Ubisoft has recently announced a batch of casual games - and not just any casual games, but "games with real-life benefits" they will roll out for the DS and Wii later this year.

The lineup is called "My Coach" and like its name suggests, it will coach (or try to coach) you through various scenarios of life. It's just like Brain Training. Except, in the case of My Life Coach (DS, Holiday 2007), it's essentially one of those self-help personal well-being books. Developed with the help of a behaviorist, My Life Coach aims to help those concerned about their well being the willpower they need to change their habits the way they want in a motivating and fun way.

My Word Coach, on the other hand, is the walking dictionary. Okay, without the walking part. Word Coach works like a linguist (and was developed with their help), training both your verbal communication and vocabulary skills. Useful if you're in your school's spelling bee or oratory competitions this year, especially. Although it better be late in the year, because the game is coming Fall 2007, for both the Wii and DS.

In addition, Ubisoft has announced that the Petz will come to the Wii. No other details were given in the press release about this.

 

CVG reports that Eidos has unveiled a new publishing label called SoGoPlay. Its mission: to bring the world of casual gaming to casual gamers, at very, very, very affordable prices.

Its targets: the PC, the DS, and in the future, the PS2 and Wii.

SoGoPlay promises "compelling gameplay", and yes, there is a growing market for casual games. On the other hand, and especially with the label targeting the Wii, there are fears - expressed in comments to the CVG article - that this might only reinforce the Nintendo console as a bastion of minigames. There may be no drought, but if this keeps up, there may very well be a flood.

Surprisingly, nothing is mentioned about potential exploits of Xbox Live or PlayStation Network as potential avenues to deliver SoGoPlay casual games to those platforms.

(Surprisingly, there is an existing SoGoPlay brand that delivers casual games. Whether this report refers to Eidos buying them out or getting their own SoGoPlay... if a lawsuit develops we'll let you know).

Eh, guess we couldn't afford tickets to Japan for the Square Enix Party 2007 event. Perhaps another alternative, then? Especially if you're the collector type, Squeenix has made a limited edition Official Pamphlet "Archives" available for sale. Including tax, it costs out about a thousand solid Yen - a little over eight US dollars without the shipping and handling.

With it, you get to see interviews and coverage of Square Enix developers, including all the existing XIII's: Final Fantasy XIII, Versus XIII, and Agito XIII, as well as stuff on Advent Children, Revenant, the Tactics, the Quests, the first two...

Oh come on, if you know your Squeenix, you know what to expect of this pamphlet. Limited Edition probably means not to many of these available, making it quite the collector's item. And eight dollars is certainly a lot more affordable than a one-way ticket to Japan...

Of course, if anyone has videos...

Evolve PR thought that, from the perspective of small developers/publishers and games press, the new, invite-only E3 sucked hind wind. Well, a small developer begged to disagree: none other than Alex Seropian, Bungie Studios founder, former CEO, and after seeing his baby safe within Microsoft's environs, now in charge of his new baby Wideload Games.

In an interview with The Armchair Empire's Omni, he mentions the thought that the old E3, for all the excitement it brought to the industry, was a "huge drain" that did not, from a developer's perspective, "serve any purpose whatsoever." While he didn't mention Evolve PR's contention that the old E3 was better for networking and publicity, Alex argued that the old E3 simply evolved (or devolved) into "one big strokefest for the publishers to see who could make the most noise."

It generated a lot of buzz in the industry but as far as translating into how good a game is, it seemed to have zero effect – if anything a negative effect. And in terms of translating into sales, I don’t how you could possibly justify the expense. I think that’s why it’s gone away.

It's rather... interesting to compare E3 into, er, male urinal envy... or a pissing contest. We will be... un-graphic about this and interpret Alex's statements to be a commentary on the hype-and-noise factor of old-E3, the very factor ESA cited as the reason for "downsizing" the event.

Time will tell whether the new E3 will fulfill its purpose and be worth the ride for the developer. On the other hand, the invite-only restriction still means that covering the new "fest" will still be a pain for the small press.

At the Evolve PR blog, an opinion piece has appeared proposing that downsizing E3 will have some sad consequences for the small guys: small publishers/developers and the "second-tier" gaming sites.

The smaller E3 was meant to refocus the event to what it was supposed to be at the start: business. The smaller, more intimate - and exclusive - event may now mean that everyone can get down to business, but as the article proposed, the small guys will have a hard time dealing. On the small-publisher side, the "large" E3 was a chance for them to be able to reach out to a broad audience and thus garner much-needed publicity for their titles.

On the second-tier sites side, the "large" E3 also provided the same benefits. As alluded to in responses from anonymous sources in the gaming journalism scene, the "large E3" was the place to report on everything gaming, and at the same time make some needed contacts with the gaming industry. The smaller E3, with its more restricted invite list, doesn't provide the same benefit. And with usually only one staff member getting the invite, that guy's now left with the burden of taking notes and making networks.

Either way, the old E3 is dead, and while the new E3 (or E4), as well as everyone else, steps into to fill the void, somehow it might not be the same. The argument is that mixing business with pleasure the old E3 way had its advantages for the small guys.

