Remember how earlier this week I announced that Gaijin Games was so kind as to offer a pretty damn extraordinary series of prizes to hand out to a lucky community member? You know what I’m speaking about, four high quality prints of the teaser images for BIT.TRIP Void, an “I am only a man” t-shirt, some awesome CommanderVideo papercraft, as well as a code for for a free download of the brand new BIT.TRIP Void OST?

Well, if you only just found out, it’s too late now, as we have done a perfectly random drawing, and the winner is…drumroll please….bobyoko! Congratulations on winning this rather awesome prize that defines, like I said before, nerd chic. Send us a message, and we’ll get you your prize ASAP.

For everyone else disappointed, we’ve got plenty more contests coming down the line, and you’ll certainly want to do yourself the favor by checking out other concurrent contests, like winning a PlayStation 3 Slim in our Kia contest and a netbook plus iPods in our Audition contest.

source Destructoid

A double dose of Borderlands stories does the soul some good. Not long ago, CBS 11 News got together with Gearbox Software VP Brian Martel to discuss a range of topics, all of which were rooted in the studio’s latest game.

The full discussion, which you can watch here, is nearly eleven minutes in length. Knowing most of you busy people don’t have eleven minutes, That VideoGame Blog went about transcribing the key quotes beyond the stuff we already knew about Borderlands.

While Martel notes “Nintendo sells the most duplicates,” he states they aren’t about to port Borderlands to Wii “just because.” As he refreshingly puts it: “You don’t want to feel like you’re milking the product just to get it on the Wii, especially if it doesn’t really help the game.”

As for the future of Borderlands‘ rambunctious little scamp of a robot, Claptrap, Martel states “he’s a great character, we’d love to see him as a sort of a side-scroller character.” Whoa — that one came out of seemingly nowhere. Personally, I love Claptrap, and would love to see Gearbox flesh him out further.

source Destructoid

Surely any fan of the Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles series is wondering what to anticipate from the upcoming Wii title The Crystal Bearers. After all,you’ve Bon Jovi doing the music for the commercial (whoa), the ability to use your enemy as your weapon, and the fact that the game has a December 26th release date (why the day AFTER Christmas?).

We considered the best people to reveal all these mysteries and more were probably Square Enix themselves, and lucky for us, we got a chance to speak to them about itm specifically with Crystal Bearers producer Akitoshi Kawazu. Follow me past the jump to learn how much gameplay you can anticipate to get out of The Crystal Bearers, why they selected to work with a non-traditional control scheme and much more.

James Cameron’s Avatar is a movie a lot of people are excited for. I mean, for a motion picture that about a paralyzed man becoming the love child between Larry Bird and the opera singer from The Fifth Element, there’s been plenty to talk about. Why else would Mr. Cameron himself spend so much time talking about the film at this year’s E3? Probably because it’s awesome, and there are pretty pictures, and blue people, and stereoscopic 3D, and dinosaur things, and shooting, and James Cameron, and Titanic, and because he says it’s awesome.

Yeah.

But videogames! That’s why you’re here, right? I bet you’re really interested in hearing my impressions of the brand new Avatar game, right? This is very much true, but unlike the much touted Xbox 360 and PS3 version of the game, I played something a tiny different: James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game for the Wii. Made by guys behind Assassin’s Creed, Prince of Persia, and some Tom Clancy titles, there is certainly a pedigree going on here. You’ll definitely want to hit the jump and see if what I saw would feed into your expectations.

James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game (Wii)
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Publisher: Ubisoft
To be released: December 1, 2009

Let us all repeat after me: this is the Wii version of *gasp* James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game. As such, it’s not quite the majestic graphical masterpiece Ubisoft would like the Xbox 360 and PS3 version to be. Actually, for its benefit, it’s nothing like those games in either graphics or gameplay. Instead, Ubisoft Montreal made the smart decision to make a fairly linear hack and slash title based off the film, where players work through as the plot as jumbo smurfs, the Na’vi.

Oddly, and probably beneficially, Avatar for the Wii supports both the Wii Balance Board and MotionPlus. These are both optional items that’ll help make the game more interactive. The Balance Board is used for the on-rails flight missions, where you tilt your body to dodge bombs and obstacles, and the MotionPlus lets you control a giant wasp and deal with enemies before you rush in. Both of these modes are neat, sure, but not exactly something to sell the game on. If you have these devices, yay for you. If not, it doesn’t look like you’d miss out on much.

Single player involves running along linear jungle paths shooting dudes with arrows, smacking them around with a staff and stealth attacking when there backs are turned. I guarantee, if you have played a hack and slash title before, you’ve played this game, even though it is too early to declare whether or not Avatar does this with particular flair or prowess. Considering it is an 8-10 hour game, I hope Ubisoft makes sure that the title really wows after the first hour or so. I’m promised later levels get much more difficult as gamers leave the jungle levels for more industrial settings.

Multiplayer is pretty seamless, with drop in/drop out co-op at any time. There is an “aggro-lite” system at play, so one player can distract enemies while the other goes around and pulls off the always useful one hit kills (replete with Wii waggle motions). Dealing with enemies is fairly easy, since clear icons show how aware they are of you, and even in single player you’ll be making plenty of stealth kills as well as dealing with unwanted attention.

Other installments of “how we add waggle” include opening boxes, flying the “Banshee” dinobirdthing thing (should you not have the Balance Board, you control flight with the nunchuck tilt), pointing at the screen to shoot arrows, and generally perform all your attacks. I was told that there’s a combo system that must be mostly unlocked, but the early portion of the game I played consisted of only a couple of easy swipes.

