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via ign

Good news, Wii fans - Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2 is coming to Nintendo's wand-waving console early next year and the European version will boast an all-new battle arena and six extra fighters that don't feature in the US version. The game - developed by Spike - promises more of the same 3D acrobatic scraps the series is famous for, although rather than hammering buttons to swing a punch, gamers must lash out with the nunchuk to plant one on the face of their opponent.

Over 100 characters, including Goku of course, are squeezed in the game, along with 15 destructible environments. Nine game modes include standard single and multiplayer bouts, as well as a story mode that introduces RGP-lite elements to the mix. However, what we're most looking forward to are the real-time transformations in which players switch from one character to the next in-game when they've taken a bit of a battering.

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2 is already out on PlayStation 2 but is coming to the Wii in March next year. ...

Formula One racing isn't all that big over here in the United States. Race fans seem to flock to the loud and mean NASCAR events where raw speed is king rather than the extremely technical F1 races. To each his own we say, but we're hoping that regardless of preference gamers will check out Sony's Formula One Championship Edition as it's looking to be a surprisingly good game.

Though our first impressions of the game back at E3 were a little underwhelming, the racer has come a long way since then. The cars' handling feels much better, the visuals have been bumped up a few notches and what we've seen and heard about the career mode seems quite promising.

Formula One Championship Edition will be based on the 2006 F1 race season, so you'll find anything and everything attached to that year present here. That means you'll have access to 18 tracks, 11 teams and 22 drivers. Even if you're not a Formula One fan, you can simply stick to picking a team here associated to your favorite car brand. We happen to be Ferrari nuts over here.

Full article at IGN ...

Gamers probably know Dark Sector as the first game ever announced for next-generation consoles. Announced by Digital Extremes in April 2004, the game backed into the shadows soon afterward and didn't emerge until last week, at an event held by D3 Publisher. A new trailer for Dark Sector preceded the event, showing off a brand new art style that ditched the sci-fi setting for urban grit.

It still has sci-fi elements, of course - players assume the role of a mutating anti-hero infected by a space-age plague - but developers wanted everything else ground in reality. In doing so, developers hope to accentuate the hero, Hayden Tenno, and his ever-evolving condition, as truly fantastic. There's no better way to make something special than to downplay everything else around it. Not to say the environments lack pizzazz - in fact, they look downright gorgeous - but it certainly focuses the spotlight on Hayden. Speaking of environments, the recent demo took him through a crumbling city filled with overturned cars and abandoned buildings. Snow covered the ground and drifted from the skies. Fire from trash cans lit nearby walls and objects, too. Even without some of the special effects in place, it's still a pretty game.


As a special operative in charge of "cleaning" messy political situations, Hayden travels to a fictional Soviet State to investigate a biological experiment. Like most biological experiments, this one has gone terribly wrong and turned a section of the population into ravenous killing machines. When Hayden arrives on the scene, he stumbles upon a war-in-progress between the "infected" and mysterious group of armed soldiers. He needs to find out what's up and fix everything before the world finds out half of Russia has evolved into monsters. A pretty big task, even for a guy who Digital Extremes likes to describe as a crossing between Jack Bauer and Wolverine. Either way, he needs to get the job done. Fortunately, he's not alone in his task.

via IGN ...

Today Ubisoft announced that Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII for the PlayStation 3 has released and will be at North American retailers this week.

Blazing Angels puts the Sixaxis to use for realistic flight controls. From the Battle of Britain to Pearl Harbor, players will rewrite history as they fight to dominate the skies of Western Europe and the Pacific.

Your pilot's license will put you back around $59.99. ...

Ten months ago, Sony's San Diego Studios released MLB 06: The Show, which was one of the best sports games of the year. Easily improving on the formula of SCE's baseball franchise, MLB 06 improved on a number of areas, including a new batting control system, a new rivalry mode and presented an extremely fun mini-game known as King of the Diamond. But Sony's not resting on a simple roster update for next year's title; instead, they're putting in a load of features that will make any baseball fan look forward to the return of the Boys of Summer.

Two of the new features that have been included in MLB 07's gameplay focus on how confident a pitcher feels during a game, as well as the interaction between him and his catcher. The Pitch Command System evaluates just how comfortable a hurler is with his compliment of fast balls, sliders and other pitches as he comes out of the bullpen. Depending on where they happen to be after warming up, they might feel a bit stronger with one pitch over another one. If they throw the ball that they're feeling good about in a game and have success with strikes or even strikeouts, their confidence in that pitch will grow and it will be much more effective during the game. However, this comes with a price, since the other kinds of pitches will decrease in effectiveness the more you come to rely on one throw over another. To this end, you'll need to make a decision to either change up your pitches or specialize with one or two.

Full article at IGN ...

