It was just like yesterday when we first mentioned Gamecock Media Group and the juicy games they will throw at our way. The group has surely came a long way - they now have an official website and they have released a teaser vid of one of their projects - Mushroom Men: The Spore War. Now, IGN reports that Mushroom Men will be officially conquering the Nintendo Wii and DS. According to Gamecock Console Chief Rick Stults:

From the minute we signed Mushroom Men we've worked to bring it to the Wii and DS. ... Both platforms are going to give Mushroom Men a life of their own as [developer] Red Fly Studio is building unique stories specific to each system.

The game aims to make use of the unique control schemes of each system - especially that of the Wii. The game has a wacky premise: the Mushroom Men war takes place at your backyard and the weapons will be made from everyday items that we don't usually pay too much attention at.

Annihilate household pests with other forms of plants using your Wiimote or DS stylus. Here are some screens and artworks of Mushroom Men for the Wii. We'll surely give more updates about the game's PSP, PS3, Xbox 360 status as more info comes our way.

   

 

If somebody outbid you with that Zelda themed DS Lite mod and you think you might have missed on a rare, collector's item, then fret not - we found one more "rare" Nintendo DS up for grabs at eBay. Seller theonejackiechen is putting a Nintendo DS allegedly signed by Shigeru Miyamoto, Satoru Iwata, and Charles Martinet, for auction. In case you're not a big Mario fan, Martinet is the voice of our favorite chubby, Italian plumber.

Anyhow, the seller explained that he got the three to sign the DS during E3 2006. As of writing, the current bid is at US$ 305.00 and the bidding would end on May 19 11:30 PDT - that's still far from today, so you have lots of days to think this deal over. Finally, 25% of the total sale will go to the Child's Play organization.

Interested people could check out the eBay site through our read link below. Go ahead and ogle, examine, and even bid if you want.

It's been a long time since we have heard something new about Atari's Dragon Ball Z: Harukanaru Densetsu. Over at Siliconera, they posted an interview with Donny Clay, an official at Atari North America. He refreshed our memory by saying that DBZ: Harukanaru Densetsu covers the animated series from the Vegeta saga to the Cell saga. The playable characters are Gohan, Goku, Piccolo, and Vegeta. He also gave a brief explanation of the game's card battle system flow:

Each player selects a card (or combo of cards) to play each round. The player with the higher number wins the round and is able to apply that damage against their opponent’s defense that round. This is depicted as an animated sequence...

There are three kinds of combos that can be unlocked through game-play. They are: Attack combo, Defense combo, and Action combo. These combos allow the user to combine the power levels of multiple cards in a single play. Once unlocked, a card with a 5 star Attack, for example, can be combined with other cards with 5 stars.

With 200 cards that you could collect, there are bound to be some rare cards that could be obtained. As for support for multiplayer battles using Nintendo WiFi, Clay said that the game's doesn't support the WiFi system, but you could play wirelessly with people near you. The game is slated for a North American release this coming June 5.

Alten8 has recently confirmed their latest Nintendo DS title, dubbed as Wordsnake. Alten8 has inked a deal with Pixel Magick to bring this game not only to the DS, but also to the PC and the Nintendo Wii. Pixel Magick will be working closely with Alten8 to make sure that the game would retain its fun gameplay and also to ensure that this next Wordsnake outing would also have something new to offer.

In case the name of the game didn't give it away for you, Wordsnake's aim is to build words of 3-8 letters from the random selection on the tile rack, and reach a target score before the time runs out. New features are the ability to randomly shuffle letters and move them to a second tile rack to help with the word making.

As the player progresses to each new level, they will have less time to complete the level, the target score will increase, and extra walls will appear that restrict the playable area. So whoever said that word-games are boring may have to think twice (or not...).

No release dates for now, but here are some DS screens and packshot. If you're interested with this game, we advice you to keep checking out QJ for future updates.

   

Last February, independent auditing firm Goldstein Goulb Kressler expressed their concern about Majesco Entertainment's financial health. Now, it seems that Majesco in a not-so-pleasant situation.

Majesco, known as the publisher of games like Cooking Mama and Psychonauts among many others, revealed that they received a second notification from Nasdaq stating the company has not met the US$ 35 million market value of listed securities requirement for continued listing.

Gibberish as this sounds, what this means is that Majesco's common stock is subject to delisting from the Nasdaq Capital Market unless the company requests a hearing before a Nasdaq Listing Qualifications Panel. In other words, this spells trouble as the fate of the company is in the hands of the Nasdaq panel. It's a sad thing when you're not in control of the situation, is it not?

The company is dead set on requesting a hearing, but of course there are no guarantees that the Panel will give in to their request for continued listing.

If a WiiPals forum post is to be believed, it looks like respected gaming magazine, Famitsu, has divulged the Japanese release dates of some of the more awaited Wii and DS games. Here check out what we manage to find:

• July 2007: Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Fuuketsu no Grimoire (NDS, Square Enix)
• July 2007: MushiKing Super Collection (Wii, Sega)
• July 2007: Wii Health Pack (Wii, Nintendo)
• July 2007: Mario Party 8 (Wii, Nintendo)
• August 2007: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates (NDS, Square Enix)
• October 2007: Super Mario Galaxy (Wii, Nintendo)
• November 2007: Pokemon Mystery Dungeon 2 (NDS, Nintendo)
• November 2007: Dragon Quest IX (NDS, Square Enix)
• December 2007: Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (Wii/NDS, Sega)
• In late 2007: Wii with DVD playback (Nintendo)
• 2008: Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles (Capcom)

As you could see, Super Mario Galaxy has been slated for an October 2007 release. Another surprising info is the Wii with DVD playback which is set to conquer Japan in late 2007. Reports also about the the U.S. would also have the D-Wii-D, although nothing is official as of now. We'll be sure to verify this piece of info and share with you what we'll manage to find out.

