Immersive Adventure Game Drawn: The Painted Tower
Available Now on PC CD-ROM

post from Gamezplay.org - Video game updates daily on 03 November 2009 03:42:00 PM. © Gamezplay.org - Video game updates daily

Drawn: The Painted Tower is an enchanting puzzle adventure game which sends you on a cinematic journey to rescue a child queen with a special gift. It has been created by Big Fish Games Studios, one of the world?s leading casual games developers.Recently[...]

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Is Konami Going To "ReBirth" Jackal On WiiWare
[Rumor]

post from Kotaku on 03 November 2009 03:40:00 PM. © Kotaku

Konami may be reaching ever deeper into the intellectual property well, revitalizing one of its more obscure franchises, Jackal, as a Wii game. Do images of a "working prototype" of what appears to Jackal mean a remake is incoming?

Not necessarily, but given Konami's flood of WiiWare versions of Contra, Gradius and Castlevania, released under the ReBirth moniker, it's clear the company isn't afraid of looking backward. The recently announced HD remake of Rocket Knight Adventures also shows that Konami isn't afraid of venturing into the more obscure.

But Jackal? The 1986 arcade game and its handful of console/PC ports didn't quite share the same success of its Konami created peers. It was a decent game, but not the type of Konami revival some of us are pining for.

The images of what appears to be Jackal, identified by reader Adam, were from a developer's production resume. It was the same developer who created the "Big Head Mode" papercraft head for a Halloween costume.

That developer, Eric Testroete of Vancouver based studio Deep Fried Entertainment, doesn't name the game as Jackal, simply referring to it as an "Undisclosed" and "Unannounced Project" for the Wii. It may never have made it past the prototype stage, but would be... interesting if it did.

We've contacted Konami to see if they'd like to comment. We'll update if they do.

Undisclosed Project - 2009 [Testroete.com - thanks, Adam!]

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jackal-on-wiiware

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Is Konami Going To "ReBirth" Jackal On Wii
[Rumor]

post from Kotaku on 03 November 2009 03:40:00 PM. © Kotaku

Konami may be reaching ever deeper into the intellectual property well, revitalizing one of its more obscure franchises, Jackal, as a Wii game. Do images of a "working prototype" of what appears to Jackal mean a remake is incoming?

Not necessarily, but given Konami's flood of WiiWare versions of Contra, Gradius and Castlevania, released under the ReBirth moniker, it's clear the company isn't afraid of looking backward. The recently announced HD remake of Rocket Knight Adventures also shows that Konami isn't afraid of venturing into the more obscure.

But Jackal? The 1986 arcade game and its handful of console/PC ports didn't quite share the same success of its Konami created peers. It was a decent game, but not the type of Konami revival some of us are pining for.

The images of what appears to be Jackal, identified by reader Adam, were from a developer's production resume. It was the same developer who created the "Big Head Mode" papercraft head for a Halloween costume.

That developer, Eric Testroete of Vancouver based studio Deep Fried Entertainment, doesn't name the game as Jackal, simply referring to it as an "Undisclosed" and "Unannounced Project" for the Wii. It may never have made it past the prototype stage, but would be... interesting if it did.

We've contacted Konami to see if they'd like to comment. We'll update if they do.

Undisclosed Project - 2009 [Testroete.com - thanks, Adam!]

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jackal-on-wii

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Dead to Rights Retribution Official video game
trailer PlayStation 3 Xbox 360

post from Gamezplay.org - Video game updates daily on 03 November 2009 03:39:00 PM. © Gamezplay.org - Video game updates daily

Grant City is as much a character of Dead to Right: Retribution as protagonists Jack and Shadow. Its a living breathing city, steeped in history and symbolism and provides the setting for the neo-noir, heavy-going, bleak atmosphere for this epic[...]

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Nintendo sort of interested in WiiWare demos ...
maybe

post from Destructoid on 03 November 2009 03:30:00 PM. © Destructoid

Nintendo sort of interested in WiiWare demos ... maybe screenshot

One of the smartest things Microsoft has done with Xbox LIVE Arcade is make demos a requirement for each and every game, and furthermore, made it so upgrading to the full version is a mere button press away. Really, it's hard not to impulse buy because of the way everything is set up.

At a Q&A session held during an earnings briefing for Nintendo, CEO Satoru Iwata spoke with investors about a newfound interest in providing WiiWare demos later this month. But wait a second -- as of this time, this will be nothing more than a test for a few games.

Nintendo wants to see if demos will help expand the market for WiiWare and DSiWare, but Iwata isn't confident this move will immediately fix the problem, hence it being just a test. If you ask me, such a plan is certainly not going to hurt anything.

While there are currently a lot of unknowns -- which games will be getting demos, what regions this applies to, etc. -- this is something you'd all be interested in seeing, right? Are there any games in particular you've always wanted to try without blindly buying them?

