Take 2, parent company of publisher Rockstar, has announced that Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, originally a PSP exclusive game, will be released for PlayStation 2 later this year.

Also confirmed for release in 2006 are Rockstar's controversial school game Bully and two PSP games, one of which is described as an "all-new" Grand Theft Auto.

These announcements are part of Take 2's financial report to the City in which it outlined its release schedule for the upcoming year.

The news of GTA: Liberty City Stories coming to PS2 is something of a surprise as Rockstar was eager to point out the title's exclusivity to PSP at its release. However it does make financial sense as there's a huge PS2 userbase hungry for more GTA action that would snap up Liberty City Stories, especially if it was released at a budget price.

As regards the GTA PSP game, "all-new" could just refer to new characters and story rather than a new location, so a return to Vice City is still a possibility.

There are no real clues about the second PSP game mentioned but, as Rockstar proved with Midnight Club 3, it's more than capable of squeezing full PS2 games on to the Sony handheld, which means a Warriors PSP game shouldn't be ruled out. ...

New game for the PSP from Taito, more detail here --> http://www.yesasia.com/?/info.php?pro...3&lsaid=219793 ...

The Liquid Platinum version of the PSP Replacement faceplate is now available, heres the info:



Product Features

Replace your boring faceplate with exclusive new colors
Includes plastic window located in front of the screen, as protection
Does not include buttons or screws (original screws and buttons supplied with PSP system must be swapped)
Necessitates removal of 7 screws on your PSP system
Exchanging faceplates will void your PSP system warranty
Includes Installation Guide with Pictures (English language)
Front Side only, no back side available
This repair part can be used in case your original faceplate got damaged
This product is not manufactured or approved by the console manufacturer

More information here --> http://www.yesasia.com/?/info.php?pro...6&lsaid=219793 ...

Only a Zelda game has the power to draw us away from worshipping at our office-constructed Miyamoto shrine, and according to the big man himself Link's next adventure will be more "hardcore" than ever before. Whatever that means.
Talking to popular bathroom supplement Maxim, the magazine cheekily asked Miyamoto whether he was ever tempted to throw Nintendo's life-long family games policy out the window once in a while and whisk up titles with mature-rated content. Obviously, being the company's most widely-revered mouthpiece, Miyamoto skirted around the issue slightly, responding with:

"I would say the games that we're working on now, like the new Zelda, Twilight Princess, has hardcore content. And if you look at the Revolution's controllers, there's a nunchaku-style controller expansion that's really well suited to first-person shooters."

Well that's it then kids, you're going to have to get a fake ID from your mate Dave who smokes cigarettes behind the French block. Zelda: Twilight Princess is going to be a hard-hitting, prostitute-murdering, drug-taking mature epic. Either that or it's going to be playing with themes darker than your average wind-waker - let's not forget that "mature" doesn't necessarily equate to grislier here.
It's interesting that Miyamoto also comments on the Revolution's nunchaku-style attachment by way of response to the question. His sentiments seemingly echo those of Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, who has previously spoken of the company's stated aim to reach a wider audience of gamers with the Revolution. In the Revolution controller's TGS unveiling, Iwata explained how the nunchaku-attachment would be ideal for FPS's on the system, presumably to peak the interest of those who absolutley must butcher people with virtual shotguns in the name of fun.

You can be assured that the next time Shigeru Miyamoto speaks in public, we will report it as fast as our delicate hands can type. ...

If we had a whiteboard and non-permanent marker, we'd happily whisk up an overly complicated bar graph demonstrating how the internet x speculation + rumour = the driving force behind the videogames industry. Or something like that - maths was never our strong point. Anyway, one of our favourite rumours of late stemmed from NGC magazine, hinting that the GameCube's forthcoming Zelda: Twilight Princess would make use of the Revolution's wand-controller if the game was popped into its next-gen slot.
Now though, Nintendo has circulated an official statement to us journos in direct response to the claims - and it goes something like this: "The article in the January edition of NGC Magazine is pure speculation. Nintendo have made no new announcements regarding The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. We can however confirm that the game is still in development and that it will launch on Nintendo GameCube in 2006." (It also concludes with "Have a good weekend", but you probably didn't need to know that).