Did I mention the graphics? Look, this is a Wii game. Graphics are not going to be the focal point. However, vistas were genuinely lovely, the jungles looked lush and verdant, and characters animated alright. It is just a reality of the game that if you go in hoping to be blown away, you’re probably going to be disappointed. I blame this on the easy fact that Avatar the movie and Avatar for the other systems are being touted as 3D graphical masterpieces, and it is hard to shake the fact that Ubisoft just needed to get an Avatar title out for the Wii. There’s just no way getting around it.

However, it is very obvious that the team is working really hard to incorporate as much style into the game. “We knew right from the start,” states Daniel Bisson, the Creative Director of the game, “that recreating [James Cameron's] vision would be our greatest challenge considering the constraints of the hardware.” Talking to him after previewing the game, he mentioned that the graphical constraints were frustrating to work with, especially since they aim to really push the system, but they are genuinly proud of what they’ve done.

Ultimately, my impressions of this game is that there’s not much here gameplay-wise that we have not seen before. It’s a hack and slash title with a couple different gameplay modes to mix things up between levels. Easy as that. This could be a good thing, especially if the later stages prove to be really solid and the combo system becomes more exciting as you play. It’s hard to tell from my time with the game. Also, the inclusion of the Wii attachments are cool, but far from necessary. I suspect that people are going to be buying this game on the December 1 launch for the holidays, especially if they become fans of the film and live in those mythical Wii-only households. Everyone else, maybe wait a bit and check out the 360 and PS3 titles first.

source Destructoid

Let’s start with the facts- Muramasa was released by relatively small publisher Ignition on Sept 8th and cost $50 new, Spyborgs was released by relatively massive publisher Capcom on Sept 25th and cost $40, and Dead Space: Extraction was released by super-huge publisher EA on Sept 29th and cost $50. Muramasa reportedly sold approximately 35K in Sept, while Spyborgs sold around 500 units total that month. Dead Space: Extraction put in

Recent pre-release footage of No More Heroes 2 has been awesome, and it seems that the Shinobu/8-bit work-games videos from a few weeks ago were just the begin of it. This new trailer gives us our first close look at the game’s third playable character, the one and only Sir Henry. If you haven’t completed the original No More Heroes, you may not know who this guy is, but trust me, he’s cause for excitement.

Well, I guess I could be wrong about that, so let me ask you first: does a well dressed John Lennon look-a-like with a light saber fighting a pop idol-style happy girl armed with giant (and by giant, I mean five foot long) robot battle gloves sound exciting to you? How about poppies? How about Scottish accents, and poppies? You know what poppies mean right? They mean hallucinations, and anyone who has played through Batman: Arkham Asylum knows how awesome hallucination-enhanced 3D beat ‘em ups can be.

Speaking of The Batman, take a close look at frames :34, :35, and :36, and you’ll see a bat-a-rang fly across the bottom left side of the screen (see gallery for details). Now I seriously doubt that Batman will end up making a cameo in this game, but if anyone can make that happen, it’s Suda51. Even if all we get is a Revenge of Shinobi-style imitation-Batman boss, I’ll still be ecstatic.

While social networking and Web 2.0 have caused many a misanthropic headache (see Jonathon’s weekly Fanboy Friday posts, for example), Twitter and Facebook can certainly be useful. On the rather heavy side of the spectrum, ther’re great outlets for political dissent in (ahem) restrictive countries like Guatemala or Iran; on the lighter side, Orange Lounge Radio have harnessed Twitter in a grassroots effort to get Jorudan’s Sukeban Shachou Rena Wii localized for Western markets.

Affectionately called President Cat, Sukeban Shachou Rena is an obscure Japanese title (of course) about Rena, the mascot of popular blog Nekopunch and CEO of the fictional Cat Queen, Inc. You play as an entry-level feline trying to work her way to the top, completing tasks to earn Rena’s respect. Depending on how realistic the game is, those tasks might include making my entire apartment smell like catsh*t, stepping on my keyboard as my personal boots up (and entering DOS prompts that don’t exist), and leaving the gallbladders of little creatures on my kitchen table.

Yesterday, the Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification rated the mostly-unannounced Ubisoft title, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Predator for a multiplatform release.

Game Informer has the exclusive on Epic Mickey, and Game Informer is carrying that exclusive around like a cat with a freshly killed rat. In preparation for its huge magazine unveiling, GI has today posted some imagery and artwork to wet the whistle, including an image of the redesigned Mickey Mouse.

As you can see, he’s got a distinct retro look to him, but updated with a modern sheen. He certainly looks better than the weird man-ape character that Mickey has been immortalized as. Something about Mickey Mouse and his bear, human-pigmented face skin has always made me feel slightly queasy. I’m glad he’s going back to his roots in this game.

Wii Fit Plus is a $20 upgrade to Wii Fit. It includes everything from the original title, plus new games and new “fitness”-related things that I only sort-of care about.

The game now tries to count how many calories you’ve burned by using the MET system (but like its attempts to tell me how obese you are via the BMI scale, I’ve my doubts about the validity of these guesses). It also allows you to set up your own routines based on your goals, and it lets you make a Mii of your babies, cats, or dogs and chart their weight progressions. There are also a few new ways to test your “Wii Fit” age, three new yoga exercises, three new strength training exercises, some charts indicating the average calorie content of a bunch of different foods, and a few other non-game elements I might be forgetting.