80GB is not dead! Dual Shock 3 in April

Reports from across retailers over the past month revealed that the 80GB PS3 was being pulled from store shelves and thus killing the backwards compatibility of Sony's Playstation 3. Today SCEA announced something much better than the old 80GB Motorstorm pack: The 80GB Metal Gear Solid 4 Dual Shock Pack! No release date has been announced from the SKU, but I expect it to ship in June, day and date with MGS 4. This pack will include an 80GB PS3 (with software emulation for PS2 backward compatibility), a copy of MGS4, and a Dual Shock 3 controller for $499.99! With the Motorstorm pack available for the same price, this new pack is a no-brainer.

For those of you who just want to get their hands on a Dual Shock 3 like me, they will be released for $55 on April 15, 2008 to coincide with the release of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. I hope their is a Gamestop or another video game retailer located next to your post office, being that you will be mailing out your taxes on that day anyway.

Haze finally has a release date!

Haze, the Sony exclusive first-person shooter from developer Free Radical has a new release date of May 20, 2008. Haze was originally due out in November 2007, but had been delayed and never heard from again. This FPS will be a good playthrough in between GTA IV & MGS 4 (due out of April 29 & June 12 respectively) and features 4 player online co-op. Hopefully the 7 month wait gave Free Radical enough time to freshen up the framerate and overall gameplay.

Metal Gear Solid 4 in June & Online Beta Available

Straight out of the Destination Playstation retailer's meeting, word has spread that Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriot's will be released on June 12, 2008. Kojima Productions had promised for a worldwide release of MGS, so I can neither confirm or deny if this date reflects just North America.

In addition to that news, customers who pre-order MGS 4 will be able to participate in the public online beta for Metal Gear Online, the online component for MGS 4 that will be updated throughout the year following MGS 4's release. Details on the pre-order program have not been released yet, but the beta is set to begin in the end of April. Rumors late last year reported that only Japan would get a beta, but it seems that this may be a worldwide initiative.

VC Mondays - February 25, 2008

In the final Virtual Console update for February, Nintendo finally gives us a N64 game. As of 12:00PM EST the following games were available:

• Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (N64 - 1000 Wii Points)
• Psychosis (TG-16 - 800 Wii Points)

I never played either of these games when they were released in the 1990's , so I can't give an opinion on any of them. I am a fan of Kirby games so I may think about giving it a shot, but I will be too busy playing Portal on Orange Box that I just picked up as the Deal of the Week. What do you think of this week's releases?

Weekly Releases - February 24, 2008

After a few slow weeks since DMC 4 & Turok, February will go out with a bang for PS3. It is time to get Lost.....

Playstation 3

• Lost: Via Domus
• Lost Planet: Extreme Condition
• Turning Point: Fall of Liberty
• History Channel: Battle for Pacific

Nintendo Wii

• Sega Bass Fishing
• Jumper
• Destroy All Humans! Big Willy Unleashed

Well it is a big week for PS3, the Wii.....not so much. To start with the Wii, we are once again stuck with ports and licensed games. I never recommend movie tie-in games, so Jumper is out. I actually liked Sega Bass Fishing, when I played it on the Dreamcast about 7 years ago! This game is just a cheap port in which you use the wiimote as a fishing rod instead of the old Sega fishing rod controller, which actually worked pretty well back in the Y2K era. I could never get into the Destroy All Humans! series, so if you really don't need a new Wii game this week, surely you can wait until sometime in March for a good game to buy.

Now with regards to the PS3, this is a big week. I am a fan of Lost, so I plan on renting this game for a quick playthrough in the next week or so (afte I get 120 Stars in Mario Galaxy), I will let you know how it is. Now with the release of Lost Planet, the 360 loses an exclusive from Jan. 2007, which is always a good thing for a PS3 fanboy. After playing the delayed Lost Planet multiplayer demo, I thought the multiplayer was alright, nothing spectactular and I have not heard anything great about the single player, but this is another game that I would give a chance with a rental or just buying it on the cheap (it is a value title at $39.99). I would totally stay away from any game that is licensed by the History Channel. Until next week...Keep Playing!

Deals of the Week - February 24, 2008

Here are deals at retailers this week for PS3 & Wii

Circuit City - 20% off the following games:

• Turok (PS3), Kane & Lynch (PS3), & Blacksite: Area 51 (PS3) - reg. $59.99 - now $47.99
• Coflict: Denied Ops (PS3) - reg. $49.99 - now $39.99

Best Buy - $10.00 off

• Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (PS3) - reg. $59.99 - now $49.99

Target - The following games are on sale this week

• Need for Speed: Pro Street (PS3) - reg. $59.99 - now $39.99
• Half-Life 2: Orange Box (PS3) - reg. $59.99 - now $39.99
• Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (Wii) - reg. $49.99 - now $39.99
• Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 (Wii) - reg. $49.99 - now $29.99

Of all these deals available this week the Deal of the Week has to be the Orange Box. You get 5 games in one including the winner of Game of the Year by GDC 08.....Portal.

Wii Fit & WiiWare in May

With the arrival of GDC comes the influx of video game news. With speeches and presentations planned by both Nintendo & Sony for later this week, Wall Street Journal reported today and Nintendo has confirmed that WiiWare will launch in North America on May 12 2008.