[Via IGN]

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EarthBound Screensaver'>You'd Better Get Kraken For EarthBound
Screensaver

post from Press The Buttons on 03 November 2009 03:29:00 PM. © Press The Buttons

Microsoft Windows comes with some particularly boring screensavers. It's all 3D Pipes this and Mystify that. Isn't it time for you to give your PC's screensavers list the gift of EarthBound? Behold the magic of Kraken, a free Windows screensaver courtesy of Starmen.net that approximates the trippy battle backgrounds from Nintendo's RPG cult classic. Basically, it?s a Windows screensaver that can display various battle animations from EarthBound. You can choose which animations to display in its configuration options, along with...

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Konami forecasts 82 percent decline in net income

post from Joystiq on 03 November 2009 03:21:00 PM. © Joystiq

Konami has revealed its financial forecast for the six months ending September 30, 2009. Comparing profits to the same time last year, the company predicts that net income attributable to Konami corporation would fall 82 percent, from 12 billion yen ($132 million) to 2 billion yen ($24 million). Of course, Konami blames this sharp downturn on a lack of key titles (again), especially in contrast to MGS4 which buoyed much of 2008.

The company is hopeful for a climb into the black this time next year, forecasting net income to be around 16 billion yen ($177 million). Konami doesn't say what it expects to drive this rise in profits, but titles like Silent Hill: Shattered Memories and PES 2010 will likely play a part in that. Next year also promises the appearance of a revitalized Castlevania, a portable Metal Gear Solid and -- maybe -- a Rising action star.

[Via GI.biz]

Source - PDF document

Konami forecasts 82 percent decline in net income originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Study: Playing Games Hurts Income, By The Minute
[Research]

post from Kotaku on 03 November 2009 03:20:44 PM. © Kotaku

Studies about video games say the darnedest things. Either it is plainly obvious that being a gamer hurts your income — because you have to spend money on these games! — or there is a mathematical revelation here.

The New-Brunswick Telegraph Journal reports the findings of Economics student Ryan MacLeod, who has crunched some demographics numbers to determine that, the more men play games, the more their income drops.

He's put a number on that, the paper reports:

The effect is so notable that for every minute a video game is played, MacLeod's research suggests gamers can expect a 0.4 per cent decrease in income.

And more from MacLeod:

"My work confirms that, in general, the more income a person has, the more time they spent playing video games," MacLeod said. "But that playing video games could also have a negative effect on a person's income."

I've long wondered how much money avid gamers commit to their gaming hobby each year. When you add and subtract all your game purchases, trade-ins and whatnot, what's the tab at year's end? And, as the story notes, if your income is lower, is it because of some subtle effect playing games has on earning power? Or is it simply that you played games so much, you cost yourself time that could have been used to make more income?

Mt. A student's research finds playing video games can lead to lower income

[Pic]

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Watch Me Dissect Swag While Being Repeatedly Rick
Rolled [Clips]

The folks at Electronic Arts are putting a lot of time into developing fun, sin-themed marketing for their upcoming release of Dante's Inferno.

Watch the extended cut of me playing around with the box sent me by said marketeers as I try to avoid using the hammer they sent me as part of their wrath-themed giveaway.

Let's just hope that the development team is putting as much work into the game as the PR team is putting into the swag. Fingers crossed.

Ps. This video is 16 minutes long!

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Unreleased: Socks the Cat Rocks the Hill - "New"
Screenshots!

It's Election Day here in the US, so I'm going to push our Adventure of the Week back to Thursday, because I've actually found something videogame related to post about today.

Political satire is a rarity in the world of videogames, but back in 1993 Kaneko's US division planned to release Socks the Cat Rocks the Hill, a side-scrolling action game based on the official Clinton family pet. The game was finished ready for release on the Super NES and Sega Genesis, and magazine ads and reviews were running. But the game never made it to store shelves after Kaneko Japan decided to close its Western division, and in an even more unusual twist, no physical prototype or ROM image of the game has yet surfaced as I write this in November 2009.

So Socks the Cat Rocks the Hill remains one of those mysterious unreleased titles - we know enough about it to guess that it was no masterpiece, but as it got well beyond the concept stage it has become a tantalizing "lost game" from the 16-bit era. It reportedly featured political figures like Ross Perot, Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush as bosses, which would have been entertaining to see in action.

Anyway, a number of ads, screenshots and box art scans have surfaced over the years, but I didn't find these specific images anywhere else on the Web. These images are scanned from a review published in the July 1994 issue of GamePro magazine.

This screen reveals a bit of educational gameplay that I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere.

And this one makes it clear that Socks was not going to be much competition for Bubsy, Spike McFang, Aero the Acrobat, or any of the other furry platforming hopefuls that invaded the market in Sonic the Hedgehog's wake.

But the game did exist, and hopefully it will be discovered someday.