Strider Gets An Extra Life Courtesy of Capcom & Double Helix…

Well, this was an interesting surprise to see popping up in the inbox yesterday: An all-new Strider game on the way from busy developer Double Helix headed to PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One and PC. Of course (throwing my two cents down here)… it would be better to get this out on the Wii U and Vita as well, but we seem to be in the age of publishers only wanting to get games out on platforms where there’s guaranteed interest and bigger initial full-price sales from a larger dedicated install base rather than trying a title out on a platform that may only rack up less than stellar sales figures or just have users saying they’ll wait for a price drop. Which, by the way is dumb on a game that’s no doubt going to be budget-priced. Hopefully.

Of course, for someone like me who’d rather have MORE choice than less and can clearly see this doing decently enough on some systems it’s not (currently) coming to, the news is great but a tad annoying. Sure, development costs no doubt factor into the decision to not bring this to the Wii U or Vita, but I say Capcom should do some sort of outreach into both of those communities and see if there’s interest in buying this one on either platform (I think there is) and perhaps getting those versions out at some point. With a classic like this making a comeback (that actually looks quite good and seems to be quite challenging based on that video above) as a digital-only release, it’s not as if there will be a ton of unsold retail boxes clogging up an inventory somewhere, right?

Oh… and if this doesn’t toss in the original arcade game as an extra, that would be really silly. Make it happen, Capcom.

The Great (and Not-So-Great) RPG Sale Is Temporarily Postponed (Obviously)…

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I’d been planning this sale of some fun stuff from the collection for a while and had initially wanted to kick it off this week, but as you can imagine, it’s being pushed back for the time being. Update to follow in a bit…

Mystic Chronicles on PSN Today: It’s Your Blast of Retro JRPG Goodness for July

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Well, it SHOULD be up and ready to buy shortly, as I’m getting error messages when I try to download my review code, bleh. This seems to always happen with PSN, as it seems that SCEA updates it during the day with content as opposed to at a fixed time, so one has to keep trying until that code is accepted. Oh well, I guess I can try again in the next few hours while I have access to a decent connection. Otherwise, it’ll be a case of “Tomorrow is another day!” Which reminds me: memo to Scarlett O’Hara, you’re pretty and all… but man are you a dope sometimes! “Fiddle dee dee!” indeed…

Shantae Virtual Console Trailer: WayForward’s Classic Finally Gets Rereleased

If you’ve never played Shantae previously, that’s because you missed out on buying a copy when it was on the GameBoy Color (or you didn’t pirate it, you scallywag!), thus not having the pleasure of playing one of the best 2D platformers on the handheld. Well, as of this Thursday she’s baaaaaack, and this time it’s on the eShop for the 3DS. I actually like that the dev team didn’t gussy their girl up in a shiny HD coating, as the game was so well animated and colored for the GBC that it still holds up today as a prime example of a platformer at its finest. The best thing is you can now snap this one up for a song and NOT have to pay something like $100 or more for a copy of the game (it got one production run, but was VERY hard to find even back when it was initially released). Or maybe you can buy up $100 worth of codes and give them out to lucky friends who happen to own a 3DS or 3DS XL, you nice person, you…

VGA 101: Xicat E3 2002 Games – A Few Canned Peaches May Have Been Prime Plums…

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From the vaults here, some of the canceled games Xicat Interactive had in the works for consoles, including Jane’s Attack Squadron for the Xbox and GameCube (!) and Gothic for the Xbox (!!). It’s really too bad neither of these made it to retail (I’d LOVE to get my paws on some Xbox debug code for either game), as it would have been really interesting to see how they played with a controller as opposed to a keyboard/mouse/flight stick setup. I’m one of those gamers who doesn’t care about tricking out a PC like a souped-up car or whether or not a game “needs” a certain type of control setup. If it’s fun to play and isn’t a glitch-filled mess, it’s a good game in my book. Well, we DID get Metal Dungeon, right? Little in-joke there, as that’s one was a like it or hate it JRPG (and most critics who played it hated it) that kind of played itself to some extent. Still, I did sink a good deal of time into that one as I HAD to see where it all ended up. Hey, not so good games need love, too!

