In the near future, a mysterious, growing, black void dubbed the Schwarzwelt appears at the Earth's southern pole. So begins the story in Atlus' first-person sci-fi RPG, Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey. Next year, DS owners in North America will don their own retro-cool helmets and plunge head-first into that black spot.

Ever wondered why localization of a game takes as much as six months? Am sure you have, along with countless other curious souls. And finally, somebody takes the time to explain, step by step. Atlus lists the detailed procedure of localization, in hopes of appeasing the impatient gamers out there. The six steps to localization, as laid out by Atlus, can be found after the jump.

There's a spatial rift that appeared over Antarctica and it leads to what humans call the "Schwarz-verse". Get ready to explore this mysterious dimension as the survival of the human race just might depend on what you find there. This is the plot of Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, Atlus' latest FPS-RPG for the DS.

We've had a few publishers whip their E3 lineups out this week, so we're starting to get a picture of all those publishers and developers packed inside the LA Convention Center next week - but hold up, a few won't cut it. There are over a hundred different companies flocking to show their goods at the Electronic Entertainment Expo - publishers, developers, retailers, game sites, and all sorts of businesses having to do with electronic entertainment. For this edition of our QuickPeek E3 Specials, let's put the spotlight at what some of gaming's hottest companies have in store for us at the expo.

Overall, the April line-up for video game releases were what we could safely describe as abysmal. Not all hope is lost though, as the final week of April 26 brings about an improved stable of games. Kinda. Well, Wolverine's out to save the day, and I say that ought to count for something, right? And Velvet Assassin's painting the town violet, too. Ready to dive in?

The dark side of hacking rears its ugly head once more, spreading malware all over internet. This time, Atlus.com falls victim to a "third-party entity" which apparently managed to hack into the site, embedding the dreaded trojan virus into the system. What's worse is that the virus may have spread to the visitors of the said site, giving gamers from all over the world a very, very bad day.

If you thought last week was a ho-hum time for game releases, then there's really no other way but to describe this week of April 12 to 18 as worse.  There are a couple of bright spots here and there, however, so you might as well check out the list anyway. You know, just in case something catches your fancy.

If you're a huge fan of the stuff Atlus brings stateside, then you better start saving up for a shopping hurricane this April as three of the games the company was originally supposed to release next month have been pushed back.

Square Enix remakes and Sony's gaming handheld are considered to be among the latest crazes to hit japan Japan as the latest results of the top software and hardware sales from Media Create have finally been tallied. Check out the complete list of what's hot in the country during the week of July 14 to July 20 after the jump.

Japan's Media Create has come out with its latest report on the sales figures of all things gaming in the country. Handhelds, as usual, dominated the charts, but the PlayStation 2 still had a big say in the software category. The complete stats are listed in the full article up ahead.