It's been a while since we last heard about the Castlevania movie, and now we get news of the ambitious project being postponed due to an ongoing writer's guild strike. Will this game-to-movie adaptation ever see the light of day, or has it been killed outright with a stake to the heart and silver bullets to the spleen? Check out the entire scoop in the full article.

In an interview with Wired, the series producer of Konami's Castlevania series, Koji Igarashi, confirmed that they are currently working on a new Castlevania game for the Nintendo DS. He also gave out details on the pre-order promotions for the U.S. release of Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles and shared some of his thoughts on Dracula's meat.

Regarding a new DS iteration of the Castlvania series, Igarashi said that they want people to enjoy Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles for the PSP before they make the official announcement about the game. While he didn't give any details about this game yet, we can probably expect it to be pretty sweet if it turns out to be like Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin or Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow.

PSP owners who plan on pre-ordering Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles will be happy to know that Igarashi said that those who decide to get the game from GameStop will be getting a special Simon's Quest figure which will come in black, white, and red. Be advised though that the number of figures made are very limited, so you may want to go see if your local GameStop will have any of them during the launch.

While Igarashi did give out lots of information about the direction of the Castlevania series, there are some things that even he cannot explain. So before we go, here is his answer regarding the presence of meat in Dracula's castle:

You should ask, why do they eat it! I've thought about this stuff. I've actually thought about the candles. The candles are people's souls that were taken by Death or by the vampires. In Japan there are candles that represent life. So, when you release the souls from the candles by whipping them, they give you a "thank you" present. Thank-you hearts, or thank-you holy water. The meat, I have no idea.

Transmetropolitan creator Warren Ellis has recently let out a few interesting details on the upcoming direct-to-DVD Castlevania animated movie through the official Castlevania: Dracula's Curse production blog. Ellis has signed on as the animated film's screenwriter.

First of all, Ellis says that it's going to be a trilogy, as in there will be three Castlevania animated films. The film will be set in Wallachia in 1476, and long-time fans will be pleased to note that the movie team has "worked with Koji Igarashi to get the film solidly inside the Castlevania timeline." Also, it won't be your generic kids' movie, so we can probably expect some mature themes here and there.

According to Ellis, Igarashi has "approved everything I came up with, including some new embroidering to the timeline. To make it work as a film, I had to introduce new backstory, and I went through five drafts of the premise and three of the full outline to get the material where IGA wanted it."

As for character appearances, Sypha Belnades is in, Grant DaNasty is out. The reason? Ellis gives out three, but let's just take two. Reason one: "Grant DaNasty is a stupid name that I cannot take seriously. (When he does turn up, I’ll probably use the alternate spelling of Grant DiNesti.)" Reason two: "Seriously, what use is a pirate on dry land? 'Avast, ye swabs, and push me fecking cart! Arrr!' No. Just no."

Dennis Lee, Product Marketing Manager for Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, was asked by Cubed3 in an interview as to what were his own opinions on the final release version of the title that came out in last year. He was proud of the game that their team and Koji Igarashi's team worked on for a full year and was fond of the dual character system that Portrait of Ruin introduced. He especially said:

I'm very pleased with the outcome of Portrait of Ruin. The gameplay really feels like an extension of the classic formula with the dual characters but still feels and plays like an authentic Castlevania title. Out of all of the features and gameplay components, I think that if we had more time in development, we would have liked to expand on the multi-player and with the concept of the Shop Mode.

Adding additional courses or side-quests for the multi-player modes and maybe even working out a way to add a [second] player into the main game would have been great to add.

But perhaps the biggest news from Konami Entertainment is that while the next Castlevania title is almost nearing completion for the PSP, they're looking forward to discovering new ways to introduce the franchise into different consoles and handhelds. There have been no official announcements on the next title or story to be worked on, but they have confirmed that they are already eyeing target consoles. Answering a question about Castlevania on the Wii, Lee said:

We're planning to continue to keep bringing fans more Castlevania titles in the future and we're not ruling out any platforms at the moment. We're looking at each and every console and are determining the strengths of each platform and how to utilize the new hardware and features to bring new adventures to the fans.

So gamers on the Wii, take pride and hope dearly that Konami finally ships a Castlevania title your way, and not just through the Wii's Virtual Console. For now, gamers on the Nintendo DS can rest assured that Konami is still considering their platform for another successor in the series.

  

Koji Igarashi of Konami gave a talk at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2007. Entitled The Light and Dark Sides of 2D Game Production, His keynote speech mostly reflected the benefits of using 2D animation, a style in video game production which he believes will never die. Igarashi produced the Castlevania series for Konami, a game loosely based on the novel by Bram Stoker and was mostly rendered in 2D. Here are some notes from his talk.

• An advantage in 2D is that the player sees the relation to the enemy or setting because there is only one full view.
  