Humble Weekly Bundle: 15 Spiderweb Software RPGs. No-Brainer Buy of the Week? Absolutely!

Eyes Bigger Than the Head and Now REALLY Needs a Time Machine Department: Holy Cats. Spiderweb Software teams up with the Humble Bundle folks to provide ALL of their currently available hand-crafted fantasy RPGs in a “pay what you want” bundle that’s a MUST buy if you’re looking for some of the deepest and most unique role-playing experiences out there. Jeff Vogel and his tiny team of talented tricksters have been slowly turning out some really cool isometric games since 1994 and this spectacular sale features a whopping 15 games (faint, *THUD!*) which can be all yours for as little as a few dollars.

Yes, some of that coin you pay will indeed go to some great causes (the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Child’s Play Charity), so feel free to feel guilty and pay more than the average or even give more money to Vogel and his merry men and women if you like. OK, I’m babbling on here, but I’m just thrilled about this offer because it gives some of you the chance to play some really fun and challenging old-school epics. Oh, in case youe sense of humor is too new school or just slow on the uptake, Jeff is making a funny in that video when he calls himself a “living legend”. Some folks on YouTube don’t seem to understand this. Damn kids…

DuckTales Remastered Duckumentary: WayForward Gets Me Looking Backward…

OK, now I need to unearth my NES and that copy of DuckTales I have buried in a bin somewhere so I can do some comparing. I’d been meaning to do so for a while, but I keep putting it off for assorted reasons. This “duckumentary” did help me decide to finally get off my butt and sit back on my butt once I find everything, so that’s a good thing, right? Alright, I’m not THAT lazy, people! I walked over a mile today already!

Bad PR 101: Sega’s “Funny” Folly Went Over (and On) the Heads of Some…

next gen sega card (Large)Yeah, that postcard to the left was promising back in 1996, but less than three years later, the Sega Saturn ship was about to come crashing to earth in a slow nuclear explosion. While the console did get a number of excellent titles, fans of the system in North America suffered through Sega of America’s leadership at the time that seemed to ignore some pretty obvious Japanese 2D imports in a few genres in favor of approving too many first and third party polygon-based games or imports that seemed “safe” bets if the right segment of the system’s audience was willing to buy them.

Combine that with some third-party games taking seemingly forever to arrive and Sega deciding to only ship limited quantities of the last few major games on the platform and having the gall to rub consumer’s faces in it for the best game on the platform (see below the jump) and you end up with a console that died a horrible death it really didn’t need to…
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BEYOND Two Souls – The Origins: Well-Told Tales Come From Many Sources…

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Beyond_Two_Souls_CoverOnce again, David Cage shows why he’s one of the best and most important game creators working today. Turning a personal tragedy inside out and creating a wholly unique game experience loosely based on it with the dev team at Quantic Dream is going to send PlayStation 3 owners into stores by the millions to buy and play BEYOND: Two Souls when it hits retail and PSN on October 18, 2013. As with Heavy Rain, expect gameplay innovation and impressive visuals (quite possibly the best looking game on the PS3 this late in its life cycle) to go with that story you’ll be playing through.

And hey, look! It’s a way too brief PlayStation 4 Killzone: Shadow Fall teaser just because I can pull this stuff off and get away with it…

Grand Theft Auto V Gameplay Trailer: Fall’s Officially A Bust For Productivity In America…

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It’s always amazing for me to see how Rockstar continues to push the envelope with each new GTA game and Grand Theft Auto V is no exception. September 17 will be a REALLY awful day for productivity across the US and a few other spots this game shows up in, so expect to not see or hear from a lot of folks you probably think aren’t gamers who suddenly disappear for a few days only to pop up for air looking tired as hell but smiling a bit too broadly. For you non-gaming readers, just watch the trailer and let that narrator guide you through why this new GTA is so impressive and important. I don’t play online, but that ending made me grin a bit more at what’s coming in the next trailer. It’s too bad all those time machine plans I see for sale online are trash, or I’d be putting one of those things together just to keep winding time backwards in order to complete the game in a day. As it is now, I’m gathering I’ll be spending a few hundred hours exploring every nook and cranny outside the story mode (as that’s where the game’s bigger secrets will most likely lie)…