The last time we reported about the Prince of Persia movie, "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time", we said that Jerry Bruckheimer had the movie franchise under his wing for quite some time now and that the movie is well on its way to 2008. Now, although the producer has been busy with his Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, he was still able to secure a director and a release date for Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.

Bruckheimer has teamed up with the director of Bad Boys I and II, The Rock, and Pearl Harbor - none other than Michael Bay. And if before, we mentioned that the movie based on the game would be out on 2008, well folks, you'd have to wait a little longer. Prince of Persia: Sands of Time is slated for a Summer 2009 release.

Movie site, IESB, mentioned that they have confirmed with Disney Studios that they are hoping that Bay will indeed take on the directorial chores for the movie when he is done working with another movie - Transformers. As for what Jordan Mechner has to say about the movie:

Rather than do a straight beat-for-beat adaptation of the new videogame, we're taking some cool elements from the game and using them to craft a new story - much as 'Pirates' [of the Caribbean] did with the theme park ride.

We'll update you about the movie as more info comes our way.

 

The popular Sims franchise has just began to expand outside the computer and other consoles' screens. If you're thinking that EA is dishing out a Sims action figure or Barbie edition, then you're mistaken. If you head on to The Sims website now (just click on the link below), you'll see that they're planning on coming up with a limited edition Sims credit card.

You could even vote for one of the four designs that they have. So far, design number three and four are going neck to neck (design three has 31% of votes while number four has around 27%). This offer is only for North America and EA promises that this limited plastic money will offer "exciting rewards and offers for The Sims player community".

Well, check it out for yourself by clicking on the link below.

Thanks to the sales performance of the Nintendo DS and Nintendo Wii, the Japanese company recently announced that they are raising their financial forecast across the board for the fiscal year ended March 31. From the original financial forecast of 900 billion yen, they are bumping that up to 966 billion yen (or US$ 8.1 billion).

Specifically, the reason for this according to a press release, is the "robust trends in sales of the Nintendo DS' software and hardware". If you could recall, the handheld raked in 485,000 sold units during February, according to NPD's data. On the other hand, amidst the stock problems for the Nintendo Wii, the console managed to rack up a 335,000 sales figure last February.

According to Nintendo spokesman Yasuhiro Minagawa who spoke with Reuters, "merchandise does not move in the January-March quarter--that is the norm in this industry...But ours somehow did". That's enough reason for Ninty to raise financial forecasts, right?

Although I haven't watched Blades of Glory yet, I had a lot of fun watching Jon Heder in Napoleon Dynamite. The actor was recently interviewed by Hollywood Byte's John Gaudiosi and he talked about skating, working with Will Ferrell, and of course, video games. We'll skip the ice skating and Will Ferrell talk and instead we'll focus on Jon Heder and the video games he plays. The actor doesn't consider himself a video game junkie, but he admits that he has been a gamer for a long time. He mentions that:

When Halo came out, that's all I played. I'm a big Halo guy. I'm a Nintendo loyalist. I love the Wii. They don't have tons of games yet for it, but it's great. I'm a huge Zelda fan. I just beat the Wii game. I've always been a Zelda fan. It's fantasy. It's going to a different world. It's problem-solving and figuring out clues and how to get around the place. My wife enjoys it. It's something we can enjoy together.

His love for anything Nintendo started when he was still a kid. He divulges that when they were growing up, they'd get every Nintendo system and they'd only get the best games since their cash flow is a bit tight. He said that "they'd always get the Mario games, Zelda games, and Donkey Kong." He also reveals that he is a Tetris junkie and that it was his specialty. Although he stopped playing video games when he was in college, he is again hooked thanks to the Wii and the DS. He explains that:

The DS is amazing. It's not a Game Boy any more. We're not fiddling around any more. We have interactive touch screens. Mario Kart DS is amazing. It's so addictive. I've never been angrier in my life because I get so mad when I lose at that game. So now all of my brothers have a DS and we're going out and trying to buy all of the cool multiplayer games. We're going through a little second Nintendo revolution right now.

He divulges that on the DS, he usually plays Tetris, Brain Age, or Metroid Pinball. On the Wii, Heder confesses that he can't get enough of Wii Sports - specifically Wii Golf. Another thing that he gushes about is the Wii's Virtual Console. He said he had grabbed Super Mario World, Contra, Street Fighter, Castlevania and Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past. Although he said that getting Castlevania "was a mistake. I remember thinking it was totally sweet when I was young, but it didn't hold up."

Heder is also open to providing voicework for video games. He said that lending his voice for a video game is like a movie. "If it's a cool set-up and a cool story. And in the game world, it has to be fun to play. If it's really fun to play, I think it's cool. Sure, why not."

The word per word interview could be found through our read-link below.