Who knows what events led to the creation of Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords. But there it is, a game that crosses puzzles game like Bejeweled with the strategy role-playing genre. It's an interesting concept, like splicing Dance Dance Revolution with a Zork text adventure. The game showed up at a recent event in San Francisco, held by D3 Publisher to show off its upcoming titles.

At first, Puzzle Quest looks like a typical RPG. Players choose a character among a pool of different types, as well as a gender and name. From there, the game dumps the newly formed character on top of an overworld map. Again, players will notice this looks a lot like a typical RPG setup complete with towns and castles. But here's where things shoot off in another direction. Instead of traveling the land and entering towns, players simply click on towns to bring up an options menu. They can visit a number of shops, receives quests or do whatever else happens to sit in the menu. Since the demo on display took place at the start of the game, there was only one quest available.

Full article at IGN ...

D3Publisher is ready to hit the ground running with a batch of new games across all platforms in 2007. One of the titles the company will release is a unique action puzzler for the PlayStation Portable that goes by the simple name Cube. The game was in near final form at the company's holiday gathering in San Francisco last week where we got a chance to tinker around with the design on the PSP.

Cube is a unique game in development at New Zealand studio Metia Interactive. This game is best described as Marble Madness or Super Monkey Ball gone square: the whole idea is a simple race the clock challenge where you'll need to get from the start of the level to the finish in the shortest amount of time. Some missions are a simple race to the finish design, while others requires a lot more thought, like collecting keys scattered across the field. In one level, we had to trigger arrow icons on the playfield to send hazardous bombs ricocheting in specific directions in order to explode against each other to make way towards the exit. You only get one chance to get to the finish line in any one level. If you take a harmful hit against a hazard in a challenge, it's right back to the start.

Full article at IGN ...

via IGN

The only officially licensed first-party Major League Baseball game is returning in spring 2007. Today, Sony announced MLB 07 The Show for PS2, PS3 and PSP. MLB 07 offers a number of new features for all three systems to make it the most robust baseball game ever offered by Sony.

"In 2006, the MLB franchise was the best-selling baseball videogame on the market across all gaming platforms, and dominated the PlayStation platforms. This year,
MLB 07 The Show looks to continue its reign as the most valuable player in the category by delivering unsurpassed realism," said Scott Rohde, director, sports product development, SCEA. "We are committed to continually looking for ways to add new and improved gameplay features in order to provide fans with the closest experience to actually playing in the Big Leagues."

Once again, gamers can create a baseball player from scratch and work their way up to the Bigs. This year, a new wrinkle has been added with Road to the Show, allowing gamers to experience the game from the perspective of their created player. The game fast-forwards to a created player's at bats and defensive plays which involve your created superstar. Just like a real MLB star, it's all about you, baby!

Pitching has been given the greatest focus with next year's installment of MLB. Three new additions should make for a challenging (and hopefully rewarding) experience on the mound.

The new Pitch Command System measures the "pitch comfort" for each hurler. If a pitcher is comfortable with the heater, they will have an easier time getting strikes. But if they are struggling with their curveball, it will be difficult to avoid leaving a few hanging over the plate. Players can choose to either work out the kinks on the mound or focus on their comfort pitches. However, if you neglect working on your weaker pitches, they only get worse. And if you are only throwing the heater, sooner or later the hitters will catch on and smoke a few out of the park.

Adaptive Pitching Intelligence gives catchers control of the game. The man behind the plate calls pitches based on a pitcher's strength and the game situation. The pitcher has the right to shake them off, but it's never a good idea to disregard your catcher too often.

Lastly, MLB 07 adds umpire personalities. Each ump has their own idea of the strike zone, along with some unique animations and tendencies. Just like real baseball players, it's up to you, both as pitcher and hitter, to learn the strike zone of each ump and compensate. There's no word yet on whether or not any ump calls a "true" strike zone, but if Sony wants to keep it realistic, none of them will.

Online has also seen some improvements. This year, online leagues have been added (yes, even for PSP!), allowing 6-30 players to enjoy a full season of competitive baseball. Sadly, there are no cross-platform leagues available, so pick a console and stick with it for the season.

Baseball fans can stay in the loop on PS2 and PS3 with MLB 07's Online News Service featuring news feeds from all 30 teams, plus an overall MLB feed. Updated several times an hour, the News Service keeps you from missing out on breaking news. and provides live MLB Ticker for up-to-the-minute scores.

PS3 owners can exclusively tags themselves as being "Always Online." This allows for instant messaging, buddy invites and more. The MLB Ticker, normally only available in online games, will also appear when playing offline games.

Last year's highly-touted features return as well. Playmaker fielding, user-controlled slides and "progressive commentary" make a comeback for '07. We didn't call this "the most robust Sony baseball gave ever" for nothin'! ...