Now, read that closely. You'll notice, despite it's clever wording, there's nothing even approaching a flat-out denial of the NGC rumours. All we've been served with is confirmation that Nintendo has yet to make any official announcement that might prove or disprove the claims.
We like the idea of a do-it-yourself sword-swinging Zelda so much that we're happy to imagine that Nintendo's just keeping this one close to its chest for the time being. Of course, while we wait for that decisive "yay" or "nay", we can rest easy knowing that Zelda: Twilight Princess is still firmly scheduled for GameCube release later this year. ...

Today is clearly "Gosh-look-how-well-the-DS-is-doing" day here at CVG. We've already covered that impressive global 13.5 million units shifted figure and now word has reached us of this week's Japanese sales charts. Put it this way: Nintendo's accountant are probably rubbing their hands with glee, as the handheld claims 8 of the 10 top spots, leaving all other consoles in its wake.
Claiming pole position is Nintendo's Brain Training 2, which made its debut in the charts, selling an amazing 414,556 copies in just one week. At number two and three respectively, Animal Crossing DS has cleared a million copies with Mario Kart DS also fast approaching the magic one million marker.

For those interested, we've supplied the Japanese chart in its entirety below (total sales to date are listed in brackets at the end of each entry):
1. NDS Brain Training 2 414,556 NEW
2. NDS Animal Crossing DS 205,119 (1,382,228)
3. NDS Mario Kart DS 168,680 (836,478)
4. PS2 Kingdom Hearts 2 156,837 (884,428)
5. NDS Brain Training 153,189 (1,157,870)
6. PS2 Front Mission 5 146,209 NEW
7. NDS Mario & Luigi 2 132,726 NEW
8. NDS Gentle Brain Training 82,789 (935,535)
9. NDS Tamagotchi 63,433 (784,537)
10. NDS Pokemon Mysterious Dungeon: Blue Rescue Force 61,154 (572,858)

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...news_index.php ...

Remember that bit at the end of Carrie where John Travolta tips a bucket of pig's blood over the Prom Queen mere seconds before she goes on her telekinetic rampage of split-screen descruction? Well, we're beginning to feel a bit like that this afternoon - only swap "John Travolta" for "Nintendo" and "pig's blood" for "lots of Nintendo-related news". Apart from that, the rest stays the same - our dress looks fabulous.
Anyway, in YET ANOTHER Nintendo news item today, Miyamoto (Shigeru, Mr) has been speaking further on his company's action plan for the coming year. To kick start the new year, Famitsu interviewed the games guru about all manner of topics, including Yoot Saito's upcoming Feudal pinball... thing, Odama.

As far as Miyamoto sees it though, 2006 is the year when Nintendo will "create new fun". Summarising the company's philosophy, the Mario creator explains (as translated by Next-Gen.biz) "A game that keeps a smile on the player's face is a wonderful thing." This year the company's mantra is to "'Spread the fun of games to everyone.' To do this, we must return to the beginning, to recapture the essence that made people who enjoy games even now enjoy them in the first place."
Sounds to us like Nintendo is happy cementing the strategy which has so far proven so successful with its DS handheld, across games as wide-ranging and appealing as Nintendogs, Brain Training and Animal Crossing: Wild World. So, "company announces plans to continue impressively successful strategy" then - good news for Nintendo fans and maybe non news for others. Still, Miyamoto's comments were so sweet we thought they deserved a story of their own. Which is probably the lunchtime pie talking. ...

Danzel has released a new version of his Telnet application Peldet, heres whats new:

Did some additions to get connecting to cygwins telnetd working. Some big changes to the renderer, now it is called directly instead of with message passing. This gives some big speed ups (libcaca mplayer is almost compeletely smooth at default speed). I was hoping to hold this for the next version, but as my CVS server machine has died I'm including it now. This may lead to a crash as I haven't thread safed it yet, but malloc/free is called much less, so there shouldnt be crashes related to that anymore.

