact that giant monsters are too cool for school makes them perfect candidates for videogame designs, since it's pretty much the only time fans can play out their building-destruction fantasies...without stacking up cardboard boxes and couch cushions that is. Godzilla: Unleashed is the third in the Godzilla franchise from the partnership between publisher Atari and developer Pipeworks Software, and in this update the two companies are really pushing the Wii functionalities to give the fighting game a bit more "oomph."

Godzilla: Unleashed is a new design that's based on Pipeworks' previous PlayStation 2, GameCube, and Xbox Godzilla fighters. In this production, gamers play as more than 16 different city-destroying titans of four different factions: earth defenders, aliens, mechas, and mutants. Atari's only ready to talk about four that are in the game: Godzilla 2000, Kiryu, Gaigan, and Megolon. But the company let us in on a little tidbit: the game will have two original Toho-approved characters made specifically for this fighter.

The game is being prepared for a fall 2007 release, but Atari stopped by our offices today to give us a peek at an early build to show off some of the concepts that the development team's working on for this fighter. On the surface, it looks very much like Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee released on the GameCube a few years ago. Visuals have definitely been bumped up in the move to the Wii -- we only had the opportunity to play as either Godzilla 2000 and Kiryu (essentially MechaGodzilla 3) but it was clear that the character models and cityscapes received a bump-up in texture work even in this pre-alpha stage. Atari promises four player battles when the game wraps later this year, but at this admittedly early stage of development the engine struggled to keep up with just two fighters on-screen. The game still has a ways to go in production, though, so what we saw will definitely improve and change by the time it ships.

What surprised us was how well the current Wii controls work with the fighting system. Atari and Pipeworks made it clear that the mechanics will most likely change as the game's tweaked in the next few months, but we can see the potential for Wii motion sensing for this fighter. Movement's handled via the nunchuk analog stick, with attacks mapped on the A or B button on the Wii remote. Combining the remote's buttons with motion will perform different swipes and uppercuts. Holding the crouch button on the nunchuk and shaking the device will send the beast on a charge towards his foe. Letting off a beam attack is handled by a two button system and aimed in 3D by twisting the Wii Remote to mimic the direction of your character's head. If the two monsters' beams cross, they'll play "volleyball" with an energy ball riding the beam where each player must time their return or else take the hit.

As the two characters battle, the cityscape can be destroyed by punching buildings or stomping them down. Some buildings could even be utilized as throwing objects during the fight; simply find a knee high structure, drop and lift the Wii Remote and Nunchuk in a "pick up" motion. Whipping the controller or Nunchuk will toss the building towards the enemy. Though it took a few minutes to adjust, the motion controls admittedly works well because these are huge lumbering beasts, and players make smooth, steady attacks that match their 200-foot, on-screen persona's motions.

Godzilla: Unleashed still has a ways to go -- the company is still ironing out the fighting system and control mechanics, as well as working on Wii-specific features that the companies weren't yet ready to talk about publicly. The early look was just a taste of what's in the works for Godzilla on the Wii -- expect more details to surface as the game continues through its development cycle. ...