Just when you thought things couldn't get any better, Nintendo has confirmed that the exercise focused game Wii Fit, which is currently available in Japan, will be released in the U.S. just one week after WiiWare on May 19, 2008.

Nintendo fans better start saving their pennies for a big May and Mario Kart Wii to follow probably not too soon after, or you could kill two birds with one stone and just buy those soccer moms Wii Fit for Mother's Day.

GDC 2008 Begins!

Well, the first big gaming event of 2008 has finally begun in California with the 2008 Game Developer's Conference. I hope to have some information tomorrow about what is going on at the show. So far Q-Games, creators of the PixelJunk series has shown off PixelJunk Eden, which looks like another PSN game with flowers (like flOwer from thegamecompany, creators of flOw) and announced that following that title will be PixelJunk Dungeons which will be a dungeon crawler due out probably in the fall. Also, the big news around the industry is that Toshiba has bowed out of the format war by ceasing production of HD-DVD, thus killing the format and probably increasing PS3 sales in the coming months.

Stay tuned with Wii Luv PS3 for more information on Metal Gear Solid 4 and Mario Kart Wii which will both have a big presence along with all the surprise announcements (maybe a release date for Home?) coming this week.

Weekly Releases - February 19, 2008

After a somewhat quiet week with just Conflict: Denied Ops, this week brings titles from big name franchises for both Japanese born consoles.

PS3

• Fifa Street 3
• The Club
• Dynasty Warriors 6

Wii

• Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors

Now I'm not a real big fan of the Dynasty Warriors and feel that the series needs to reinvent itself for the North American audience, like some Japanese published series. After playing demos of Fifa & The Club I would say that both of these the only game worth a replay would be The Club, but I'm not really interested in this arcade shooter. Sega should have put this game on-rails and probably just put the game on the Wii for the use of the Wiimote.

Now with regards Dragon Quest, I am a big fan of the series and Square Enix in general. I had high hopes for this title, but the early reviews for this title are not what I expected. Of course Nintendo Power loved it with a 7/10, but do they every really pan a game? I hope to give it a rent this week and maybe all Wii owners should, unless your too busy with Phantasy Star and Ninja Gaiden.

VC Mondays - February 18, 2008

So it takes a federal holiday to get a great Virtual Console update! With a majority of schools closed in parts of the country for President's Day and "Mid-Winter Recess", Nintendo updated its downloadable catalog with 2 classic titles:

• Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom (NES - 500 Wii Points)
• Phantasy Star II (Sega Genesis - 800 Wii Points)

I recommend that you play both titles this week. Phantasy Star II is one of the best entries in the popular RPG series and Ninja Gaiden III is the finale in the NES Ninja Gaiden trilogy.

Keep reading during the week as Nintendo discusses Wiiware during its GDC presentation.

The Grand Launch

For anyone who has visited the blog, sorry that I have not been updated in the past week. I have been putting the site under construction so I can get ready to launch full time on Saturday March 1, 2008. I will make some periodic updates until that time, including some mini-reviews of older PS3 and Wii games so you can see how my review scores will work and so some new PS3 & Wii owners can check out some games that are already available.

I hope to hear from you in the next few weeks, so keep playing!

Weekly Releases - February 12, 2008

After a big week of releases this past Super Tuesday (2/5) with Devil May Cry 4 and Turok, the game industry dropped to a lower gear this week with really only one game of note:

Conflict: Denied Ops (PS3)

The Wii has some licensed games released this week with adaptations of Jumper and Go Diego, but you should pass on those titles.

After playing the Conflict demo a few weeks ago on PSN, the game showed some promise with destructible environments and the ability to switch between soldiers, but this game is nowhere near FPS's like COD4, so you shouldn't waste your money on this game.

With a slow week I have time to talk about the new DLC coming this Thursday for Rock Band. The 3 song packs have returned with an untitled pak consisting of:

"Complete Control" by The Clash
"Truth Hits Everybody" by The Police
"Teenage Lobotomy" by The Ramones

These songs can be purchased on the PS Store as of this Thursday for $1.99 each or all 3 for $5.49

VC Mondays!

Another Monday, another Wii Virtual Console update! As of 12:00pm est. Nintendo update their North American VC catalog with 2 games that have absolutely nothing in common except for 16 bits.

• Harvest Moon (SNES, 1 Player, 800 Wii Points)
• Lord of Thunder (TG-16 CD-ROM, 1 player, 800 Wii Points)

Just 2 games released again this week, better than the week of just 1080 Snowboarding. I guess the days of getting 3 VC games in an update are over, which is weird becaue Nintendo has a practically endless catalog of games for download.

Tell us what you think of this week's downloads

Ace Combat 6 on PS3 in 2008?

The rumor mills were spinning today when scans of the latest PSM3 magazine revealed that Ace Combat 6 would be released on the Playstation 3 in 2008. Playstation was the exclusive home to the previous five iterations in the flying combat series, but the past game was an Xbox 360 "exclusive", being released this past fall to better than expected sales in Japan (The 360 beat the PS3 in weekly console sales in the region during the first week of the game's release).

It is possible that this could have been a misprint by the publisher of the magazine, but with the high development costs of next-gen games and the decline of 3rd party exclusives this generation it would only make sense for Microsoft to have an exclusive window of about 6-12 months for a title. If this is true, I expect to see Ace Combat return to the Playstation family in the late summer of 2008.