Screenshot and download via comments. ...

Source - Gamespot

Gabe Logan has got the stealth action hero thing down. Close-cropped hair cut? Check. Gravely, grim voice? Check. Enough moves and gadgets to take down a small army of bad guys? Check and check. About the only thing missing from Logan's arsenal has been a handheld version of the game series in which he stars: Syphon Filter. Thanks to the good folks at SCEA, currently in the midst of developing Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror for PSP, that's one more item the action hero can check off his list. We got a chance to take Dark Mirror for a spin on the show floor at this year's Consumer Electronics Show and came away impressed with the handheld game's solid look and interesting controls.

In Dark Matter, Logan and his crew of special ops badasses will be once again responsible for saving the free world, this time against a mysterious group known as the Red Section--or at least that's who we were up against in the demo level we played. The Red Section folks had infiltrated a petroleum refinery in the snowy reaches of Alaska. It was up to us (as Logan) to take them down without destroying half of the Alaskan wilderness in the process.

After a cool intro movie introducing the major players during the initial insertion into the oil refinery, we took over Logan, who was charged with opening up a vent on a huge oil depository before the pressure built up and exploded. The only catch? The area was crawling with bad guys and a sniper perched at the top of the depository was looking to cap anyone who came too close. Just another day for a guy like Gabe.

The controls for Syphon Filter for PSP take some getting used to, especially if you've never played the SF series before. You move with the analog stick, of course, and fire your weapon with the right trigger. Aiming, however is done with the face buttons--to aim left or right you press the square and circle button; to move your aim up you press the triangle button and use the X button to aim downwards. With just a little practice, we were popping heads like Jiffy Pop and moving through the lower levels of the refinery with relative ease. Enemies are as intent on staying alive as they are in stopping you dead in their tracks, however, so don't be surprised if you have to chase a few around the obstacle their hiding behind.

As we progressed through the mission, we picked up an extra submachine gun to go along with the silenced pistol and sniper rifle we already had in our possession. By pressing the right directional button, we brought up the weapon menu where each gun in our possession was tied to a face button on the controller. To equip the rifle, for example, all we had to do was press the X button. In addition, certain weapons (such as the aforementioned rifle) can be armed with multiple types of ammo. The rifle, for example, used regular 6mm rounds, explosive rounds, and even X34 gas ammo (presumably when you want to stop an enemy but not necessarily kill him). Logan doesn't always have to be lethal after all, if you manage to sneak up on a bad guy, you can give him a whack on the head with a blunt object and knock him out long enough to make your escape.

No great spy is truly complete without a great set of gadgets, and some of the cornerstones of Logan's technological arsenal are his goggles. At one point in a mission we were stuck at a fence but were informed by our technical advisor over the comm-link to try our EDSU goggles to look for a way to unlock the gate. We're not sure what EDSU stands for, but as soon as we switched them on (by accessing a menu similar to the weapon menu system described above) lo and behold we found a blinking section of the fence that was ideal for compromise. One well-placed pistol shot later and we were through to the next objective. EDSU goggles aren't your only choice however; you'll also have night vision and infrared goggles at your disposal, as well as a traditional flashlight for those especially dark corners.

The Syphon Filter series has always been about mixing up its gameplay and Dark Mirror appears to be no different. After dispatching the sniper and releasing the vent, for example, it wasn't long before we were joined by a member of our Precision Strike team who required cover fire while she infiltrated the oil refinery. Perched on top of the depository, it was up to us to dispatch any bad guy intent on filling her full of lead, using the sniper rifle and its handy zoom feature.

Graphically, Dark Mirror is looking handsome on the PSP--with sharp player models and fairly expansive environments (at least on the one level we played). In addition, we found the animations for Logan and other NPC models to be varied and good-looking. Sony seems to be delving a bit deeper into the PSP and extracting more out of the handheld than you might be used to. Only time will tell if this kind of quality will be consistent throughout the rest of the game. On the sound front, we had the luxury of playing ...