   

Of course we had to follow up on the Paper Xbox 360, because some of our writers have been receiving near-fatal papercuts from trying to duplicate that work on their own. Lucky for us, the intahrwebs coughed up Junyang's paper art gadgets BlogSpot which we confirm to be the source for the Paper Xbox 360 and HD-DVD.

And guess what: he has a paper NDS Lite, too. With an itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dot DS cartridge of Nintendogs to boot. Literally, to boot - or at least slot into the DS (How about Zelda and Advance Wars cartridges? Goes well with this set!). The darned cellulose DS Lite even clams up like it should.

Happy day for those who want to follow in Junyang's footsteps: he provides the PDF templates (for both the DS and Xbox 360 paper art) to download and print out. Read link, people, and get some antiseptic for those papercuts. (Dayum, he even turned his paper HD-DVD into a thumb drive. Talk about functionality!)

Seems that next on his target list are the PS3 and Wii. That's based on a new display case he bought for his paper models. "I CAN'T WAIT TO FILL ALL THOSE SPACES UP." he says. (Hey Junyang, you think you can toss in a PSP in these as well? Just so that it doesn't feel left out.)

This guy deserves a round of applause, don't you think? (Like we said the last time: it's definitely more skill than just blind button-mashing to make these.)

 

Yes, and how much heck could Ben Heckendorn heck if Ben Heck could heck heck? The Master of Mod has united with eDimensional to offer a new, inspired-by-the-hardcore gamer product. And they won't say a thing about it. Not a darned thing. They'll never tell.

No. They're so mean they want you to guess what the hell - er, heck it is.

The Read link below takes you to the contest website, What the Heck?!, where you will find where to send your guesses to eDimensional, in the hopes of winning a free signed copy of WhateverTheHeckItIs from eDimensional. One guess per person, per day (no spamming, in other words).

So what the heck is it?! (Fine, the silhouette kind of resembles a 360, but it could also be a red herring, a decoy). A laptop? Deceptive controllers? An actual analog stick for a portable?

The lack of any substantial updates on Eden Games/Atari's Alone in the Dark kind of makes us worry: have the undead eaten up all the news (or all the developers)? Not really: the German AreaGames.de recently published an interview with Eden Games producer Nour Polloni. The details of the interview shall be the subject of another post, but let's cut to the chase. AreaGames concludes their feature by saying:

Alone in the Dark will be released on Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360 and Playstation 2 in Q4 2007. PlayStation 3, Wii, NDS and PSP will follow later.

Hold it! Double-checking... when Go Nintendo reported on this, a comment in reply mentioned that "the producers... indeed confirms the versions for Wii and DS". The Polloni interview doesn't mention anything about these other versions of Alone in the Dark. Neither does anyone clarify if these will be the same Alone in the Dark as the higher-end console/PC titles, with the same content, or will be side-stories to the primary plot.

Although Wikipedia's reliability rating isn't exactly the type that you could bet your life on, it also mentions the recent "announcement" of the Wii, DS, and PSP versions. This couldn't be an unnatural occurrence then, could it? We're hunting for more confirmation - particularly one that has an Atari logo stamped all over the paper - absent that, we'll leave it as Rumors. Just in case.

Capcom must be really happy. Their PR joyfully trumpets that Gyakuten Saiban 4 was able to ship more than 500,000 units in its first week of release in Japan. If it will repeat that kind of success in the US... if it ever comes to the States, Capcom will then become really happy.

And I guess at some point we should start calling it Ace Attorney rather than Phoenix Wright. After all, it ain't Phoenix you're playing now, right? (Object all you want, the judge is taking five...)

The PR ends with "As always, Capcom will continue to strive to produce great original games..." and Ace Attorney definitely qualifies. Yeah, more games like this.  Of course, if this game inspires a deluge of applications to law school, heaven help human civilization after.

We've played that game before, right?
Re-imagining the classics for the new generation. This is RE-GEN.

With power comes evolution: shooters have gone from scrolling to full 3-D environments, from turkey galleries to smart, reactive enemies. Yet even the classics, with their scrolling and their shooting galleries, have virtues all to their own.

The Strike series from Electronic Arts is one of the most notable examples of the genre. A multi-directional, military-themed shooter, it became a hallmark franchise, particularly on the Sega Genesis. Even in that age of solid-state cartridges, Strike was known for its surprisingly challenging gameplay, and became known as the 16-bit "smart shooter."

After three successful 16-bit titles, and two CD follow-ons in the PSOne (as well as the Saturn and PC), Strike vanished; no more was heard. Perhaps it was a victim of its own success, having stuck too close to its core formula. Or perhaps EA lost interest (happened before, happened since). Pity: the series had quite the potential, even after five games. And especially today.

RE-GEN is all about second chances for the classic titles we loved. Can the power and capabilities offered by today's platforms, from the high-end PS3 and Xbox 360, to the innovative Wii, to the handheld wonders of the PSP and NDS, offer something new to resurrect the Strike series? This is the question we set out to answer today. Some things, after all, don't deserve to gather dust in the back of a shelf, when it has more to offer.

Cooking Mama? Shooting Madman Kilbaba! Learn about the Strike series, and speculate how the DS can transform a smart shooter classic after the jump. No, Apache choppers do not shoot styluses as their primary antitank weapon. They use the more powerful Wiimote instead. Or discover what the PS3/Xbox 360, the Wii, or the PSP has to offer a Strike title.