• Pixel art is a huge part of the Castlevania series. The original series only had four colors, whereas the rest of the 2D series has 16, and sometimes 256 colors. 
• As systems get more powerful, it's harder to maintain the quality of the game. This is why it is so hard to create another pixel art Castlevania game on a console.
• Another advantage of 2D is the lack of issues with camera angles. 2D games also require a much smaller team than 3D.
• Some platforms that are viable for 2D games: DS, VC, Xbox Live Arcade and cell phones.
• Igarashi and his team are still considering making games for the Wii and other platforms.
  
• They are also exploring WiFi, and newer character for Castlevania.
  
• The last Castlevania title took 16 months to complete.
  

GDC 2007 Organizers have added three more notable lectures to the March conference, with three big names giving talks on piracy, 2D gaming, and a postmortem analysis of the PSP hit LocoRoco. This is the third batch of major additions to the GDC 2007 lineup.

Let's start things off with the LocoRoco postmortem. Presented by Tsutomu Kouno, "A LocoRoco Postmortem: Making Happiness into Gameplay" explains how Kounu tried to make a game out of... well, happiness. It will take audiences "through the path of the game's development, from brainstorming the creative concept, selling it to Sony, and building it level by level".

Next up is Konami's Koji "Iga" Igarashi with "Light and Darkness of 2D Gaming". As can be gathered from the title, this lecture - which incidentally is Iga's first-ever public lecture - tackles the advantages and disadvantages of creating 2D games in a market dominated by 3D games. Iga will "use his experience developing the recent and highly-acclaimed Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin video game for Nintendo DS as a case study".

Lastly, id Software CEO Todd Hollenshead has a lecture posted named "The Videogame Piracy Problem: Fifteen Men on a Dead Man's Chest". Hollenshead will use the lecture to "discuss the state of the piracy problem the game industry faces, paying particular attention to the impact Internet piracy has on the PC game industry". Hollenshead will also discuss "what to do, as well as what not to do in best protecting you company and game assets from those that fly the Jolly Roger".

If you're in need of some "help" getting through the 2D platforming action that is Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, then you better watch the vid below. It has tips that range from getting you to move faster across the screen (Moonwalking), all the way to attacking faster. Anyway, most of the tricks involve creative use of the "switch" feature of the game to cancel freeze time and ignore animation frames.

To get a better idea of how the tricks are done, we suggest that you click on play, and learn from the vid.

This vid might steal your soul, like any other religion. And, yes, we men are a miserable pile of secrets. Heh.

Eeeeyahooo! Another game gone gold! You guys know what this means, right? Wha'? No? (Okay, way to spoil the enthusiastic intro there but whatever.) Basically, it means that Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin is now ready to hit the shelves baybee!

Yep, the finishing touches and final fixes are all in, now all we have to do is wait for December 5. Our European friends, however, would have to wait a little bit longer. Or make that waay longer as the game will hit that part of the world on February 23.

North America would only need to wait less than a week. So make sure you stay tuned 'coz we'll keep you posted for more Castlevania developments.*winks*

Perhaps it's time to ask our hardcore gamers how long it's been since they last enjoyed the sunlight outside, and reminisced on the days when their handhelds or console controllers weren't permanently attached to their hands, eh?

Hahaha, kidding guys, but seriously (for some of you at least), when was the last time you dropped your video games to go out and watch a movie?

If you had to think for more than 10 minutes to answer that question, then we say it's been a LONG time. If it's THAT hard for you steer away from video games, this movie should help make the transition easy. Why? 'Cuz it's based on a classic video game series! And surely you've heard of Castlevania, yes?

Universal's Rogue Pictures has just released a teaser poster for the movie adaptation of the classic Castlevania series, and was put on display at the American Film Market last week. And as you Castlevania-freaks probably know already, the movie will trace back the origin of the struggle between the Belmont clan and Lord Dracula. Slashfilm also reports that the film will actually cover many time periods but the focus will be on 15th century Transylvania.

Paul W.S. Anderson, who also directed the Resident Evil movie, is slated to direct the US$ 50 million film that is said to still be in pre-production phase, with the producers still scouting for good locations in Hungary and Romania. And because they haven't even started taping yet, the earliest we'd probably get to see the film is spring next year.

This is ostensibly the attract/intro trailer for Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin. "Ostensibly" because, well, we could sure use some help translating the Konami website for the game, where the clip can be found. And because Acunia, who posted the clip on YouTube, says it's the intro, so maybe she knows how to read Japanese. It most probably is the attract trailer or the intro to the game.

Of course, with the game's release being pushed back and all, that also could change. Like the addition of voice acting in the trailer, for instance? Ah, when shall we see this game see the light of day? (Wait, isn't that a bad thing for a vampire?)

So what's to see in the attract trailer? Let's see: Jonathan and Charlotte, lots of anime-style action, that whip, hand-holding, and the Olsen Brauner twins. Now if those Brauner twins were really that ice-cold bada**, then thank the heavens that with Charlotte and Jonathan pairing up, it's a two-on-two fight, eh? Enjoy.

Buy: [Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin]